The Lunch Program: A 3 Part Series

October 15, 2021

Academics

GNS

With over 25 years in the cuisine industry working in places as famous as Chateau Lake Louise and big hotels in Vancouver to even owning his own restaurants, Chef Matt Macdonald is ready to take on the challenge of running his first school lunch program cooking for the hungry students and staff at GNS!

“Each location in food services is different than the other one, so doing hotels or doing camps up north, or having your own business or having a catering company, or working in fine dining, each one is a little bit different,” replies Chef Macdonald when asked how running a lunch program compares to other places he has worked. “The difference is learning the new challenges. Here at GNS, I’m trying to understand what you, the students, would like to eat.”.

Not only does he have to prepare and cook for students and staff at Pemberton Woods Campus, he also has to manage food services for two other GNS locations.

“I’m kinda excited with the idea of the challenges of doing a lunch program for this school…and the idea of three campuses. When you think about it, there’s Gryphon House, Beach Drive Campus, and here, at PW, so it’s trying to make sure that the food’s going to all locations. There lies the challenges, but challenges excite me,” he said.

Outside of the Pemberton Woods Campus kitchen, Chef Matt shares his experience and love of cuisine.

“I love international food. I love international street food. I love fish. I spent my life studying different styles. Right now I’m learning about foraging. Foraging is going into the forest and finding things from roots to berries to mosses that you can make food out of. I’m a big fan, but I’m constantly learning,” he explained.

As well as learning, Chef Macdonald is also observing the preferences and taking the input of the students to determine which favourite dishes would always be available, but also come up with new dishes to spark the interest of adventurous students.

“What I’m doing right now is absorbing and watching. So I’m going to see what moves and what doesn’t move, then I’ll try to come up with something better,” Chef said. “I want to keep it creative. In other words there’s gonna be favourites, always there, but I’d love to add excitement in the future by pulling in new things.”

Spoken like a true chef who finds inspiration from food, Chef Macdonald wraps up his interview with this comment.

“I always want to be trying new things to see if I can generate excitement,” he said.

In the spirit of sharing his love for food, Chef Matt has generously agreed to share a recipe, so make sure to look for it in next week’s article!