Close to Nowhere

Have you ever been forced to eat hospital food? It’s almost worth dying at home in agony. Okay, maybe you need to be in the hospital. Just plan on going hungry.

I was in the hospital recently with a horrible gastric virus. For the first couple of days if I did eat anything it came right back up. So it didn’t matter how it tasted because I wasn’t eating anyway. But the first morning I could look at food I was pretty sure I was going to lose it all anyway.

There was a bowl of scrambled eggs, made out of cold plastic. Some kind of rubbery yogurt and a brick hard biscuit. Oh, and a cold cup of coffee. Fortunately, I don’t like coffee anyway, so that didn’t matter.

Lunch was almost as exciting. Some kind of mystery meat, that the menu said had gravy on it – it didn’t. Some cold, thin slices of almost raw squash and green beans that were also almost raw and again made out of plastic. And strawberry shortcake with some kind of red juice instead of actual fruit. Supper was roast beef, which was actually edible, not good but edible.

I’m really lucky though. My youngest granddaughter lives in Oxford with hubby and yearold baby boy. Captain D’s is right between her house and the hospital. So guess what I had.

The next morning they were throwing me out and for breakfast they had grits. And they were actually good.

I think after being home a few days and gradually getting better, I’m about ready to cook again. I love the recipes on Tiktoc®. I’ve been watching this one grandmother cooking. I don’t know what area of the country she’s from but she has strange names for foods I’ve always eaten.

For instance tonight I’m planning on potato soup, cabbage and fried corn bread. (Little side note here, the first time I ate cornbread in potato soup was at my granddaughter’s great-grandmothers. I was going to put a small helping on my plate just to be polite. I ate three helpings.)

Anyway, this lady was making corn pancakes (everyone knows that’s fried cornbread) and smothered potatoes. She demonstrated how to slice a potato into small dices, how much milk, salt, pepper and flour to put in and how to stir it to make smothered potatoes. Or as everyone in the South says, potato soup.

I do love watching people cook online. I probably have found 1000 recipes I’ll never make. I am making smothered potatoes tonight.