Kitchen Edition

the Behind scenes

Boro Park Center Opens its Kitchen, While Staff Members Open Their Hearts to Nurture Residents Back to Health Kitchen Edition

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By Yehudit Garmaise

While serving 504 residents and hundreds of additional family members and staff 365 days a year might give pause to the even the most seasoned baalbuste, it is all in a day’s work for Chaim Brull, Boro Park Center’s food service director, and his highly organized, competent, energetic, and loving team of 62 uniformed employees, who work together like a well-oiled machine.

To explain how he and his team create their magic every day, Mr. Brull gave Center Spirit Magazine a “behind-the-scenes look” at how he and staff create three kosher meals a day, plus snacks, parties, and special events: all of which are attuned to each resident’s likes, needs, and dietary restrictions. The day at Boro Park Center’s kitchen begins at 5am, when Rabbi Yisroel Friedlander, Boro Park Center’s lead mashgiach, unlocks the door. As the only staff member with a key, he launches the whirlwind activity that is to soon ignite, when he is joined by a chef, four cooks, and two cooks’ helpers, who start cooking breakfast and also start prepping for lunch. Boro Park Center’s chef Mr. Sammy Ben, a Moroccan Jew, has cooked in kitchens as impressive and varied as that of the King of Morocco, French bakeries, and the Waldorf Astoria New York hotel in Manhattan.

Mr. Ben, who is an expert fruit carver and master baker, as well as a chef, is especially beloved for his delicious treats and incredible baked goods. He is famous for his fresh, hot cheese danishes that are served to the residents on Shavous mornings. At 6am, the “tray line personnel” report for duty, and at 6:30am sharp, kitchen staff start “setting up the tray line,” which means warming up all the palettes or warming elements and heating up the plates in plate warmers so that residents’ plates of food can be kept hot until they are served.

While the palettes and plates reach high heat, the kitchen staff puts all the cold food and condiments on the trays on which residents will eat.

During COVID, the New York Department of Health (DOH) recommended that institutions use disposable

plates to avoid transmission of the virus. Mr. Brull, however, did not like the idea of residents eating on paper plates, and so after researching the safety of using dishwashers with extra high temperatures, he received the approval of his supervisors to allow the kitchen staff to turn up the temperatures to 190 degrees on both the dairy and meat dishwashers, so as to ensure that the kitchen’s China plates would be sufficiently cleaned, sanitized, and virus-free. As the pallets heat up, staffers check each resident’s individual preferences and dietary restrictions, which are recorded on individual tickets. Then, the customized condiments, breads, milk, and desserts are placed on the trays until 7am, when the cooks send the hot food “to the tray line.” The mashgiach, who ensures that all proper temperatures are maintained for food safety and to keep food hot, also turns on the flames and unlocks all the refrigerators and freezers. While staffers continue to set up the trays and send food down the tray line, seven other kitchen staffers, while remaining focused on residents’ customized tickets, start to add each resident’s required hot food. Then, a “checker” ensures that each resident’s food requests are on each tray before a loader take the trays to stack them into the carts. The trays in the carts are carefully ordered by residents’ rooms and bed numbers, so that “transporters” can deliver the trays quickly and easily to all of

Actual meal served at Boro Park Center the residents in each of the facility’s 10 floors. Creating residents’ trays is serious business. Staff members do not leave their posts, and everyone must focus intently on each individual tray to make sure that every resident gets all of his or her needs met and all restrictions considered. Not only does the kitchen staff deliver residents’ customized trays as quickly as possible, but the staff takes the time to use many different types of foods and many different colors to make all of the center’s serving trays look attractive and appealing. “You can see on the trays, which get place mats on Yom Tov and other holidays to provide heimishekeit, that we do our best to make our residents feel happy and cared for,” Mr. Brull proudly said. “We don’t just ‘put food on a plate.] Everything you can think of, we make sure to provide.” In addition to putting their hearts and souls into everything they serve, kitchen staff members always works at top speed because the tray line is automatic. “Once it’s going, you really can’t stop it,” Mr. Brull said with a laugh. Fifteen minutes later, which is record time for such a large facility with hundreds of residents, all the residents get delicious hot meals.

