The Iron Chefs and the Eye Doctor

 

There are eight Continuum Care Communities across three states taking part in an Iron Chef competition. The way it works is each month all eight chefs go to one of the campuses to compete with a theme food they prepare for the residents living there and then the residents and guests vote for the best dish served. They just had their fifth cook-off at our sister campus and our Life Enrichment Director took a bus full of us over to eat and drop a voting chip into---presumably---our own chef's ballot box. The theme this time was 'Food Truck Food' and I had no trouble voting for the women who currently designs our daily menus. She served what she called 'Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly.' It reminded me of those 'pies' you make over a campfire with the round, pie irons. The sandwiches consisted of the centers of two pieces of white bread dipped in pancake batter with peanut butter, jelly, bananas, honey and mini chocolate chips inside, the edges were cut and sealed with a drinking glass before deep frying them for a minute. She took second place. She's placed first or second consistently through out the competition and is the only woman competing. 

If I hadn't voted for the chef from my campus I would have had a hard time deciding between a deep-fried, one bite cheese cake and a loaded baked potato. The cheesecake balls give you a sensation of something warm and sweet going into your mouth followed by a burst of cool and tart cheesecake and it was additive. The Bourbon Bacon Jam Potato' was---duh!---a potato topped with a jam made with bourbon, coffee, brown sugar, vinegar, garlic and caramelized yellow onions. Bourbon was in at least one other contest entry---a peach ice cream topping. I think Bourbon in my new, favorite flavor profile. We got a packet of all the recipes used and the street tacos had the most ingredients of all the dishes coming in at thirty with our chef's peanut butter and Jelly having the least number of ingredients---only eight. There was a Korean short rib dogs with peach relish that was good too and it had 29 ingredients. I've never made anything with that many ingredients in my life!

I'm quite sure this competition is designed to give bragging rights to all the category winners and the top winner for marketing purposes. In the commercial cooking world there's a big competition for good chefs at continuum care complexes and most CCC's serve lunch on the tours use to entice people to come look at their facilities. I almost hate to see our chef placing so well in these contests because then other places will try to steal her away. In the two-and-a-half years I've lived here she's the third or forth chef we've had and she is by far the best of the lot. And get this, she's the only one in the contest without a culinary degree. She used to own her own restaurants, lost it during Covid.  

All in all it was fun way to spend a few hours and we got a free lunch and transportation out of the deal. Plus we got to visit with a guy from our campus who was recently moved over to our sister campus because he has ALS and needs a higher level of skilled nursing than he could get here.

Speaking of Covid I went to the eye doctor yesterday and I remarked about how nice it was that we no longer have Covid protocols to follow and the woman doing the pre-testing before my actual appointment said it was terrible working conditions because so many people tried to argue their way out of wearing masks or bringing in proof that they'd been vaccinated. She said she even had one guy lick the chin rest on one of the machines. (This was the Trump effect---people denying the science.) I remember how careful they were about cleaning those machines after they were finished measuring my macular pucker. I can't imagine dealing with jackasses like Licker Guy or as my niece called the ant-vacciers  'The Spreaders'. 

By the way, my pucker hasn't changed much since my last visit but I have developed "a lot of dry areas on my corneas" which makes my eyes feel like I have grit up inside the lids. I'll now be adding drops twice a day and before I drive. My getting-ready-time in the mornings and at bedtime is getting as long as a teenager addicted to layers of makeup. No matter how many suggestions I follow for getting drops in my eyes I can't seem to do it on the first few tries. Laying down in bed while hold one eye open and using the other to put the drops in the corners of my eyes works the best. I went into this appointment thinking/hoping I'd get a new prescription because I can't read street signs as well as I'd like. But the doctor said the dry corneas are probably causing that more than anything. I'm getting a new prescription for computer glasses that block the harmful light coming from the screens. I'm excited about having prescription glasses exclusively for the computer. I don't know why I didn't get them long before now is a mystery. No more trying to find the right place in my trifocals! 

I love my eye doctor. He used to be a nice piece of eye candy, too, but over the past half decade he's put on a little weight and quit wearing his cute, little surgical scrub cap that he wore during Covid. But he's still got his easy going and confident demeanor which I find to be the most attractive quality in the opposite sex. The way he says, "your other right" or "your other left" has a humorous ring to it that neither makes you feel stupid or nor gives you a sense that he's bored because he's probably said it thousand times to his patients. Actually, I've never thought to ask him if all his patients need the 'other direction' corrections or is it just his dyslexic patients like me. What do you think his answer would be? 

Until Next Wednesday!

 *photo by soydolphin