A Gourmet’s Dirge for the Deadheads

I was sitting in Chez Panisse Cafe eating my grilled Hawaiian opah with olive tapenade and sauteed leeks when I suddenly realized the joint was jumping with Deadheads.

If I were to lay a plaque at the exact place where the ‘80s began, it would be at Chez Panisse, the Berkeley restaurant where California cuisine was born. Then why was the place filled with these ghosts of the ‘60s? And how did I know the other ladies and gentlemen shlurping down plates of baby lettuce salad and goat cheese calzone were Deadheads, devotees of the Grateful Dead rock band?

For one thing, the Dead were in Berkeley for the Greek Theater shows, the highest, holiest event in Deadville. Even in a town like Berkeley, renowned for its bizarre citizens, an added 8,000 tie-dyed freaks still don’t blend in.

I also know that Deadheads come in two varieties: those under 30, who want to be born again weird, and those over 30, who want to be Dead again on the weekend.

The latter were in Chez Panisse. They had left their tie-dyes in the van, but usually there was some little telltale sign of Deadness--say, one nose ring too many. In one case, I spotted a “Jerrycise” shirt beneath a Ralph Lauren sport coat--a T-shirt depicting roly-poly Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia doing his exercises.

Finally I just asked. People will usually tell you more than you’d care to know about them.

“Are you Deadheads?” I asked the threesome seated next to me. They were two men and a woman with almost a baby, all wearing striped shirts and tight white pants. The woman told me it was a week before her baby was due. You could see her “outtie” bellybutton pointing through her pants.

Not only were they Deadheads but they were film makers, and during lunch one of the two men got up and started filming the others eating their salad of fresh pears with figs.

“It’s for the Smithsonian,” the woman explained. “He’s doing something on slow food versus fast food.”

“Are you Deadheads?” I asked the couple seated on my other side as they finished their fresh warm mozzarella with basil leaves.

“Yes,” the woman said. “We got our tickets ahead of time and left Los Angeles early Thursday to drive up to the show that night.”

Instead, they got caught in traffic north of Los Angeles, on the Grapevine. An overturned big rig left them stuck in their car for 5 1/2 hours. They missed the show. But they were philosophical, if not downright mellow, about the whole thing.

“Hey, what can you do?” she said and cocked her head so her earrings chimed.

“What do you do in Los Angeles?” I asked the woman, who had five pierced earrings on one ear.

“I’m a physician,” she said and chowed down her prosciutto with melon.

Ah, I thought, one of those weird-again older Deadheads.

“And what do you do?” I asked her companion.

“I’m a developer,” he said, blowing on his acorn squash soup with creme fraiche.

I laughed. I’ve met Deadhead lawyers and Deadhead professors, but this was my first Deadhead developer. “What do you build?” I asked him.

“I build mixed-use commercial/residential urbanscapes. . . .” he began. But she interrupted him.

“He builds mini-malls,” she said.

“They are not,” he retorted, and they began to demellow before my very eyes. I thought she was going to bean him with her baguette.

I decided to change the subject. “I’m a writer. I met Jerry once,” I bragged, thinking that would impress them. “Interviewed him for a magazine. The whole thing was set up by Jerry’s assistant, and then I hit his car.”

“Assistant?” the woman said. “You mean. . . ?”

“Yes, he’s the one,” I answered. “I rear-ended him.”

“Oh,” she said as the mocha custards arrived. “I slept with him.”

You can take an upscale Deadhead to a fancy lunch, but you can’t out-hip her.