Food for Thought
Against the gleaming cherry-wood cabinets, Chef Jill Olson paused for a 3 o'clock break. To her left, a long, black granite counter offered coffee, a generous selection of Celestial Seasonings Teas, and a glass cake stand of oatmeal cookies Jill had prepared that morning. Behind her the cabinetry and steel appliances glowed beneath warm spotlights. Jill's short blond hair was disheveled and her eyes didn't focus on me, as if instead they were reading the list in her mind of what she needed to do next for dinner that night, or what she would be baking for tomorrow's breakfast. She wore a stylishly Bohemian apron of collaged textiles.
A personal chef to a grand private home in Manchester? No, Jill is the chef at The Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers. Along with baking daily treats for the visiting families, Jill prepares three meals a day for the patients who come there in their final days.
It is an environment of overwhelming grace and dignity, and Jill's contribution is only one piece. The building provides a beautiful stop on a difficult journey. The aesthetic — rich wood paneling with ochre walls, contemporary lighting and furniture, drapes that repeat the warm tones with both richness and style, give grief an architecture of respectful elegance that is completely enlightened. It says death is modern, present, and not without beauty. It says your sadness is your own private place, and yet we will give it a gracious dwelling for this one last moment.
Each of the 12 patient suites has an outdoor seating area that looks out onto a common garden, which on the day I visited showed heaving mounds of oriental grasses piled with snow and an occasional statuary: a seated girl looking young and contemplative, quiet but not sad. A recent visitor told me in the summer she saw families bring patients' dogs to visit in the garden.
The entrance foyer, with its welcoming field stone fireplace, is large enough for a family to meet and get their bearings, but not so large as to feel cavernous and imposing. There are plenty of quiet spaces with rows of chairs looking out into the garden, not set up tête-à -tête, because this is a place for inner thoughts, not long conversations. The house chapel is intimate, completely wood except for the sliding doors, leaf imagery pressed into the glass for opacity. Even the burnished cork flooring throughout the building had a slight give, as if to say we will do our best to make nothing hard here that doesn't have to be.
Olson, along with Ellen Nordquist, meets the patients' nutritional needs with seriously comforting foods. Breakfast is the most popular meal, and each morning they offer homemade pancakes, waffles, muffins or coffee cake, and bake all their own breads. Menus are not intended to be glamorous, but interesting and well prepared. Yes, they offer gelatin, but they make their own with all-natural fruit juices. Everything is homemade including the ubiquitous custard. Jill and Ellen always have fresh muffins available for families in the morning, and cookies in the afternoon. There is a refrigerator for families to keep items they've brought from home, as they are encouraged to bring in their own comforting dishes.
Each patient's nutritional needs and desires are assessed daily by the interdisciplinary team caring for them: a social worker, medical director, chaplain, nurse practitioner, certified hospice aide and even the Kaplan Family Hospice House manager rounds each day on a patient, assessing them, and educating the family on the patients' nutritional status, which is changeable.
As everyone knows, so much of life's fundamentals reflect in the way we eat; So, for even the weakest patients, when there is so little they can still control, holding a menu and selecting one's dinner is a deeply meaningful gesture. Portions are diminutive. Kaplan House purchased small, white porcelain dishes from Lula's Pantry in Rockport — custard cups and salts really — in which to serve a petite helping of macaroni and cheese or a tea-sized, grilled cheese sandwich. The small portions allow better digestion for a weakening system but the accomplishment of finishing a full meal, however dainty, can mean everything to a dying patient. And a family, who sometimes believe that not eating signals not living anymore, may take some comfort in the cleaned dishes.
Like any home, the kitchen at Kaplan House is its heart and the place to go when you don't know what else to do. That was apparent the day I visited. A family of three generations were gathered there with teenagers slouched in arm chairs and adults repeatedly helping themselves to tea and cookies at the counter. No one was talking; people were just assembled together, being together. It was 3 in the afternoon, and they all seemed tired.
The Kaplan House sees about 600 admissions a year. It is also a center for grief and healing, and follows families for 13 months after their loss, making sure to be there for them at the anniversary. Not everyone comes to die at Kaplan House. It is also a center for complex pain management. With 12 beds, Kaplan House offers hospice care to forty-seven towns north of Boston, and is the largest hospice in Massachusetts. A new wing of eight beds is scheduled to open in early May.
It is a special place, and the power of it is evident as soon as you cross the threshold. It is a place in which life's lessons are suddenly condensed, in which not a day passes that is not cherished; triviality doesn't exist in any form. Jill Olson talks about the many lessons she's learned working there. She tells a story, and there must be many of them, of the man who, in his time at Kaplan House, went outside every single day to look at the sky. Inevitably, she would have to go out to ask him a question, probably about what he wanted for lunch, but that got her out in the garden, too. That was the lesson: everyday, no matter what, go outside and look at the sky.
Food for Thought runs weekly in the Times' Living section and is written by Heather Atwood, an author and mother from Rockport. Questions and comments can be sent to Heather at heatheraa@aol.com.
Cornmeal Shortbread Recipe
This is Jill Olson's recipe for Cornmeal Shortbread, a cookie she makes regularly for families visiting Kaplan Family Hospice House.
1 stick plus 2 tbs unsalted butter
1 C sugar
4 (large grade) egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
3âÑ4 C cornmeal
21âÑ4 to 21âÑ2 C all-purpose flour
Directions:
Cream butter and sugar.
Add yolks.
Add vanilla.
Add cornmeal and flour.
Mix until dough forms.
Using small scoop or tablespoon flatten onto slightly greased sheet pan.
Bake at 350 degree oven until lightly brown on the edges.
