Recipe for recovery: Chef's food plays part in treatment at Ramona center
By: JOEL D. AMOS - For the North County Times
Rarely do chefs affect the lives of their diners once they leave the table. But with each meal served at the Pemarro rehabilitation center in Ramona, the care and nutrition provided by chef Wayne Moody are just as much a part of the recovery process as counseling and therapy.
Simple things such as using orange rinds in recipes instead of other stimulant-based sweets help maintain the healthy lifestyle born at Pemarro. Or using natural foods like carrots and blueberries, the latter for their cleansing powers. "They have so much antioxidants, fantastic for you," Moody said.
"What I do is alter these dishes using fresh vegetables and fruits as I can. The food still tastes incredible."
Moody has aided their clients' success on many levels, says Pemarro executive director Connie Collins.
"He has a real understanding of the people here and what they need," she said. "He has passion and gets to know the patients. He becomes as much a part of treatment as the rest of the team at Pemarro."
Pemarro is a residential treatment center offering care for a wide range of addictions as well as addiction-free chronic-pain management and support for loved ones. The 10-acre campus can handle up to 10 live-in patients and offers day treatment as well.
The Pemarro staff view a poor-eating lifestyle in some ways as another habit in need of education and enlightenment, said Collins. "People can fall to a food addiction after they stop using drugs or alcohol, so it is important for us to not only teach, but also to model healthy eating, and chef Moody does that in so many ways."
Embodying Pemarro's philosophy, Moody believes in nutrition serving equal roles in recovery: as counseling and support.
"It plays a very important role," said Collins. "But it's more about a healthy lifestyle."
Moody arrived at Pemarro four years ago, said Collins, and has made himself an invaluable asset to the recovery process. His kitchen produces food using only the freshest ingredients.
"What is great is to provide all the nourishments in food that you could need and want without caffeine or sugar and be totally satisfied," Collins said.
Candy and soda are banned at Pemarro; the diet is also without sodium and fats. By using foods that allow the body to get healthy, Moody is helping to heal. But in denying ingredients that introduce physical stimulants, the diet also plays a part in minimizing relapse.
Pemarro was founded in 1984 by Pete O'Leary, Mary Joyce Paullus and Ronald Wynn to respond to a need for rehabilitation centers to treat the relapse-prone. They chose to use the letters of each of their first names to create the center's name. Patients arrive by professional referral from all over the country. The center uses Gorski's Relapse Prevention Therapy and the 12-step approach, which includes daily Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
Patients often leave Pemarro with a virtual recipe box for the same cuisine they enjoyed in treatment to help continue their lifestyle changes. Many keep in touch to ask for more of chef Moody's recipes or to say thanks. "It's great, because these letters mean they are in good recovery," Moody said. "It shows that they continue to remember and model the food they ate."
One patient returned for outpatient treatment and told Moody, "I need your carrot soup recipe. I can't live without it."
Another patient recently sent a card to express gratitude for his Wayne's Morning Glory Muffins recipe and their healthy benefits. It reads, "Chef Wayne, every time I cook these muffins I think of you and how you have helped."
"These kids are great," said Moody of the patients. "They are like my children. And I so enjoy coming here every morning." At age 70, he sees Pemarro's patients and 16-member staff through the eyes of a grandfather. Even though residents are 18 or older, he said, "They are like my children. And I so enjoy coming here every morning."
Indeed, he said, he has too much purpose to retire. Moody says he adds a dimension to treatment that contributes to changing lives. "In this environment, it is like building houses," he said, "and I feel with each meal I put another brick in place."
Having been around culinary experts since his first position at a Jewish country club in his native Maine, Moody knew food was his life. Starting as a busboy, he worked his way up to club manager. "I loved their food and learned so much there," Moody said.
After 13 years at the club, he went into the restaurant business, opening two restaurants in the Bangor area. Whether managing, bartending or serving, he always landed on the line cooking, soaking in everything about the art of preparing food.
Once on the West Coast, Harrah's beckoned him to serve as supervising chef for the opening of their North County casino. After years with Harrah's, Moody's passion for food has found a home. "For me, it's about cooking good food for people who honestly haven't eaten well while they were using," he said. Now, he works with clients to better understand the role that eating plays in recovery.
For any staffer at a treatment center, to be able to help heal souls by starting with what people eat is priceless. For Moody, this experience is especially personal: He is a recovering alcoholic.
"I really know the challenges they are going through," he said. "I just want to help."
The therapeutic setting also serves as a constant reminder of how far he has come. "Sometimes I think, 'Wow, I do not want to go through that again.'"
He could have retired when he left Harrah's, he said, but when the work involves helping people who share his demons, closing his kitchen is not an option. "This is such a great way to give back. It is a great feeling. The best feeling in the world," he said.
At Pemarro, each meal is an opportunity to have fun, he said. Take that day's lunch of tomato soup. There is nothing Campbell's about this traditional delight. "I used real Roma tomatoes," said Moody. Dinner that night was fresh salmon, complete with an almond crust. "I put a lot of almonds in food," Moody said. "They are very nutritious.
"We're not gourmet by any means. It is really about getting people to eat things they normally wouldn't."
Collins and her team are optimistic about leading their residents to good health. "Chef Wayne helps people understand how the food is good for them and what the body does with it," she said.
The chef has help each day. The 10 residents take turns with kitchen chores, which result in moments he treasures ---- opportunities to delve into the wellness of what they just ate, to promote lifelong nutrition lessons, and to mentor them just a bit.
From the importance of a clean kitchen to staying clean, lessons he's learned on his own recovery path and even a few conversations about cooking, mentoring opportunities arise each day for Moody. "Just tonight, they wanted to know everything that went into this Moroccan Chicken dish," he said.
For Moody, that is what makes Pemarro so special. "It's a chance to meet a lot of neat people from everywhere who keep in touch with me," he said of the center's residents. "There's a lot of peer pressure out there, and what we do, hopefully, is fix people and help them fix themselves.
"You get attached to them. You can't help it," he said. "When they leave, you miss them. But new people arrive, and you get to start all over again."
Collins sees Moody's contribution as unique. "You can hire a cook, and you can even hire a chef, but to have someone like Chef Wayne is so much more than that," she said. "There is someone who cares, and he definitely puts love in his food."
Moody is all too eager to return the compliments to Pemarro's staff. "Everybody's here not because it is a job, but because they love it. It is just a phenomenal team," he said. "We all pull for each other because we are all here to help. I have never had so much fun in my life."
-- Joel D. Amos is a freelance writer.
