Confessions of Joe Stanislaw

Joe Stanislaw, director of food and nutrition services at 265-bed Elliot Hospital in Manchester, N.H., wishes he had better knees and says no thanks to frying every food you can think of.

Q. What is the best part of your job?

The people.

Q. What is the worst part of your job?

The people.

Q. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

Teaching sixth and seventh graders how to cook and eat healthy snacks, then hearing from their parents that when they got home they were given shopping lists from their children.

Q. What is the most unusual foodservice/catering request you have ever received?

I did backstage parties for artists. When Alice Cooper performed they wanted a Hawaiian luau in their dressing room, including a pig on a spit.

Q. If you weren't in foodservice what would you be doing?

I would have liked to be a teacher.

Q. Which talent would you most like to have?

I would love to be able to play the saxophone.

Q. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would have better knees.

Q. What is your greatest fear?

Drowning.

Q. Which living person do you most admire?

My father.

Q. What will people always find in your refrigerator?

Beer.

Q. What food fad do you wish had never started?

Fried Twinkies, etc.

Q. What is the weirdest food you have ever eaten?

Pickled jellyfish.

Q. What do you consider to be the most overrated foodservice trend?

Giant portions.

Q. Read the book or see the movie?

See the movie, then read the book for details.

Q. Are you a morning or evening person?

An evening person, but only if I can sleep in the next day.

Q. What are your words to live by?

Making others happy is most rewarding.