What’s for Dinner?

OK.  I may not have anything worthwhile to write lately, but I do have dinner recommendations…

A brief confession first, though…I feel I must admit I am not very persnickety about expiration dates.  I will eat most anything.  I mean, sure, I smell the milk carton periodically and decide that maybe it’s past its prime.  I have a strict rule to toss anything with fuzz on it…or slime.  In general, I don’t mess with canned goods that have expanded under pressure.   They go straight to the bin. 

I am at an age, though, that I have come to realize a few things about food standards. 

Firstly, reading the expiration dates requires that I now go find my cheaters, or call the ophthalmologist and get a prescription for bifocals.  The latter simply isn’t going to happen.  The former usually doesn’t happen either; at least not when it is just me.

Secondly, it hasn’t killed me so far.  I have survived eating bugs and rocks in my early years.  I have drunk unpasteurized milk and eaten street food in foreign countries.  For a decade or more, my mayonnaise-laced sandwiches spent mornings in a brown paper bag in an un-refrigerated school locker.  I am not dead yet.

I do have a few rules, though.  One of them is that fish gets eaten or frozen on the day it is purchased.

Ack.

It’s been one of those days, though, where cooking dinner was looking like a “bridge too far”.  I spent much of the afternoon out in the rain; trying to wear out the beast before a therapy dog visit.  We had an exhausting, evening visit to a local nursing home.  Then we got home just in time for me to drop my backpack, wash my hands and dial in to a conference call for work.

Dinner was very nearly yogurt, and Chees-Its, and jelly beans.

Alas, I had gone shopping today.  Today, I bought fish…

                                                   …and it was fabulous!!

Now I am not knocking the yogurt/chees-it/jelly bean option (I consider it one of the perks of being a spinster), but if you happen to have a serving or two of cod, or any white fish, lying around and some fresh tomatoes, this (Roasted Cod with Bruschetta Sauce) is way better.  And it is simple and healthy.  Hard to beat.

(Editors  Note: The author regrets that there are no photos.  She was hungry.)

On the Other Hand…

Some days you need to just get things off your chest; take a few rocks out of your pack; unload.

Sometimes, as I did yesterday, I look at the rocks and try figure out if I had been carrying them for a reason.  Most days I try to live a pretty well unexamined life, but every once in a while it’s worth a look.

And if the rocks are worth looking at every once in a while, then certainly the gems should get an inspection, too.

Last Saturday morning my phone rang at a little after 9; a perfectly genteel hour.  It was precisely the hour you would expect a call from the woman on the other end of the line.  The call was from a friend of my mother’s. 

One look at the caller ID and I knew in my heart that the conversation was going to start with “I don’t know if you had a chance to see the paper, but so-and-so, a friend of your parents, passed away.”

I knew it.

I knew wrong.

Although it was not a call to check the obituaries, it was still a somber topic.  The woman was calling to ask me a few questions about nursing care for a family member with Alzheimer’s; sober questions about finance and Medicare, and staffing and activities, and waiting lists, and State health reports.

Beyond the red tape and black and white questions were the underlying worries.  When is the right time to move?  Beyond that report, and these services, how do you choose?  What do you ask when you visit?  What do you look for?

This woman, one of my mother’s peers, wanted to know which places I had looked and why; which I had liked and why.

I was pleased to be able to answer her questions; the ones she asked and the ones she didn’t.

More than that, I was honored to be called.