EDIBLE: CHOMP's Chef Chambers leaves with tasty legacy.

One of the last acts Lance Chambers will complete as executive chef of Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula, before retiring this winter after nearly 45 years, is an educational one.

That makes poetic sense, because even as his legacy is about a number of powerful and progressive things – making food a fundamental part of a healing place and bringing restaurant-style food into an institutional setting, to name two biggies – it is about cultivating the talents of his team as much as anything else.

In fact, as he toiled in relative obscurity in the back at CHOMP for years, he was renown for coaching local sports at every level, from peewees to college. At one point he guided theSeaside High School basketball squad to the state championship game; the team photo sits on his desk.

Full disclosure: I was at that game at Arco Arena in Sacramento in 1992, and can still name the day’s starting lineup. In fact, Chambers would later teach me shooting drills I use 20 years later.

Director of Nutrition Services Janice Harrell goes further back, having worked with Chambers for 35 years.

“He took that same mentality of mentoring and coaching to our employees,” she says. “He developed so many from entry level to great places.”

Now locals can get in on the education with a unique – and more importantly, practical – healthy cooking demo called Cooking for Life. It happens today (Thursday, Jan. 21) and Thursday, Feb. 4, in the Family and Consumer Science Kitchen at MPC ($20, 625-4932 for more). He’ll take attendees through the preparation of authentic posole soup and classic fajitas in lean and flavorful ways while registered dietitians detail nutrition insights and other officials present food-handling techniques that prevent foodborne illness.

The best part: participants get to – yes – participate, breaking into groups to make the dishes.

As Chambers puts it: “I’ve been to a lot of demonstrations, from Cordon Bleu to National Restaurant Association shows, and all you’re involved in is watching the monitor. At the end they might have you taste it.”

He says this with a sugarcane cadence that references his upbringing in Florida, when his loves were art and sports, and leadership came naturally to the oldest of seven siblings.

The love for chef work came later. After visiting his retired father here and falling for the area himself, Chambers soon found himself gazing longingly at the cooks at Denny’s on Fremont in Seaside, while he scrubbed pots.

The rise from dishwasher to responsibility for about 1,200 meals daily, not counting catering or the hospital cafe, has its crazy moments. Those include Chambers teaching himself how to sculpt an eagle from a 300-pound block of ice in an afternoon. But the craziest has to be how much hospital food needed healing.

Chambers started by importing the cuisine he trained on at now-defunct Peninsula spots (like Lobster Grotto and Rustic Rooster) to CHOMP, including lobster Newberg, duck à l’orange and prime rib.

“He looked at food serving to patients and thought, ‘Why can’t I make it great? Why should hospital food have a bad reputation?’” Harrell says. “He became a trend setter.”

He took things a step further in other ways. He’d eat out and emulate recipes that fed his creativity and kept menus fresh. He’d stand on the tray line, studying plated food, arranging carrots, adding garnish. He’d mold butter and carve fruit.

“I never thought about it as hospital food, because I had never been in a hospital,” he says.

He’d source with local outlets like Earthbound Farm and Monterey Fish Company before organic and sustainable became buzzwords.

“Food is very much a part of a healing environment,” he says. “Good food is what makes people feel good.”

As nutritional guidelines evolved he developed low sodium and low fat recipes – and menus for what’s become a wide range of allergies. (“When I started here, we didn’t have as many diets as we do now.”) Now he deploys his creativity in new ways, though he has to wait a little longer to see how it counts out on protein, calories, fat, cholesterol and other measurements before it hits the menu.

His favorite reaction from patients – “Where it really matters,” he says – has become a familiar refrain: “This is not a hospital! It’s a restaurant.”

If that doesn’t keep him busy enough, there are the other two thirds of his duties: managing sourcing, food costs and supplies for special events, the popular staff cafeteria and the cafe.

The angels that stay bedside all night with loved ones have to eat too, after all. Then there are people who will come from off-property to eat at the Fountain Court Cafe, myself included, not the least because the chocolate-peanut butter milkshake beats any in the area.

Another benefit to his educational tendencies as eaters brace for his exit: He’ll leave the food service in well-trained hands. (A new chef has been hired but not announced.)

His last day is Feb. 18. Chambers and his catering ace, Dale Evans, already have his retirement meal all planned out, from the chicken in Bearnaise sauce to the Rosine’s double chocolate cake.

QUICKBITES

• Poke Lab (300-FISH) opens 11:30am Thursday, Jan. 21, on Alvarado in downtown Monterey. More on the blog, www.mcweekly.com/edible.
• Happy Girl Kitchen of Pacific Grove just earned a Good Food Award for its raspberry lemon jam.
• Butch Adams and Kailee Creamery are out of their American Tin Cannery space in P.G. According to Adams, it opens again in a year, in a yet-to-be-disclosed spot.
• The Dunes complex in Marina may have a plan for food approved next month. Get the lowdown on the blog.
• Italian night hits Tuesday, Jan. 26, at Gusto in Seaside: appetizers, choice of salads and pizza or pasta, a pick of lasagna, dessert, a glass of Prosecco and a limoncello with lots of singers and Old World music (6pm and 8pm, $55).
• A solid Taste It Thursday at Wharf Marketplace happens at 4:30-6:30pm Thursday, Jan. 21, with Heller Estate and Alvarado Street Brewing Company, which ages beers in Heller barrels.
• Kosher Style Lunch and Bake Sale for Temple Beth El Salinas will allow for 7,000 huge pastrami and corned beef sandwiches Thursday, Jan. 28, 9am until sold out ($12 includes cole slaw, dill pickle and church-made cake, 424-9151).
• Cool pop up with Carmel Belle and Monterey Museum of Arts at La Mirada ($90-$100) 6:30-9pm Tuesday, Jan. 26, with H & H fresh fish and Scheid Vineyards contributing. Move quickly; tickets should sell out.
• “Teas Around the World” benefit flows Sunday, Jan. 24, including hidden gem Cha-ya Tea and Things and Eddison & Melrose Tea Room ($49, 393-9479).
• Business is zipping along at Bright Coffee at 281 Lighthouse Ave. in Monterey, with chocolate chip rye cookies and espresso among the goodies flying now that Cafe Lumiere andBrandi Lamb have taken over.
• The Waste Management District hosts a free home composting workshop 10am Saturday, Jan. 23rd, at the Marina dump. www.mrwmd.org or 384-5313.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The first wealth is health.”