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For those over 60, one of the hands-down best choices for lunch in the county is served weekdays by Martha’s Kitchen at the Pauline Valdivia Memorial Community Center in Hollister. Designed to be low-sugar, low-sodium and nutritionally balanced, you just can’t beat the cost: completely free.
And this is by no means cafeteria food; the 22 selections offered this last July included items like Chicken Cassoulet, Baked Fish with Chimichurri sauce, Meatball Stroganoff, BBQ Chicken Thighs, Beef Fajitas, and frequent diner Miria Evangelho’s favorite, Chicken Tortilla Soup.
“I have been coming here for six years,” Evangelho said. “The food is very good, the cooks are very nice, and I absolutely love that soup. I’m Portuguese, and we eat a lot of soup every day. That one is so delicious, but so is everything else they serve here.”
Besides the revolving daily menu, seniors can also partake in arts and crafts activities, join exercise classes, hear from guest speakers and play rousing games of bingo or lotería. And, if getting to the center is an obstacle, drivers from the Kitchen will deliver meals to seniors in their homes for the same low, low price.
Every weekday, Kat Sargent and a crew of three, including her trusty right-hand, Lonnie Derasin, prepare 50 to 60 lunches for those who come to the center and another 110 seniors who are housebound and without full-time caregivers.
Although the center’s doors do not open until 8 a.m., the crew shows up at 7 p.m., packing milk, juice and fruit in preparation for the day’s deliveries. Once they are allowed to enter the center, they pack the frozen meals they made the day before for delivery and make sandwiches for those on the list who requested them.
“Once they head out,” Sargent said, “we begin to prepare what we’re cooking today. It takes a little bit of doing because we don’t always have much time. Monday is the hardest because Martha’s Kitchen also serves food in San Juan Bautista that day.”
The meals for all three food services in a given day are identical and drawn from menus created by State dietitian Caren Dix, who allows Sargent and crew to make modifications every so often for variety’s sake.
“For instance,” Sargent said, “we can ask to switch things, like if we don’t want beef two days in a row. Or if the veterans want to come in and make a meal for the dining room. It just has to be low on the sodium and sugar, and she is adamant about the fruits and vegetables.”
What doesn’t change is the nutritional values of the meals.
“We ensure the food is healthy and senior-friendly,” said Martha’s Kitchen Executive Director Bill Lee. “We don’t salt the tar out of the food, for example, because people need renal-friendly diets. And it is free for seniors, because monetary status should not be an obstacle for people who need a healthy meal.”
(Non-seniors are invited as well, but are expected to pay a nominal fee.)
Dix’s meal notes for each day, tacked to the center’s refrigerator for reference, detail the nutritional balance and senior-sized portions. The Southwest Chicken Pasta Salad, which was served on July 31, is a good example.
The salad contains two oz. of chicken in one cup of pasta. It is served with half a cup of black bean squash salsa, one cup of romaine salad, one whole wheat roll, eight oz. of 1% milk, four oz. of orange juice and a 2×2” piece of birthday cake.
As detailed in the notes, this brings the total nutritional value of the meal to:
- 809 mg of sodium
- 409 mcg/IU of vitamin A
- 61 mg of vitamin C
- 11 g of fiber
- 855 calories
The food is clearly enjoyed, and long-time customers of the kitchen tend to be very appreciative, including one woman who brings each of the four cooks a vanilla sandwich cookie every day.
“A lot of those people don’t have any other way to get food,” Sargent said. “There are people in that room that are unhoused. I’m a Christian, and I believe that we should all care for others. I would come and work for free if I had to.”
Martha’s Kitchen also provides a “brown bag” program where seniors who might not otherwise be able to afford their groceries can take home a shopping bag filled with bread, fruit, produce and other necessities.
“When people don’t have a lot of money,” Lee said, “they still have to pay rent and utilities. So food is the thing that often gets compromised in the budget. So we offer the brown bags to low-income people to ensure that they continue to eat right.”
Besides providing a meal for those who might not otherwise be able to afford it, he said the social functions the center offers are just as nourishing in their own way.
“Some of these people are lonely,” Lee said. “Spending time with others is huge. They love nothing more than sitting in bingo, having the person next to them win, and getting to complain about it.”
He said the same is true for people in the Meals on Wheels home-delivery program: the visits that come with the meals may be their only human contact that day.
“Getting 15 minutes to chitchat with the driver is huge for them,” he said. “But it is also a welfare check. If the drivers see anything out of whack, they throw a flag in the air, and the Aging and Disability Resource Center sends out someone trained to see what is going on with them.”
Beyond the meals at the center’s dining room, seniors can also take advantage of some services that Martha’s Kitchen helps coordinate.
It could be something as critical as transportation to medical appointments or the grocery store. Or it could be something purely for fun, like the regularly scheduled bus trips to Table Mountain and Chukchansi casinos, another Evangelho favorite.
“I get bored at home,” she said, “so I love those trips. I’ve won $900, $1,100, $1,200—I have been very lucky at those casinos, and I can’t wait for the next trip.”
The combined services that Martha’s Kitchen provides or helps facilitate, Lee said, are an expensive undertaking, particularly in light of the city now charging $70,000 a year in rent and no longer contributing financially.
The main office in San Jose now subsidizes 50% of the Hollister operation, but Lee said the success of the programs can be seen in the results.
“When you’re 60 or older,” he said, “you want more than anything to still be living life. You still want to be in the arena, fighting the fight. And that’s what our programs and activities help with. They allow seniors to remain alive and vibrant and participating.”
Pauline Valdivia Memorial Community Center
300 West Street, Hollister, Ca95023
(831) 636-4390
Monday through Friday Schedule:
9:30 a.m. – Coffee, Pastries, and Socialization
10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. – Senior Activities (Arts & Crafts and exercise classes)
12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. – Lunch
12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. – Bingo or Loteria
To sign up for home food delivery service, call (669) 437-0865, Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Delivery hours are Monday through Friday, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and for giving our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (two stores in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.
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