He had to take a moment to think about it.
What is it he loves most about preparing food for others?
Is it a perfectly smooth gravy? The just-right juiciness of a medium-rare steak filet? The aroma of a simmering garlic butter sauce?
“Um,” Matt Penhos mumbled, “That’s a very good question. I’ve been doing this for a while and most of the time it’s been about making someone else’s food. Like restaurant recipes, ya know?”
Penhos, a graduate of the Culinary Arts program at West Virginia Northern Community College, returned to his contemplation and another few minutes passed by.
“I think,” he said, “I think it’s when someone tries my food for the very first time.
“It’s a really nice feeling when someone enjoys the food you cook,” Penhos continued. “That’s really a nice, nice feeling, ya know? To be able to give someone something they really enjoy.”
But?
“But, ya know what? The real reason I fell in love with food and cooking and this whole business is the ‘Wow Moment’,” he said with wide eyes. “Ya know, when someone tastes it and all of a sudden it’s like they have discovered something they’ve been looking for their whole lives.
“That’s the best moment. The ‘Wow Moment.’”
After a little more than five years as the kitchen manager at Quaker Steak and Lube at The Highlands, Penhos made a move to East Ohio Regional Hospital in April to become the facility’s director of food services. Now he supervises the meals made for the hospital’s patients, those residing in acute long-term care, for the customers at Starbuck’s on the first floor, and for the cafeteria’s customers.
But that means, on any given day, Penhos may distribute as many as 450 meals, so how can “Wow” be possible?
“I think most people think automatically that hospital cafeteria food is kind of crappy, but if you get the right people working with you and you elevate the quality of your ingredients, what you serve can be terrific. That’s what we’re doing here at East Ohio now,” Penhos said. “Chef Barry Metz has joined me here at the hospital after he and I worked together for a lot of years, and his knowledge has made a huge difference with what we serve on a daily basis.
“We’ve been changing things up quite a bit,” he said. “So, now, it’s not your typical hospital cafeteria.”
Word of Mouth
People chase taste.
And word about Penhos, Chef Metz, and the new-and-improved menus apparently has spread through the Martins Ferry community because, on occasion, a few newcomers have paid visits to the hospital’s bottom level. Penhos, in fact, may soon see even more now that EORH’s Facebook page posts the Café’s daily specials.
“It’s really a cool experience when we have people from outside the hospital come to eat because they’ve heard about our food,” Penhos said. “We had a Veteran’s Day event here and there were a lot of comments about the food being good, and we’re hoping to do more functions like that. It’s a lot of fun when we have the chance to interact with people in our community.
“That’s the thing with cooking food,” the food service director said. “If it doesn’t taste good, no one is going to eat it.”
Penhos learned how to be a food service professional when the Culinary Department at West Virginia Community College was in its infancy in the early 1990s. The cooking classes were held in the basement of the Hazel Atlas Building in East Wheeling before the college purchased and renovated the current Education Center along 17th Street.
“I was attending West Liberty, but that didn’t work out well for me so I decided to go to culinary school, and that really opened up a brand new world to me,” said Penhos, who also has worked with DiCarlo’s Pizza at the Dallas Pike location. “The culinary arts program was a life-changing experience.
“I had worked in restaurants before starting at Northern, so I had some experience in a kitchen, but I learned a ton about food and flavors, and about the business side of the business,” he explained. “That’s why this job is perfect for me because I didn’t go toward the chef side of the business, I went to the management side and here I am now.”
Last topic: What’s the best part of his position – and situation – at the Martins Ferry medical center?
“The best part,” Penhos started to say. “That’s a very good question.”
Is it when the food order is perfectly delivered? When a member of his staff receives a positive review for food and service? Or is THE best part of those “Wow Moments” mentioned before?
“Well, if I’m being perfectly honest,” he started again. “The best part has to be the schedule. It’s the quality of life. It’s amazing. It is really amazing because when you’re a manager in a restaurant, the only life you have is what’s left after work. Now, I have a life.
“And I love the people I work for because they let me do my job and if I need them. They’re there for me,” he said. “That’s exactly what a person in my position needs, and it’s now my reality and I love it.”
