Tuesday 22 September 2009

Tonight's dinner


What's that stuff on the right?

Since you all enjoyed that so much... here's the soup.



66 comments:

  1. Is it what archeologists call "petrified"?
    It looks pretty bloody scary to me!
    (I won't give up my day job...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. They seem to have well pronounced brain stems and the folded cerebrum of a higher primate, or maybe they are just snippets of cerebellum. See if you can find a Doctor to help identify them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ok here we go, pasta with some kind of insect eggs on it, maybe head lice eggs, they are red I understand, and errrr is it cauliflower? God it's yellow AGAIN! That can't be cheese sauce because of course real cheese sauce has butter in it, and real cheese has too much fat and too much salt for your health (according to your NHS diet I presume?) Where are the vitamins? I was beginning to get worried as you normally post dinner earlier in the evening, I thought they might have done you in! In my impatience (sorry worry), I posted an ode to you under your lunch. Hope you are mending.
    Linda Tenerife x

    ReplyDelete
  4. Now I really have proof that hospitals exchange leftovers!! This was on our lunchtime staff canteen menu. It was priced surprisingly cheap too at £2 a dollop. Still nobody ate it. When I saw it there under the hotlamps I thought of you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Is the chef an Aspie only capable of preparing white foodstuffs?

    ReplyDelete
  6. O well ... these cauliflower buds seem to sit there quite forlorn and unseasoned ... poor sods like you, apparently, maybe they were designed purposefully that way to make them feel more sympathy with your plight ...
    I like cauliflower cooked slightly al dente in salted water, strained and topped with a generous layer of breadcrumbs toasted in butter. Or you might serve them with sauce hollandaise or sauce mornay, or just plain brown butter. Or you could mix them with broccoli for colour and toss them in some olive oil with chopped herbs and garlic and sliced almonds ... others add chopped ham ... how would you have liked them?

    ReplyDelete
  7. TM...that made me cry...have you no pity? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. w/v: ovenning. I kid you not...even the gizmo is on your side :-)

    trogg was the next one...I bet Presley wouldn't eat that shit, either of 'em :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yum real delicious, unseasoned chewy, toxic macaroni cheese and more bland boiled unseasoned veg. Lucky you, TM! YOu must have enjoying tucking into that. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. It looks and probably tastes disgustingly bland.

    Not that I would know of course but I have sampled hospital food before now.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I want to know what the little brown dots are ????

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sod the cauliflower... what are the bits scattered about? At least it breaks up the yellow and white theme...

    ReplyDelete
  13. NHS macaroni cheese and over-boiled cauliflower. Working as I do in an NHS hospital I am thinking that the macaroni cheese isn't toooo bad, provided you swallow it quickly and just get a hint of the cheese as it passes down your throat. The cauliflower isn't a problem as it pretty much dissolves in your mouth because it is so laden with water. Yummmm.. I am thinking you may be down the corridor from where I work as there are several orthopaedic side wards which face a brick wall! Can't you bribe someone to go down to the League of Friends shop and buy you stuff which hasn't been tampered with? i.e. chocolate Hob Nobs, bruised bananas and out of date Freddo frogs?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Cauliflower, an over educated cabbage..!!

    This looks worse than disgusting, over cooked cauliflower, maccaroni with some sort of pepper sauce, or flour and water mix.

    Save the sauce , you can use it for glueing snippets in a scrap book,or dip pieces of bog roll in it and flick them up at the ceiling when bored stiff.

    Ness..xx

    ReplyDelete
  15. Dear. God. Almighty.

    Beige and lots of it.

    They couldn't quite decide between cauliflower cheese and macaroni cheese so they threw the whole thing together into a large holding bin and hoped for the best. As for the black bits ... clearly the floors hadn't been swept before they picked up the bits that had missed the holding bin.

    UCK.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Are those brown dots mustard seeds?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I am more concerned with the sprinklings on the vomit, what are they, or even more scarey, where did they come from.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Your dinner makes Baby Jesus cry.

