The soup looks like a combination of many things, none you would care to publish. Green sausages, wow, they look good, the chips look like the ones you leave in the bottom of the bag of chips because they are too small.
I wont comment on the pudding.
This afternoons dinner looked lovely, did it taste as good as it looked.
Guesses: Soup: Bread soup Main: Swiss chards, fried potatoes, onions in ketchup, green british NHS (ryanair) sausages Dessert: big toffee swirl cookie in custard Have a nice evening, TM; have you got some left over treats hidden in your bedside cupboard? Best wishes! Barbara (Styria)
Today's lunch was perfectly adequate. As far as tonight's goes... not good at all. The dessert was rock hard and we're back to that watery and savoury tasting custard. The sausages are of a type you would never be able to buy in any shop. Unique... truly unique. The cabbage was as you'd expect but the chips were bone dry. I'm not sure what they do to them. It's all very well cutting back on fat levels but if it makes the chips as tempting as chewing on a damp twig, there's not really any point producing them.
Whenever I got chips they were wet. I don't know if they steam cook them or something? Who knows. The custard is amazing isn't it. You can't stop eating it as you're thinking 'what's that effing taste - it's not sweet, what is it?' and before you know it the bowl of custard has gone.
I suspect the soup is some kind of chicken and veg. it has that kind of flecked look.
By the way - your article about the bats. I'm not a million miles away from the particular hospital mentioned but I got a choice of going there or somewhere else. I chose somewhere else.
Why oh why are the sausages green? Nice to see the return of the hockey puck dessert, or not as you probably thought! Is that soup the tomato and butter bean recycled from the weekend? Normal service has been resumed, I see.
I've sussed it! The soup is made from whatever is left on the plates from the meal before, which explains the inclusion of this delicacy on a daily basis. I feel for you - nobody should have to eat this muck.
1. Shredded cardboard soup (again) with added brown paper puree 2. Boiled surgeon's fingers with bleached mandarin segments and shredded kitchen curtain. 3. Slice of tree trunk with custard.
Yes, where, WHERE is the vitamin C in your hospital meals? You've had a ton of carbohydrates and useless fats, and a smidgeon of vegetables although they were boiled to god knows what.
Keep blogging Mr TM. Your waiting world is growing in size every day.
TM, having been following your splendid blog for a couple of weeks now, you have inadvertently provided me with the answer to a question I have long had, which is Who provides the food on locked psychiatric wards? Admittedly, when one is particularly stricken with craziness, food isn't very important, but when you can't pop down to shops for a snack and anything brought in is subject to search and seizure, the ONLY food is what comes round on the trolley.
The answer to my question is: whatever isn't eaten by folk on sane wards is liquidised and sent down in giant vats to the crazy wards (no sharp objects, so nothing that needs cutting or stabbing). Tomorrow, someone somewhere will be eating your bread and cardboard soup garnished with that cabbage. So, please stay sane, ok? Cos it could get soooo much worse :)
Hang in there Traction Man. Even if your bed-bound body is being denied tasty comestibles you are keeping your brain on a healthy diet of ponderings, ruminations, startled realisations and well-written observations. And our cyber-diet is all the richer for it. Many thanks to you.
I think I have solved the soup mystery. Chef has a secret ambition to work for Dulux*. Today you dined on Tuscan Sunset. Previously I have seen bowls of Moongreen and AutumnLoam.
As long as he sticks to neutrals you should be safe.
*other paint manufacturers are available. Sorry, I usually post on one of the few remaining BBC sites where we are trained to be impartial.
Dear TM, thank you very much for your wonderful blog and for your unfailing cheerfulness in the face of all this food horror. I am very much reminded of my time at a (rather expensive) boarding school! Mondays were the worst: breakfast was sausages that appeared to be wearing ill-fitting condoms served with the lowest grade of tepid tinned tomatoes - they had black bits in, plus 'toast', I still don't know how they did it, completely soggy in the middle, rock hard round the edges. At least there was butter and sort-of-marmalade (we suspected it was made with carrots). Lunch was always gristle stew, wobbly bits in orange alleged-gravy. This masqueraded as 'goulash', 'casserole' and one memorable day, when the cook got carried away 'ragout'. This was served with very wet pasta cartwheels and carrots which had obviously caught 'black bits disease' from the breakfast tomatoes. Pudding was butterscotch angel delight, which some people actually enjoyed! Supper was (alternate weeks) cheesy mashed potatoes with unidentifiable lumps and more black bits or cauliflower cheese with unfeasible quantities of caterpillars. Cooked caterpillars are NOT NICE. I guess raw ones wouldn't be either... However, unlike you we had access to a tuck shop for which we were all pathetically grateful. I wish I knew where you are, I could send cake. Proper cakes which have actual sugar in! Certain cakes post very well indeed. If Mrs TM wants to feed you yogurt do suggest to her that she purchases an 'Easiyo', makes the most delicious yogurt at a reasonable cost and minimum effort. I've been using it for years and such is the enthusiasm amongst my friends (and their families) in these 'ere parts that I fear Perthshire is about to disappear under a tsunami of raspberry-mango-lemon-strawberry-toffee-boysenberry Easiyo! PS. I do not work for the easiyo people or anything like that, I just think it's a brilliant thing and all that calcium would do wonders for your poor leg.
