Chefs serve seniors tradition and community on Thanksgiving Day

ATLANTA -- A few days after Thanksgiving, in his second year as executive chef at Meals on Wheels Atlanta, Chris Kelly received a thank you letter and phone call from a woman who had received one of his carefully prepared turkey dinners.

Meals on Wheels Atlanta is a nonprofit organization funded primarily by private, foundation and corporate donations that delivers prepared meals to low income Fulton County adults over the age of 60 who are homebound and struggle to provide sustenance for themselves.

The woman was a new recipient of Meals on Wheels services. After waiting more than a year, she had just come off the organization’s 700-person waitlist to start receiving regularly delivered food. When she called Kelly, her adult children joined her.

“They called and told me this was the best Thanksgiving they had had in a long time,” said Kelly. “And it was because they really felt someone cared, and someone was there, and they really, really felt as though they weren’t alone for the first time in a long time. There was so much emotion on the phone. I had to drink water a couple of times just to keep it together.”

After the call, the family came to visit the organization’s northwest Midtown kitchen and thank Kelly in person.

“This was the first time she was going to have food on a consistent basis,” Kelly said. “They did not have to struggle. That was a moment I won’t forget. It is etched deeply into my heart.”

Before joining Meals on Wheels Atlanta in 2020, Kelly spent 11 years with Four Seasons resorts. He was mentored by renowned chefs and cooked in kitchens at first-class destinations in Vail, Colorado; San Francisco; Miami; and London. In March, just before the pandemic escalated, Kelly was reaching his culinary summit. He was in the running for the executive chef position at one of two Four Seasons restaurants.

“I had a couple interviews, and everything was going well,” Kelly remembered.

But something didn’t quite feel right. It was nagging at him. A fellow chef from the Four Seasons, Robert Gerstenecker, had been consulting for Meals on Wheels Atlanta and he planted the idea that Kelly might like to change tracks and come work for the nonprofit, which fills an important need.

According to 2023 statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 33% of Americans aged 65 and older have a disability, 28% live alone and 10% live below the poverty line. Older adults are at a higher risk of malnutrition due to decreased appetite and mobility issues. For 70% of Meals on Wheels Atlanta recipients, the nonprofit is their only source of food.

“I decided to listen to (Gerstenecker),” said Kelly. “Once I listened to him about what he was doing, I realized that I wanted something different.”

Kelly followed his gut, left the Four Seasons, took a pay cut and put on the Meals on Wheels Atlanta chef coat. At first, he was still a little uncertain.

“There was some trepidation,” he recalled. “Why am I here? Am I at the right place?,” he asked himself.

“But then Thanksgiving solidified my choice. It solidified the fact that I’m here doing something for someone else and for people who really need it.”

The week before Thanksgiving, Kelly transforms the Meals on Wheels Atlanta kitchen into a turkey-cooking machine.

“We cook 150 birds,” he said.

Inside the cavernous stainless steel commercial kitchen, Kelly brines turkeys for two days, steams them, then roasts them to ensure they maintain their juicy tenderness. He boils the bird carcasses and turkey necks to create a rich stock, then reduces it to make a savory gravy. Traditional accompaniments, such as bread stuffing with sage and green bean casserole, are paired with the turkey before the meal is packaged, picked up and delivered by volunteers.

In addition to preparing 1,500 packaged turkey dinners for Meals on Wheels Atlanta’s regular recipients, he also makes roughly 75 whole cooked turkeys and sides such as mac and cheese, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie as a fundraiser for the general public who can preorder their Thanksgiving meals for takeaway. (The deadline to preorder has passed.)

Equally vital to the operation are the volunteers like Jason Tucker, who has been delivering meals for the organization for 15 years.

“For many, the volunteer is the only person (recipients) see during the week,” he said. “So that closeness becomes very real. I had one gentleman who, at first, was kind of cold and over time we became friendly. He was near the end of his life and one morning he was really not doing well. He came out of his apartment and he said, ‘I knew you would be here. You are a true friend’ … he passed away not long after that.”

