Anna N

I really do have to steal that description. It’s perfect.

We had a discussion elsewhere on the board sometime ago about the whole concept of buttering toast and bread to the very edges. I wish I could recall where it was because it was quite interesting. I believe the phrase was wall-to-wall!

I am waiting here for a procedure and I’m thinking the perhaps we could arrange for the next board meeting of the hospital to have a tray given to each member of the board! Wonder what that might accomplish.

My real food mid morning snack: Well apparently this week we are celebrating the South West or Solid Waste. I actually tasted the soup and I can assure you not one chicken was harmed in the making of it but an awful lot of rice was sacrificed. With a little work and a bit more cooking we might be able to make a decent congee out of it. Sorry gang there is only so much I’m willing to take for the team. I didn’t taste this so I’m going to conclude that it is Solid Waste. Kudos for the banana. I hate bananas. A little later my daughter is going to bring a salad from the food court downstairs and a cup of coffee. I will hold out for those.

I don’t know I should have to see if I can get one. I will know just too much about this darn hospital before I get out of here.

Thanks for your comment and I would and answer you except that I really was trying to avoid this going off into healthcare costs and all the politics etc. therein. I was hoping we could keep it to food. Hope you don’t mind if we don’t drag it in that direction. Anna

😂

Done! You pricked my conscience. But while I was looking for some contact information I came across this: I knew about the room service. You would all be more than happy to pay $10 for one of these delicious and nutritious meals wouldn’t you?

Thank you. The board survives because members keep it alive and interesting and I like to do my bit. Of course I enjoy it too. It does make the time go faster. And the support I get from so many people probably does more for me than all the pharmaceuticals in the world.

You are right. Once I start feeling a little more like myself I will do so.

Oh that would make sense. I lost it yesterday at lunchtime when my tray was delivered and the service worker unceremoniously shoved aside my Vietnamese rice paper rolls to make room for it. I said, “Watch it. That’s real food.” I am usually very polite.

I can’t confirm for sure because I haven’t done any serious experimentation – – like taking the lid off. But I think the 0% refers to the fat content.

Water is not an issue. I can get a very large Styrofoam container of ice water as often as I wish. There is an ice water dispenser right outside my room and the nurses bring me as much as I want. Once I am out of isolation I will be able to help myself. Our municipal water is just fine. We don’t need no fancy spring water brought from ALBERTA using many carbon footsteps and wasting plastic and aluminum.

So just a word of advice. Never get yourself admitted to a hospital on a Friday. You will spend at least two days spinning your wheels. So here it is on Monday and hopefully things will start to happen in terms of moving along my journey out of isolation and eventually home. So here we are. Apparently there is an acute shortage of toast in Oakville. But I was able to put together something that will hold me for a little while. I think somebody perhaps dropped the cinnamon shaker into the carrot loaf batter. It was wicked strong. But the cream cheese masked some of it and the peach took care of the aftertaste. This morning breakfast collided with medication and vitals and everything because the routine of the hospital must go on! But it wasn’t like there was a nice plate of bacon and eggs getting cold.😂 Major fail on the jar of Robertson's shredded marmalade! Can’t open the lid. May take a knife to it later and see if I can knock it loose. My handy-dandy Lee Valley gadget for doing this is at home.

A glass of stout was not considered outrageous even in my lifetime as a tonic for hospital patients. We’ve lost the ability to deal on a case-by-case basis. So much easier to lump everybody together and treat them all as though they came off the assembly line. Bureaucracy at its best.

Please. This is the family channel.

When @Kerry Beal visited today we discussed something along those lines. Just for the sake of argument and not to offend anyone at all what would be best declaration you could make about your dietary needs. Nobody asks you about your dietary likes and dislikes! Nobody asks you if you keep kosher. Nobody asks you if you are vegan but I guess such people don’t need to be asked. They make their preferences clear. But on further thought it is not a matter of food preferences but of the taste or lack of it. I don’t think vegan or kosher or halal would fare any better. We are a multi ethnic nation so I wonder how our non-WASP hospital population does. I am suspecting it is far worse. Oakville is largely an enclave of WASPS. I am guessing their families feed them while they are in hospital. And perhaps we should consider that as an option to solve the whole problem. There are countries I believe where the feeding of patients is not the responsibility of the hospital but of the family. Now there is a thought! In the back of my mind something is niggling and suggesting that perhaps hospitals took over the feeding of patients to ensure that they had nutritious food which they were not getting it home. Nutritious food was at one time considered vital for recovery from an illness.

More real food. A lovely evening snack. See, I’m not that hard to please!

I will let @demiglace answer for her experience. But often trays are refused before they ever enter a patient’s room. They may have also sent up trays to people who have just been discharged either out the front door or out the backdoor.

Perfect!

Yes that is a real plate! I, too, was taken aback. I think that they’re making a big deal of Sunday dinner! In fact, that was my first instinct when I took the lid off before I read the menu. With my poor eyesight I thought, “Oh my goodness it’s a Sunday joint!” Lamb? Roast Beef? I can be quite silly sometimes.

Thanks. I kind of figured that. Because last night I was really hungry and I mentioned that to one of my nurses and he offered to see what he could find in the fridge. But I knew very well it would be something that I had already turned down at lunch or dinner and I didn’t want him to have to go through that exercise so I could say no thank you to everything!

So dinner arrived almost before I was finished lunch at 4:45. That is certainly a long way from my usual routine. This was the most visually appealing entrée so far. There is the menu. I can almost see @rotuts eyes light up! Turkey meatloaf. Here is the tray. And here is the entrée. You must agree that compared to all the other entrées you have seen this one is the most visually appealing. Nice colour, Reasonable plating for an institution. But I tasted the carrots. They could’ve been just about anything because they didn’t taste like carrots. And they had that very weird texture that frozen carrots always seem to get. And I why I never buy frozen peas and carrots. I tasted the mashed potatoes. Without butter and salt as a bare minimum mashed potatoes are meh. I tasted the gravy. No. Actually I didn’t taste the gravy. It didn’t taste like turkey. Didn’t taste like any meat I’d recognize. I’m guessing gravy browning and corn starch played a leading part in its construction. And as a major concession to @rotuts, I even tasted the turkey meat loaf. It too didn’t taste like turkey. My first impression was of salt but that couldn’t possibly be. I bet you wouldn’t find a grain of it anywhere in the hospital meals except contraband salt. So I’m not quite sure what to tell you about this. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant and I could see it appealing to some of our residents. Perhaps one could make it edible with a little sriracha and had I not just eaten something far better I might’ve tried that. I don’t think it would pass muster as it is with anybody who likes turkey meatloaf. Again the egregious water. From this tray I rescued the apple juice and the cookies. I quite like plain tea biscuits.

You cannot just ask to be removed from membership in their diners’ club. I tried that on another occasion thinking that we could save food that I was not going to eat. That upsets the whole smooth bureaucratic apple cart. First I have to have a breakfast tray so at least I get a warm cup of something before family can arrive with real coffee. But you can’t apparently do that. The system has little flexibility. We have 457 patients therefore we will deliver 457 meals three times each day. That number of meals may fluctuate from day to day but not by very much. Even the new hospital has a wait time at certain periods for beds. I am hoping my stay here will be brief enough that I will not develop too large a guilt complex about food that is not being eaten. I don’t think there’s much problem with that because it’s really quite awful. I’m guessing hundreds of meals are wasted every single day.

But I shall continue to post my hospital meals for your edification and amusement. And who knows around every corner there is a surprise and perhaps there will be something that I just might want to eat.