Great gumbo at a hospital?

[Snowday]

I have been pleasantly surprised by the gumbo in the cafeteria at Ochsner Hospital. I find their turkey sausage and shrimp gumbo is delicious over yellow rice. I know it's not the standard, but it should be.

[Shiloh]

Growing up in New Orleans public schools, a standard school lunch was a bowl of gumbo with a grilled cheese on the side. The gumbo was chicken in a thin, light broth and the grilled cheese, thinking back on it, was likely not grilled at all but was probably baked en masse, the outside of the bread slathered with butter substitute. Making my mouth water thinking about it now. To this day, I love the combo - gumbo with a grilled cheese on the side.

[BrooksNYC]

This is going back 2001-2002, but the Touro cafeteria used to serve great seafood gumbo once a week.

[Bill Hunt]

Now, this goes way, way back, but when Ochsner did the "mall" leading between the hospital and the Brent House, there were three restaurants there. The food in each was very good, to great. Many locals would dine there.

My wife, who was at Ochsner, back when, took that idea with her to Phoenix, and hired two Le Cordon Bleu trained chefs for her hospital here. While great, I still recall the restaurants in Ochsner's mall, but have not dined at any in decades.

Glad that at least one is still turning out great food.

Thanks for the tip,

Hunt

[rouxdauphine]

Bill, I love this story of a good idea not only being enjoyed but taken forward. Would there were more of that in this world!

[Bill Hunt]

Yes, my wife has been trying for some years, to create a Brent House in Phoenix, but so far, it has not yet happened. She learned a lot at Ochsner Foundation.

Hunt

[koogle]

That's so funny, I always tell people the best seafood Gumbo I ever had was at the Clarion hotel and it was!!

[scubadoo97]

Let's face it, gumbo is a one pot meal less the rice and is perfect for an institutional settings as long as they don't over cook the crap out of it. Doesn't say much for the multitude of restaurants in the city that serve gumbo.

[Uncle Bob]

"Doesn't say much for the multitude of restaurants in the city that serve gumbo"

I understand your meaning ~~ However to me.... "it speaks volumes!!" .

[scubadoo97]

Exactly my point Uncle Bob

[Uncle Bob]

....and a very good one!

[collardman]

To generalize, I bet many of the cooks in institutional kitchens have been making gumbo since they were children and many line cooks in the commercial restaurants are young with just recent culinary training. It's easier to manage a kitchen and produce good food with reasonable food costs if you have a team of old hands.

[JazzyB]

It doesn't matter how long one has been cooking, rather how well one cooks.

[Snowday]

Agreed. You need look no further than my 85-year-old grandmother for an example of exactly how one can cook poorly. I love her...but, she's always been an awful cook. (For what it's worth, I can say this because she acknowledges it herself. As an example, here's one of her favorite concoctions -- Thick sliced potatoes baked in an inch of water with even thicker slices of velveeta over top.) (Also, apple slices wrapped in tube croissants and then baked in a dish filled with Mountain Dew.)

[collardman]

Agreed, but when we hire, be it a carpenter, dentist, surgeon, pilot or line cook, we certainly look to experience.