Satisfying Nyel’s Sweet Tooth

I didn’t have any dinner last night but I certainly didn’t go to bed hungry.  Bill and Sue had come visiting in the afternoon and brought a box of a dozen little frosted cupcakes – all beautiful, delicious, and totally decadent! – and I had eaten two of them.  Not enough to stave off the desire for a decent dinner but, the operable word here is … well, suffice it to say that it’s hospital food and I long ago ran out of options.

The thing is… over the last year (since Oct. 4, 2016) we have been here at Emanuel Hospital for 66 days, mostly in increments of 5 or 6 days at a time.  That’s more-or-less 132 lunches and dinners.  On the “Guest Menu” there are four choices for those meals.  Not four for lunch and another four for dinner.  The same four choices for both meals:  1) Tillamook Cheeseburger; 2) Macaroni and Cheese; 3) Roast Turkey; 4) Northwest Salad.  Lunches and Dinners cost $10 each, cash on delivery.  It seemed reasonable enough at first.  Now… not so much.

Limited Choices

The meals are ‘passing fair’ as my mother would say of things that were barely okay.  But, even if I liked them all equally and alternated them evenly, that’s about as much hospital food (baked hamburger patty?  Soupy mac ‘n cheese?  One veggie choice – broccoli?) as I can stomach.  So… no dinner last night.

I hasten to say that the Patient Menu is entirely different, thankfully. Nyel has sixteen lunch and dinner choices as well as a “build your own sandwich’ option with multiple possibilities. Granted, it’s a heart healthy menu which means only, as far as we can tell, no salt.  Otherwise, it looks great and Nyel is quite happy with his meals.  The problem for me, of course, is that guests are not allowed to order from the patient menu.  Even if they pay.  The Kitchen Nazis won’t allow it.  Maddening.

There are options.  There are two cafes on the first floor.  One is a serve-yourself sort of buffet, on open for limited hours only.  I have checked it out and put the entire place in my mental round file.  Dreadful!  The other possibility is the Heartbeat Café.  Again, limited choices (and hardly gourmet) but when I really am wanting a Caesar salad (and have a momentary lapse, forgetting that it will be just a pile of wilted lettuce with some shredded bits of parmesan cheese) I do venture forth.

Pesto Pasta

I could, of course, take the car and go ‘out’ for a meal now and then but it just doesn’t seem worth the effort.  Plus, I’m not a huge fan of eating alone in a strange restaurant.  And, it’s not that friends (bless them!) haven’t offered to come whisk me away for a meal.  But, that seems way too much ‘all about me’ when the whole reason for being here is to support my honey.

However, there is one option left which I’m thinking of exercising today.  Calling for take-out service!   I have a hankerin’ for a big serving of pasta with pesto sauce and an order of garlic bread.  And maybe a tossed green salad (hold the lettuce??).  I Googled ‘takeout food near me’ and found a half-dozen possibilities from an Olive Garden to a pasta bistro that will deliver right to Nyel’s hospital room.  Yay for the Big City!