Ep. 21: Gourmet

People are people, no matter their age. Some will be kind, curious, rude, condescending, bitter, or funny, and so on. I’m an “old people chef,” and this is my journal.
--

"Gourmet" is the name I've given one of our residents. She's a very particular person, commenting on the thickness of noodles we use in a dish or how there wasn't quite enough crisp on her apple crisp. This gourmet attitude doesn't stop with her. It's also a habit of mind for most of the people we serve.

Manager and I were discussing this one day. I recalled working at a bar and grill and all the labor and staff involved in one dish or one order leaving the kitchen steaming hot and made to order and just to the customer's specifications. That is the sort of experience our residents seem to expect. What they don't think about is the fact that a bar and grill gets about $20-$30 per person per meal they serve. So I asked Manager, "what is our budget per plate?"

Here's what she told me: It's $5 per person.

Per meal?

No.

Per day.

We feed each resident a breakfast buffet, a noon meal, an afternoon snack, and a supper meal on five dollars.

If this was my personal food budget, we'd be eating mostly ramen noodles at home.

In the meantime, our residents get turkey and mashed potatoes, prime rib, spaghetti and meatsauce, tator tot hotdish, salmon patty on a bun with remoulade sauce, lamb with mint jelly...and an uncountable horde of cookies, bars, and bowls of fruit.

Yes, we buy in bulk. Yes, we have a contract with a food supplier. Both of these things cut the cost of what we do. However, five dollars a day per person just plain blows my mind.

In light of how we manage to feed these people well on such a tight budget, I'm thinking we must be magicians of some kind.

But then I return to work:
...Someone whistles me over to her table. The way you would whistle a reckless puppy away from traffic...
...A coworker swings by to chortle with me about a complaint he overheard: that the kitchen's plating technique leaves much to be desired...
...And I see a resident, Gourmet herself, pulling her rice krispy bar apart with a face of disgust. "There's too much goo in this."

These moments seem even more ridiculous when seen in the light of our budget. There's hardly room for meat and potatoes in there, much less the expectation of something Gourmet.

The Daily Sweat

Salsa music erupts from the TV and I get lost in following the movements to a Zumba dance routine, sweat already gathering on my flailing limbs. I'm caught in the rhythms and melodies, stepping [mostly] in time. My only concerns are keeping up and not wearing away the lacquer coating on the wood floor.

Then I notice the mirror nearby. Every little bit of jiggle shows as I move. A list of all the recent junk food I've consumed seems to scroll by as I step and sway:
that strawberry rhubarb pie on Saturday
that Boston cream filled pie on Sunday...with the creamy pudding inside and the chocolate frosting outside (yummm)
the three choco-cherry brownie cookies and half a chocolate chip cookie today.

Some lifeless inner voice lectures me: if you ate more salad you could be all inspiring like the gleaming figures sweating on your TV screen, smiles plastered on as they effortlessly dance.


Then I'm aware of these thoughts and decide to take a swing at them:
Maybe if I was a gleaming perfection I'd be less inspiring.
Maybe what I am now and how I look now is no less inspiring than what might be or could be.

So I take another look - and I see a dancer, a woman sweating in a bra and shorts and not giving a darn if she's not tan and not perfectly toned.

And then I forget about looking. I place myself out on a gravel driveway on a starlit prairie night. The Latin music is floating out to me from the tall grass where crickets pluck their fiddle strings and fireflies dart in bright streaks of light. The breeze loosens whispering music from the treetops, and I'm moving because I can and because there's music and because it moves me.

And there's no body to me. There's no shape and there's no pinning me into one place. I simply am.

When I get to this state of mind in The Daily Sweat, it's like there's no limit anymore. I'm just lungs and sweat and doing and being.


It's a liberated state of mind.
It's a state of victory. =)

Ep. 20: Hotdog Trumps Ham

People are people, no matter their age. Some will be kind, curious, rude, condescending, bitter, or funny, and so on. I’m an “old people chef,” and this is my journal.
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"I cannot have cake, I am a diabetic," says Sugarfree, lecturing me yet again about her diabetes that only shows its face when it is convenient for her. She'll eat pie, she'll eat brownies, she'll eat seven layer bars - but for some reason if you put cake in front of her, she suddenly remembers that she is a diabetic. This is why her somewhat sarcastic name given here is "Sugarfree."

