Star Chicaderis, a celebrated vegetarian chef, dog park regular, and familiar face about town, died on April 18, 2025 at Seashore Point Wellness and Rehab Center in Provincetown. The cause was corticobasal degeneration, said Max Lewis, her friend and former partner. Star was 69, “way too young,” said Max, “but older than she thought she’d get.”
After being diagnosed in 2019, Star referred to her disease as OGMS, Old Gray Mare Syndrome. In the years that followed, said Max, Star was sad to “lose her hands,” which played guitar, cooked, and made tiny, precise paintings and drawings.
She never lost her sense of humor. “A mind is a terrible thing to lose,” she said, “or to confuse with an egg.”
Star was born in Dorchester on July 12, 1955. She liked to say that she was the only person born there who could pronounce its name. Adopted by George and Helen Chicaderis of Manchester, Vt., she was given the name Judith Ann Star Paula Chicaderis. Her brother, Jeffrey, was born a year and a half later.
In 1962, the family moved to Tujunga, Calif., next door to Albert and Darlene Carey and their three girls, Debi, Lori, and Sue. The Careys became a second family for Star.
She said that she made it “only to the 10th grade” at Verdugo High School, where she spent most of her time playing guitar on the lawn with her friends.
After her parents died in 1975, Star worked for Albert Carey for 17 years. He taught her how to do drafting for structural steel detailing, and she learned all of Albert’s wise-guy remarks along the way.
In 1993, after the death of Lukey, her 18-year-old Australian cattle dog, Star was invited to come to Provincetown by an old high school friend, Lorraine Najar. She arrived on June 1 and the next day got her first cooking job at David Gallerani’s restaurant. She later worked at Cafe Express for Carla Stefani and then at the Dancing Lobster for Nils Berg, known as Pepe.
In her artist statement for a one-woman show titled “UFOs, Not Everyone Can See Them” at Cafe Express in 1996, Star declared that she “loves coffee, Holy Mary, baby Jesus and things that turn out like she thought they would. She hates bugs and things that don’t turn out like she thought they would.”
In 1998, Star bought Cafe Crudite and turned it into the legendary vegetarian and macrobiotic restaurant Tofu A Go-Go in 2001. Tofu A Go-Go reflected everything about Star: generosity of spirit, delicious food, high standards, and a fun time. The place became a haven for vegetarians and anyone who wanted to have a good day or “a really good burrito.”
Star delighted in writing the menu, making it look like the tabloid Weekly World News with the tagline: “Tofu A Go-Go! Where space aliens, Elvis, year rounders, locals, townies, summer people and tourists alike may or may not see the face of Jesus in our lunch plate for way less than the price of a full tank of gas.”
“Tofu A Go-Go was our entire lives,” said Max, who became Star’s business partner in 2003. “We worked doubles throughout the season, made amazing food for people, and got to sing and laugh with our friends every day.” They were married from 2004 to 2014.
When their Provincetown rental apartment was sold as a condominium in 2006, Star and Max moved their lives and the restaurant to Greenfield, where they ran Tofu A Go-Go until 2010. Then they returned to Provincetown, where Star was hired by 141 Bradford Natural Market to build a kitchen and prepare her signature dishes to go.
Star worked briefly at the U.S. Post Office, but after completing the months-long training, she had to retire as her brain disease progressed. She became a regular at the Pilgrim Bark Park with her beloved, “mostly brown” dog, Azwell. She continued to make friends and crack jokes every day.
Max and other devoted friends rallied around Star to keep her in her home and help make health-care decisions. In her final days at Seashore Point, Star was surrounded by friends and visited by many whose lives she touched. Sue Carey, her old friend from Tujunga, who knew Star since “she was taller than me and twice as old,” said to her on parting, “Long may you run, and angels on your pillow.”
Star is survived by her dog, Azzy, and her chosen family of friends from throughout her life. She was predeceased by her parents and her brother.
Donations in Star’s name may be made to the Alzheimer’s Family Support Center or the Pilgrim Bark Park. Or one could buy lunch for the nursing staff at Seashore Point.
Plans for a memorial celebration have not yet been announced.
