The Raspberry-Maple Sauce. Yes.
    It's not that it's delectable, although it is. Maple syrup, as it turns out, is the perfect sweetener for raspberries. No lemon juice needed or wanted, in fact.
    I'm not sure how this recipe occurred. I know I've made sauces by recipe, before. I guess it started by just looking at all these raspberries and thinking, hmmm...why not maple syrup instead of sugar? And happening to have in a lower cupboard a bottle of Chambord.
    I made a similar seat-of-the-pants-in-the-blueberry-patch sauce a couple of years ago, without the benefit of blueberry liqueur (if there is such a thing, although I'm sure there is). Blueberries are significantly higher in pectin, so I was very sparing with the cornstarch milk. And, I used granulated sugar, about half of what is typically called for.
    Anyway, to the recipe; I used frozen raspberries lightly packed in sugar, a 12 oz bag, which is why the directions were written down in the first place:*  *  *  *  *Raspberry-Maple Sauce
Ingredients:
1 12 oz bag frozen raspberries pack in light sugar, thawed but cold
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup Chambord or other appropriate liqueur
2 Tbl cold or ice water
3 tsp cornstarch
Preparation:
    Combine the cornstarch and water, which will infuse into a milk. Set aside. You will probably want to remix it before pouring into the fruit concoction below.
    Dump the raspberries in a saucepan. Dump in the maple syrup and liqueur. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently with a whisk to break up most of the raspberries, until the fruit softens and the mixture turns into a paste; a slow simmer is fine.
    Quickly remix and stir the cornstarch milk into the raspberry sauce. The sauce will thicken as it cooks.
    Cook to desired thickness and warmth.
    The sauce will lose a little of it's thickness during refrigerator or freezer storage, but only barely noticeable. It will also thicken a bit less when reheated, so reheat carefully. Its flavor is much sharpened (to my mind, improved) through storage.*  *  *  *  *    I used this, two batches, in fact, over the Costco allegedly pumpkin cheesecake. It was superb, tangy, highlighting the tang of the cake. We've had it over Baskin Robbins French Vanilla Ice Cream, as well.

    The point of this particular recipe, though, is to meditate on how my mother's tastes have changed since I came to live with her, and why. It would have never occurred to her on her own, for instance, to consider making raspberry sauce, let alone eating it on something, let alone on cheesecake. My mother has always been a "Head 'em up, get 'em fed, with as little muss and fuss as possible" type of cooking Mom. So, convenience was in, rote was in, taste was more or less out, unless it came from one of us daughters' interest in food preparation, or my father, who was very interested in spices.
    Her miserable short term memory ushered in the first change in her eating habits, at least a few years after I came to live with her. She began to forget that she didn't like vegetables. It was a subtle process. I've always been attracted to garden produce, it's so seductive and generally tastes marvelous. But, I completely understand my mother's disdain of vegetables. Although she was raised on a farm, vegetables were seasonal, very rare and best put up and stored against winter. The problem is, everything tasted like the brine or, well, frozen or canned vegetables. I don't know about you but I can't stand canned peas. I can handle pea soup and salivate over frozen or fresh peas, very lightly steamed or uncooked, but don't expect me to like vegetables if they include the likes of canned peas! Some of the others, carrots, for instance, beets and sauerkraut, sometimes green beans, aren't too bad canned. At least they have distinctive preservative flavors. I didn't discover vegetables until I left home and was in The States. I shouldn't be surprised that my mother never wandered through Produce when it had never been worth it.
    When I took on cooking for myself, since I didn't want to eat what she prepared for herself and she didn't want to eat what I prepared for myself, it was hard for her not to notice that my meals actually looked like meals (rather than sandwiches), usually took the same amount of time to prepare and were full of aroma and color. Clearly more interesting than some kind of refrigerated, processed food between two pieces of white bread; with Kraft (had to be Kraft) Sandwich Spread.
    Often, while she was making yet another sandwich or downing a bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses, I was eating a soup loaded with vegetables and added meat, sometimes with 'egg flower'. Or, I'd quickly steam a whole mess of vegetables while nuking a chicken breast, throw both together, season with Italian or Greek dressing and eat, maybe over rice of noodles, maybe not. Or, I'd fry up a small amount of bulk sausage, chop up some broccoli, stir fry it with the sausage, make about a cup of brown gravy, add some ginger, garlic and a little sugar, pour it over the meat and broccoli and eat it plain over rice. Or noodles. Regardless of what I was eating, she'd eye it studiously while she stuffed her sandwich in her mouth. Finally, I'd ask, before she'd headed for the refrigerator, "I'm going to make thus and so for myself tonight, would you like some?" or, "...should I make that for two?" This is how we began.
