#SenecaProud

Pat Perdue  00:01 

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue, and I'd like to welcome you to Season Two of the Seneca Proud podcast. This is a co-production between my company Ycastr and Seneca College in Toronto. Seneca College is a really great school. And what we uncovered in season one of Seneca Proud is that there's a Seneca spirit. And that comes from the really great people that Seneca attracts. This season we'll be featuring some of those students, staff as well as faculty to not only learn what they do here, but also a little bit about who they are. So, join me on this journey of discovery, as we meet some of the people who make Seneca College, such a special place to teach, work and study. 

Welcome to Seneca Proud Season Two, where I get to introduce you to some of Seneca College's amazing family of staff, faculty, and students. So, if you haven't already, subscribe, and download and let's go meet some of the super inspiring folks here at Seneca. I'm Pat Perdue, and I'm glad you're here today.  

And welcome back to Season Two of the Seneca Proud podcast. This is Season Two, Episode Eight and I am Pat Perdue. Welcome back. Season Two of the Seneca Proud podcast is about bringing forward stories not only of the faculty but of students and staff and highlighting their achievements both while at Seneca and outside of Seneca. 

This show is one that people have really been asking about a lot because it's about food. And it's not only about food, it's about the food that Seneca College serves up to staff and students every day. So, if you eat at any of the campuses at Seneca College, this show is for you. Our guest today is Executive Chef Nancy Gilmour. Nancy is in charge of all the kitchens, she plans the menus creates the specialty dishes and makes sure everything is running smoothly and dare I say deliciously. 

But before we get to the interview, it's important to know about Nancy's employer. It's not Seneca College. It's a company called Aramark, which looks after the food services at Seneca College, as well as campuses across the globe. After I had my conversation with Nancy, I took a look at the Aramark website. Aramark is a huge food services company, it employs in the neighborhood of 270,000 people globally, and feeds people in 19 countries. It's massive. I found my way to their description of their food services for campuses they serve, which is a lot of campuses. And it was like I was reading about our guest today, Nancy, as you listen to our conversation, what you'll notice come through is her pride and uncompromising focus on nutrition, variety, flavor, and on being sensitive to food preferences offered customers at the various Seneca College campuses. 

So, with that in mind, let me read to you a little bit from the Aramark website. The foundation of our innovative Campus Dining Services is our team of highly trained chefs. They with the help of dietitians, and other culinary experts go above and beyond to deliver a wide range of recipes, sourcing options and experiences for your students. All the while taking into account the latest trends and technologies. Our chefs know that the best tasting food begins with fresh, seasonal ingredients prepared simply and cooked to perfection. We were the first company to offer diverse, ethnic, cooked to order residential dining food stations, as well as fresh for you exhibition style cooking on campus, which we actually talked about in our conversation with Nancy and more from their website. Even more importantly, our team is armed with the knowledge of what solutions best fit your campus’s specific needs and can deliver a unique experience tailored to your campus community. These experiences could range from gluten and allergen free menu items, meals derived from sustainable and organic sources, kosher dining rooms, or a host of other healthy and nutritionally balanced choices that fit your students’ varied lifestyles. Combined menu planning, food presentation and a top-notch service philosophy with an innovative approach rooted in local ingredients and international cuisines, and you've got the recipe for an outstanding campus dining program. 

Now in my conversation with Nancy, you're going to hear literally all of that philosophy expressed in how she runs her kitchen’s plans, her menus, sources her ingredients and just basically does her job. It's pretty amazing. Oh, and one more thing about Aramark. They were recently recognized as one of the top 100 Green companies in Canada. I mentioned that because their philosophy on keeping their carbon footprint to a minimum also comes through in my conversation with Nancy. 

Okay, so let me tell you about Nancy Gilmour. It's nearly impossible to talk to Nancy and not talk about food, which is a really good thing. But being a successful food professional wasn't always the plan she had for her life. She originally set out to be a painter and sculptor, and like many with a passion for the arts, she supported that passion with work in the restaurant industry. In fact, it was while living in Spain, while she was in her 20s that she discovered her love for food. Living with a group of artists, money was, understandably, tight. But despite that, they always managed to eat well. With beautifully set tables and beautiful food. Nancy discovered she could combine her love for art and a newfound passion for excellent food. That journey led to her owning and operating her own restaurant for eight years, as well as working with some top chefs in Canada and abroad. And a little bit of advance warning this episode will make you hungry. I caught up with Nancy who is very busy at Seneca College at Newnham campus. We began our conversation in the kitchen and just kind of walked around and chatted about what it's like to be Executive Chef at Seneca. So, you'll hear a variety of sounds in the background as we're strolling through the hallways. 

