Minted lamb with crispy potato slices and mixed veg

Mum has always had a sweet tooth, although throughout her life she has rarely indulged it due to an obsession with staying thin. (To the extent that she didn’t realise until my sister was dying in hospital, and I mentioned it to the supervising doctor, that my sister had been battling an eating disorder since her mid teens. To mum, refusing to eat more than the bare minimum was ‘normal’.)

Now, thanks to the Alzheimer’s and the steroids she is taking, mum’s sweet tooth is finally being given free rein. To prevent whining about there being “nothing to eat”, in our last grocery order I got mum (deep breath) a family-size tiramisu, two packs of four chocolate éclairs, four pots of chocolate mousse, two pots of toffee mousse, six pots of lemon curd yoghurt, berry ice cream sticks, and orange ice cream sticks.

Of all of those, what has she chosen as her favourite? The cheapy strawberry trifles I ordered for myself, of course!

Mum doesn’t like strawberries¹, and she doesn’t like custard, and she definitely doesn’t like soggy cake². Strawberry trifle has always been firmly on her “don’t like” list, until I got some for myself, and suddenly they’re the most delicious thing ever. I managed to rescue one for myself – “no, no, you can have it if you really want it,” said mum – but I can’t help suspecting mum only wanted them because they were mine.

[To take a small (or trifling) diversion: my dad loved trifle. The start of every summer was marked by the First Trifle of the Year: slices of bought swiss roll, topped with home-grown berries, corresponding flavour jam (strawberry flavour with strawberries, raspberry flavour with raspberries, etc), and Bird’s custard thick enough to stand a spoon upright in.

When I reached legal drinking age (or maybe just a little before 😉), the swiss roll gained a generous quantity of alcohol, often in the form of dad’s range of homemade fruit gins and vodkas. Then he realised that you could use the fruit that had been steeping in the gin / vodka to the trifle too. Those trifles had a serious kick to them! 🥴]

All the strawberry trifles in the world, though, couldn’t distract mum from worrying about her dentist’s appointment tomorrow. Serving one of mum’s favourite meals was a desperate attempt to provide that distraction. It worked while she was eating, but we are now back to “I will be OK, won’t I?”

I do feel for her, because her confusion and anxiety are genuine, but I am perhaps 5% less sympathetic than I would be if she hadn’t stolen my damn trifles.

1. Well, atm she doesn’t like strawberries. Tomorrow she may well change her mind. ↩︎
2. Unless it’s soaked in coffee liqueur and half a cow’s-worth of cream and labelled ‘tiramisu’, anyway. ↩︎