Cindy Lange-Kubick: Dining out at the senior center, grade C
Florine Joseph (from left), Karen Allsman and Virginia Woodrum have lunch at the Malone Center on Friday. The three woman are among some Aging Partners diners who are unhappy with the quality of the food provided by an Omaha vendor that took over meal preparation in October.
There’s discontent over the noon hour at Lincoln’s senior centers.
In a switch that began last fall, meals that had once been prepared in a downtown kitchen are now cooked in Omaha — several hours before seniors line up for their noon meals 55 miles away.
And not all diners were happy with the change.
Florine Joseph calls it slop.
“Not just the looks, but the taste.”
“This food is not up to par,” said Virginia Woodrum, a 92-year-old Havelock resident. “We don’t expect steak for $4; we just expect a decent meal.”
“The potatoes taste like cardboard,” said Karen Allsman, 74. “It’s literally bottom-of-the-barrel food.”
Allsman is one of several center regulars who called the paper to complain about the quality of a meal they’d once relished. She also shared her concerns with the mayor’s office. “I called and said I’m going to bring him a plate of food.”
Others wrote or spoke to Aging Partners director Randy Jones who, they said, listened and empathized.
Not every meal is bad, they told me. Not everyone pounds their plastic forks on the table.
“We’re here to speak for the people who don’t want to make a fuss,” Woodrum said Friday, joined by Allsman, Joseph and this columnist at the Malone Center — home to one of Lincoln’s eight senior centers.
I’d decided to join them after fielding complaints about barbecue chicken that resembled cat food, tasteless canned turkey at Thanksgiving, mushy vegetables and meat dishes that appeared to be stretched with fillers.
“I guarantee you won’t eat a full meal,” Allsman said.
On the menu for my visit: barbecue meatballs, mixed vegetables, potato wedges, breadsticks and oatmeal raisin cookies.
The potato wedges were flavorless, the vegetables oversteamed, the breadstick chewy. I gave the meatball a try only after Allsman told me she was convinced it wasn’t meat. (I’m a vegetarian.) The sauce was tasty, and the texture? Maybe meat, maybe not.
The cookie? Best thing on the plate.
Around the room, diners graded the food provided to the city by Taste America Food Service, whose three-year contract with Aging Partners was approved by the City Council in September.
“It sucks,” Lee Erickson said.
“I’m not too happy with it,” Dorothy McKinley said.
“Too bad you weren’t here yesterday,” said Sara Bankson. Enchilada casserole had been on the menu, she said, but she and her husband couldn’t tell by looking.
“I took two bites and that was it,” Kent Bankson said. His grade on the food overall: D minus.
Two more diners were more moderate.
“Some of it’s not that great,” said Jim White, who normally dines twice a week at Belmont’s senior center.
Ron Jackson, a new guest at the senior centers, gave the food a B. “I’m satisfied,” he said.
According to a previous Journal Star story, the outsourced food saves Aging Partners — and the city — $19,000 in its first year and $56,000 by year three. The change had been long anticipated, as kitchen equipment at the downtown senior center aged and plans were made to move from Tenth and O streets to the VA Campus if a redevelopment project there moves forward.
Cost per meal before the change: $9.51. After: $8.63. Seniors over 60 are asked to contribute $4 a meal.
“It certainly has been a transition,” said Jones, the Aging Partners director. “We’re not where we want to be yet.”
Jones said staff continues to work with Taste America to tweak menus and ensure the quality of the outsourced food.
He’s fielded some complaints. “Good is defined differently by different people.”
He also noted a 5 percent to 8 percent decrease in diners since the change; some of that may be attributed to winter, he said.
Woodrum no longer regularly visits the Havelock Senior Center. Joseph and the Banksons have cut back on their senior center lunches. Allsman just returned from an extended visit to her son in Pennsylvania.
The food remained much the same as when she’d left, she said.
The ladies sat in front of their half-eaten meals — Joseph rated the vegetables "better than usual" — for more than an hour, while I circled the room looking for ratings.
For my dining companions and the others here, this noon meal is not just about consuming calories. The senior centers are a place to play cards, socialize, stay connected. To enjoy a meal in the company of others.
And, yes, to dish about the food.
“Remember the sweet potatoes?” Woodrum asked. “Mine needed a buzz saw to cut it.”
Reach the writer at 402-473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
On Twitter @TheRealCLK.