Has that particular hospital got market shares in crumbles and jam roly-poly's as you seem to get these on alternate days.... while I feel the utmost sympathy for you, I am enjoying your blog and your writing...
Mavis - your comment on butterscotch angel delight took me straight back to school and I nearly barfed on my keyboard. Did you ever have chocolate blancmange (cannot even spell it) with tinned pears? I cannot continue on this theme.
You definitely got the wrong end of the bag where the chips are concerned. Assuming the sausages are not huge, the chips are tiny. I have to say the cabbage does not look toooo bad; it still appears to have some bit in it (or is it just not cooked?). My poor hubby had to spend the night in hospital yesterday (OK, one night only and I have now taken over the TLC so this does not compare to your predicament). After an ambulance ride and an upsetting night with lots of tests he really fancied a bacon roll rather than porridge or cereals. Unfortunately this was not to be had for love nor money. Multiply this by the umpteen weeks you have been on traction.... I really feel for you.
Sarah, no we didn't get chocolate blancmange...except, thinking about it now I suspect that the so-called chocolate custard we got with the pears was just melted down blancmange. Oh dear, have I just made you spew all over your keyboard again? Pooh sticks: no, we weren't subjected to that, thank God. Just remembered some added delights from when my father was at prep school during the war, for instance: kipper sausages, whale meat (mainly blubber), chocolate macaroni and some sort of slimey grey fish called scrod (I think, sounded very unappealing anyway).
The soup looks like a combination of many things, none you would care to publish. Green sausages, wow, they look good, the chips look like the ones you leave in the bottom of the bag of chips because they are too small.
ReplyDeleteI wont comment on the pudding.
This afternoons dinner looked lovely, did it taste as good as it looked.
Guesses:
ReplyDeleteSoup: Bread soup
Main: Swiss chards, fried potatoes, onions in ketchup, green british NHS (ryanair) sausages
Dessert: big toffee swirl cookie in custard
Have a nice evening, TM; have you got some left over treats hidden in your bedside cupboard?
Best wishes! Barbara (Styria)
Today's lunch was perfectly adequate. As far as tonight's goes... not good at all. The dessert was rock hard and we're back to that watery and savoury tasting custard. The sausages are of a type you would never be able to buy in any shop. Unique... truly unique. The cabbage was as you'd expect but the chips were bone dry. I'm not sure what they do to them. It's all very well cutting back on fat levels but if it makes the chips as tempting as chewing on a damp twig, there's not really any point producing them.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I got chips they were wet. I don't know if they steam cook them or something? Who knows. The custard is amazing isn't it. You can't stop eating it as you're thinking 'what's that effing taste - it's not sweet, what is it?' and before you know it the bowl of custard has gone.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the soup is some kind of chicken and veg. it has that kind of flecked look.
By the way - your article about the bats. I'm not a million miles away from the particular hospital mentioned but I got a choice of going there or somewhere else. I chose somewhere else.
Why oh why are the sausages green?
ReplyDeleteNice to see the return of the hockey puck dessert, or not as you probably thought!
Is that soup the tomato and butter bean recycled from the weekend?
Normal service has been resumed, I see.
It's like looking into a toilet bowl at a train station.
ReplyDeleteDon't throw it then.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you do, make sure it's at a wall or something.
I've sussed it! The soup is made from whatever is left on the plates from the meal before, which explains the inclusion of this delicacy on a daily basis. I feel for you - nobody should have to eat this muck.
ReplyDeletebinlid
Looks like someone with even worse motor skills put this dinner on the plate!
ReplyDeleteIf those sausages weren't curried, they should have been. As for the pudding, it looks disturbingly embryonic.
ReplyDelete1. Shredded cardboard soup (again) with added brown paper puree
ReplyDelete2. Boiled surgeon's fingers with bleached mandarin segments and shredded kitchen curtain.
3. Slice of tree trunk with custard.
Yes, where, WHERE is the vitamin C in your hospital meals? You've had a ton of carbohydrates and useless fats, and a smidgeon of vegetables although they were boiled to god knows what.
Keep blogging Mr TM. Your waiting world is growing in size every day.
Those things are chips? I had to go for second look, I thought it was shell pasta without sauce the first time round!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteLets hope that tomorrow brings better luck... Panino for lunch perhaps?
Cabbage and chips?! Now there's a novelty. Where do they get these menu ideas?
ReplyDeleteGill
TM, having been following your splendid blog for a couple of weeks now, you have inadvertently provided me with the answer to a question I have long had, which is Who provides the food on locked psychiatric wards? Admittedly, when one is particularly stricken with craziness, food isn't very important, but when you can't pop down to shops for a snack and anything brought in is subject to search and seizure, the ONLY food is what comes round on the trolley.