    Paula

    ReplyDelete
  19. straight out of the tin, 1 minute in the microwave and 'ping' a home cooked meal, but whose home was it cooked in. No one has commented on the soup - what apparent flavour was it - looks like it came out of someones catherter bag who has had a protate or bladder cancer resected. lovely if you swallow it quickly enough - lukewarm or stone cold?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Looks like I've been rumbled by the chef. Sorry, chef. Didn't mean a word of it. The cauliflower was delicious and just what I needed now my teeth have all fallen out with scurvy. Macaroni looked delicious... I wasted no time in eating it.

    ReplyDelete
  21. SOUP...!! Urine sample from Jabba the Hutt more like .... pah.....

    Ness..xx

    ReplyDelete
  22. Well, for the soup I put my guess on mashed carrots diluted with water? Hopefully with some salt, some oil and maybe even a speck of ginger?

    ReplyDelete
  23. it's macaroni cheese with cauliflower and possibly wholegrain mustard by the looks. Let me assure you that this is one of my favourite hospital meals. The cheese has been wafted over the sauce but none is contained. the cauli is heavy iwth water. I liked the hospital soup. They were ok. There was a really nice vegetable and herb one and one day I got it hot. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven until I saw the next course

    ReplyDelete
  24. First rule of hospital food should be: "Let's not make it look like some unpleasant incident on the surgical ward."

    Second rule of hospital food appears to be: "C'mon spoilsport. Remember the time that guy's duodenum burst in Sister's face just as she was bending over to inspect the dressing? Gotta preserve that for posterity."

    ReplyDelete
  25. I thought the soup didn't look too bad - lentil? So long as it wasn't the usual NHS salted water with a hint of vegetable.

    I always like macaroni - could they not have given you some garlic bread with it though?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I could spend ages guessing - what did you actually order? Also, how bad were the alternatives?! Maybe they should show pictures alongside the menu options to help you decide...

    ReplyDelete
  27. This meal clearly illustrates the importance of presentation in matters of cuisine. Yesterdays offering was a bland brown on brown on brown platter. Todays plate was equally dull with it's sick albino pasta and veg theme. Add a side of peas,a splash of gravy and, hey presto!, a culinary masterpiece! Well...maybe not,but it sure would make pretty puke!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Good job you are not dairy intolerant, you'd have got a plate full of over boiled cauliflower.

    ReplyDelete
  29. at first glance(and second glance as well) i was convinced your plate had been used an ashtray!!!!..the pasta?? looks like 'tab ends'

    ReplyDelete
  30. Teeth (presumably yours, thanks to the scurvy) in wallpaper paste with shredded brain (yours, as it is shrinking from lack of stimuli/nourishment and dropped out in chunks via your lughole).

    Not sure what the heck is in the soup bowl, but it could indicate a close relationship with the sluice room.

    You poor man!!!

    ReplyDelete
  31. They weren't moving, were they? 'Cause the dots look like eyes...

    The soup looks like it ran out of someone's nose.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Easy! It's Pale Yellow, Paler Yellow and Deeper Pale Yellow.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Tom, Western Australia23 September 2009 at 01:42

    If they served that crap up to us lags in Prison we'd be fucking rioting.

    ReplyDelete
  34. adding a dead chef to your poll is insighful.

    perhaps he is best postioned to appreciate how meals such as the yellow extravaganza above might make you feel.

    hmmm. i voted for mr oliver, as the very day before your post about celeb chefs i left a comment which suggested recruiting his services, though i do here he is in dire straits, what with trying to earn his 7 trillion bajillion quid a year and balance a satisfactory 'home life'.

    poor poppet.

    ReplyDelete
  35. ...i also here that the words 'there', 'their' and 'they're' are all the same, like SOUNDING, but they MEAN different things.

    kinda like 'here' and 'hear'. only, different, but the same...kind of.

    *omg*

    ReplyDelete
  36. That macaroni looks as though it's been eaten once already...

    ReplyDelete
  37. The blackish specks are obviously the fleas from the rats who partially ate that thing in the cardboard pastry shell the other day?

    *shudder*

    ReplyDelete
  38. *DING*!!

    (Slaps thigh) Of course!

