Not your first choice for dinner,
but Cottage kitchen does in a pinch

The folks at Henry Ford Cottage Hospital have turned that small medical facility on the Hill in the Farms into a pleasant place to stay.

Oh, I know, no one wants to stay in a hospital. The drill used to be they issued you one of those shabby gowns that didn’t cover your backside any better than those low-rider pants some of the young folks still wear. The food was mediocre. You had one, two or three roommates who snored at night and wanted to talk about their ailments during the day. And the nurses woke you up in the middle of the night to take blood samples like they were feeding Dracula.

Well, all that has changed–at least at Henry Ford Cottage. I recently had an opportunity to do a first-person review of the revamped facility and I was pleasantly surprised. The room was private with two side chairs, a couch and a reclining lounge chair so if you needed a family member to spend the night they could rest comfortably.

The nurse immediately found me a pair of pajama bottoms. I got to order my food off a five page menu in a leatherette cover anytime between 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. by calling room service. There are menus tailored to five diets, and you can order omelets all day.

Dinner entrees include roast turkey, beef stew, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pasta, macaroni and cheese, soups and sandwiches. I think my favorite was the crispy baked fish, but they were all tasty. You could get fresh fruit and yogurt for snacks or mashed potatoes, coleslaw and French fries with your meal. There was also ice cream, pudding and chocolate-chip cookies.

The nurses were friendly and solicitous and the guest-services representative, Pat Lecznar of the Woods, showed up with flowers and both Detroit newspapers at a decent hour in the morning. She left her card, which read: “If there is anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable and as pleasant as possible, please call...”

The Cottage chefs are not alone in pursuing higher-quality food offerings. The Wall Street Journal reports that top chefs from across the country gathered in California recently to compete for the designation of “Top chef–hospitals.”

In that contest the chef is paired with a nutritionist and dishes could not exceed 600 calories, 20 grams of fat and 1,000 milligrams of sodium. And the dish couldn’t cost more than $5 to produce.

I would never recommend you check into a hospital to try the food, but if circumstances put you there you can hope whatever facility you are in treats you as well as they did me at Cottage.

Watch where you’re pointing that thing

A farmer-comedian complete with livestock helped wrap up the final session of the West Park Farmers Market on Kercheval on Saturday (Sept. 26).

He enticed a young girl on stage to try to milk a goat. While the farmer clad in bib overalls held the nanny goat the girl pulled on a teat. Nothing happened. The farmer said, “Pull harder.” So she did and squirted him with goat milk. On a third try she hit her intended target, the farmer’s herding dog, which obligingly opened its mouth and drank the milk as it squirted out.

Once again the market was a big hit for the hundreds of folks who turned out to buy fresh vegetables, fruit and crafts throughout the summer.
 

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