And now I'm so happy to present to you my conversation with Aramark, Executive Chef for Seneca College, Nancy Gilmour. We are walking into the kitchen area that's right next to the cafeteria that everybody walks by and are probably curious about folks that come in and out pushing carts and stuff. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  05:47 

 

Pat Perdue  05:56 

So, the Starbucks, Tim’s and everything that's made in the Starbucks and Tim's and stuff like that. It comes from here. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  06:00 

Yes. Everything comes through the central kitchen. So, the watermelon jam. We were doing a sustainability as you know, we do like fresh fruit cups every day. We peel the rinds. 

 

Pat Perdue  06:12 

Here's the refrigerator that we're in. That's a tray of scrambled eggs. Wow, and a jar of something that looks like it's filled with delicious.

 

Nancy Gilmour  06:30 

Watermelon jam. And then we have blueberry jam. So, we try not to waste stuff.  We had a bunch of blueberries and rather than let them go. We only have one bottle left. This is made from the rinds of the watermelon. I'm sure that would have been waste normally because we peel it and then we discard it. 

 

Pat Perdue  06:51 

Somebody peeled  it and did all the work of doing it. That's extra stuff for people to do. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  06:56 

That ‘people’ be me. Oh, but it was really cool because we then use the rinds from pineapple to make pineapple punch. Seneca is very conscious about the environment. We try to be as conscious as they are. And then together we collaborate.  And that's why we did the sustainability to figure out what we can do with the waste rather than just discard it. 

 

Pat Perdue  07:22 

And this is an initiative that's taking place across Aramark as an organization? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  07:28 

Yes, everybody is aware of the carbon footprint to ensure we're trying to make things better. One of the things we're focusing on in Aramark is plant forward. Plant forward is something that is a little bit confusing. Because when you say plant forward, I think people automatically think of vegetarianism. It's just less of animal protein. So instead of having the Canada Food Guide,  where you'd have like a third of protein or whatever this is, you have like three ounces of protein, three to four ounces, and then fill your plate with vegetables. You can still have your animal, but we just want to love the vegetables more. We also collect our waste, and we discard it in the garburator. So, then that will transpose into like a mulch almost that we then send off and eventually will become fertilizer. 

 

Pat Perdue  08:18 

So that's cool because Aramark is in campuses across Ontario. Are these initiatives taking place at campuses across the world, or is that pretty well unique to what's going on at Seneca? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  08:32 

Well, I  think Seneca is probably a forerunner of this sure, but Aramark as a whole is. We're all conscious of this and trying to reduce the waste always.  

 

Pat Perdue  08:41 

So, tell me about a day in the life of Nancy Gilmour Executive Chef for Aramark at Seneca?

 

Nancy Gilmour  08:47 

Well, let's go somewhere where there's no ears. I was going to show you in here, this is our dry storage, which is not that exciting, but it is exciting. If you aren't sure, try stuff. But this is our wall here. And these are all recipes that Aramark has developed. And these are labels for things like sandwiches and salads. And then next week we're doing some pretty cool puddings. We're doing like a chia pudding and the Oreo cookie one and just to keep a little more interesting because people get bored. So, a day in the life of Nancy Gilmour, well, Executive Chef, so I generally start work around six o'clock in the morning, depending on catering and what is needed at the school. So, we do quite a bit of catering, which is aside from all of this. My day starts around 6:00 a.m. and that's generally like, jump in, check the line, check everybody out; see how they're doing and then we get to work. I'm pretty much hands on. I'll be in there cooking and we do a daily chef special. I think I told you about that before. Every day we do a chef special meat entree and a vegetarian entrée, and it's going quite well. And everything's made from scratch for that. As I said, most of the things we do are made from scratch, 

 

Pat Perdue  10:23 

Are most executive chefs pretty much hands on in terms of what's going on in the kitchen?

 

Nancy Gilmour  10:28 

No, I would say no. In fact, I'm trying to be less hands on. But I also really care about the food, and I like to cook, so I want to get my hands in there too. But we're training new people, like constantly. We have a couple that are moving on up so that they can take over my position and actually do the cooking with the soul. 

