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Eventful Encounters
36 Plays1 year ago
Leanne and Tanita meet Graham Tinsley MBE from Carden Park to talk all things nutrition and catering in events.
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Transcript
Meet the Hosts and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to our first ever episode of Eventful Encounters powered by the Eastside Rooms. I'm Tanita. I'm Leanne, and today we've got our executive head chef from... Cardam Park? From Cardam Park, Graham Tinsley. So Graham and I used to work together when I was... Not a year ago. A really long time ago. I think I realised it was seven years ago. Yes, about seven. Seven years ago that I left now, so quite a long time ago. Seems like two minutes you left now.
00:00:30
Speaker
getting rid of me though. But we thought, you know, when I was here at Card and obviously we worked quite closely together, your knowledge of the food industry and all of the extra things you do outside of your day-to-day role, which I think you need to tell us about, we thought you'd be a great first guest to kind of help us explain how nutrition works within the event industry and also the benefits of that. So do you want to tell everybody what you've been up to for the past few years?
Graham's Dual Culinary Roles
00:00:58
Speaker
Ooh, well, let me think. Well, I wear two hats. The first hat is Executive Chef at Cardin Park. I look after eight kitchens on the resort. We do a lot of functions. We've got a fine dining restaurant, a big burrata restaurant, a spa.
00:01:17
Speaker
which we, I'll see for a little walk later. But my second hat is I'm culinary director for the Welsh Coloring Association. So what that means is I look after the competition ships, so I look after the junior team and the senior team and any individuals that compete in competitions, not just in Wales and the UK,
00:01:41
Speaker
but also around the globe. At this present time in the moment, the Curry Olympics is going on. Oh, I know all about these. You're talking about these. Yes, you know all about that. But I've got a young boy who's just won his heat for Northern Europe. And now he goes to represent Wales in Singapore. Nice word, Danis. In October.
00:02:06
Speaker
So that should be good because yes, my son lives in Singapore, so it's like a free trip to go and see him and obviously support Sean as well. Yeah, I know that sounds quite amazing. So we've been reading lots about how the brain works with nutrition and how actually when you're at a conference or an event, you know, the breaks that you have are paramount to your performance and the delegates' performance.
Nutrition and Brain Function
00:02:31
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
00:02:33
Speaker
The most important part of a conference, and you'll know more than me, is the afternoon session, isn't it? Absolutely. When you start getting a dip. I think we had a little chat before and we were talking about brain and the way the brain functions in composable.
00:02:48
Speaker
If you want to get to the very, very beginning, it's all about the gut. So gut health is probably the most important thing. And I've got first-hand experience with that because my wife has Crohn's and she only developed Crohn's in her 40s.
00:03:06
Speaker
which is quite unusual because normally close diseases is yeah it's like a maybe a teenager or a child thing that you get it and it's a disorder of the bowel yeah and it can be really well they call it they call it a disease it can be really really disability just to celebrate the debilitating when she was first diagnosed we had no clue what was going on yeah obviously she went for all the tests and she was really really poorly
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah. And when they diagnosed her with Crohn's, they got her almost on the mend and they sent her out of hospital with a diet sheet. I couldn't believe the diet sheet they'd actually given her. All they told her to do was eat, stodge and put on weight. You're joking. And I just ripped it up through in the bin and I started researching into what sort of things she needed to eat.
Gut-Brain Connection Explained
00:04:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker
and to get the vitamins back into her to help her on the wait.
00:04:09
Speaker
You've got to be very, very careful with certain things that's with Crohn's and colitis, the two different things, but basically all to do with the guts and the bowel. And the bowel actually starts, the digestive tract actually starts from when you swallow food all the way to the end. So you've got to be careful all the way through. Through the process. You don't really think about that, do you? No, definitely not. Now, when we start talking about
00:04:36
Speaker
brain food and what activates the brain, it's actually the cells within the stomach and the gut that are talking to the brain all the time. So, for instance, if you get a craving for something, your craving starts in the brain. But it's not the brain. For instance, mostly it's sweet things. Yeah, that's what we always go for. So everybody wants a piece of chocolate, everybody wants a sticky bun or a donut or something like that.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's not, it's the brain that's telling you that you want that sort of stuff, but it's the stomach that's actually receiving it. So once you've ingested that food, then the stomach then tells the brain, I've had it now. That's it. So actually talking to each other all the time. It's interesting, isn't it? Because you don't always think about the gut, you know, that's constantly communicating with the brain and how important that is.
00:05:35
Speaker
to function, you know, because we all say that you get that afternoon slump and actually that's what we want to avoid, given delegates. I mean, we always go for a healthy chocolate bar, by that we mean a crunchy. Yeah. But that's probably what we should be avoiding, isn't it, Graham? Yeah.
Nutritional Tips for Events
00:05:50
Speaker
Well, yeah, what you want to be, you want to be lucky that, um, low-cab, oh, sorry about that. He's playing with his glasses. I'm playing with my glasses.