ReplyDeleteThe answer to my question is: whatever isn't eaten by folk on sane wards is liquidised and sent down in giant vats to the crazy wards (no sharp objects, so nothing that needs cutting or stabbing). Tomorrow, someone somewhere will be eating your bread and cardboard soup garnished with that cabbage. So, please stay sane, ok? Cos it could get soooo much worse :)
Keep on blogging. Makes me smile everyday.
Hang in there Traction Man. Even if your bed-bound body is being denied tasty comestibles you are keeping your brain on a healthy diet of ponderings, ruminations, startled realisations and well-written observations. And our cyber-diet is all the richer for it. Many thanks to you.
ReplyDeleteGlo
I think I have solved the soup mystery. Chef has a secret ambition to work for Dulux*. Today you dined on Tuscan Sunset. Previously I have seen bowls of Moongreen and AutumnLoam.
ReplyDeleteAs long as he sticks to neutrals you should be safe.
*other paint manufacturers are available. Sorry, I usually post on one of the few remaining BBC sites where we are trained to be impartial.
What IS the soup? I have to know. It's the strangest color.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Mich
Dear TM, thank you very much for your wonderful blog and for your unfailing cheerfulness in the face of all this food horror. I am very much reminded of my time at a (rather expensive) boarding school! Mondays were the worst: breakfast was sausages that appeared to be wearing ill-fitting condoms served with the lowest grade of tepid tinned tomatoes - they had black bits in, plus 'toast', I still don't know how they did it, completely soggy in the middle, rock hard round the edges. At least there was butter and sort-of-marmalade (we suspected it was made with carrots). Lunch was always gristle stew, wobbly bits in orange alleged-gravy. This masqueraded as 'goulash', 'casserole' and one memorable day, when the cook got carried away 'ragout'. This was served with very wet pasta cartwheels and carrots which had obviously caught 'black bits disease' from the breakfast tomatoes. Pudding was butterscotch angel delight, which some people actually enjoyed! Supper was (alternate weeks) cheesy mashed potatoes with unidentifiable lumps and more black bits or cauliflower cheese with unfeasible quantities of caterpillars. Cooked caterpillars are NOT NICE. I guess raw ones wouldn't be either... However, unlike you we had access to a tuck shop for which we were all pathetically grateful.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew where you are, I could send cake. Proper cakes which have actual sugar in! Certain cakes post very well indeed.
If Mrs TM wants to feed you yogurt do suggest to her that she purchases an 'Easiyo', makes the most delicious yogurt at a reasonable cost and minimum effort. I've been using it for years and such is the enthusiasm amongst my friends (and their families) in these 'ere parts that I fear Perthshire is about to disappear under a tsunami of raspberry-mango-lemon-strawberry-toffee-boysenberry Easiyo!
PS. I do not work for the easiyo people or anything like that, I just think it's a brilliant thing and all that calcium would do wonders for your poor leg.
Could that be petrified jam roly-poly submerged under that prehistoric custard?
ReplyDeletePutrified more like!
ReplyDeleteRuth
The pudding looks so yummy....
ReplyDeleteHas that particular hospital got market shares in crumbles and jam roly-poly's as you seem to get these on alternate days.... while I feel the utmost sympathy for you, I am enjoying your blog and your writing...
ReplyDeleteGood morning TM!
ReplyDeleteGreetings from cold but sunny London.
Mavis - your comment on butterscotch angel delight took me straight back to school and I nearly barfed on my keyboard. Did you ever have chocolate blancmange (cannot even spell it) with tinned pears? I cannot continue on this theme.
Apologies TM!
Here's wishing you a fine panino for your lunch.
Greetings from the Cats' Mother.
Oh dear! I feared that it was too good to last. I hope the panino angel appears at lunchtime.
ReplyDelete@ Cats' Mother and Mavis - I remember having pink (strawberry?) blancmange with a tough skin at school. Horrible!
You definitely got the wrong end of the bag where the chips are concerned. Assuming the sausages are not huge, the chips are tiny. I have to say the cabbage does not look toooo bad; it still appears to have some bit in it (or is it just not cooked?). My poor hubby had to spend the night in hospital yesterday (OK, one night only and I have now taken over the TLC so this does not compare to your predicament). After an ambulance ride and an upsetting night with lots of tests he really fancied a bacon roll rather than porridge or cereals. Unfortunately this was not to be had for love nor money. Multiply this by the umpteen weeks you have been on traction.... I really feel for you.
ReplyDeleteThis looks revolting...
ReplyDeleteIt was!
ReplyDeleteSarah, no we didn't get chocolate blancmange...except, thinking about it now I suspect that the so-called chocolate custard we got with the pears was just melted down blancmange. Oh dear, have I just made you spew all over your keyboard again?
ReplyDeletePooh sticks: no, we weren't subjected to that, thank God.
Just remembered some added delights from when my father was at prep school during the war, for instance: kipper sausages, whale meat (mainly blubber), chocolate macaroni and some sort of slimey grey fish called scrod (I think, sounded very unappealing anyway).