Stopping By: Feeding the needs
Mirth often boils over as she goes about her work, which she takes very seriously: as culinary manager at Willamette Valley Medical Center, she is responsible for food to fit different diets for patients with a variety of specialized needs.
She also oversees the Wine Country Cafe, which serves about 200 meals on weekdays to hospital staff members and visitors.
She makes some of the cafe’s food, usually salads and desserts — a pasta and vegetable salad along with giant chocolate chip cookies on a recent day — while Chef Jared Stewart and the staff of about a dozen prepare other dishes designed to please the palate and provide nutrition along with a few indulgent treats.
She’s happy to help with cooking in any way she can, almost.
“With a lot of desserts, you have to make it pretty. That can be tedious. But cookies … I like that.”
Besides, she said, cookies are important. “Sometimes you just need a cookie.”
Her favorite dessert to make is a key lime bundt cake, which she has created for numerous fundraisers.
But what’s her favorite thing to do in the kitchen? “The dishes,” she said. “But not my own dishes at home.”
Edie grew up the youngest daughter of a preacher and a librarian. “I hated reading, so Mom told me stories,” she said. As a result, “my imagination is wild.”
“My parents gave me the gift of an open mind and open spirit,” she said. “I embrace change. I love it!”
She and her four siblings lived in several places around the U.S., a pattern she would continue as an adult. She particularly enjoyed Alaska. “It’s so beautiful and I like the cold,” she said.
She enjoyed cooking and baking with her two daughters, Kate and Laney, when they were growing up.
When they were little, she said, she baked two rabbit-shaped cakes on Easter and allowed the girls to decorate their own. On Easter morning, they would rush to the kitchen to see which confection the Easter bunny ate the most of. Usually it was just about equal, said Edie, who enjoyed a few bites of each during the night.
She worked as a floral designer, became a butcher and ran a restaurant before deciding to seek a different kind of culinary career.
“I prayed and prayed about what to do,” she said, remembering how overstressed she was then. “I heard a voice say ‘nursing home administration.’”
She enrolled in the University of California-Davis the same day to study health care administration. She became a certified dietary manager — not a dietitian, but a culinary expert who understands food safety and working with the directions a dietitian orders for patients with restricted diets.
She joined HHS, or Hospital Housekeeping Services, a company that supplies culinary professionals and other non-medical staff to hospitals, retirement centers, colleges and other institutions.
She became a traveling manager for the company and worked at several different hospitals.
“It was fun. I worked all over and met all kinds of people,” she said.
Every hospital was different, she said, but they all had something in common: They offered the care people needed. “And the care my soul needed,” she said.
Edie was in Nebraska when she heard about the job in the McMinnville hospital. She moved in July with her beagle/dachshund mix, Beanie.
She is happily becoming acquainted with her new home, although she hasn’t spent much time doing that yet. She’s eager to explore more local activities, such as attending the farmers market or, this weekend, catching the air show from the hospital parking lot.
“When I came here and heard about the UFO Festival, I knew I belonged,” she said.
In the meantime, Edie said, getting to know a new job takes time and dedication.
She arrives at 6 a.m. weekdays and 5:30 a.m. on weekends, when the staff is smaller. She ensures everything is running smoothly and meets with the chef to strategize for the day.
“How can we make this a great day? Who needs what to do their job better?” she asks.
A good day “is people being happy and working together,” she said. “Even if everything is not smooth, it can still be a great day.”
As a certified dietary manager, Edie orders food, oversees the staff and ensures compliance with state and federal regulations.
She also is responsible for regulating meals for patients with certain medical conditions — renal problems, for instance, or diabetes, gluten intolerance or difficulty in swallowing.
That can be difficult, she said. “Patients don’t like to listen to their doctor” in many cases, she said, so they ask for forbidden foods. And occasionally a caregiver won’t understand the importance of sticking to a specialized diet; “They just want to make people happy.”
She and her staff take orders, within the confines of their restrictions, and deliver the food trays. It can be a thankless job. “We have to be the bad guys,” she said.
But she’s also mindful of customer service. “If something is wrong, I tell them we’ll fix it right now. I smile. Customer service is everything,” she said.
She also considers how her meals complement overall care to improve patients’ health.
She understands complaints about the food are not personal. People can be grumpy when they are sick or upset that food looks bland or doesn’t taste like it used to or is boring because it’s not varied.
“We use a lot of garnishes” to make things look more appealing, she said,
Patients are complimentary, too. Recently, one returned to say thanks after recovering from serious heart and liver problems, said WVMC Marketing Director Cyndi Leinassar. “He raved about the dietary staff,” she said.
There’s a set menu each day for the majority of patients who don’t have special dietary needs. Chicken marsala and rice pilaf, for instance. Edie might serve a version with plain roasted chicken breast and white rice for some patients, or substitute vegetables for the rice for those who need a low-carb diet.
“Everyone deserves to have what’s on the menu,” she said; it just might be in a slightly different form.
WVMC food service feeds about 36 patients or more three meals a day.
She said she is especially passionate about serving elderly patients. “Whatever they need, they’re gonna get,” she said. “I think of patients as my grandparents. I used to say, ‘If I do this right, my own mom and dad will get the care they deserve.”
In the cafe, two entrées, two starches and two vegetables are served daily — tacos, chicken thighs, refried beans and corn casserole were among the selections one day.
There’s also a daily soup, a salad bar and snacks or appetizers, plus freshly prepared sandwiches. The thrice-weekly “Chef’s Table” lets diners watch the WVMC chef prepare an entrée on the spot — taco salad, for instance, or chicken Alfredo.
Candy bars, cookies and other treats are available, along with a daily dessert special and an assortment of beverages.
“I like to offer a diverse menu,” Edie said, adding she’s planning more vegetable options and some different hot items.
She also organizes special events at the cafe, such as a tailgate lunch on the day before the Oregon-Oregon State football game.
“I heard about it at a meeting and I thought they were talking about the real Civil War,” she said, laughing at how much she still has to learn about Oregon.
The Wine Country Cafe is open to the public weekdays from 7 to 10 a.m. for hot and cold breakfast items, then 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch. Edie hopes to hire more staff and increase the hours soon.
When it’s not open, the staff stocks a vending machine so people can buy fresh food.
Starla Pointer, who believes everyone has an interesting story to tell, has been writing the weekly “Stopping By” column since 1996. She’s always looking for suggestions. Contact her at 503-687-1263 or spointer@newsregister.com.
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