Suddenly Cooking for OneWritten by Phyllis Staff
Anne recently lost her husband of 42 years to cancer."I can't cook for just myself," she told me. "What can I do so cooking is not such an ordeal?" Anne's circumstance is typical of many seniors who have lost a spouse or partner. And while it would be easy to give her a "cooking for one" cookbook, that really doesn't address problem - an undesirable change. When you've cooked for a family of two or more, cooking for one is a lonely endeavor. But a few simple changes can help. 1. Change your culinary environment. Throw out or store those old dishes that have so many cues for remembering other times. Replace them with a new set for two or four. I've found delightful tableware sets for four for under $50.00 at Crate & Barrel and Kitchen Etc. Tableware doesn't have to be expensive to be fun, and change will help steer you toward life you're now living. While you're at it, take a quick trip to your local bookstore. Many of latest cookbooks feature beautiful color photographs of scrumptious meals to tempt your palate. 2. Change your eating habits. Change time you eat your mail meal. Change your habitual diet to something new and more exciting. Change your eating partner. You may have friends that would enjoy sharing a meal. If not, make new ones at volunteer or senior centers. Invite friends, new and old, to come to share a meal. Perhaps they'd enjoy sharing meal preparations as well. Spend your mealtime periodically working at a soup kitchen or delivering "Meals-on-Wheels." It's hard to be lonely when you're giving of yourself. 3. Don't cook for one. It's no more trouble to make a meal for four than a meal for one - so cook for four, and freeze surplus in meal-sized portions. Ziplock TM freezer bags will work well for single portions, but do not use sandwich bags. They are too thin for adequate freezer storage.
| | Sneakin' Veggies to the Rugrats: a mother's guideWritten by Stephanie Olsen
I consider myself a moderately honest person, at times forthright and even true. However, I admit to having conquered new lows in my quest to feed kids nutritionally-balanced meals and wanted to share lies and subterfuges with all and sundry, not only so that your children might heretofore consume dark leafy greens but also that I might spread guilt.The new rule in my house was met with jeers, catcalls and thrown objects, but when I pulled myself together and announced to my daughters that they were to dine, henceforth and forever more, only at kitchen table and never, under any circumstances, in front of TV, they just expressed mild relief that I would still feed them. Being a fair-minded autocrat, I explained reason behind novel law: that we must be aware of what we put into our mouths, and that we should eat only when responding to hunger and not as a thought-less automatic action. I knew my first grader had caught on when she piped up: “Oh, like when you read books at table, mom?”. In an attempt to set an example (we all know that they follow our actions, not our words, boneheads), I now only nosh and read in front closet where, although bag rustlings, page flipping and chip crunching are apparently (from all rude comments overheard) somewhat intrusive, I am out of sight. And it can be quite a struggle in there, let me tell you – trying to balance flashlight, licorice and People magazine is one thing, but getting at Diet Coke in my jacket pocket without spilling! However, I try not to complain too much – it’s just one of those things a mother has to do.
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