Anna N

I can’t bear to look at anyone’s meals just yet but I’ll be back soon looking at them. This was my first meal at at home after six days of institutional food here. Unbeknownst to me when @Kerry Beal picked up our lunches today she also grabbed me this pork rib bahn mi so I would not have to worry about dinner and still have something delicious. And it was delicious and spicy enough to awaken my deadened taste buds. I wish you all friends like Kerry.

But... but...I lost as much weight as I would’ve if I had paid to go to a luxury skinny ranch — 4.4 K. Woo hoo. But there must surely be easier ways!

Lunch. Yes, I know it’s shocking. Kerry and I shared the eggrolls and each had a bowl of the soup in the comfort of my home! I think either that all your good wishes must have got through to my medical people and they decided to let me go or all my criticism of the food got to somebody else and they decided I should be removed quickly before I did any more damage. I am happy to be home and I am eternally grateful that you spent those 5/6 days with me. It made it tolerable. No it made more than tolerable. I felt that I had hordes of visitors all day and all night long keeping me upbeat and optimistic. Thanks to everyone for contributing, commenting, joking etc. etc.

The great toast shortage has ended I am pleased to say. I was sure I would get some sweet, poorly baked something or other. The toast still had the merest hint of warmth. I had one slice with cream cheese and a little pepper and the other with Robertsons marmalade. I rescued the apple juice but that was about as much as I could do from this tray. A thought did occur to me that our restaurants are required to post calorie counts for their meals but apparently hospitals are not? Not that anyone could fear an abundance of calories here!

Yep. Another waste of a very precious resource. Well tonight I went down to check out what I thought was a fabulous food court. There is a fabulous amount of seating but there are only four vendors! Ouch. There is Thai Express, 16 mile Café, Fit for Life and Tim Hortons. I was so disappointed. I did not eat down there as I had already eaten but my daughter had a curry from Thai Express. The Ladies Who Lunch might want to rethink their venue for tomorrow! Then my daughter decided she would like to show me the Best Buy Express which I understand was nothing more than a vending machine offering electronic products. Best Buy has been replaced by this: Feeling quite silly without even a cocktail in either of us we decided to share one of these. The machine dispensed two spoons and would’ve continued to dispense spoons as long as we were prepared to take them. It wasn’t much of an improvement on hospital food to be truthful. It was junk food even if the word yoghurt was used. But It was cold and I enjoyed that part of it and the sharing of it. Did it once. Don’t need to do it ever again. Tomorrow I will post breakfast and lunch and then bring this little diversion to a close. My medical team are going to fill my last day and a half with non-food related activities and I doubt that I will have time to do any further posting.

OK you need to hold your nose for this one. Truly, truly you do. Only because you were such a great group could I bring myself to leave the lid off long enough to snap one quick photograph. One time I am so glad we don’t have smell o vision or I would not be able to show it to you. No I did not try it – – not the fish, not the potatoes, not peas. If I had allowed my nose to get that close I would never get the smell of old fish out of it. It probably is not rotten fish. What it is fish that is far from fresh. And that has been sitting under a cover for knows how long before being brought up to the rooms. So when you take that cover off smell is overpowering. Fortunately I am now at a stage where I was able to remove it immediately from my vicinity. I have to say from my point of view this is the worst meal yet. Fish is probably never a wise choice for institutional service. From the tray I rescued the social tees, the cranberry cocktail, and the pepper just in case I run out of the freshly ground that Kerry brought in. And then I enjoyed this Mexican corn salad that @Kerry Beal had made at home and brought in for me. She stashed it in the refrigerator which I know I have access to. She also brought in appropriate containers of salt and pepper and they will improve almost everything that I have to deal with.

I cannot bear to look at your meals at the moment. They only make this stuff so much worse. You inspire me! Good news. Unless something drastic happens and it better not I will be going home on Thursday!!!

The really sad part is that the omelet this morning would probably have been something to write home about for some of the patients. They have never tasted a probably made omelette. Even worse, if they are served a properly made omelette they wouldn’t like it because they are accustomed to the dreck that was on my plate. 😧

You are absolutely correct. It is an indication to me that I am in the wrong hospital! I need a hospital that serves Hellmann’s. I wonder how you find one. Do you type into Google “hospitals serving Hellman’s”? Hmmmmm.

😀 I actually checked myself (AMA) out of the emergency room here at one time. I told them I was cold, hungry and tired and home was a better place for me. In retrospect it was an unwise move on my part. This time in emergency something must’ve clicked with them because I was given three heated blankets. Heaven! My room temperature and humidity are constantly monitored so I can tell you right now we are at 22.5°C and 41% relative humidity. I do find it cold if I’m not moving at all but otherwise it’s quite comfortable.

No one can find the Special Visitor Menu which suggests that perhaps it’s not very popular item. But here you go on the room service one. Now how exciting is that? What I get for no cost I can have delivered within 45 minutes if I pay for the phone call to get it. Apart from the very few items which I have never seen on my tray, it is pretty much just duplication. But I have been largely untethered now. They think I’m safe to release into the general population so tomorrow @Kerry Beal and I are planning an expedition to the food court.