 

Pat Perdue  10:52 

Okay, when you say cooking with the soul, what do you mean by that? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  10:55 

I think some people think cooking is a chore, right? And I have a passion for cooking. I really enjoy it. Instead of stressing me out. You know, some people would get stressed out because you have to cook so much. It relaxes me to cook to chop, to put things together. I actually studied fine arts prior to becoming a chef. I did paint and sculpture. Like things just jumped into my head and I just grab this and grab this. 

 

Pat Perdue  11:20 

You're very creative. You embrace the creative process.

 

Nancy Gilmour  11:24 

And that's what I love about the cooking. They say baking is a science and cooking is an art. But I think baking is art. 

 

Pat Perdue  11:34 

So, you come in in the morning around six you check the line; you see that everything is moving smoothly as it should. And then what happens? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  11:44 

Well, from 6:00 to 2:00 we are pretty busy. Those are the busiest times. We’re preparing everything for all the stations, making sure everything's in check. And then around 2:30 things die down a bit. They pick up again around dinnertime. Around 2:30, I'll go into the office and break down the next day and do the ordering and trying to get us organized. 

 

Pat Perdue  12:08 

When you break down the next day. What does that mean? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  12:11 

Well, breaking down the next day basically means catering. Because here I know what's going on. Because we have concepts, like we'll always eat hamburgers. We have our levels of everything. So that's, that's all right. That's all in order. But catering is a mystery because it changes every day. 

 

Pat Perdue  12:28 

Oh, okay. How far in advance do you get your catering requests? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  12:33 

Sometimes 10 minutes before they need it. Hopefully? About a week before, but they surprise us. 

 

Pat Perdue  12:40 

They could ask for whatever they can imagine, or do we have a catering menu?

 

Nancy Gilmour  12:43 

Our clients seem to like to order different things. So, we'd like to accommodate and that gives me a more fun time, you know, to play with a new menu or recipe because I don't like to keep things stagnant.  

 

Pat Perdue  13:02 

Does something come to mind that might be a memory of the most surprising catering request you've ever had?

 

Nancy Gilmour  13:17 

No, what we do get it right now, as I said, plant foods are big, also vegetarian and veganism. We get a lot of special requests for dietary needs, of course. So that poses a problem because in the past, you know, a vegetarian would get “here's your salad”. So now we have to think outside the box and create an actual beautiful plate of food rather than french fries. Last week, I made a chocolate eggplant cake. 

 

Pat Perdue  13:45 

Yum!

 

Nancy Gilmour  13:46 

It doesn’t sound yum, does it? 

 

Pat Perdue  13:47 

Well, you did say chocolate and cake. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  13:54 

And surprisingly, this is the best chocolate cake ever. I was just trying to play around with plants and desserts. And I'm not particularly fond of eggplant. But I came across this recipe and thought, I will just try it out. And it was really good.

 

Pat Perdue  14:14 

If I had that I know I’d be combining my vegetable and my dessert at the same time? Parents across the listening universe are like wow, I want to get some of that. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  14:26 

Yeah, they're going to sneak their vegetables in all the time. You can too. There are so many things. Oh, I also made these awesome chickpea truffles. Godiva would be jealous. Also, you would not know. And you're getting your fiber and your chocolate!

 

Pat Perdue  14:43 

You were talking about your day. And then it gets it gets busy in the afternoon. So how long does your day last? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  14:50 

it's about 10 to 14 hours. 

 

Pat Perdue  14:54 

Wow. It sounds like it. Yeah. And being a chef, that’s a road that requires a lot of hours. Would that be a correct statement? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  15:04 

Yes, but I'm kind of moving towards the way where I'm going to get everybody trained perfectly so that I can just walk by and be a Gordon Ramsay. 

 

Pat Perdue  15:11 

Okay, nice. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  15:13 

Hopefully, everything will be perfect. So, see this used to be the cafeteria right here. That's all smashed out to there. I think we can walk through. Let's go. 

 

Pat Perdue  15:25 

Danger due to construction no access. Oh, yeah, we can't. We're not inside the curtain, I suppose. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  15:32 

Let's do it. Let's do it. We're walking through the new cafeteria. 