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“We work very, very fast, and we stay very focused,” Mr. Brull said. “We have to be very precise.” Soon after delivering the breakfast trays, kitchen staff begins to collect the empty food trays so that they can be scraped, scrubbed, and cleaned in order to be ready for lunch at noon, which staffers starts to set up at 10:30am. “All of our tasks come together like a beautiful puzzle so that we can deliver to the residents beautiful, nice, heimish, geshmake’h meals three times a day, every day. Residents are here for rehabilitation and to feel better, and we do our utmost to play our role in providing nurturing meals,” said Mr. Brull, who first started cooking for crowds when he was in yeshiva in Williamsburg and he was invited to work in the kitchen.

“Food sets the mood, and food helps people to feel healthy, happy, and positive,” he said. “Without food, you can give as much medication as you want, but you are not going to get a positive result. Food is the medicine.”

After 30 years of nourishing people back to health, such as when he cooked for Aim B’yisroel in New Square, the Aishes Chayil D’Kiryas Joel Mothers Relief Center Inc., and the Friedwald Center for Rehab and Nursing in Rockland County, he speaks from experience. For nine years, Mr. Brull also cooked for 5,000 boys at Yeshiva

Avir Yakov and Girls’ School of

New Square and for the thousands of guests who were m’sameach at Avir Yaakov’s wedding hall.

For Boro Park Center, Mr. Brull creates menus that change according to the times of year, the holidays that coincide, and what produce is in most in season. “We are inspired by the time of year and we celebrate accordingly,” said Mr. Brull, who explains that he creates four-week cycles of menus. For instance, in the summertime, Boro Park Center just re-launched its tradition of hosting residents from rotating floors, outside on the patio, for barbeques on Wednesday evenings.

“We serve barbeque chicken, hot dogs, burgers, French fries, onion rings, and watermelon. All our lunches and dinners have hot soups. Everyone loves our soups,” he said with pride. What if whatever is on offer does not happen to appeal to residents?

“Every lunch and dinner, we serve hot soups, which everyone loves. We also serve simple sandwiches, such as bologna, salami, turkey, peanut butter and jelly, tuna salad and egg salad. The sandwiches are presented elegantly and look appetizing and delicious,” Mr. Brull answered. Also available at every meal are beautiful platters with tuna salad or egg salad served with lettuce, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Everyone can always find something he or she likes at every meal. In addition, if residents cannot find anything they like, the kitchen is always open and accommodates even the smallest requests. On Shabbos mornings, the kitchen provides a weekly Kiddush in Boro Park Center’s shul, before serving dishes that many residents find reminiscent of many Shabbos afternoon meals: kugel, sweet carrots, farfel, and a hearty cholent.

“We serve food that tastes very much like anything you would get in your own home,” Mr. Brull says. “I believe in food with a lot of heimishekeit.”

What does “heimish” mean in terms of food?

“Simple, good, baked chicken falling off the bone is a ‘heimish piece of chicken.’ A tuna pattie is ‘heimish’ when it is made with tuna, breadcrumbs, eggs, and love, and then fried on a griddle, just like at home.

“A cholent made with fried onions, potatoes, beans, and good pieces of meat is ‘a heimish cholent.’ A chicken soup made with chicken bones and vegetables-that is ‘heimish,’ which means: homemade, homey, simple, ‘like my bubby used to make it.’” Yom Tov at Boro Park Center is a particularly special time when the kitchen pulls out all the stops. “We use special Yom Tov-themed foods, and we make a big deal out of [what we serve and our] food presentation for every holiday,” Mr. Brull declared. On Pesach, for example, the center provides elaborate seder meals; for Sukkos, the Center serves different steaks, and on Rosh Hashana, residents receive fish heads, Cornish hens, and other simanim. To enable Boro Park Center’s staff in creating their magic on a daily basis, three times a day, Mr. Brull has large quantities of groceries delivered every day, throughout the week.

“One day we get the refrigerated foods, one day we get the non-perishables, and one day the paper goods,” related Mr. Brull.

Not only does Boro Park Center serve particularly tasty, healthy, heimish, and beautifully presented food, but the kitchen carefully and lovingly customizes every resident’s diet to match his or her health needs and personal tastes. To do so, Victoria Malev, who is the facility’s chief

Chaim Brull, Head of the Dietary Department at Boro Park Center with Mr. Sammy Ben, BPC Chef

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Seder Night at BPC

clinical dietician, heads a full staff of dieticians who make it their

mission to speak with all residents upon their arrivals. Speech and language pathologists, as well as other clinicians, also help to determine what foods should be allowed and which should be restricted for each resident.

