It’s not every day a chef oversees a culinary program that serves around 26,000 meals a day - that’s over 9.4 million meals a year. But that’s just an average day for Chef Philip Maloney, Senior Director of Culinary Operations at Erickson Senior Living, a network of managed communities across the nation.

And there’s something special about serving a population who has lived more years, been to more places and tasted more things - this team of chefs Philip oversees is creating and recreating food memories.

We sat down and talked to Philip about balancing nutrition and flavor, advice for chefs just starting out, some of his favorite things, and more. Read the full interview below:

Talk to me about the culinary world of Erickson Senior Living.

“We’re running 160 restaurants within communities across the country, and while I’m on-site, I’m constantly in the kitchens. We’ll sometimes go kitchen to kitchen - some of our communities have as many as 11 restaurants.

When I meet with a chef, I’ll ask them to cook me their favorite dish - it doesn’t need to be on the menu. I want them to cook from their heart. It’s about taking the time to share those opportunities with our chefs and allow them to give part of themselves and vice versa. It’s important to our chefs that we break bread and celebrate our craft.

I work alongside three other chefs and more culinary professionals based in our home office. We consider recipes on a daily basis; we’re testing them, reviewing them, and rolling up our sleeves. Maybe it’s a new product that we’re testing or a new interpretation of a classic dish.

Every community and restaurant writes its own menus. They’re encouraged to change that menu and focus on local and seasonal ingredients, and we have a handful of weekly chef specials. At any one community, you can have upwards of 80 unique dishes to choose from every evening - that’s a lot of opportunities to get creative in the kitchen.”

People around you, music, books, travel, research - where do you find inspiration when developing dishes?

“A lot of the time it's something I’m playing with at home or a dish I had out at a restaurant. But when it comes to my culinary team - we try not to push from the top down; we want to encourage the chefs to be inspired and inspire their own teams. Across the nation, we do more than 26,000 meals a day - we’re preparing a lot of food, so there’s a lot of room for play.

Personally, at home I will smoke anything and everything and have even smoked bourbon. A few years ago, I went through a complete and total wood stage where I was only using wood I harvested from my property to cook. Different woods burn at different rates and temperatures. It was a lot of fun understanding and mastering wood as the only source for open flame cooking. If you come to the house, you're definitely getting some kind of pulled pork or brisket.

How is cooking within the senior living world different from any other type of cooking?

“The closest industry would be resorts, to be honest. We focus on fresh and clean ingredients - From a responsibility standpoint - we take our approach to food very seriously. We want to stand behind the products with a high level of integrity. I have tremendous partners like Sysco in procurement. We manage order guides with produce companies. Then from a consistency standpoint - we spend a lot of time in our dining rooms. We sit down and eat with our diners to get that first-hand flavor knowledge. It’s important to me so that we can reach a higher level of integrity.”

What is your ethos about balancing nutrition and flavor?

“It’s so important for us to understand what our residents need from a food standpoint. Now our residents and guests are able to look up the nutritional value of every single dish we have online. Our journey started five years ago when we asked: who do we want to be? We’re not a food company - we’re part of the daily life of Erickson Senior Living communities.

It’s important to gather around food and share time and stories. We want to be a company that cares about food while also providing accurate nutritional information. We try to take the guesswork out of eating healthier and plan creative menus.

In the last 10 years, residents’ level of interest in healthier cuisine has skyrocketed. I credit that to Food Network; residents are watching more food content and it makes everyone a foodie or at least more interested in food.”

What advice would you give a chef just starting out?

“People don't fully understand what all chefs really do, and we have a high level of expectations - our restaurants are jammin’, and it’s not an environment everyone can handle. But it begins with respect - for yourself, for those you work with, for our diners. It’s about treating that food right and approaching cooking with love and inspiration.

Try and make sure you’re inspiring those around you. At Erickson Senior Living, we have a quarterly chef call where we all break bread and talk about some of the great things we're making. Being a chef is understanding that there are very few careers where you have the ability to touch so many souls - we’re feeding the mind and feeding the body.

We have the opportunity to create the highlight of someone’s day. Especially feeding this senior population—mealtime is not only for enjoying delicious food, but also a main point of connection and socialization with other community members. Let’s make that dining experience the highlight of their day.

One of the things we often talk about is honoring food memories; a certain dish means different things to different people, but everyone has a food story. When I was growing up we spent two weeks every year in Georgia - all my friends were going to the beach and Disney World, but being with my aunt in her massive garden was one of my favorite things to do. And waking up at my aunt’s house – I remember the smell of fresh biscuits every morning, cantaloupe, sausage, and bacon. Being able to wake up to that bounty - it’s a great food memory for me.”

What flavor or menu trends are you seeing?

“Authenticity. Seniors are more well-traveled than your average diner. If they're craving Mexican street corn, it’s likely they had that authentically. Because we’re seeing more demand for authentic cuisine, we’re making sure our dishes and ingredients meet those expectations.

If we’re running a Cuban menu for that week - we’re using ingredients native to that area. For menu planning, we even have an internal committee to vet the dish and ingredient authenticity. We’ve also seen a huge surge in requests for authentic Indian food that coincides with our growing population of Indian-American residents.

Spiceology has been phenomenal in sourcing those ingredients and blends, and we’ve been regularly using your Togarashi and Garam Masala.”

What’s a spice you consider to be under-valued?

“Fenugreek. And here’s why: I did a bourbon and BBQ tour almost 15 years ago, and we stopped at a small smokehouse in a converted gas station. One of the activities was trying to recreate their signature spice blend, and we got close, but never right there.

And their chef actually shared the secret herb we were missing: Fenugreek. It’s one of those herbs I always make sure I have on hand; I like to sweat the spices out to bring a different layer of flavor. And, sure enough, it’s the one ingredient people can never place.”

What do you consider a chef’s role to be within the community?

“A chef should inspire leadership - it’s one of the things we focus on here at Erickson Senior Living. At the rate we are growing, we have a systematic way of developing and growing our culinarians. It all goes back to that respect among your team and the intentional growth of others. Inspiration can come from so many different places, and anyone can step up to be a leader. Being a chef is not only understanding what you should care about and prioritize as a leader, but also recognizing the responsibility you have to your team.”