 

Pat Perdue  15:36 

We're so weird. So, there's scaffolding there's lights that are hanging. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  15:41 

Yes, hanging from electrical cabling. Party lights, kind of like we're having an outdoor party, 

 

Pat Perdue  15:46 

Seneca has such a vast international population. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  15:50 

Yes, it does. It does. 

 

Pat Perdue  15:52 

So how has that impacted? Or how does that impact your menu choices? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  15:57 

Well, that's a good question. We have four campuses that we look after, King, Markham, York, and Newnham. Newnham is the largest. Have you been? 

 

Pat Perdue  16:12 

I have been. It’s beautiful, spectacular.  

 

Nancy Gilmour  16:15 

They've just  done some renovations as well. It's the most peaceful place there. 

 

Pat Perdue  16:19 

It's a lovely campus. Yeah. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  16:21 

The demographics of the students in each of the campus is different. We've had to have a Chef’s corner at each campus. So initially, I started with the same Chef's Corners that we did here. But we had to change it because of the demographics of the site. So here we have quite a lot of Asian and Indian. And we incorporate that by bringing curries in. And we've had some very good comments from students too, because at first, they were surprised that I can make Indian. I'm surprised too! And a couple have mentioned that it tastes close to home.

 

Pat Perdue  16:59 

Oh, that's so nice. Because, you know, for some of them, it's their first time away from home. There first time outside of India, perhaps. And the fact that they can get food that would remind them of home. I think that's a lovely thing. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  17:13 

Yeah. We also do an international thing where we work with the International department. And during the school year, monthly, we do a different ethnic food. January, we did a Chinese New Year. And we've done the Ukraine, we've done Korea, we haven’t done Britain, Russia. Each time we do one of these events, I have to do some research and talk to the students too. And then they're informed ahead of time. They come down and see. I did one, it was a walnut, chicken, and pomegranate, which is Persian. And that was really cool because we have some Persian people that worked for us. Then they brought their version in. My employees are ethnically diverse, and so I'll call upon them to for their input. You know, does this taste like? 

 

Pat Perdue  18:12 

How exciting? 

 

Nancy Gilmour  18:13 

Well, it  has to keep exciting. Last week, I was practicing fish fileting because I'm not very good.  I had my staff, and we did it all together. And we had a little black box kind of thing to keep you know, we have to keep morale up too.  Do you know about the farm we have? 

 

Pat Perdue  18:30 

I do. Yeah. That's the sustainable fish and farm circular ecosystem? I have seen it. What we're looking at, for our listeners, we're looking at Ripple Farms on the Seneca Newnham campus. Share with us a little bit about what Ripple Farms is and if they are able to provide food for you. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  18:56  

Okay, well, Ripple Farms, the two guys that started this particular farm, they went to school here. This was a concept they worked on while they were in Seneca, we have collaborated with them. They'll bring us a crop of fresh veggies that were put in the salad bar and other things. They've asked us what kind of things we use. It's not very big, but they produce quite a lot. And the produce is amazing. It's very fresh and crisp. And then the herbs; we're getting them on herbs because we use a lot of cilantro and that kind of thing. And then we have the indigenous, which is something we're very interested in. We've done some things with them, and Aramark is actually getting quite interested in trying to create more indigenous menus. Okay, it's interesting, you know, obviously, indigenous people were here long before us, and they have lots of good stuff to share.  

 

Pat Perdue  19:53  

Great to get some indigenous food on the menu.  

 

Nancy Gilmour  19:57  

Yeah, I'll be working on it. I kind of indigenous food with a nouveau twist though. You know? Sort of like a fusion.  

 

Pat Perdue  20:04  

Nice. So, we talked about the menus at this campus. And how you try to keep the menus reflective of the campus populations. What kind of complexity does that create for you when you're working with the other campuses?  

 

Nancy Gilmour  20:19  

We're all a tight knit family here. We just work together. I test them a little bit. First initial test run with the Chef's Corner was to see how it worked in each campus. I kept a monitor of seeing the sales of the particular items. And then when the students would give feedback, right like this, you know, chicken sells, people want their chicken, but different types of chickens. The other managers at the other campuses, they monitor that too, and then they'll get back to me to say, this is what they've been asking for. So, we have a recipe base at Aramark, that we can go through that has everything calibrated and proper calories and all that, because that's very important these days, too. And I just go through there, and I figure out what will work at that campus.  

 

Pat Perdue  21:08  

So how did you get into this. You started in fine arts? How did you land in being a Chef and then being an Executive Chef?  