Today Sugarfree informed us that she also wants to be "Ham Free."
This is because of tonight's supper:
Cranberry Glazed Ham

Yellow Rice

Steamed Baby Carrots

Cinnamon Baked Apples

Her response to this menu was, "I don't want rice. And I can't have ham. It's too salty. It makes me swell up like a balloon. I'd like to have a hotdog instead, with a side of carrots."

First, I've been working there over a year and the aide tonight has been working there for about six years, and neither of us has ever heard a complaint from Sugarfree about ham.

Second, a hotdog is not exactly a low-salt substitute for ham. It's like replacing salty pork with salty mystery meat.

Third, she was trying to order an alternative a whole hour after the cut-off. She knows better than that. I smell manipulation afoot!

For all these reasons, we told her no. She then asked to have a plateful of carrots since neither ham nor rice sounded good to her.

A half hour after that, she informed us that she would not be coming to supper after all.

She was going out to eat.
Out to the local Asian restaurant.
Because that couldn't possibly be salty.

The lack of logic here is amazing.

"I can't have salt, so I'd like to have a hot dog.
On second thought, I think I'll go have a pile of MSG."

Tell me about your special diet again, please?

Episode 19: Two Cents Times a Million

People are people, no matter their age. Some will be kind, curious, rude, condescending, bitter, or funny, and so on. I’m an “old people chef,” and this is my journal.
--

 

Every resident has an opinion to share, whether you ask for it or not.
Here’s a collection of real complaints we have received. Many of them contradict each other, as each person has a different definition of “good food.”

Most of them make us laugh. We can’t please everyone.

“
I wish the oatmeal bowls were smaller.

I only wanted half a grilled cheese!

This soup is way too hot.
This soup is lukewarm.

I’ve had so much scrambled eggs I’m afraid I’ll grow feathers!
I prefer hard boiled eggs.
(On sausage gravy and biscuit day) I prefer scrambled eggs.

These desserts are too big.

I wish you’d used a bigger noodle.
These noodles are too soft.
The noodles are too chewy – look at how everyone is chewing and chewing!

We want more meat and potatoes.
We’d rather have potatoes than rice or pasta.
We have too many mashed potatoes.

The kraut soup is too salty.
The kraut soup is not sour enough.

I really love these chicken strips.
Chicken strips are not an acceptable entrée.

These eggs are not fit.

”

Episode 18: Crafty's Salad

People are people, no matter their age. Some will be kind, curious, rude, condescending, bitter, or funny, and so on. I’m an “old people chef,” and this is my journal.
--

 

A certain resident was pressing on the boundaries of sanity this last weekend. This person can go by no other name than Crafty. She is continually working out how to manipulate things to her own purposes.

It should not have surprised me when a couple resident assistants approached me at 9:15 and said that Crafty had just called to change her lunch order. I explained about the deadline (9:00), and we all agreed that Crafty had called them because she hoped they wouldn't know about the deadline.

Then about 11 a.m., she showed up with a new list of alternatives for the week, including the change she had attempted at 9:15. It was still too late, and I just shook my head at her further clumsy attempt at gaining exception where no other resident could.

She had requested her meal sent to her room, so at noon the tray with her salad went up. About ten minutes later, I had the delight of receiving a phone call from her.

"When I talked to you earlier, you said I could have a hot dog," her indignant words bit through the receiver.
"You did not talk to me. You spoke with the gals on the floor."
"Well, they told me I could have it." Her indignation was growing, and the grating scrape of her voice rising in volume.
"Then they were mistaken. And you know that the deadline is 9:00. You had ordered a salad and so that's what we sent."
"Well," she screeched, "I WON'T EAT IT!"
As if it was going to really bother me. We all know she has piles of junk food in her apartment.
"I'm very sorry," I stated, and hung up before she could continue.

Later she accused the RAs of not supplying her daily pain pills - as in, she wanted double pain meds.
Then she screamed at someone in her room that she had never received her noon meal - even as it was visible on its tray across the room on her countertop.

Crafty was on a roll.

Now today she left a note asking to please be moved from Table 1 to Table 9. We change seating monthly and we do not change seats unless there is serious conflict between two residents at a particular table (which has happened maybe three times in the last year). I tore up the note as I've torn many others. It was a surprise to see that she didn't swap her place card with one at her desired table. That has happened many times before.

The fact that these things are even issues boggles me. Screaming at someone about a salad. Bold faced lying about a salad. Acting like deadlines apply to the other 69 people in the building and not to you.

Over a salad.

If it wasn't real, it'd be sheer comedy.