Margaret Pilgrim

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.

It's my sense that hospital dieticians chart every prescribed (or should that be proscribed) diet that patients might require, then combine them into one daily menu. I.e, low salt, low fat, low fiber, low acid, bland And the result is just that. Our hospital does let you order off a menu and call in your order to the kitchen three times a day, to be delivered when you choose. Smart money orders off the back third of the menu which caters to Asian patients. Not Dragon Palace caliber, but mediocre dim sum, pork buns and chow mein trump gruel and seagull.

I'm guessing that SW = SandWich, and WW - whole wheat. But how the blazes did they let SALMON go to a patient with supposed Fish-Shell allergies?

You deserve better, Anna. Bisous to all who are suitcasing in decent food for you. All good thoughts that you will be paroled soon.

Another case where my invitation was lost. I want to know what's going on here!

I think yours look just fine! Ciabatta, as I know it and as Paul's own photos show, is a flattish bread. No more than 2" high at most. The best artisan loaves that I can buy are less than that. They depend on crust and crumb, which yours seem to have. Nice work!

I am mentally comparing these with the "street tacos" at Carl's Jr. several years ago. Two soft tortillas, several tablespoons of shredded (grilled?) chicken white meat, lettuce and tomato, cheese, access to a salsa bar = $2.79 as I recall. I would separate into two tortillas, split the toppings and head for the salsa bar for sauce and jalapenas, more cilantro and onoin -> two "decent" tacos at roughly $1.40 each. Acceptable flavors and textures and one order was filling. Absolutely NOT one of my truck tacos, but worked when DH wanted Carl's jr . FWIW, my personal hang-up: Crispy shelled tacos = handheld tostados. "Tacos" are made with soft tortillas. Guess I'm just a street dog. Carl's has discontinued this item. Probably decided it was not cost effective, canibalizing more profitable items on the menu.

FWIW, and as luck would have it, our Lodi tomato man DID have O'Henrys just after we bought the Elbertas. We sampled them and probably, hopefully, because it is slightly early for O'Henry, and all produce varies, but the sample was a poor relation to these last peaches we've been enjoying. We will, of course, check back in a couple of weeks for comparison. Until now, O'Henry was my "wait for" peach.

We looked for our stand today but it wasn't there, kind of like Brigadoon. Several miles later, already in Lodi, DH said, "I'm going back." So we retraced our route and a mile or so east off Victor did find the signs on the ground. DH mumbled a bit about options and then drove to the head off their driveway, saw a person further in. They were tenants of a second house bur took DH to the main house, where the owner happily showed DH what his wife had picked this morning. Just one tree, thought to be an Elberta. This makes sense since that was the peach of my childhood. DH bought 10 and the nice man tossed in 4 more, and added, "Stop by anytime." We won't do that, but we will certainly be back..

I believe the important thing is quantity. When switching among various salts, compare apples to apples by measuring by weight rather than volume.

Admins: We need a "swoon" button.

@blue_dolphin I will definitely try to talk to the property owners. In the meantime, I am so enamored with this peach that I started Googling growing from a pit. This article suggests that you can have a 20 foot peach tree grown from a pit in 4 to 5 years. I can't get DH excited about this since we have had peach leaf curl problems both in town and in the country, but will save several pits and see if I can get son excited about the project.

This dog was a piece of work. Old English sheepdog. Again, years ago, DH was out of town for the weekend. Parents of our son's hippy nursery school friend invited me to join them camping on an island on the Sacramento River. Sure. Okay! Load kid and dog into VW van and we head up to the delta. All fine until middle of the night when son, dog and i are all bedded down in the van. Dog starts scratching door to get out. So I, in DH's too-big knee length pjs get out of the van into the howling Delta wind. Dog is suddenly energized. Takes off across the beach grass a 30 mph with me loping after, clutching at pj bottoms. I am screaming at the top of my lungs for him to stop, but the wind devours my words. Not that he'd have obeyed had he heard me. He finally stops to do what he originally wanted out for, and i was able to grab his collar and drag him back to the van. The couple wanted us to stay another night but that was not going to happen. Van camping was losing its luster for me.