Meet Cura’s New Corporate Director of Culinary John Cramutola CDM, CFPP. We are thrilled to welcome Chef John to Cura as he will lead our culinary direction to the next level. Chef John has a robust breadth of experience, an opening chef for a busy fast-casual restaurant concept in South Jersey as well as collaborating with Stink Fisher, the NFL Player, Actor, and Owner. Chef John even cooked for former President of the United States Donald Trump. Chef John shares progressive methods as well as cutting-edge and trendy ideas to elevate the senior dining experience for today… and tomorrow’s older adults.
Chef’s culinary expertise is lauded for bringing dishes to life by using spices to enhance the flavors and boldness of everyday meals. Chef John’s favorite recipe is butter chicken. “I love the intense flavor of the toasted spices and the richness of the butter.” Chef is also a fan of foods featuring vibrant colors. Natural colorful ingredients such as beetroot, carrot, and kale are increasingly showing up in vegetable and plant-based snacks.
These unique colors in food can accompany exotic flavors that help stimulate appetite and satisfaction in resident dining. Learn how Chef inspires and helps to redefine your community’s vision…
Exceptional Culinary Experiences
Cura is a trendsetter, supporting and advising senior life community administrators and owners on how to best serve the dining and social needs of baby boomers. We create dining destination experiences that residents were accustomed to prior to moving to a senior living community.
Chef John and the Cura team blend traditional favorites with trending options like tavern-style dining, where older adults may continue to frequent their favorite taproom – right on campus while socializing and engaging with friends and family!
Cura also creates flex space seating that can turn formal dining into culinary adventures featuring wine tastings, culturally diverse foods, and a Chef’s Table! This highly anticipated interactive gourmet dining experience is commonly used as a marketing event! Prospective residents will be engaged as chefs describe ingredient selections and preparation methods as they cook for guests tableside.
Next-Level Culinary Training
Chef John will revitalize our Cura Culinary College (CCC) and Service College to ensure the realization of employee growth objectives. Employees will be energized by these exceptional hands-on training programs taught by Chef John and other Culinary Institute of America-accomplished executive chefs throughout Cura’s organization.
Employees learn culinary best practices such as vegetable preparation, knife skills, presentation, and tasting the difference between “Farm to Table” vs. processed food. More advanced learning focuses on enhancing our guests’ culinary experience through classes that cover such topics as baking and pastry arts, how to pair wines with food to complement a meal, and even creating upscale textured-diet meals that improve eating habits and the health of residents and patients. CCC employees may even receive educational credits toward a formal culinary degree at an accredited institution.
Hospitality and customer service training is also offered to our waitstaff so they can better engage residents in the dining environment. The dining experience is one of the most important highlights of the day, so creating that sense of belonging and community is so essential. We train our staff to achieve the right balance and set the ambiance of the home.
Inspiring our employees to learn and grow in their careers is a benefit for recruitment and retention!
Signature Wellness Concept
Healthier eating habits stick, as 45% of residents continue to eat healthier with Cura’s BeWell Nutrition for the Active Adult!
BeWell Nutrition for the Active Adult not only helps seniors fuel their workout, but it also helps them by making informed healthier food choices easy. An extension of BeWell, our wellness and healthy eating platform, the Nutrition for the Active Adult promotion is offered in retail venues of a life plan or senior living community. An easy-to-follow loyalty rewards program, BeWell rewards residents with a complimentary BeWell healthier food item (identified by a blueberry image) who exercise or participate in activities sponsored by their community’s wellness center.
“We love the BeWell program, but I call it the Blueberry program. I say to my friends, ‘I’m using my blueberry card’,” laughs Menno Haven resident Margaret Greenblatt. “The program motivates us to exercise and reminds us to eat well.”
Read more here in FoodService Director Magazine.
A Better Solution to Supplements
Cura’s Handcrafted Delights revolutionizes traditional nutrient-supplementing snacks with visually appealing “real food” that our chefs “handcraft” fresh with pantry stables and locally grown produce.
Recipes include cupcakes, milkshakes, cookies, smoothies, and more. By serving Handcrafted Delights in a visually appealing way, we’re not only encouraging consumption but creating a sense of dignity for residents that are tired of medications, supplements, and pills — all while cutting costs.
Cura also recognizes the ongoing challenge of ensuring patients with dementia receive enough nutrition. Cura’s Connections, a memory support dining program, encourages food intake for Alzheimer’s residents. Our methodologies include serving attractive foods, utilizing unique conversation cards, and aroma therapy which aids food service personnel to meet the challenges of increasing caloric nourishment as well as social engagement.
Contact Cura for better solutions in dealing with malnutrition, a challenging health concern for older adults.
Learn how Cura can benefit your community today!
Contact:
Grace Zarnas-Hoyer, communications and public relations
610-349-0844
ghoyer@curahospitality.com
