Silverado Southlake’s Director of Culinary Services, Dewey Gaither, is well known among residents and families for his skills in the kitchen. Recently his talents were put on a much bigger stage when he participated in a special cooking competition for assisted living chefs and won the title of Top Chef!
Hosted at the Colleyville Center by Assisted Living Locators MidCities DFW, the Tarrant County National Top Chef Competition is held to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Association. While in past years the competition has been a wider challenge pitting between three and five assisted living chefs against one another, this year was a throwdown between two prior winners. Having won the event in 2021, Chef Dewey was eager to test his skills one-on-one against the 2022 champ!
Competitors are given a list of instructions to follow regarding their dishes, and they are judged on how well they adhere to these given directions. Among those categories judged are taste, color (dishes should include purple for the Alzheimer’s Association) and presentation.
“My entrée was an organic chicken breast stuffed with smoked jalapeno and lime cream cheese, and purple asparagus wrapped with bacon, roasted and finished with a Dr. Pepper BBQ sauce that I made. I also prepared purple potato salad using purple potatoes and my vegetables, which were purple cabbage, purple asparagus and a variety of baby carrots. These were lightly sautéed in a 4 berry reduction sauce.
My vision was to have heat and sweet come together to hopefully pull off a delicious dish and then garnished with an edible orchid purple flower.”
Michael prepared not only a main course entrée you see above, but went above and beyond and made two appetizers for the judges and attendees to enjoy – smoked jalapeno and lime cream cheese in cucumber rounds with red pepper garnish and vegetable skewers with a balsamic reduction
After being crowned the 2023 Top Chef, the five judges revealed that Chef Dewey’s victory was unanimous and that they loved everything on their plates.
Food is such a major contributor to leading a good quality of life in memory care that it’s been a focus for Silverado since the company first began. The emphasis on food as a source of both nutrition and enjoyment is at the heart of our culinary philosophy, and something our teams strive for every day at every meal – breakfast, lunch, dinner and all of the snacks in between! Dewey exemplifies this in his day-to-day work at Silverado Southlake, sharing “My inspiration for that 12 years I’ve been at Silverado has been to provide Life to our residents and families with food. My team and I just love make our residents and families happy with food.”
Congratulations to Chef Dewey on his well-deserved victory. We are proud of you and thankful for your dedication to our residents and families!
