Friday, May 31, 2013

Pear, greeting, soup, jelly and ice cream

Pear blossom on  one of the two espaliered trees in the vegetable garden.

A young woman approaches me with a greeting, a sort of high five gesture, as I walk up Mount Pleasant. Do I know her? I don't think I do. Panic. Is she someone I should know. Then relief. I sense someone coming up behind me, who is ready, able and willing to respond.

In the ward a nurse wants to know what  dearest and dearest (intended this time) requires to eat. She thinks that there is nothing that she is allowed to eat for the next day or so. "There is," says another nurse: "soup, jelly and ice cream." All  at the same time?"  says the dude in attendance (ie me). "If that rocks your boat," says the nurse.

 

3 comments:

Tom said...

Sounds one helluva lot better than the stuff I had endure when I was opped on. Every day they asked me what I would like. So I told them, and please I added, half a bottle of Haut Medoc. What did I get? Strong coffee, pork and artificial potato mash - every day. No wonder they kept me on a drip for so long. I swear they wouldn't have let me go, if Lucy hadn't smuggled in some egg sandwiches. Jelly and ice cream? It's the NHS for pity's sake! Well it would certainly have "rocked my boat".

Lucy said...

Do hope the patient enjoyed her soup, jelly and ice cream! Does she do jelly? I have the impression it is a particularly British, and, in the form of Jello, American phenomenon; one can't buy cube jelly here at all and the nearest I ever came to wibble-wobble-jelly-on-a-plate it was a 'terrine des fruits', strawberries as it happened, which was very nice but not quite the same animal.

Good to know things are progressing well. Beautiful pear blossom.

Unknown said...

Tom I think smuggling will be called for soon.

Lucy There's jelly and jelly of course. The stuff from childhood had colour and wobble but little else. But chefs do wonderful things with pigs' trotters or gelatine. I once made something called Beef (or boeuf)a la Mode. A brisket, I think it was, slow cooked with veg, spices and a pig's trotter. The liquor was allowed to cool and then clarified and returned to cover the beef. When cold it had jellified, and because the fat had been removed was clear and shiny. As I recall we turned out the mound of beef on to a plate where it lay like a giant bubble.