DANVILLE -- There's a movement in fine dining, and in some people's homes, the last few years -- a farm-to-table concept: keeping food as fresh, as local, and as organic as possible.
That's tougher to tackle in a larger setting, such as a hospital system's food service. But a new chef just brought on to the Geisinger team is trying to do just that.
Pennsylvania can boast farms nearly everywhere the eye can see; fresh meat, dairy, and produce abound, at various times of the year, which makes for abundant stands at local farmers markets.
Those are exactly the kind of ingredients chef Matthew Cervay prefers to use. He feeds thousands of people every day in the Geisinger Health System.
Chef Cervay is new to the area and his position is new, too: system executive chef, unifying food service standards at the many Geisinger facilities, for both patients and employees.
"Our philosophy is if we want to give you the best service, and feed you the best, we need to get the best ingredients we can," Cervay explained.
That's why starting in September, he and his team will be working with local farmers, with the goal of replacing frozen vegetables with fresh.
"As the PA growing season starts up again next year, we'll be sourcing from local farms, actual vegetables from your neighbors," Cervay said.
When we stopped by he was recipe testing -- an Asian veggie stir fry. His task is figuring out the best proportions of fresh red peppers, snap peas, broccoli, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil and deciding whether this can be done on a large scale.
"A lot of ailments can be fixed with a proper diet. Not to say we're going to force you to eat healthy, or take away all the stuff you enjoy eating, but we want to make that option readily available."
Which means pizza and burgers will still be on the menu here but ideally Chef Cervay would like to use the cleanest, freshest ingredients possible, a job on which he is ready to get cooking.
Chef Cervay comes from Ohio, where he also worked in a hospital setting, despite having vowed early on in his culinary career that he'd never work in health care. He says hotels and country clubs used to be the gold standard of food service, but he's hoping to be part of that change.