    Rather than having a plain, boringly typed menu, the options should be shown in their full ghastly, shades-of-beige glory as documented by Mr TM from his bed of pain.

    THEN we'd see how much food was ordered by the patients, i.e. absolutely none whatsoever.

    No wonder they just type it, otherwise they'd have gigantic container loads of unidentifiable gloop to dispose of every day, and questions would be asked. As it is, it just gets distributed among vast numbers of black plastic bin liners once it's scraped off the plates.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I was just over the The Whine Guide when someone came by and said there was a blogger in traction who needed some professional harassment. So here I am. What's for dinner?

    ReplyDelete
  40. TM, You can be honest now do you work for the Tate and you've decided to promote some unknown artist (aka chef), when do we get to know the name of this budding superstar?

    Zoe

    ReplyDelete
  41. What's in traction anyway mate? Do you have all limbs suspended by wires with weights hanging off them- like you see in crap TV ads or cartoons? How long you been like that and how long will you stay like that? And BTW stop bloody moaning will ya - they're people in much worse predicaments than you. Can't think of any right now. But you should be counting your blessings not grumbling about it all. Let me remind you - three square meals a day, a lovely brick wall to look out on, a TV that's on the blink (a real blessing), lots of yummy nurses to ogle, plenty of time to yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  42. You're right. It's so easy to sit here and forget how lucky I am. I'm beginning to feel ungrateful. Perhaps I should stop this moaning, give up the blog and devote the rest of my life to saving fallen women and writing religious tracts. Thank you for providing me with an overdue reality check.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Well *this* fallen women says, LOL, keep moaning; I bet this blog has gone viral amongst medical staff (I certainly passed the links on to doctors I know). Needs saying.

    As a matter of curiosity, do you get an apology with the monotone slop? I would have thought it only human to wince in embarrassment when trying to serve this to anyone, never mind the ill and vulnerable!

    Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Ah... My first fallen woman. No one has said sorry for the slop yet. I shan't hold my breath. Actually, if I did threaten to hold my breath until the food improved I might get somewhere. The mortuary, probably.

    ReplyDelete
  45. The 'soup' kind of looks like the lemon curd thing from a few days ago. Look on the bright side, if it is, at least you won't die of rickets......

    ReplyDelete
  46. hmmm now TM be thankful for small mercies its not everyday you get frog spawn in your dinner...

    Jill
    Northern Ireland

    ReplyDelete
  47. I'll go with yellow split pea for the soup. My Dad had something similar the other day served in one of those baby cup with the lids to prevent spills!

    ReplyDelete
  48. they should give the same slop to hospital management, you would soon see an improvement in patients food then...

    ReplyDelete
  49. Aw crap! I love Mac and Cheese. So do my kids. Now none of us will ever be able to face eating it again. Hell, I don't even think any dog worth his fur would eat that! I agree wholeheartedly with whomever said it looks like it's already been eaten once.

    And it's a bloody CRIME to torture poor cauliflower that way.

    Please tell me it's not Pumpkin Soup. If you say yes, I may just sit down on the floor and cry.

    Yvonne - New South Wales, Australia

    ReplyDelete
  50. What time is lunch? I can't wait!!

    Damian (Sadly addicted to your blog!)

    ReplyDelete
  51. In re the poll of who should sort this out, I admire your confidence that dear recently-departed Keith Floyd could be persuaded to put in an appearance from beyond the grave. Would certainly cause a stir or two.

    Much, though, as my fantasy of Nigella Lawson in a nurse's uniform impels my choice, I have voted for the Hairy Bikers because they not only combine the passion and skill for cooking a miracle out of little with the common touch and care of mankind, but also because they carry with them the hidden menace that if things aren't sorted pronto then they have a hundred or more hairy, scary biker mates they could call on to 'address the issue' with management.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Good point! I like the way you're thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Well it's official. At time of writing, Anthony Worral-Thompson is 7% less popular than a dead man for the choice of chef. Bad day for him.

    ReplyDelete
  54. That stuff on the right are a few tiny heads of cauliflower.

    Do you read every comment?

