One of our bigger stumbling blocks in caring for my mother was her diet. There was not only her forgetting when she last ate, but also her forgetting how much she had eaten -- there were days, for instance, where she would have breakfast with us, then tell the people at Adult Day Care that she "was starving" because "they don't feed me." Certain foods she had always enjoyed -- chicken, for example -- suddenly became abhorrent to her. The day she announced she no longer enjoyed pasta, one of her most beloved mainstay dishes, I nearly cried.
Conversely, as her dementia progressed, her appetite waned. Nothing appealed to her anymore except for sweets, particularly ice cream.
Both my maternal grandparents were chefs. My mother, although never a chef, was what I'd call an expert home cook. I remember her tackling complicated dishes with a finesse that even surprised her. She would spend Sunday afternoons laboring over a multiple-course meal, refusing any help, for my sole benefit.
Cooking was one of the very first executive functions she lost. It still fascinated her, though. As her dementia progressed, one of the first projects we staged where she could actually contribute and feel useful was preparing simple dishes.
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Mom loved, loved, LOVED breakfast. She always said she would eat a dropped egg on toast every night for dinner if she could. She did many times while I was growing up; she would prepare my meal, then keep me company. I watched with fascination as she'd delicately tear a piece of toast and dab it in the yolk. It always amused me that she'd eat everythng except the yolk, though.
At one point in her dementia, the dropped egg became the enemy. She didn't know what it was, why it wiggled, why it looked so slimy. Cereal was out because, for her, it was "too complicated" to eat. She claimed toast or English muffins didn't fill her enough. Her beloved carrot cake muffin suddenly became a mess she couldn't fathom.
She loved watching me cook, though. Several time I'd catch her peeking over my shoulder just like I used to with her. John and I discussed it one night: What if we enlisted her help, a prep cook of sorts?
As any chef knows, prior preparation is a key to success. Called mise en place, or "meez", it's when you set out all your ingredients and equipment before you begin so you don't rush around in a tizzy in the midst of culinary creation.
We wanted Mom to help us make a simple egg dish she would eat for breakfast:
Mom stood between John and I at the kitchen counter. We asked her if she could crack the egg against the side of the dish the way she always did.
"I did?"
"You did all the time, Mom. How do you think I learned to do it?"
She gently tapped the egg against the edge of the dish. Whether or not it broke depended on her arthritis and/or if she completely understood what "cracking the egg" meant. Whoever broke it broke it into the dish.
"Now sprinkle a little pepper into it." Placed the pepper grinder in her hand, and, cupping fingers over hers, showed her the motion to turn it.
"This is Tabasco sauce. It adds a little flavor. Open the top and put two or three drops into the egg, but no more."
Grating the cheese was sometimes tricky. A box grater would have been much easier, of course, but we didn't have one. Coordinating my mother enough to balance the grater against the dish while grating the cheese into the egg was a hit-or-miss affair; sometimes one of us would grate and Mom would sprinkle it. Other times she could handle both beautifully.
She loved mixing everything with a fork. Not the three-tined granny fork she'd always used, though -- I think she thought it didn't look enough like a fork -- but just a regular old fork.
"Now we'll just pop it into the microwave for a minute or so."
"Microwave?"
"That big square thing above the regular oven. It cooks things quickly."
"Oh. I never saw one before."
"This is delicious!"
"You helped make it, Ma."
"I did?"
"You did, Mumsie."
"No, no, I couldn't have...I did? Really? Wow, I'm a good cook!"
All three of us beamed. She'd carry that smile through the rest of the day, although she never quite remembered why she was smiling.