Hospital Unit Cook

About the role

Pediatric rehab children's hospital is looking for an experienced Cook with a cafeteria, school, or hospital cooking background. Individual must have interpersonal skills to effectively communicate with teammates in accomplishing tasks and assignments for the Food Service Department. Individual will assist the Lead Cook in the completion of daily assignments to ensure the nutritional needs of the patients, staff, and visitors.

Qualifications

• Experience as a cook in a cafeteria, school, or hospital setting
• Strong interpersonal skills for effective team communication

Responsibilities

• Prepares entrees, vegetables, fruit, desserts, baked goods, salad/side items for patients and staff according to census, production sheet, quantitative recipes, serving sizes, and menus daily
• Follows specialized diet guidelines
• Fills in for other positions as needed
• Obtains Food Service Manager or Dietitian's approval if substitutions need to be made
• Ensures productions are of high quality; good taste and texture, proper temperature, eye appeal, shortest holding time before serving to maintain nutrition value
• Takes daily temperatures on prepared food on steam tables, refrigerator, freezers, and front line
• Cook and chill prepared food following proper procedures
• Stores food in accordance with departmental, CMS, and Health Department guidelines
• As needed or assigned by the Food Service Manager or Dietitian, prepares all modified and special diets according to production schedule and menu
• As needed or assigned by the Food Service Manager or Dietitian, serves lunch meals at school when in session and/or serves lunch to staff
• Organizes meals for transport to the group homes or school by ensuring the meal is in appropriate serving containers, proper equipment is ready for transport, and any other supplies are available to utilize in the group home
• Responsible for ensuring meals are heated, delivered, and ready to serve to the group homes or school prior to the scheduled meal time
• Ensures walk-in refrigerator, dry storage, and freezer are organized appropriately, items away from walls/ceilings as appropriate, dated, and rotated
• Reports discrepancies to Food Service Manager
• As assigned by the Food Service Manager or Dietitian, prepares, sets up, and/or takes down the salad bar
• Follows safety and sanitation guidelines
• Compares inventory to menu to: 1) ensure items are being used before they go out of date and/or spoil, and 2) ensure items ordered for menus are not being used on the salad bar
• Breaks down the salad bar in compliance with sanitation guidelines and disposes of any unused food
• Completes all duties related to shift work as assigned to include but not limited to: opening in a.m., closing in p.m., inventory, putting up received stock, meal/snack prep, delivery of food items, serving, maintaining records of machines/temperatures, properly operating machinery, cleaning, etc
• Completes cleaning as assigned or independently during downtime; this includes but is not limited to: cleaning of kitchen equipment and storage areas, sweeping and mopping floor, sanitizing all surfaces, etc
• Maintains a clean, sanitary, and organized work area on a daily basis
• Performs additional duties in different areas of the dietary operation as assigned by the supervisor, i.e.- catering, delivery or stocking of food items, serving line, field trip preparation and clean-up etc
• Cross trains in all areas, including but not limited to: food transport, serving of meals, catering, school needs, snacks, stocking, modified consistency diet