Margaret Pilgrim

Amen, Sister! I often feel like M.F.K.Fisher, writing of living in Provence, shopping at the weekly market, then watching the produce progress from prime to rot.

Fruit. A sliced peach and a slice of plum croustade. 😀

@#$%, @#$%, @#$%! I had a chitarra for years and never got around to using it. Gave it to an Italian friend. Have regretted it ever since. Sobbing, as I see your beautiful product..

Staying positive, I remember a fabulous dinner in outback France by a young chef and his wife. Returning the next year, we found his sweet little dining room closed. Inquiries informed us that he had move "to the city" and a job as food director of a medical facility. Wishing your hospital the best.

Scalloped potatoes with ham, by DH request. Something from his childhood. No pic of plate. DH served and somehow dumped mine upsidedown, resulting in an unphotogenic white and pink blob. Accompanied by butter braised zucchini, delicious but not much more attractive. Backyard plum croustade.

I have to ask is this food is prepared on site or brought in frozen. As you describe the carrots, there is no disguising frozen carrots. And I have to wonder if the kitchen would really go to the effort to make faux ribkets from scratch. And if so, why?

Reminded of a McDo in Palmira, P'A, where DH and I would stop for breakfast while attending an event at Hershey. In the week of our stay, we felt unofficial if peripheral members of a group of oldsters who apparently used McDo as their morning club.

Don't laugh. It's long been my desire to have every CEO of every car company go for a ride in every seat in every model. Same for airline execs. And I have to wonder if Sara Blakely has ever worn Spanx for 12 hours.

Hey, I've felt that way in not a few restaurants!

A friend who volunteered making sandwiches for a soup kitchen was instructed to always spread both filling and butter or mayo over the entire slice of bread, crust to crust, to ensure the sandwich was not dry. Apparently not a universal rule.

Agreed. Sorry for the digression.

This was my first reaction after reading your first post. As a weekend in-patient, I've always felt that I was simply a contributor to the hospital's bottom line. Which leads me to my second conclusion as a patient, IMHO, length of hospital stay and number and sophistication of tests ordered are in direct correlation to patient's insurance coverage. Earlier this year, I had to remind the hospitalist that the test she was recommending "since we have some time to kill before the MRI machine is available" was a duplication of coverage of another test already administered and read. "Ah, yes. I guess that would be redundant."

I always loved Arrowroot biscuits. Then I learned about Petit Beurre.

I wish you could come to our dental team. This sounds just awful! Do you have either a blender or emersion blender? Boil up some veg and milk/cream and make a lukewarm savory smoothy. One of my favorite "no chew" dishes is scallop soup. Barely cook a couple of scallops, add onion or whatever, milk/cream and toss in blender. Ambroisia. Same with salmon/potatoes/dill. These are all things I've served a friend who had a surgically removed palate and had trouble swallowing, Good stuff. You can toss just about anything in the blender and come out with something nutritious and flavorful...maybe not steak. But that will come later. Good luck.

With all this talk about hospital food, I can remember several "nurse angels" who, confronted with me, howling of starvation, after being long out of the loop, found, 1) what I remember as the best potato soup of my LIFE, and 2) a bowl of oatmeal, when I had had nothing to eat for 12 hours. I have no doubt that both of these ambrosial dishes came out of an "add water and microwave" packet, but at the time, they took the time to do it and they were emotionally life-saving.

Thanks for this. On occasion when items higher on the menu didn't appeal, I have often sufficed with rice and whatever bottled condiment was available. Have made many meals of rice and sriracha. Am sure I'm not alone.

The last week I feel I've been vying with AnnaN on disgusting food. She, in hospital, has an alibi. I just have not regained my kitchen legs and appetite. So...last couple of meals... Garden tomatoes, corn and severely unattended rib-eye. I, usually preferring super rare, enjoyed the crispy bits. Then thinking things might get better tonight congered up black kale and mac/cheese/tomatoes. I couldn't handle the kale but had threes on the mac and cheese, Tomorrow is another day....

re hospital food, I always remember my astute OB/gyn who, pre-discharge with newborn admonished, "Stay through lunch and insist your husband has lunch with you. I have never met a new father who, on entering his home with wife and new baby hasn't announced, "What's to eat?!!!" Best advice I've ever received.

Northern California. Napa has the fix in.

Also interesting is the extent to which different diagnoses/treatments are proffered different menus. i.e., in the same hospital I have been offered vastly different menus as a new mother, hip replacement and gastro patient. Wine included on the first two, not on the latter. In fact, no food for 6 days, no water, only iV for 6 days. Not a happy camper. But doubted i missed much.

Wow! Always thought that once any product entered a oatient's room, it couldn't be re distributed.

Add this kind of misappropriation to that of uneaten school lunches and one would think/hope that someone would see opportunity here.

There's Bloody Mary aspic and Grasshopper Pie.

I have an acquaintance whose family business is supplying prisons with packaged "ready to dat" food. Is this kind of no-sell-date-required junk what is supporting my lunch mate's lifestyle? Puts a whole new face on it.

I am, after a week, gradually getting my "kitchen legs" back. Still super basic, both effort and foods. Garden tomatoes and market corn Rib eye Got a little distracted there...😡...but surprisingly the charred bits were what sang to me.