Dementia, food, and cooking

[Alex]

A remarkable article in the Guardian by Wendy Mitchell, author of Somebody I Used to Know, her memoir about living with early-onset Alzheimer's.

 

Quote

Some days there is not much that I remember. When the fog comes down, I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know the time, or even the year. Those are the very worst days and, thankfully, they are still relatively few. But on good days, my memory is challenging. You can tell me a secret and I’ll always keep it because I simply won’t remember. But one thing I never forget is that food used to mean so much more to me than it does now.

 

[Darienne]

I'm going to get out a copy of this book from our local library.  I think it's something I need to read.

 

[Smithy]

Thank you for the link to the article, Alex. It's well-written, thoughtful and sobering. Much of what she wrote about her experience reminds me of Paula Wolfert's comments on her experience of the disease. I miss Paula's presence here! but she's fighting her own fight, concentrating on finding foods that help slow the progression of her dementia, and advocating for more intensive research.

[chromedome]

12 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I miss Paula's presence here!

As do I.

 

One of my proudest moments as a culinary student was walking up to a group of my instructors at school, and hearing one of them say "Hey, there's Fred...Maybe he'll know!"

 

As it turned out, I didn't. It was a question about an obscure Middle Eastern ingredient, so of course I posted about it here and was thrilled beyond measure to get a response from Paula Wolfert, writing from an internet cafe in Istanbul. She didn't know either, but theorized it had to be some sort of local, non-standard name for whatever ingredient it was. So the whole inquiry went nowhere, but it was still quite a memorable moment opening the site and reading "Wolfert quoted you..."