Sunday roast – chicken; banana Angel Delight
And so to lunch. But first, for those asking after my mum (bless you all1 for caring): she’s still in hospital but is once again medically fit and ready to go home as soon as the care package I agreed with the local council can be put in place. The council’s rep couldn’t be more helpful, so it’s now the care agency we’re waiting for; matters are complicated by me being in hospital (well, care home) and not being able to physically sign the necessary paperwork, but 🤞 the care agency will take pity on me and mum and bend their rules just this once so mum can go home tomorrow. I’ll let you know what happens.
Anyway, lunch, for which I very bravely ventured into the unknown of the home’s dining room to partake. Fortunately for me, many residents had apparently had the same idea as the main dining room was full, so I got a seat at the bonus table set up in the lounge instead. I had been picturing hotel restaurant-style separate tables but, to my alarm, was wheeled into place at a table set for 10 people. 😱
Only four other residents joined me though, to my relief: a husband and wife couple, and two single ladies. After a few awkward moments trying to explain why I was taking photos of my food – the concept of being an amateur food writer being met with the polite bemusement it probably deserves – the conversation turned to how the Island has changed since the youth of my dining companions, which, as a relative youngster and new arrival here, I found genuinely interesting.
And the food itself: roast chicken, stuffing, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower (🤢), and gravy, all piled up in what would have been an immensely pleasing way if it weren’t for all the cauliflower taking up space on the plate: you can only just see it from the angle at which I took the photo below, but pretty much everything you can’t see was covered in the white menace that is cauliflower.
Dodgy choice of veg aside, this was a damn good roast dinner: a nice big piece of chicken thigh meat, which is what I would have requested if I had been asked – I much prefer dark meat to white, given the choice. Golden brown roast potatoes, which were probably crunchy before being covered with a cloche, put on a trolley2 and rolled through two buildings to get to the dining table; they were still very tasty, though, with nicely fluffy insides, and if they needed a little bit of salt to really make them sing then that’s purely down to my own preference.
Only two pieces of roast parsnip, which had somehow retained a small amount of the crunch factor the potatoes had lost during their travels; I would have liked more and must remember to next week ask for more parsnip and less (i.e. no) cauliflower. The stuffing splodges (domes, maybe?) were nice inside but the bottoms were a touch caramelised (my late sister’s polite way of saying “I think you burned it” 😬).
The broccoli was almost the best bit for me, as it was cooked to still have a bit of al dente bite to it, a real treat after weeks of safely overcooked hospital veg.
The cauliflower, needless to say, was pushed aside, and then lifted again so I could mine the rest of the excellent thick, chicken-y gravy out from underneath it. The gravy really was the best part, with even the proud “picky eater” at the table agreeing it was very good.
Dessert was banana flavour Angel Delight (for anyone who doesn’t instantly recognise the name, Angel Delight is a product that comes as a packet of powder and is mixed with milk to produce a set, mousse-type substance that was a childhood staple for pretty much any British person who grew up in the late 1960s to early 1990s).
I don’t remember ever having tried banana flavour Angel Delight before – butterscotch was always my favourite, with strawberry a close second – so I guess this is another “trying new things” segment. It was a short segment, though, because a couple of spoonfuls were enough for me to realise I really didn’t like it. Although it apparently contains real banana and no artificial flavours, it tasted artificial, with an acrid, chemical quality that was actively unpleasant. I will be generous and say that maybe it just clashed with the pre-dessert serving of meds that the nurse brought me but, either way, I didn’t finish it and won’t be having it again.
Scores:
- Roast chicken dinner: 8/10 – points deducted for lack of warmth and overabundance of cauliflower.
- Banana Angel Delight: 1/10 – for me, anyway, although my fellow diners enjoyed it.
Now safely back in my room with coffee continuing to appear, without my input, at regular intervals. If there’s one thing I will miss when I finally get home, it’s the regular coffee deliveries!
- Or whatever the atheist equivalent is: “thank you” just isn’t sufficient for how much I appreciate people’s interest in and care for someone they’ve never met. ↩︎
- Not a heated trolley, either, although the person serving lunch promised us one has been requested from the home’s corporate owners. As the one thing all five of us at the dinner table agreed on was that the food was on the cool side by the time it got to us, I very much hope the owners agree to that request. ↩︎
Is it pineapple sponge today? 