    She gave up the sugar on her own. When the doctor continued to mention that, even with the heavy duty medication he'd chosen to control her diabetes, her blood sugar level wasn't low enough to keep her sugar haze from taking over, she began eschewing the candy aisle of her own accord. The cutting back on desserts began in the same way. In the way of a confirmed "cold turkey" quitter, she never finished her last bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses. She never finished her last piece of lemon meringue pie.
    Somewhere, between eating for energy (thus, eating sugar) and eating the way I eat, she managed to bring her diet around to probably one of the healthiest diets in our family. Although we don't "do" dessert often, now, when we do we don't often eat it the same day it's offered. Usually, my mother's appetite, now, when it is satisfied, no longer finds sugar interesting.
    Once I was cooking for both of us, I upped the spice stakes considerably because I knew, in order to get through to her nicotine numbed tongue, I'd need sharp, flavorful surprises. This is when I learned that her appetite can be seduced and controlled with aroma.
    Now, she considers a Cobb salad (with everything) a sinful delight, and eats every bit, even when she's not eating every bit of other meals. I have become so attuned to flavor and aroma, in fact, that I am going to haunt the Farmer's market downtown this coming season. I'm beginning to notice that even our local 'natural foods' store, which is a wonderful store, doesn't present the best of organic and local produce.
    I am inordinately proud of the way she's turned her eating habits around. Food, I think, is especially important as an adventure for those whose lives are winding down. I am pleased, in fact, that she does not recall, throughout her life, ever being particularly interested in food, eating it or knowing about it. Thus, she gets a real kick out of doing this now, when someone who enjoys cooking oversees her nutrition.
    My mother is a delight to cook for, too. She exclaims, "Oh, doesn't that look good!" with genuine delight at every plate I place before her. Since I am an honest cook and tell her what to look out for, if there should be any problems (like the marinara I burnt last week but which still tasted good, if unusually smoky), her feedback is always honest; but, her palate is easy to please.
    Up until about a year ago, she remembered "left overs" and remembered, from bad experiences of which I can only guess, that "left overs" are "no nos". During that period we stocked up on a lot of frozen entrees and dinners. She ate most of them. They were middling nutritious. During her severe bouts with anemia when her appetite was in hiding, these entrees saved her life and kept her electrolytes up. If she didn't feel like eating, she could always nibble at macaroni and cheese. During this period, too, we ate fast food or at neighborhood restaurants at least 3 times a week, not necessarily always dinner.
    Our eating habits rarely include fast food, anymore, or restaurant food. I can't remember the last time I bought a frozen entree. I threw away a 2 year old DiGorno personal pizza a couple of months ago when looking for freezer room. That was the last of the frozen entree era. Truthfully, I think Mom is getting to the place, again, where she can imagine "eating out", so I think that practice will revive, to which I say, good.
    She is, since her health has evened out and her appetite has returned, easily lured into eating well, again, and her body is handling it.
    The roast ham, for instance: When I mixed up the packaged maple-sugar glaze for the latter stages of roasting, I added 2 tsps. of plain old off-the-shelf curry powder to it. Delicious. Mom noticed, and approved of, the difference. "Coulda used 3 tsps," she suggested.
    Tonight, the bean and ham soup is a cheater's paradise, and full of good-good stuff. Essentially, simmering in a pot on the stove as I write is 8 oz roast ham, 1/3 yellow onion chopped, 1/2 green pepper chopped, 1 cup chopped celery with leaves, all sauteed in about a Tbl bacon grease with two large, minced cloves of garlic, and maybe a Tbl of MPBIL's Southwestern Fire seasoning, oh, with 3 15 oz cans of Ranch Style Beans.

    I cut and stored the rest of the ham, today, in the freezer. Realized, as well, another trip to Costco is necessary. We're down to one egg and could use another box of Large Depends.
    Anyway, I'm thinking, I should probably establish some sort of place to compile a floating Recipes Contents on the template of this journal for easy recipe access, in case you're interested.
    I don't, by the way, mean this to be a journal of how to feed an Ancient One. It is, though, a journal about how I feed my Ancient One and the dynamic place food has in our lives.
    We are, now, more than ever, naturally eating low carb with lots of meat and vegetables. High to very high in fiber and natural oil. This is good for us in so many ways, not the least of which is that it keeps her interest in food up. Nourishment means life, at any age, and pleasure anticipated is always a reason to cherish life, even and especially if the result is nourishment.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 19:31   email...this post