Friday, January 17, 2014

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 17, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions


This Week's Food Waste and True Food Confessions

This past week I was unexpectedly called out of town to be with my mother in the hospital. Consequently, eating and food waste from my refrigerator were off my radar. But yet, food played very much into my week. As is often the case, it was a bonding element among those of us who were spending many long hours in a difficult situation.


Image from food.com
In the beginning of our stay, my sister and I soon got to recognize familiar faces and nodded in recognition. Next, as we were taking a few minutes in the lounge, we had brief discussions about the weather. However, the conversation soon evolved into something that everyone was interested in and something that took our minds off more serious matters--the cafeteria and its food.


Most everyone wanted to know how to get there. Directions were not as easy as they could have been because two of the elevators were broken. This caused lots of silly jokes like how you had to start calling the elevator for lunch as soon as you finished breakfast. Next item for discussion was what was on the menu for the day and what everyone had tried. Roast beef and hot dogs were favorites. (Familiar comfort food played a lot into these choices.)

And the hotdogs bring me to one of the better parts of this difficult experience--getting to meet Hotdog Man. We first met Hotdog Man when he asked where the cafeteria was. This was later followed with a discussion of what he had for lunch which was a hotdog in a square bun. He was none too fond of of this square bun and debating the pros and cons of square vs. round buns led us to more personal discussions. He was 78 and was at the hospital with his wife who had fallen and broken her back. He had seven kids and lots of grandkids. He used to be a coal miner and a truck driver among other things and had a botched hernia operation. We smiled every time we saw each other and chatted like we were old friends. Despite our friendliness, we never got to know Hotdog Man's real name. It's funny how we were so close in many ways, but real names didn't seem necessary. I already miss his smile and have been pondering a question, "If we called him Hotdog Man, I wonder what he called us?"



7 comments:

  1. Even under difficult circumstances, some lighter moments can be found. I hope your mom is doing much better.

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    1. My mom is slowly making improvements and I have good hope for the future.

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  2. I'm so glad to hear that your mom is making improvements. And that is a lovely portrait you painted of Hotdog man.

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    1. We met some really nice people even though all of them were under a lot of stress. However, Hotdog man was our favorite.

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  3. Spending hours upon hours at the hospital with a loved one is so hard. I've had to do it a fair amount in the past 10 years and have gotten to the point of making myself a sack lunch before Ieave my home and head across the state to the hospital (my parents are 2 1/2 hours from me) because I find I get weary of hospital food. If I have time, I try to take along a meal I can reheat at my parent's home because I find it's comforting to eat a home-cooked meal (and I find it's a little gesture that is appreciated by whichever parent I'm staying with).

    I'm glad you met such a nice person as Hotdog Man. You probably brightened his day, as well. Glad to hear your mom is slowly making improvements.

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    1. We actually found the cafeteria food quite good and very inexpensive. We were far from our home as well as our mother's home, so there was no easy way to prepare food in our hotel. And quite frankly, we didn't have the energy for it.

      And yes, I would like to think that we brightened Hotdog Man's day too.

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