00:06:00
Speaker
You want to be looking at low-release carbohydrates, things that take a long time to go through your system. So the quick fix is not what you really want, especially in the afternoon. You want to be looking for
00:06:17
Speaker
energy bars, any energy drinks. But when I'm talking about energy drinks, I'm not talking about these, these drinks that sponsor all the sports. You know, you're looking at like a matcha green tea drink or a kombucha. Kombucha is quite fashionable these days. Do you know what kombucha is? Basically, it's a fermented tea and you can make it yourself. So have you ever made sourdough?
00:06:46
Speaker
In lockdown everybody made sourdough. In lockdown everybody made sourdough is one of those go-to things. Well kombucha is a little bit along the same way as making sourdough as you need a starter.
00:07:03
Speaker
If you're making a sourdough, you have a sourdough starter, which you use to start off your first loaf, and then you keep them there. And then it keeps going in. And then it keeps going in. And I have a starter. I had it for about eight years. Oh, my God. I sit Toba in the boot of my car. I've made a mouth. So we had to throw that away. But a kombucha is made with a scoby.
00:07:22
Speaker
What's a SCOBY? So a SCOBY stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria yeast. Oh, there's a bacteria, like a live bacteria. Yeah, so it actually gets it going and gets the kombucha going. And you can buy the SCOBY on the internet, you can buy in the health food shop. So if you've got a friend, like with sourdough, you can pinch a bit of their starter and you can start it off. And the thing with kombucha is you can start experimenting with different flavors. Yeah.
00:07:51
Speaker
Another big thing, which is good for the gut, and also if it's good for the gut, it's sending signals to the brain, is fermented products. Right, okay. But it has to be a true fermented product. Like sauerkraut and stuff like that. Well, sauerkraut is a great example, but with some sauerkrauts,
00:08:14
Speaker
So, back to the life of the events industry Graham just had to take a quick break then from us because you had an unannounced visit which was, you know, not the EHL. I've left her in the capable hands of my senior sous-chef. She could walk around.
Fermented Foods for Gut Health
00:08:33
Speaker
Very good. Well, we know that you've got everything in a fine working order so it should all be good. So jumping back to where we were,
00:08:40
Speaker
We were talking about fermented products and I was asking, is sauerkraut something that we could perhaps look at? Sauerkraut is a wonderful example. It's probably one of the easiest fermented products you can make. It's just one ingredient. Is it cabbage? With white cabbage and a little bit of salt. And that's it. And all you do is shred it.
00:09:02
Speaker
and then mash it a little bit so put your salt on and just mash it with your hands put it in a jar put a heavy weight on the top and then leave it probably for about seven to ten days and that's it in an ambient place not too warm not too cold and just let it just let it ferment and then you just just eat bits of it it's lovely and a little bit of fermented product if
00:09:29
Speaker
If you're going to start eating fermented, fermented products, then introduce it into your diet gradually. Don't go all seeing the old way. That's what a lot of people eat. Just eat everything fermented because that will give you a little bit of upset stuff. So introduce it and let it, let it work.
00:09:53
Speaker
on feeding the good bacteria in your gut. Like we said before, your gut talks to your brain. Okay, so when you feed endorphins and all sorts of things, so your gut is telling your brain that you're happy because you've got all your chocolate bags. Yeah, but then you slump, and then we slump, and then we're like, what next? So the idea is, because you guys are in the events industries, is to keep
00:10:22
Speaker
your delegates awake all the way through the afternoon. So you don't want to be giving them those chocolate cookies in the afternoon with a cup of coffee. So you want to be introducing some nice cereal bars beside the kombucha or the matcha
Catering to Dietary Preferences
00:10:36
Speaker
green seed, the nice energy drinks. Yeah, but a more natural. That leads us perfectly to our next topic. If you were an event open as a grim, what would you say is the perfect delegate luncheon set?
00:10:48
Speaker
Again, we need slow release carbohydrates. So we've got to be looking at things like seeds, nuts, bananas, quinoa, oats, anything like that. What we don't want to be doing is on your on your on your on your buffet in the afternoon.
00:11:11
Speaker
is things like lasagna and garlic bread. You know it might be lovely straight away but it's short-lived. You know you want something that is going to be keeping you awake all the way through the afternoon. Powering the brain. Yeah. Sounds good definitely. How do you cater to diverse dietary preferences and restrictions especially when everyone's a vegan or vegetarian or got
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, I've been in this industry a long time. Yeah. I think when I first started off, if you've got a vegetarian, then it was not the norm. Wow, okay. Now, now we've got everything. Yeah. And we, we like to case it for those as well. So we, you'll find that only do we put a V or a VE or a G,
00:12:06
Speaker
GF on the menu. There are so many. We have separate menus as well. So we create our separate menus. So we'll have the Redmond, say for instance, the Redmond menu, which is our brasserie. So we'll have the main menu and then we'll have a gluten-free menu so we can have their own menu and we'll have a vegan menu and a vegetarian menu and we'll have a halal menu as well now. Wow, okay. Yes, we try to cater for everybody. One thing that's
00:12:33
Speaker
came up this week when I was doing the function shoots was something I'd never come across before. So in the 40 odd years that I've been a chef, I've never ever had a buffet phobia. A buffet phobia? Yeah. This is definitely something new. Yeah, it's a new one for me. I've never ever come... It's funny because I was out with some friends yesterday and I mentioned this to them and said, oh, that's me, that. Really? I can't go to a hotel that has a buffet
00:13:02
Speaker
and up to the buffet. I have to find an ala carte restaurant. Oh wow! So it's a true thing. So how did you overcome that issue for that food? So don't ask when she comes to the buffet, ask her what she wants and just plate the food.
