“I wasn’t really sure myself what I was getting into when I came here,” he said. “But it’s awesome.”
It’s not just the regular hours, a perk few chefs enjoy. It’s the fact that, far from the industrial cuisine he feared he’d have to fix, Emanuel gets to flex his creative culinary muscles more than many restaurant- bound chefs ever do. Project Angel Heart is among the agencies applying for funding in this year’s Season to Share program.
“We do a new menu every week. No rotations. I find rotations inhibiting, not just from a creative perspective, but from a money perspective.”
In his four years on the job, Emanuel has had to lower his food costs by 12.5 percent, even as his client list has grown from about 500 to about 800 . But by breaking free of typical menu rotations and keeping things flexible, Emanuel is able to be more frugal with his ingredients. “Before I plan a menu, I’ll see what we have in the freezer, on the spice rack. What can we use up that we already have?”
The approach encourages ambitious cooking, including (recently) beef Bourguignon, baked fish with eggplant caponata, Turkish kafta with tzatiki, and a dish he’d rather forget — Hungarian goulash.
“That went over like a lead balloon,” he said. “It was such a disappointment, because I’m Hungarian.”
Many modifications get made, for clients with renal conditions, or lactose intolerance, or patients going through chemotherapy who require very bland meals. Each modification is noted, and appropriate changes are made to the recipes.
The emotional toll can be heavy. “You’re cooking for people who
you may or may not be feeding for very long,” Emanuel said. “I get e-mails every week that tell me how many people we’ve gained, and how many we’ve lost. It’s sad to see the list, marked deceased, deceased, deceased.”
Overall, nearly all of the feedback from Project Angel Heart clients is positive. “We do a quarterly survey,” Emanuel said. “Generally speaking, over 80 percent of clients surveyed in 2008 say our meals helped maintain or improve the quality of life.”
Those numbers must feel pretty good.
“Are you kidding? I’m a guy that cooks. The name of the game is satisfaction. When someone says, ‘This is great,’ that’s one thing. But when someone says, ‘You saved my life,’ it’s like, unbelievable.”
Tucker Shaw: tshaw@denverpost.com
Project Angel Heart
Address: 4190 Garfield St., Unit 5
In operation since: 1991
Number served last year: 1,687 clients/407,279 meals
Staff: 20 full time
Yearly budget: $1.7 million
Percentage of funds that go directly to clients and services: 92%
