“People eat with their eyes first.”
That’s what 34-year-old Esther Dominguez Salinas reminds herself as she pours berry coulis over a slice of angel food cake. She thinks of what a hospital patient, tired and hungry, might see when the plate goes upstairs to their room, and takes care to package the cake so it won’t get smushed.
Since February 2020 Dominguez Salinas has worked different stations in the cafeteria at Banner Health s University Medical Center in Phoenix, a hospital located at 12th Street and McDowell Road. She takes pride in her role, working on a team of more than 150 people who prepare more than 4,000 meals a day for patients and hospital staff during the coronavirus pandemic.