Hospital Food

[IowaDee]

Used to watch a show on the Food Network, The Sandwich King with Jeff Mauro.  His mantra was "Crust to crust is a must".  I quite agree.

[chromedome]

16 minutes ago, Anna N said:

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

 

Sounds better than "desolated."

[Anna N]

1 minute ago, chromedome said:

 

Sounds better than "desolated."

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

[Anna N]

16 minutes ago, IowaDee said:

Used to watch a show on the Food Network, The Sandwich King with Jeff Mauro.  His mantra was "Crust to crust is a must".  I quite agree.

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. 

[rotuts]

Please Excuse

 

I do prefer the French pronunciation 

 

excuse in french

 

no matter

 

as eG is one tough group

 

I forgot to mention

 

Extremely Fair

 

Cheers

 

@Anna N

 

Tenacity along w Good Humor

 

matters a great deal.

[Darienne]

I used to sit on a hospital board back in the late 1980s-early 1990s.  For the first years, we were served a special lunch, very nice, very not hospital-food.

 

Then as the provincial money for these hospitals ran low, we ate in the staff cafeteria (with our meals paid for).  Far less special, but still completely edible.  In fact that's where I first had a favorite summer salad made with chickpeas and small tomatoes.  

 

We never had to eat what the patients ate.  I'm sure the board members would have quit all en masse.  

 

Not fair...but no one ever promised fair.  

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

2 hours ago, Anna N said:

...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.

 

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.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

[patris]

@Anna N so sorry to hear you are in the hospital! I caught up on all your posts and have come to the conclusion that the head of dietary at your hospital is deeply misanthropic. 

 

If @Kerry Beal comes by at lunchtime before you get sprung you should order from that guest menu and do a Ladies Who Lunch, Hospital Edition. (Of course, Kerry should bring backup pho or something just to make sure you both get some nutrition in you!)

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by patris
bad tagging (log)

[Darienne]

1 hour ago, patris said:

@Anna N so sorry to hear you are in the hospital! I caught up on all your posts and have come to the conclusion that the head of dietary at your hospital is deeply misanthropic. 

 

But surely not all heads of dietary in all hospitals are not misanthropic.   Ed says the food in my Mother's long term care facility was terrible.  And the food he was served in our local hospital two years ago was terrible.  I remember  CaliPoutine talking about trying to make a decent menu for the folks she was caring for in an Ontario institution (This does go way back) and finding the food allowance just impossible.  Where does the responsibility lie for the food allowance?  Not really asking for an answer.  

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, patris said:

@Anna N so sorry to hear you are in the hospital! I caught up on all your posts and have come to the conclusion that the head of dietary at your hospital is deeply misanthropic. 

 

If @Kerry Beal comes by at lunchtime before you get sprung you should order from that guest menu and do a Ladies Who Lunch, Hospital Edition. (Of course, Kerry should bring backup pho or something just to make sure you both get some nutrition in you!)

 

 

You did notice that the pho was in one of your bowls?

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, patris said:

If @Kerry Beal comes by at lunchtime before you get sprung you should order from that guest menu and do a Ladies Who Lunch, Hospital Edition. (Of course, Kerry should bring backup pho or something just to make sure you both get some nutrition in 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😂

[Anna N]

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.

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Anna N
To remove a photograph did not belong here (log)

[Darienne]

9 minutes ago, Anna N said:

So I asked my daughter to pick up a small salad from Food Court in the hospital. She sent me these two options:

Wow!  Look at that Food Court.  Not that I like Food Courts, but it's huge and you do have some choices. 

 

The Peterborough Regional Health Centre (the new improved name for the Civic) has a cafeteria run by  Morrison (I don't know who that is) and yes...a Tim Horton's.  And that's it.  And it's the only hospital in the region.  Well, you guessed that.  And we have a Tim Horton's.  

[rotuts]

except for the various lights

 

the Panorama, last pic

 

reminds me of the IKEA eating area

 

and their food was not only very reasonably priced 

 

in the two IKEA's Ive been to 

 

esp in E.PaloAlto

 

where Seniors used to meet for a $ 1.99  breakfast etc

 

but tasty

 

their coffee was dreck , but hot

 

\I do roast my own green beans , because I learned to do this

 

and no Im not coffee snob.