Looks as though Tuesday is red letter day for breakfast at least. Still looking fairly promising. Cold toast is perhaps a bit of a turn off but one I can handle. Let’s just dress up the omelette with a little sriracha and one slice of toast with a little ketchup and see where we go from there. (Bear in mind that my daughter is almost on her way to bring me a sausage and egg McMuffin.) So we take a bite of the omelette. It does not taste horrible. In fact it has no flavour whatsoever. But with the hot sauce I could choke it down if I didn’t know there was something better coming. Or could I? Scratch that idea. I think it’s alien. We are not eating eggs from the planet Vulcan. I prefer the ones that come out of the backend of a chicken. Toast with ketchup is one of my weird ideas dating back to my days in the R.C.A.F. Toast with Robertson’s thick cut marmalade was a very good idea. So I ate the toast and then had to miss out on my sausage and egg McMuffin so as not to be too full for a procedure that I was about to go through. Damn. Damn. Damn. At least I was able to cancel it in time. So there you go. There is toast in Oakville and apparently there are eggs on Vulcan.

A few blips in the system. Hang Tight. There is exciting news in your future. Eggs and toast have been discovered in Oakville!

And that’s exactly where it should have stayed!

Here. I am learning more and more about the hospital I am in as I try to answer your questions. As I surfed to try and discover where the food comes from, I found this. I suspect it is not up-to-date. Click And ironically this! No evidence that it actually came to pass if we are importing even our water from another province. I think this answers the question about kitchen facilities sounds more like assembly lines: Here

I do not believe there is anything more than minimal kitchen facilities but I don’t know that for sure. I think everything comes in and is simply assembled. These carrots were remarkable in that they did not have that same texture that most frozen carrots do which is why I said I could eat them.

And I so apologize for not pointing it out. It is the perfect bowl for pho.

So on to the last meal for today. If I spotted this entrée on a menu in a small cafe or diner that I had never been to before it would definitely be up there as one of my choices. Might not be my first choice but it would definitely be in the lineup. I am not looking to be served fillet mignon, trout meunière or Lobster Thermidor. And I quite enjoy egg noodles. So what do you think? Will it pass the taste test? First issue is that it was cold. Cold egg noodles have very little to recommend them. Cold egg noodles that are glued together have even less to recommend them. Finally, cold egg noodles that have neither been salted nor buttered should be composted as quickly as possible. I could’ve eaten the carrots and the green beans with a little butter and a little salt, even cold. The yucky wax beans not so much. But on to the main event. I suppose I should’ve clued in with the with that “ribette” moniker that we were not dealing anything that came from the rib of a cow. But I’m slow sometimes. I did go in for a taste but the sauce by itself was quite off-putting. Of course without any salt you cannot bring out the flavour very much. As I said, I’m pretty naïve but when I cut into the ”ribs” my knife sent out vibes to my hands that said, “Hello there minced beef.” And so it was. Should there be something in a hospital’s code of conduct that says “And we commit to never deceiving you”? Orange juice seems such an odd choice to be serving with such a meal. I don’t like orange juice so it’s not an issue. I could not find a “best before” date on the chocolate chip cookies so I’m going to assume that they are like Twinkies and live forever. They are Peak Freans.

So I asked my daughter to pick up a small salad from Food Court in the hospital. She sent me these two options: My response to this one was — please keep looking. Never trust a salad bar that uses kale in a Caesar Salad. This one looked much more promising. But I jumped to the conclusion that it was a build your own salad. But it was not quite like that. You have to order it and someone on the other side puts it together. Not quite what I had in mind but still it was fresh vegetables. Whoever thought that carrot ribbons served in a salad like this was a good idea? And my expectation of a hard-boiled egg was a spoonful or two of chopped egg. It was however fresh and tasty and the coffee was quite drinkable. The salad cost $4.70. The coffee was $1.70. While she was down there I asked my daughter to take a few shots for your edification. This is the sushi bar I mentioned earlier. Staff in another department of the hospital that I have been dealing with lately highly recommended the sushi from here. I tend to avoid these places because they use a lot of artificial crab and I am deathly allergic to crab (and they use something from real crab, or did). Anyway better safe than sorry. Next to the coffee dispenser my daughter noticed this. We are putting this one on our list for the next time remembering that they are only open between 11 and four daily and that’s from Monday to Friday I do believe. I am laughing to myself as I look more closely at the sign because my daughter told me they had ox tail soup. Yeah, I don’t think so. Damn. Still we might give it a try. And just a couple of overviews for you.

I don’t know if I could do that to my best friend. Mind you she’s done some pretty mean things to me over time😂

Thank you. I will be now walking around saying that out loud or thinking it for hours. And I’ll be riffing off it. Crust to crust or it’s a bust.

Well I looked it up and it apparently is a Word but I haven’t really studied it etymology or proper usage yet.

Woohoo. I have been unisolated! I know it’s not a word but I like it.

You are only saying that because we don’t have Smell o Vision! That would be the discouragement you need.

On the plus side and there is always a plus side – – I must be improving healthwise. I managed to get the lid off the marmalade using nothing but brute strength and ignorance. Who needs Lee Valley.