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 until the next day. It was then reheated and served from steam tables. Other foods were either from canned or dried source and were made that day. Temperatures of refrigerators and steam tables were appropriate. One worker had several recent scars on her hands. We swabbed staff hands and took samples of leftover food, including turkey, for laboratory testing.
    Although we had a strong suspicion that we were working with a Staph outbreak, we were not very optimistic about our chances of actually proving this as the food had been reheated prior to serving. Although Staph enterotoxin is heat stable, our only method for testing involved isolation of the bacteria which were most likely killed by the reheating. Although isolation of toxigenic Staph from the hands of kitchen workers would support our hypothesis, it would not have been conclusive evidence.

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