 

Nancy Gilmour  21:17  

I'm an artist. I started doing quite well painting. But as an artist, you never know when your money is going to come in. I always worked in the restaurant industry.  I've worked in the front of the house, back of the house on the roof of the house and basement. And then that would support me, to buy my supplies. But then, my friends thought it would be a good idea to open up a restaurant because it didn't look that hard. How hard could it be? A restaurant, you know? But it was hard, it turns out. Well, quite an adventure. There were three of us in. We couldn't afford a chef. So, they said which one of us can cook and I got that straw. I learned how to cook there.  

 

Pat Perdue  22:07  

Wow.  

 

Nancy Gilmour  22:08  

I had some good reviews. Stephen Davey once reviewed me and he said, where did you learn how to cook? And I said, well, I read cookbooks. When you own a restaurant, you do everything. You know, you're dishwashing, you're mopping the floors. And when I said on the roof, I was on the roof, because we had to fix the air conditioning, and you have to fix the flood in the basement. So, you’re there, hands on everything. And you'll learn a lot because you have to. That was pretty, pretty good. I had it for about eight years. And then I moved on to other restaurants. I worked under other chefs, Red Seal chefs, big chefs. And then I worked for a little bit when I was in Europe. And that's when it just kind of fell into place.  

 

Pat Perdue  23:01  

I love that story. You know, a lot of our listeners are young people who are wondering what to do with their lives. And I love how that story shows that you don't have to figure it out when you're 21 or 22 years old, because it might change too. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  23:15  

It has to in this day and age probably well, apparently, you're supposed to change your career many times.  

 

Pat Perdue  23:22  

Yeah. At least five, maybe more.  

 

Nancy Gilmour  23:23  

Maybe you have a couple more to come.  

 

Pat Perdue  23:25  

I probably do have a different career every week pretty well.  

 

Nancy Gilmour  23:30  

Well, that keeps it exciting, right?  

 

Pat Perdue  23:32  

Yeah, yeah. What's on the menu? Not literally, but figuratively, for food and food services here at Seneca?  

 

Nancy Gilmour  23:41  

Food’s going to get very exciting around here. It's getting more exciting every day. We're going to have this great new cafeteria, which will cater.  Well, we're going to have some new innovative technology too so that ordering will become faster. But we're not getting rid of people. So, we'll have people that are at each station and cooking in front of you. You get to see the process. There'll be stations each station will have contained things in it. Fridges and stuff so that they can cook in front of you, and you can see it and the flow is going to be very nice. So that, you know, you're just going to walk through and hopefully smell all the good foods and want to stop at each one.  

 

Pat Perdue  24:22  

I can't wait to drop by and see what that's going to look like. Do you have a sense of when that will be? For the people who are first Seneca?    

 

Nancy Gilmour  24:31  

Hopefully by September. We should have that up and running.   

 

Pat Perdue  24:36  

By September 2020? That's exciting.  

 

Nancy Gilmour  24:40  

I mean, it might not be till November. It'll be the first semester. 

 

Pat Perdue  24:43  

Awesome first semester. That's going to be very exciting. Well, thank you very much. Nancy Gilmour for joining the Seneca Proud podcast. it's been a pleasure talking to you and now I'm starving.   

 

Nancy Gilmour  24:57  

Are you starving? Do you want some food?  

 

Pat Perdue  25:00  

I do. After this conversation  I can't think of anything else to do but eat. 

 

Nancy Gilmour  25:04  

I've got some watermelon jam for you.   

 

Pat Perdue  25:12  

I’m in! 

And that was my conversation with Nancy Gilmour, Aramark, Executive Chef for Seneca College. What really struck me about that conversation was her explanations of how she creates her menus for potential meals and her awareness of her customers. The sources of her ingredients, all of it was consistent with the Aramark philosophy of what makes them a great choice as a partner to feed students on campuses across Canada and globally. Where Nancy is concerned, they are truly walking that talk. And Nancy is also super nice. My impression of executive chefs admittedly is limited to Gordon Ramsay. She's definitely not the Gordon Ramsay type. It was truly a pleasure to spend some time with her. And to the listeners, it was a pleasure to spend this time with you as well. I'm genuinely grateful to everyone who listens. Until next time, this has been the Seneca Proud podcast. I'm Pat Perdue. Stay proud Seneca!