 

IKEA has fome fine stuff from

 

well , Scandinavia  !

 

Smoked Salmon .   odd fruit jams and jellies from the short spring  etc

 

 

[Tri2Cook]

5 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

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.

It's the ol' institutional plop-n-drop school of sandwich making. Grab a scoop of the called-for portion size, plop one scoop of filling on a slice of bread, drop on another slice of bread, push down, cut, repeat. The "push down" part is the only spreading of the filling that happens. 

 

4 hours ago, Anna N said:

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.

If it's a typical board, they'll swear it's the best thing they ever ate if they're convinced it's good for the bottom line. 

I did a two year stint in a hospital kitchen but it was a special care facility where the patients were going to be there for a long time or never leave (one of my great uncles lived out the late stages of ALS there while I was working there). Maybe having long term patients made a difference, the food was actually pretty nice and there were always multiple hot and cold entrée choices at every meal. All fresh cooked on site, 3 meals every day. We had giant steam kettles for doing homemade soups and stews, a whole bank of gas burners and ovens, a separate cold prep area. Of course, that was also a fairly long time ago so maybe that the real difference.
 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

17 minutes ago, rotuts said:

 

....reminds me of the IKEA eating area

 

and their food was not only very reasonably priced 

 

...where Seniors used to meet for a $ 1.99  breakfast etc

 

but tasty

 

their coffee was dreck , but hot

 

 

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.   

[patris]

1 hour ago, Darienne said:

But surely not all heads of dietary in all hospitals are not misanthropic.   Ed says the food in my Mother's long term care facility was terrible.  And the food he was served in our local hospital two years ago was terrible.  I remember  CaliPoutine talking about trying to make a decent menu for the folks she was caring for in an Ontario institution (This does go way back) and finding the food allowance just impossible.  Where does the responsibility lie for the food allowance?  Not really asking for an answer.  

 

At the risk of taking this too off-track, reading this thread has taken me back a few years to one of my late mother’s hospitalizations several years ago. Each patient was given a menu and allowed to order from it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a time of their choosing. The menus were quite nice given that it was a hospital - hot and cold choices, and several of them, with sides and desserts, for each meal. Everything was always plated with some care and, though it was underseasoned, of apparently good quality and freshly prepared.

 

On top of that, there was a dietary attendant assigned to her floor who made it a practice to serenade each new patient with a little song at their first meal - and she had an absolutely exquisite voice - and it was obvious that she cared about every patient on her route. I have been fervently wishing that Anna could have that level of choice (and even the singing!), but more so that she get out and back to her own home and kitchen!

[rotuts]

IKEA Seniors breakfast club puts  McD to shame

 

i used to enjoy it  , no coffee the second visit , before i ventured

 

in to their unique maze.

 

felt fortified 

 

at least  until lunch

 

then  id ask for directions

[patris]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

You did notice that the pho was in one of your bowls?

 

I did not, but thank you for telling me - I’m so happy to have been there in some small way!

[rotuts]

I forgot to mention my interest in the soups :

 

"" HomeMade   From Scratch "

 

well :  Id like to see the Rx for the Detox Soup .

 

im thinking the thoughts are it will help you with all those

 

FreeRadicals , and other Radicals  circulating here and there ?

 

these days , I hope its Potent.

Edited August 19, 2019 by rotuts (log)

[Anna N]

 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. 

 

 

 

 

[Anna N]

52 minutes ago, patris said:

 

I did not, but thank you for telling me - I’m so happy to have been there in some small way!

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

[Margaret Pilgrim]

12 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 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. 

 

 

 

 

 

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?

[Anna N]

6 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

I have to ask is this food is prepared on site or brought in frozen.  

 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. 

[rotuts]

when I saw ' ribette '    then   '  BBQ Sauce '

 

I immediately thought of McD.

 

the ribette would have had to be made of pork , and end up being purple

 

So it couldn't have evolved from McD.