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Employees hold 'Iron Chef' contest |
| BL » News » Employees hold 'Iron Chef' contest |
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April 13, 2005 |
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By Andrea Carter
Staff Writer
Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin
Yolanda Morton stepped out of her role as a physical therapist to lead her team in a mock “Iron Chef” competition at Beverly Healthcare [Martinsville] recently.
Her hand-picked team was judged Best Overall by a panel of residents on the basis of creativity, taste and presentation.
“The Iron Chef” is a television program featuring a competition of world-class chefs who prepare a three-course meal in one hour using an unusual main ingredient.
Morton, of Cascade, shares years of experience cooking with her husband, Jerron.
“He cooks better than I do,” she said of her husband. “He can just look at something on TV and make it.”
Morton enjoys making desserts, casseroles and pasta using recipes, some of which were inspired by her mother’s cooking.
At the Beverly Healthcare competition, Morton willingly accepted the task of coordinating the preparation for an appetizer, soup, entree, salad and dessert—using shrimp, which the facility provided for all the teams as the main ingredient. Teams were given two days to plan for the event, which was held in the activities lounge.
Morton selected team members from different departments and with different cooking skills: April Minor, speech therapist; Keith Rea, maintenance; Ann Tatum, certified nurse’s assistant; and Dorothy Waller, charge nurse. They each found or created recipes to prepare sesame shrimp toast, shrimp noodle soup, shrimp kabobs, garden salad with grilled shrimp, and shrimp fluff.
The three other teams’ dishes included coconut shrimp lollipops, shrimp pate, shrimp quesadillas, shrimp kabobs and shrimp Alfredo. Each team had to bring its own cooking equipment and extra ingredients.
“It was so much of a challenge,” Morton said. “We had a George Foreman (grill) going, a deep fryer, a food processor and an outdoor grill. It took a lot of teamwork to pull it together. There was so much going on at one time that everyone had to know what they had to do and we just had one hour. When the hour was up, that was it—whether we were finished or not—and I think we had a couple of minutes to spare when the time was up.”
Racing the clock was not an easy task.
“The biggest problem we ran into was the (electrical) breakers kept popping,” said Rea, who was able to troubleshoot because of his position in maintenance.
Morton said the most difficult dish to prepare was the kabobs.
“We started out on the George Foreman and it took longer (than expected), and finally we thought about the gas stove outside. That kind of sped things up,” she said.
She also said the team boiled the shrimp for the soup before it could do the kabobs.
According to Valdeko Kreil, interim executive director of Beverly Healthcare, the idea of the competition came after watching the television program, which his daughter, Kim, often talks about. The object of the contest was to let the residents see the staff “step out of their (professional) roles” and to create a team-building activity to foster interaction between all departments, Kreil said.
The residents then enjoyed eating as much of the food as their diets would allow.
“I think (the residents) really enjoyed it because it gave them a chance to see us in a different role,” Morton said.
She has been employed nine years with the facility. She and her husband have one son, Elijah.
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