Fire in the Triangle winner Ryan Conklin honed skills in healthcare kitchens

Ryan Conklin of Rex Healthcare
(photos courtesy Got to Be NC
Competition Dining Series) 

Early in his career, Ryan Conklin used to ditch his logo-emblazoned chef's jacket before walking into a grocery store or business where the company name might be recognized.

"I didn't want people knowing I worked in a hospital kitchen," says Conklin, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who landed his first executive chef job at age 24. "I was embarrassed about the food we were serving and wanted to avoid anyone stopping me to talk about it."

With a win at the recent Fire in the Triangle portion of the Got to Be NC Competition Dining Series, Conklin is no longer concerned about the stigma of hospital food. For the past six yeares, he has served as executive chef at Raleigh's Rex Healthcare, which provides nearly 4,000 meals daily. He previously earned two gold medals, in 2010 and 2012, representing Red at the Association for Healthcare Foodservice Culinary Competition.

Conklin planned his Fire in the Triangle dishes—which featured a vast range of surprise ingredients—on his study of competitor entries that had scored best with culinary judges and paying guests. "It's not about what’s the complicated thing a chef feels like making," he says. "We focused on cooking food that would make people want to lick the bowl. I told our team, 'Every dish should make people feel like it's date night.' " 


Conklin’s winning dessert course included Uno Alla Volta
ricotta-toffee cornmeal upside down cake, ricotta semifreddo,
Meyer lemon-blueberry compote, ricotta-vanilla bean cannoli
cream, pine nut crumble and a balsamic-white peach coulis.

Good advice. With a $2,000 prize and a new handmade chef's knife in his kit, Conklin will advance to the statewide finals to be held in October.

"How cool is that?" he says of his victory over a dozen competitors, many of them well-known chefs at critically acclaimed restaurants. "Who would have thought a hospital chef would win this thing?"

Conklin has been honing his skills in healthcare kitchens for about a dozen years. In addition to cooking for appreciative patients, chefs who work in this field have more stable work schedules than colleagues who work in public restaurants, especially those who cater to the late-night crowd.

"We're all out of here after 8 p.m. We trade weekends and we're off most holidays," says Conklin, who has cultivated a staff of former chef-owners and restaurant cooks who were glad to leave the daily grind. "With what we can accomplish here, I really don't miss working in a restaurant."

Conklin believes his team—as well as talented chefs who cook at assisted living centers and other medical facilities—has a responsibility to do more than just respond to a checkmark indicating a specific dietary need.

"We think of our operation as a hotel-style kitchen within a hospital. It's how we think about food and create new items," he says. "When I first transitioned from the restaurant industry to healthcare, it was a huge culture shock to me. Things were just thrown in the steamers. There was no passion about developing dishes or flavors. No one gave any thought to presentation.

"Today," he adds, "as far as being a chef in this field, I look at it as an untapped market dripping with opportunity and potential."

Conklin blogs about his career and collaborations with other healthcare chefs at NewSchoolHospitalFood.com. “We've become leaders in our field at Rex, and I don't take that lightly," he says. "I like to share information with people who are also committed to reinventing healthcare cuisine.”

While dedicated to thinking outside of the box, Conklin is not offended by having to produce daily batches of that most ubiquitous hospital snack: Jell-O.

"I've got to be honest, Jell-O is a very comforting food. People want it," he says. "But we don't treat it as 'just Jell-O.' When we serve it, we make sure it's the best Jell-O you've ever had."

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

Competition Dining's secret ingredients: camaraderie and fun

For the past seven years, Jimmy Crippen has been inviting guest chefs into the kitchen of his acclaimed Blowing Rock restaurant, where they have dazzled local diners.

“I’d say to my friends, “Come to my kitchen and let’s play a game,’” said the good-humored entrepreneur, who staged a series of Iron Chef-inspired cook-offs at Crippen’s Country Inn and Restaurant. “Let’s face it: Chefs are performers. You don’t open a restaurant unless you think you can feed people better than someone else can.”

What started as a way to draw customers on typically slow or off-season nights – while at the same time giving highly-regarded chefs a chance to get out of their own kitchens and meet other people in the industry – this year morphed into a series of regional Competitive Dining events. The first was the Fire on the Rock contest in the High Country, in which Chef Michael Foreman of Bistro Roca in Blowing Rock reigned supreme and claimed the $2,000 prize. In April and May, Crippen took his road show to Wilmington, where Chef Andrew Hopper of Chefs 105 in Morehead City emerged as champion of the Fire in the Dock contest.

The Raleigh-based Fire in the Triangle competition launched on June 11 and will conclude on July 31. The sold-out spectacles are held on Mondays and Tuesdays at 1705 Prime, located at 1705 Millbrook Road. The elegant North Raleigh facility is the catering hub of Rocky Top Hospitality, which includes Twisted Fork, Tribeca Tavern and the Daily Planet Café in the new Nature Research Center, among others.

Tonight’s challenge will pit Raleigh chefs Michael Lee of Sono against Dean Wendel of Flights. Competitors are not told what each event’s mystery ingredient is until a few hours before the doors open at 6:30 p.m.  It is selected and sourced in collaboration with the Southern Foods distributing and the Got to Be NC program of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. As with Iron Chef, the special ingredient must be prominent in each course, supplemented only by what is provided in an extensive pantry, and produced entirely on site.

Jimmy Crippen, founder of the Competition Dining series

While chefs strive to impress judges with expertly prepared and plated creations, teams also are responsible for providing an example of each course to about 120 paying guests. Diners get to participate in a popular vote and are encouraged to post comments on Twitter at #CompDiningNC.

In addition to an exhilarating evening of fine dining, Crippen is hopeful that participants will gain a heightened appreciation for the quality of locally sourced ingredients.

“We really try to keep the focus on building an awareness of the amazing resources that our state has to offer,” said Crippen, adding that home cooks also will concoct great meals if they start with fresh ingredient from local growers. “It’s a nice marriage to be able to promote the chefs, the agriculture and the whole sustainable lifestyle.”

So far, required ingredients in the first five weeks of the Raleigh competition have ranged from blueberries and Butterball turkeys to mustard, eggs and cantaloupe. Crippen said he's been impressed by watching chefs work their magic with the day's selection – which, while varied, have not been as bizarre as some previous challenges.

“One of the weirdest things to come out of these was Battle Beef, where you had to use the entire cow,” he recalled. “One of the chefs made a beef tongue bread pudding, which he smartly disguised as ‘Lingua Bread Pudding.’ It wound up getting the highest marks and won the competition for him.”

While Crippen himself has never competed in any of the events, even when they were based in his kitchen, he clearly relishes his role in choreographing the contests.

“I feel like Gene Kelly with an umbrella doing Singin’ in the Rain,” he said. “There’s all the insanity around you, but it’s so much fun you just want to dance with it.”