Hospital food

Thanks to those who have offered kind words, prayers, and the like. It looks like my father's almost out of the woods (knock on wood), so I can now fret about other things again.

One thing I should fret about is having to eat food from the hospital cafeteria. Take the one at St. Agnes, for example, where I ate lunch each of the last two days. While the staff is peachy and very helpful, the food is, well, uneven. But that's to be said about the offerings at any hospital cafeteria. I've had similarly uneven eatin' in other hospitals (Thanksgiving at the University of Maryland Medical Center? Bleeeeh.) Still I am grateful, at least, that I have my choice of what I can eat, instead of being confined to "Bombay chicken or vegetarian meatloaf". Hell, once you've been consigned to a week's worth of "strained cream of chicken soup with jello" you tend to appreciate even the veggie meatloaf.

I am also amazed at how much, um, junk is now being sold to visitors and employees in hospitals. Again, take St. Agnes: twenty years ago it was pretty much the cafeteria. Today, they also have a Subway, a Pizza Hut-type place, an espresso kiosk and a Chick-fil-a (that guy that goes around the country stalking Chick-fil-a grand openings probably missed that one). Plus, you can now buy candy in bulk. You have to hand it to the typical hospital cafeteria, though: the prices for their standard cafeteria food are not unreasonable.

Here's what I ate (prices are approximate):

Tuesday:

• vegetarian quiche with broccoli (about $3.00 for a rather large slice): gummy, inedible, spots of cheese embedded in between spots of egg and partially burned stalks of broccoli. Should've gotten the tilapia
• roasted red potatoes (85¢ for a large helping of 15 half red potatoes): very nice flavor and texture. I should've passed on the quiche and gotten a plate of these.
• chocolate cream pie with meringue topping (don't remember the price - $1.25 or so?): the chocolate had a grainy texture and a very strange flavor. Carrot cake anyone?
• Diet Coke ($1.00 or so for 16 oz): it's Diet Coke from a fountain, whaddya expect?

Wednesday:

• low-fat meatloaf ($3.50 for a generous slice): so much better than that quiche. It didn't really taste low-fat to me. The gravy was a little on the salty side, but overall quite edible. I would get it again.
• mashed potatoes with gravy ($1.00 or so for half a plate's worth): standard, went well with the potatoes
• roll (just don't remember): a roll from a bag
• Diet Coke (8 oz for 85¢): see above
• forgettable side salad (about $4.50 per lb): I picked at it
  

And I thought I'd have to hide my credit card number

Not sure if I will be eating there tomorrow. My father looks like he's going home soon - if only he'd eat, goddammit!

Rheb's Candies

I had to do it, I just had to. I stopped by Rheb's today. To be honest, I am not sure why I never did. Whenever I mention Rheb's, my mother always brings up the fact that her mother (God rest her soul) used to work there, but that was sometime in the early 1950's. And yet, we always wind up buying Whitman's instead.

No more, betch.

I heard that about two weeks before Christmas it gets crazy-packed. Maybe that's the Lexington Market location they're talking about. I went to the Violetville one - that's where my Grandmom worked. It's the one just a hop, skip and a jump from Cardinal Gibbons High School and right across the street from St. Agnes Hospital (perfectly situated for that inevitable heart attack after finishing off that third pound of Rheb's candies).

When I went in it wasn't too crowded. I got a number and waited, but it turns out I didn't need one after all. This is the type of place where everyone still says "Sir" and "Ma'am" - which makes sense, as I was almost the youngest person in there and despite a few other folks in their 30's and 40's the median age seemed to be about 60. It is indeed a Bawlmer institution, no?

Their regular candies go for about $13 per pound, their sugar free ones for about $15. Since most of my family is staring down diabetes, but I am not, I got half a pound of each. I got a pre-assortment of the sugar-free, and the woman behind the counter helped me pick the rest:

• vanilla butter creams
• chocolate butter creams
• sponges (actually very hard, but it looks spongy in the middle, more like coral)
• almond paste candies
• pecan turtles
• coconut bon-bon
• etc.

There were so many others I forgot to ask about. Oh well. I guess it just means I have to go back. Poor me (my poor waistline, at least).

Wouldn't you know it? I broke into the neatly-wrapped package (not the sugar-free - the other one) and sampled a vanilla butter cream.


Holy butter creams, Batman! I have a friend, Jim, that I stay with out in Yucaipa, CA, when I visit SoCal. We went to this French restaurant once (stay with me here - I'm coming back to the candies). Jim acted all pretentious while we ate, saying his French onion soup was (molto sotto voce) "Exquisite!" His quail was "To DIE for!" He stopped before I dumped his creme brulee on his head. But the point I am making is this: those irritating things he said (just to rile me up, mind you) was exactly what was going through my head when I ate that vanilla butter cream. I could hardly keep myself from eating three more on the way back to the parents' house. Even their sugar-free candies tasted good, not odd like most sugar-free candies.

My word, I now have a reason to go back! Thanks, Grandmom - maybe you told me, from beyond the grave, to go there today!