Pav bhaji, unknown soup, sandwiches, crackers, grapes, yoghurt

First off, let me apologise for the poor quality of the headline photo: I remembered halfway through eating it that I should probably take a photo, did a real “that’ll do” one, and went back to eating.

That out of the way, I’ll go back a couple of steps: after today’s disappointing lunch, I knew supper wouldn’t be much to write home about (or write a blog about), or, more importantly, to fill my stomach, so decided it was high time I broke out one of the Indian heat-to-eat meals from my slowly diminishing stockpile of snackage. The one I picked out was pav bhaji from a company called MTR. Pav bhaji is a spicy vegetable curry that is traditionally served with soft, buttery bread rolls but in this case was paired with tuna sandwiches.

The packet offered various ways of heating the contents, one being to put the foil package in boiling water for five minutes. I don’t have boiling water, not yet being ready for handling a kettle, but I do have hot water from the tap: good enough, right?

Sort of, anyway: after some time in a wash basin of rapidly cooling water (the package of curry, not me), I decided it was as hot as it was going to get and opened it, a little less cautiously than I probably should have done, and decanted the just-about-warm contents into one of my nice new plastic bowls. (Bowls, cutlery, and curry were all gifts from you wonderful people – there are days like today when I know the only reason I’m not going to bed hungry is because of your generosity. Thank you all, again.)

Once I had cleaned up the worst of the mess I had made with my careless opening of the sachet, I carried my delicious, spicy little treat back to my chair and huddled over it for a moment, enjoying the scent of spices, then dived in. It might not be the best curry in the world, or probably even in Shanklin, but after months without eating anything spicy enough to make my nose run, it tasted truly amazing.

Tonight’s soup was an unknown – as in the person serving it didn’t know what it was – but of course I was going to try it. I took my first sip cautiously, but not cautiously enough as it was hot enough to make me gasp and the trolley supervisor ask if I was OK. I was, but then the taste registered: cheese. It’s cheese soup. Possibly cauliflower cheese soup, although that would be strange as cauliflower cheese is on the menu for tomorrow¹.

Whatever it was I decided after a few more thoughtful sips that I really didn’t like it much, and abandoned it².

The sandwiches were sandwich-y, although I tend to forget that I like cheese and pickle sandwiches, particularly when, as here, they go heavy on the pickle. I added some crackers, from my snack pile, with some butter packets I had stashed away from previous mornings, some grapes (I’m now trying to resist the urge to eat more of them, almost certainly eventually unsuccessfully), and a strawberry yoghurt.

Now I have my final coffee of the day – a decaff one, as I want to sleep – and possibly just a few more grapes. And maybe a couple more after that. Just for ongoing quality control purposes, obviously.

1. No, I’m not ordering it, Adriana! 😅 ↩︎
2. I’ve just had one of the staff members come and ask if I need any snacks, so I’m guessing the home manager has just read my review of lunch! (It really wasn’t a good meal, sorry.) ↩︎