After my father developed dementia—after he couldn’t read, after he lost his table manners, after he started running his fingers through his hair as if haunted by an elusive thought—I started thinking about death sometimes Can it be a mercy. There are a lot of sad little moments: when he stuffs his glasses in his mouth, or takes out his hearing aids, or gets too excited to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. My dad was a lawyer and won a Supreme Court case, but when I told him, “Dad, you’re a lawyer!” he looked surprised and replied, “Really?”
At one point, he’d yell “Slivovitz,” the name of a plum gin I don’t remember ever drinking, and nearly crack up with laughter. Sometimes, when we both needed to smile, I would deadpan and say, “Hey, Dad. Slivowitz!” It worked every time. I imagined that the word contained a memory, perhaps something about his own father, though he could never say what it was, and, for some reason, it never occurred to me to give him a chance. A year after his death, I still occasionally chant “Slivowitz” in his memory.
Even when the details of my dad’s life slipped past him and his speech became more muddled or meaningless, he was always able to summon every lyric to his favorite old school tune – “Bikes Built for Two” , “Homage to Broadway” — and sang them on pitch. It’s like a magic trick: During “Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away,” he comes back—happy, calm, familiar—and probably stays that way for hours.
One bad day when he was ninety-five, I watched him tear his napkin into smaller and smaller pieces, moaning every now and then, “I want to go home! I want to go home!” I’m not sure Where is home, or when. These were not questions he could answer.
That night, I asked my older brother David in desperation, “How is his quality of life?”
David was silent for a while. “I see what you mean,” he said finally. “But one day, I brought him a hot dog and he loved it. He kept saying, ‘Well—Um! Boy this is good! He said with a smile. It was as if it brought him back into himself. “
I’m reminded of our conversation, earlier this summer, when I heard that playwright and actor Jake Broder, who recently starred in The Patient, was helped by the Global Brain Health Institute Organized a strange repeat meal. Conduct dementia research. Broad, a researcher at UCSF, the institute’s campus, would interview four people with mild to moderate cognitive impairment to sketch out a story about a food they remembered vividly. He’ll then work with Gloria Aguirre, the institute’s community engagement manager, to help them recreate the dishes. Finally, participants tell their stories to friends and staff as they share food. The larger goal of the dinner, Broad said, was to explore the power of food to trigger memory, improve quality of life and enhance neuroplasticity in ways that are difficult for drugs to achieve.
The day before the inaugural dinner, I visited the Adult Day Wellness Center in San Francisco’s Bayview Historic Black neighborhood, where the party would be held. In a nondescript room, about twenty-five regulars eat nutritious but uninspired meals from cardboard trays. However, preparations for tomorrow’s banquet have already begun in the back kitchen. A man named Michael, wearing a Darth Vader baseball cap because he looks a bit like actor James Earl Jones, is sitting in a wheelchair telling the story of pickling twenty-six Cornish pheasants. the right way. (It included Grand Marnier and lemon juice.) Broad and Aguirre were there, too, squeezing citrus and dusting with garlic powder to a crisp burst of “Yes, chef!”
Like many of the center’s clients, Michael was referred to the facility by his medical team, hoping it would deepen his connection to others and keep him from staying home. I was surprised to learn from the staff that before being invited to contribute to the dinner, Michael wasn’t particularly talkative, sometimes dozed off in his wheelchair, and never mentioned a career in restaurants. Now, he gushes about his father, a cook for the Southern Pacific Railroad who taught Michael his craft and “cooked for the President of the United States.” Michael couldn’t remember which president it might have been, but said his dad “was the only one who would cook for him – he wouldn’t let anyone!” Cornish hens will be tomorrow’s vegetable. The rest of the menu includes appetizers like potato salad, hot links and bisques. And lemon curd pie for dessert. (No one seems to choose vegetables for their Proust madeleines.)
Research shows that creative activities such as drawing or dancing can reduce anxiety, depression and irritability in people with dementia; by promoting the formation of new neural pathways, they may also help slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Musical memory, in particular, doesn’t seem to be linked to the brain regions first affected by dementia—which may be why my own father was able to sing even when he had trouble speaking. One intuitive thought is that a favorite food, something as simple as a hot dog, could animate in a similar way—perhaps activating dormant neurons, or providing a continuing bond to a person’s past.
Chewing gum as he worked as the sous chef, Broad excused himself from the kitchen to meet a diminutive woman with a pixie haircut. Miss Page introduced herself and chose lemon curd pie, recalling how her mother served her a piece of lemon curd pie and a tall glass of cold milk after school. She never got the recipe, but has been replicating it with the sister of a staff member at the center. “My favorite thing yesterday was,” Brod told her, “how you talk about that sweet feeling—not just the sweetness of the pie, but the sweetness of being loved when you eat the pie.”
“I was!” said Miss Page. “My parents gave me everything. I was a very picky kid.”
Broad told Miss Page that he would summarize her main points on notecards, the closest thing to a script at a dinner party. At first Miss Page resisted, wanting to freestyle, but with a gentle nudge she agreed. “My bottom line is I’m going to love that pie,” she said. “And me will Let me know how it tastes! “
By noon the next day, the center’s main room had been transformed: laminate tables covered with silver-flecked paper tablecloths, plastic cutlery rolled up in matching napkins, and plastic cups with silver rims. In place of the usual soul playlist — Al Green, James Brown, Tower of Power — the instrumental intro to The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” played on repeat, sparking anticipation. Four volunteers at the institute served the more than forty attendees (clients of the center, plus some researchers and clinicians) eager to free patients from the formality of a medical office.
When the dinner finally began, closer to lunch than dinner, Cheryl, who was in her early seventies, stood at the front to a standing ovation. Holding a notecard in hand, she looked radiant in sequined leggings, turquoise earrings and puffy sandals. In the heat of the moment, she forgot to mention what potato salad meant to her — her mom would stuff sandwiches with it on Sundays and eat it on the way to church — but she recalled what she and her late husband used to have BBQ pit, not far from where we sat. Hotlinks are a specialty of the company. She passed the recipe down to her son who owns a food truck, and he provided today’s batch.
The next dish, bisque, presented a problem: Laura, the lady who was supposed to introduce the dish, was nowhere to be seen. Broad had to get up and explain that, at the last minute, her brother took her to visit relatives in Sacramento. Instead, Broad played a video of him interviewing her on the screen. Laura, one of the few white women in the center, has gray hair and tortoiseshell glasses with dark circles around her eyes. In the video, she explains that gumbo is actually a recent memory: Her best friend at the center (whom she calls Niecey) introduced her to gumbo. It’s a special thing they love to share, until Nisi gets too sick to eat it. Laura gave up too, as a show of solidarity.
A bisque emerged, rich, spicy, and earthy, just about anyone could want. Then Chef Michael as he is now known yelled with excitement. He talked for a while about his father’s career and his own.
“A good meal is all about intimacy and love,” he said. “And I have a lot of love. Oh my God, I do.”