Managing Allergies in Catering
00:13:19
Speaker
So vegetarianism is a personal choice that allergens can kill as we know. How do you deal with those two separately?
00:13:26
Speaker
As far as our allergies? Yeah. Well, we have to be very, very careful. Yeah. Every menu that we do, as soon as we've done the menu, then we have to fill in our allergy forms. Is that like the matrix or something? Yeah, so we've got the 14 allergens across the top. All the dishes will be on the left hand side and then we'll go through every single dish and we'll tick out what allergens are. The chef who's actually ticked them all off. Yeah.
00:13:56
Speaker
compile the allergy form, he will sign it and date it. And then a copy of that will be given to the assistant managers to keep behind reception. And also a copy will be given to the restaurant manager to keep behind their desk as well. Wow. Because it is super serious because my daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease last year and I was just going to celiac for a year. And we talk about it all the time, don't we? We need to now go into a restaurant and say, wow, you know,
00:14:23
Speaker
I've looked, I went to whichever restaurant it was, and there was such limited choice as a gluten, you know, somebody was seeing the activeease that has a gluten-free menu. And same, we went out at the weekend and I was saying to you, we went to a restaurant and she had one choice of a meal. So it's nice as a venue, you know, that you're offering them lots of choices as well. Lots of dishes can be adapted and that's what we say, you know. So for instance, if you've got fish and chips, then we use gluten-free flour. So it doesn't spoil the dish at all.
00:14:51
Speaker
And little garnishes can be moved across from dish to dish. So what you've got to be very careful is if you start buying in produce with hidden gluten. All across contamination. Yeah. That's not so much, unless it's nuts. Yeah. That's the big thing, especially if it's herbal nuts. But you'll find gluten hidden in so many different things like soy sauce. Yeah. So you have to be very careful there.
00:15:21
Speaker
I was reading all about this. I think I told you the products that it's in like bonding. Yeah. Random things you wouldn't even think all the time. It's crazy. Yeah, it is definitely. No, so that's good to know that you're kind of catering for as many people as possible. So just to summarise, what would you say are the key takeaways about the impact of nutrition on the brain during
Nutrition's Role in Event Planning
00:15:43
Speaker
events? So what would you say, you know, if you were
00:15:46
Speaker
speaking to an event organizer and you thought, right, okay, you know, as an executive head chef with lots of experience, it's catered events cooked for royalty as well. You didn't get that in earlier, but you have cooked for royalty on numerous occasions. You know, what would be your good to advise for them? Well, how many times have you liaised with the kitchen over what they're going to give the delegates for lunch? Have you just left it up to the chef?
00:16:10
Speaker
It depends. Obviously, you know, I think that depends on the relationship with us in the kitchen. So when I was here, obviously, I talked to you quite often about I've got this delegate coming in or this
00:16:21
Speaker
conference and you know what they're expecting. So maybe it's not you, maybe it's the conference organisers as well. They need to be more specific and we get it more and more like this week at Cardin we've got a couple of functions on and they've specifically asked
00:16:42
Speaker
for things for their breaks. Now normally we just dance for lunch. And of course we give Danish in the morning and morning goods, little muffins and things in the afternoon. We'll probably give them, like I say, we'll probably give them a cookie because that is the motivation.
00:17:00
Speaker
When the event organiser specifically knows what they want for their delegates, they might want snack boxes in the afternoon. Like I said, the energy drinks, the bananas, the nut bars and stuff like that, a handful of them. How many times have you gone to a conference and we've got mint imperials in the middle of the table? Why carry out some macadamia nuts? Something like that. Which is much better for you by your name, thank you.
00:17:28
Speaker
Bye Graham, well thank you for joining us. You're welcome. It's been great to have you as our first guest. Yes, thank you. And thanks for the insight on food and you know how, I think we'll look at things differently now, won't we as well? We'll avoid that healthy chocolate bar. We'll avoid the healthy chocolate bar and we'll definitely be getting some fermented goods. Think about the goods. Think about the goods. And it goes up.
Preview and Social Media Shoutout
00:17:48
Speaker
So please join us for our next episode which will be on AI in the events industry and that will be coming to you live on the 29th of March I believe. Yeah sounds about right towards the end of the month. Thank you for joining us and to keep up to date with all things eventful encounters and Eastside Rooms via Eastside Rooms on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Thank you. Thank you so much Graham. You're welcome.