Operating from a 2,025-square-feet kitchen, which opened in July 2022 following a $4 million capital campaign, Meals on Wheels Atlanta serves 1,500 meals daily, but it has the capacity to serve 3,500. With a waiting list of 700 people and a rapidly growing clientele caused by the aging boomer generation, Kelly said he hopes to expand the nonprofit’s reach. There’s only one thing stopping him.

“It’s just money. There’s nothing else,” he said.

“It’s disheartening because this country and this city has so much to offer. And I don’t think sometimes our story always gets out there. Everyone pays attention to children, pets and a lot of other things. What they don’t know is the people who are seniors, who have given us so much, who have laid the way, we’ve kind of forgotten about them.”

In Buckhead, another commercial kitchen will be humming with activity Thanksgiving Day as a pair of chefs prepare dinner for the residents of Lenbrook, a not-for-profit luxury retirement community.

Executive Chef Antonio Nazario and Todd Clements, general manager of dining services, will likely be found in the kitchen by 1 a.m. turning up the ovens in preparation to roast 27 enormous turkeys.

Lenbrook — with its swanky chandeliers, grand piano, valet parking and botanical plant-filled courtyard — may serve a different demographic than those served by chef Kelly at Meals on Wheels Atlanta, but Nazario and Clements have a similar, heartfelt mission: to create community through food.

The community’s banquet-style feast brings together about 350 to 400 residents, many of whom have made the community at Lenbrook their family-of-choice. For those residents who plan to gather off site with friends or relatives, Lenbrook also prepares what they call the Home for the Holidays menu, which allows any of the roughly 550 residents to pick up full meals or à la carte items to bring to their celebrations.

“We turn through about 200 orders of just random side items and desserts,” said Clements.

Nazario grew up in Acapulco on the Pacific shore of Mexico eating dishes like paella with scallops and mussels for holidays. His American wife, of Irish heritage, first introduced him to turkey-day traditions. He was shocked when he first took a bite of yams, something he had known as a savory ingredient, to find the Americanized version was caramelized with marshmallows.

“They’re sweet,” he exclaimed.

Now Nazario, who has worked at Lenbrook since 2008, makes them almost the same way.

Being a chef is a dream realized for Nazario. When he came to the U.S. at age 19, he barely spoke English. He got a job washing dishes at a restaurant and idolized the chefs in their crisp white coats and tall chef toques.

“I just fell in love with those white hats,” he said. “I wasn’t allowed to touch one. And I kept asking the people, ‘Hey, how do I get to wear one of those?’ I swore to myself, ‘One day I will wear one.’”

Now he does. He has worked in several Atlanta-area restaurants, including Peasant Bistro, Fuego Spanish Grill and Rainwater Restaurant, and for the past 16 years has applied his passion for cooking to the retirement community.

Having lost his grandparents when he was just a child, Nazario said now he has many in the form of the residents at Lenbrook.

“They have adopted me as a grandson,” he said. “I didn’t get to have that experience growing up, but now I get to have it with them. It’s like one giant family.”

Clements’ career in health care centers and hospitals, combined with his experience as a country club chef, make him a natural fit at Lenbrook. Together he and Nazario tackle Thanksgiving service and help seniors connect over a luxe feast.

“The residents that live here, they’re extraordinary individuals,” said Clements. “They’ve done so many extraordinary things … They still have so much to teach … I get to really learn from them and they get to teach me what they’ve learned over their long, wonderful lives. I view it as an honor.”

It’s a sobering thought, but because of the age of their diners, all three chefs — Nazario, Clements and Kelly — recognize that in some cases they may be preparing someone’s last Thanksgiving meal.

“I don’t have to carry that burden on my shoulders,” Kelly said. “Because I realize that I’ve done everything I can to make this (Thanksgiving) as memorable as possible.”