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Hospital Food

By Becky Karush
Original Vermont Observer

A gentleman waits in the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital lobby. He comes here often, though he has been neither patient nor visitor since his wife died last June.

During that long month, he came to know the hospital well, nurses and doctors, elevators and stairs. But he likes the northeast corner of the hospital’s basement best of all.

His guest arrives and he rises to greet her with a warm handshake and gratitude that she has come to learn about this favorite place. Come on, he says. I’ll show you the way.

This gentleman is not a hospital employee. He’s not a public relations hired gun. Ed Gehricke just wants everyone to know about BMH’s Maple View Café because it serves really, really good food.

“You can’t find food this good in a lot of restaurants,” Gehricke says as he turns the corner to the Café. “They have a weekly menu that’s fantastic, and this is in a hospital cafeteria!”

He points to the white board describing the day’s entrées and sides. Today features Chef Tom’s Chicken with Rice Pilaf, and Artichoke and Vegetable Quiche with Mixed Greens, plus Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup, a BLT Sandwich, and Egg Salad Sandwich.

He walks his guest past the coffee, past the salad bar, a pizza rack – “They make the best pizza here” – past the desserts, and into the kitchen, looking for Jamie Baribeau, director of Nutrition Services.

“Everyone works so hard here,” Gehricke says before he leaves his guest to talk with Baribeau. “People don’t know, this is open to the public. Doctors and nurses eat here, but so can anybody. I think people ought to know.”

If anyone knows how much care goes into Maple View Café meals, it’s Jamie Baribeau, who came to Nutrition Services in 1990.

“The hospital has a mix of employees, in a town that offers a whole variety of ethnic dishes,” he says. “We want to be energetic and creative, not your typical ‘hospital food.’”

To that end, Baribeau and his crew of thirty-five employees serve up Thai dishes and Indian entrées. They might follow a Russian theme, or eastern Asian foods, or celebrate the end of the month with a Mexican spread.

“The staff is excellent about trying new things,” Baribeau says. “We have a regular group of outsiders, too, every Friday, because we make the best clam chowder in Brattleboro.”

“And the best calamari,” chimes Barbara Gentry, director of Community Relations, who joins Baribeau at the long, simple speckled gray table. “And I had the crab cakes last week, and …”

The two trade favorite dishes while, behind them, bright and bare maple trees fill the wide north windows.

“We have an annual cassoulet festival, which is based around an ancient dish from the south of France,” Baribeau adds. “It takes us three days to prepare. A hundred people came to that one.”

Baribeau has cultivated a staff that takes pride in its work, from chief dietician Peg Canal-Wittler to culinary student apprentices to the high school students who work as tray handlers.

“We don’t have much turnover,” he says. “Some have been on the team for as long as I have. The high school students often stay on through college, working summers and vacations.”

That pride and commitment shows up in the clean, cheery surfaces of the Café down to the kitchen’s very ingredients.

“All the food is made from scratch,” Baribeau points out, explaining that the popular calamari is hand cut and hand breaded. “We get some products locally, and some organic. For fried foods, we fry everything in 100% trans fat-free oil; we’ve been doing that for a year and a half now.

“We’re joining the Vermont Farm Fresh Network this spring, too, so we’ll get local produce spring, summer, and fall. We are moving toward using more whole grains. And we were the first hospital in the State to serve Vermont-made hot cereal with the highest dietary fiber content on the market.”

Food-wise, Nutrition Services is meeting its goal of providing tasty, heart healthy meals at a low price (an entrée costs about $4). It’s the spirit behind the food, though, that earns the department its love.

Workers deliver patient meals with friendliness and accommodation. Nutrition specialists give regular public seminars on healthy eating. The baker makes fresh bread for a muffoletta sandwich entrée, a Sicilian-by-way-of-New Orleans delight. On the north wall a vibrant mural depicts the four seasons of a maple tree.

Most of all, the Maple View Café is one part of a larger community devoted to care, and because everyone eats, the Café cares for everyone — patients, family, hospital staff, contractors working on building renovation, drop-in visitors. This is the ethic that results in letters from local people and traveling nurses from around the country saying that Brattleboro Memorial Hospital gave them the best food and care.

Ed Gehricke wants even more people to enjoy Maple View Café’s thoughtful, accessible delicacies.

“I’m so happy that it’ll get some more exposure,” he says. “They work so hard. For a person who cooks for one, like me, it’s nice to have a place to come to where the food is so good.”

Gehricke waves goodbye, his tall and steady figure navigating the basement hallways with ease. Whatever’s on the menu, he’ll be here again. He hopes you will, too.

The Maple View Café is open from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. for snacks and beverages. Meals are served Monday through Friday from 6:30 to 9:15 a.m. (breakfast), 11:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. (lunch), and 4:30 to 6 p.m. (dinner). For directions and more information, call Brattleboro Memorial Hospital at 257-0341, or visit www.bmhvt.org for special Café events.