“The hardest part in feeding our residents is finding out exactly what they can eat,” explained Mr. Brull, “so every resident meets with the center’s clinical team, speech team, and dietary team to create individual menus that will help us to nurse every resident back to health. We work hand in hand together to understand what each resident needs, wants, likes and dislikes, so that we can properly take care of each resident.” Even though in general, the kitchen cooks without sugar and salt, the staff takes care to create dishes that match residents’ cultural needs and preferences to equal what would they eat in their normal lives, outside the facility. Although providing favorite foods, while also accommodating residents’ restrictions can be challenging, Mr. Brull and his team always provide thoughtful, loving, and nutritious solutions.

For instance, residents who cannot eat sugar receive sugar-free cake and cookies, and those who cannot eat salt can eat salt-free potato kugel on Shabbos. In one particularly innovative solution, Brull substituted sesame oil for sesame seeds to provide the right flavor for a Chinese Sesame Chicken dish that was requested by one resident who has trouble swallowing sesame seeds.

For residents who have food allergies, such as to gluten, Brull shops himself for alternative breads, flours, and gluten-free products that he keeps at the ready in the kitchen. Not only is the kitchen of Boro Park Center attentive to residents’ personal preferences and nutritional needs, but the staff takes care to provide multiple different consistencies of food that many residents need to chew, swallow, or tolerate their meals.

Mr. Brull revealed the extent to which he and his staff go to nurture his residents with nutritious, heimish food, and individualized attention, when he remembered a resident to whom no food seemed to hold any appeal. The resident was losing a lot of weight, was complaining about a severely upset stomach, and was not able to hold any food down. In response, Mr. Brull and clinical dieticians Malev and Jewel Ifill walked up to talk to the resident to see how

Meal Prepping at BPC

they could help him. “What did you like before you became ill?” the kitchen’s team members asked. “What is something that you liked at home?”

“Oh, I loved rice pudding and pancakes,” remembered the resident.

After Boro Park Center’s team members evaluated the resident, they determined that the kitchen should create a personalized blend of rice pudding and apple-juice flavored pancakes. A short period of time later, the resident expressed his gratitude to the kitchen and his caretakers. “He said that he finally realized the importance of food and how it affects his health,” Mr. Brull recalled. “I work with my heart, and I understand people who are in need. When I see a patient who comes in very sick and lying on a bed, who then later leaves our facility looking healthy, happy, and positive, I can definitely see that I made a difference in that person’s life. Not only are the cooks creating fresh food every single day, but they are always multi-tasking by prepping for the next day. “We have to make sure to defrost the chickens, meats, and all the fishes safely,” said Mr. Brull. “When we are serving eggplant Parmesan the following day, for instance, we prep all the fried eggplant the day before so that it will be ready-to-go the next day, when we will bake it, so as to serve it fresh.” Kitchen staffers work on the lunch tray line from 11am to 1pm, at which time the first shift of workers goes on its lunch break, while the second shift continues to clean the tray line and to start scraping, cleaning and sanitizing for the supper meal. “We have to make sure to clean up and immediately start getting ready for supper,” Mr. Brull said as he described the continuous hum of activity in Boro Park Center’s kitchen. “No one has time to walk around and do nothing. All staffers are assigned to certain jobs and their tasks, and they have to do their tasks 100%.” The Boro Park kitchen maintains its extremely high standards both by continuously testing and tasting all the foods that are served every day, while also keeping its kitchen immaculately clean and safe. “Everyone in the kitchen has one goal: We want to give residents as many opportunities as we can to make them feel at home,” Mr. Brull explained. “The process of our kitchen follows the same pattern every day, except for Yom Kippur and Shabbos, when we don’t cook.” “We always make sure our residents are served 100%. There are no shortcuts.

“Our residents always come first. Our entire team comes in every day with the same question: ‘What we can do to make our residents happier today than they were yesterday?’”

Mr. Chaim Brull would like to express his gratitude to Hashem first and to his entire team: Jewel Ifill, Sammy Ben, Rabbi Yisrael Friedlander, cooks: Mary Sarkodie, Sandy Bolden, and Amika alexander, supervisors: Pamela Mclean, Calixe Mingot, Rebekah Butler, and his entire Dietary team. With all of you, we make our mission possible.