Meet CTCA in suburban Phoenix Executive Chef Frank Caputo

April 29, 9:58 PMOrganic Food ExaminerNatalie Rotunda

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Chef Caputo’s parents emigrated to America from Italy where they eventually owned a pizza shop in a small rural town. His grandparents had farmed the land in the old country to feed their family. These connections deeply rooted a young Frank Caputo to the world of food. In the pizza shop his mother still owns today, he worked shoulder to shoulder with his family, baking bread made into another specialty they offered customers, handmade sandwiches.

On October 1, 2008, Chef Caputo became the executive chef of the newest Cancer Treatment Centers of America facility, located in Goodyear, Arizona, near Phoenix. Since opening their doors on December 29, the hospital has treated nearly 300 patients having advanced and complex cancer. Chef Caputo is part of the integrated ‘mother care’ model responsible for providing delicious, highly nutritious foods to their patients.

Chef Caputo, tell us about yourself.
When I was graduating from high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t see that future for myself. I worked in an upscale restaurant outside of Pittsburgh. Then I went back to school, to the Culinary Institute of America, and that’s where I met Chef Jack Shoop [executive chef at the Philadelphia Cancer Treatment Centers of America]. Ten days from graduation, he was leaving and asked if I had a job, and if I didn’t, I could interview for a job with him in Cherry Hill, NJ. Since 1989, he and I have worked together in a number of settings.

For most of my career, I worked at high-end restaurants and golf clubs. Three years ago, I went out of the corporate world into a restaurant with friends I’ve known for 20 years. It was very, very successful. When the economy hit, we had to make severe cuts, and I was one of them. I was living in Florida at the time.

What brought you to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s newest facility?
Chef Shoop had already been working for CTCA. He asked if I was interested in getting in with CTCA, but, at the time, I said no. He said he respected my decision and wouldn’t try to talk me into it. Fifteen minutes after our phone conversation ended, I called him and told him I’d changed my mind. I don’t know what it was: I looked at my life and my career. I think the change I had in those 15 minutes was the exact decision I needed to make---change something of my career to help someone else. That is what we do here every single day, talk to patients, try to find out what it is they are after, what they need us to provide for them. I gravitate towards it. I really, really enjoy it. It makes everything we do worthwhile in helping people. When a patient comes in, it seems we have known each other for a long time.

For the time they are here, we try to make each patient happy---prepare a soup for them, or make something to eat that needs to be liquefied so they can have it, we do it all the time. We specifically make what their palate craves, and we prepare it in the form they can eat it in. It’s very challenging but very rewarding to have a patient eat.

When did your facility open?
We opened on 12/29/2008. My first day on the job was October 1. From then till December 27 we had to open this facility. That meant I had to develop all of the menus with the assistance of Sharon Day, Director of Nutrition. She’s also our registered dietitian. [Sharon Day is one of approximately 150 dietitians in the U.S. who are board certified in oncology nutrition.]

What is the size of your staff at present?
I have 12 on my staff---me, six cooks, and I have five cafeteria workers, and one dishwasher.

Are all of the foods you serve organic?
Our food is not 100% organic yet. Dairy is organic, that includes cheese. The meat, fish, and fowl are all organic. We use naturally-raised chickens, grassfed beef and seafood. Not 100% of the time. Sometimes there will be some seafood that is not wild caught. We limit the farmed fish, though. We’re in Arizona, and it’s a 12-month growing season, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we can grow everything we need all year. Sometimes I have to pull in things like produce from California. A majority are organic. I try to use as many homegrown growers as I can. The coffee we serve is 100% organic, and so are the juices. We don’t use a drop of wine in our cooking. Cranberry, cherry, pear, apple, papaya, carrots---all of those juices replace wine.

I understand that yours is the first all-digital cancer hospital in the country. Does that include the culinary department?
Yes, it does. The all-digital system was intimidating, at first. It’s a big challenge for a scratch cook to be that well organized to be able to put everything on the computer to eliminate all of the paperwork. Patients can actually order through the TV system, which has a whole database of foods. Say you order a grilled cheese sandwich or a tuna melt, the nutrition value all goes into the database for the menu item for every single patient. If a patient is on a restricted diet, the system prevents the patient from seeing the wrong menu items. We’re patient-centered, so if the patient wants something they shouldn’t have, we work with them.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your work at CTCA?
I can’t tell you enough of what we do here. We’re using every kind of grain and bean out there, things like quinoa and millet, wheat berries, vegetables like cauliflower, kale, Swiss chard, it’s important that we start putting better food into our bodies. The only way we can do that is to do it repetitively. So many times, we stop either because we lose interest, or the people we are serving lose interest, and we feel we’re up against the wall. Serving fresh food at its peak and introducing whole grains is what we are all about and finding vegetables with so much nutritional value. I thought I knew almost everything in food, but when I took this job, it was a challenge for me, and I thought what I knew wasn’t enough. Being in this environment and doing things for our patients’ needs has made a huge impression on me, and it has really opened up my world a hundredfold.

I was trained in classical French cuisine and that’s all about fat. It was a great start for me in my career because it taught me how to cook. The techniques are good and sound, but what we’re putting in our bodies was the problem. A lot of times we don’t get enough of what we should be eating. Just that thought alone sometimes turns people away. But here, if people turn away, we try to turn them back around. For instance, ninety percent of people don’t know what millet is. It’s high in iron, and it takes on whatever you put with it---peas, fruit. We transform food, we take it and make it highly nutritious foods. .