    ReplyDelete
  55. I can promise you (on my cat's life) that I read every last one of your comments. I relish each one and it makes writing the blog so worthwhile. Besides...what else do you think I'm going to do tied up in this bloody bed? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  56. It is macaroni cheese.
    Do you know what - you are unfair.
    Hospital caterers can only cook with the budget that they have been given. Trusts do not allot enough money in their food budget because in their sad little heads they think that it is a hotel service, not treatment.
    You have a lot more choice than even 5 years ago and private caterers really do try hard to get it right. Thanks to the Dept of Health there are virtually no hospital kitchens left so food is shipped in
    Thanks to your so called "humour" there are now going to be people who will refuse to eat it.
    Sorry I know you are ill, I know you are bored, but for the many many professionals put there who try really hard to raise standards, this is a kick in the teeth
    Why not do something constructive - lobby the Dof H - find out how much YOUR local Trust pays per patient per head, instead of creating turmoil where there does not need to be.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Oh and to the Englishwoman abroad - when will you learn that doctors do not have ANY say in such matters as food.
    What the hell do you think they are going to do about it?

    ReplyDelete
  58. You're probably right. Wouldn't be as much fun though!

    ReplyDelete
  59. Yes but TM - can you not see the damage you are causing?
    I never thought I would EVER defend hospital food but you are not being fair.
    I would LOVE it if we could have hospital kitchens back and all food was cooked on site - but it ain't gonna happen. Anyone who thinks they can do better needs to get a reality check.
    Without good food we do not heal - but I am sorry, you have been way too harsh on the food your Trust is serving.
    People do have so much more choice now, Perhaps too much. perhaps less choice and more about quality - I don't know.
    But what you have done is stirred the Daily Mail readers up and that is never a good thing.
    Maybe when you are better you could start a camapaign to bring back kitchens to hospitals because that is the only way we wll ever improve food.
    There is so much more I could say here - but please do not blame the hapless caterers -blame the Dept of Health, the Government and your Trust.

    ReplyDelete
  60. To Anonymous complaining above, the hospital may cook on a budget but it does not in no way, shape or form dismiss the hospital of it's responsibility to cook the ingredients in a nicer manner. You seem to find it acceptable, I do not. Even School dinners are nicer. The chefs have no excuse of over cooked soggy veg, budget or no budget. It's pathetically lame. How much does salt, pepper and spices cost and herbs cost? More excuses for churning out bland tasteless food. The chefs need to find out way of making it taste nicer. Give the patients sauces. Maybe someone can bring TM, ketchup, Garlic and Chive sauce, HP Brown sauce, Periperi sauce, tabsco sauce etc to make his meals a little more edible.

    ReplyDelete
  61. You are fastidious, many people like me would be happy for this. Young students living from what's in the freezer and dieing for a good meal, at least an average would do it too!

    ReplyDelete
  62. I'm not blaming the catering staff. I'm sure they do a great job with the materials that are trucked into them. We do need kitchens back and proper cooks. I'm on your side. It's the bean counters and the large corporations who produce this muck that I'm getting at. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, but the nurses, doctors, cleaners and catering staff in this hospital are fabulous people who work really hard. Please don't think I'm getting at you. I want caterers to get back to doing the job they love and that they are good at, not reheating some cook-chill crap that has been produced elsewhere. Is that fair?

    ReplyDelete
  63. Awwww Now I am an official member of the Traction man fan club.
    You are right of course - it is mass produced fodder and I can tell you that most hospital caterers are very very frustrated - it has to come from central government. Lets put money into food - not targets.
    If patients are fed well they go home quicker with less complications and then all the 4 hour targets etc won't be necessary because there will be beds.
    Perhaps I am over simplifying things a bit but it really isn't rocket science!

    ReplyDelete
  64. and to the person who suggested sauces and things - yes good point. BUT they cost money - I kid you not, this is how Trusts will look at it...again not the caterers fault.Most wards do have brown sauce, ketchup and salt and pepper sachets though.
    Thanks to food safety laws there is a strict limit on what and what cannot be done at ward level.

    ReplyDelete