Burning The Bacon

My mom used to be an excellent cook. Growing up, she had a home cooked meal for us every night on the dinner table, where we ate together as a family. I was always proud of mom's cooking, especially when I was dating my husband. He used to joke that mom's cooking is what brought him over to our house every night.

Like most everything else, cooking is a skill that is long gone with the dementia. It faded slowly. In the beginning, she began cooking less and less and then she seemed to cook only a select variety of meals. In the year leading up to her diagnosis, we would joke everytime Sunday dinner came around,

"What do you guess it will be tonight: tacos or spaghetti?"

We had no idea at the time, of course, why she was stuck on the same meals every week.

Over the last year, her meal varieties have become less and less. She had trouble coming up with ideas, so I made a menu for her with meals she was familiar with and would cook regularly. Eventually, that strategy ceased to work. Within the past few months, mom has, for the most part, quit cooking altogether. Her list of things she will make is very short: sandwiches, tortellini (the frozen kind that you cook in boiling water) with jarred fettucine sauce and frozen mixed vegetables, salad (which has to be the iceberg lettuce mix with tomatoes and cheddar cheese, smothered in ranch dressing), and her broccoli-cauliflower salad. She will warm up left overs for tacos, but dad has had to take the reins on preparing those meals.

For the most part, these meals don't require a stove-with the exception of the tortellini and the broccoli-cauliflower salad. Her broccoli-cauliflower recipe (which came from my Aunt) calls for cooked bacon to be crumbled on top.

A couple months ago, we were all at mom and dad's house as mom was preparing the bacon for her salad. She turned the flame on the stove at the highest setting, flames flipping out from under the pan. She put her slices of bacon in the pan and let it cook. As we observed her preparation of the bacon, we noticed how brown it was becoming and eventually the smell of it burning.

"Mom, you need to turn your bacon over now, it's getting burned," I told her, as I peered over her shoulder.

"No. I know what I'm doing. I'm a good cooker. You don't have to tell me what to do, I know how to do this," she insisted, irritated with my suggestions.

"I cook 4 minutes on this side and then I turn it, 4 minutes on the other side," she continued, glancing at the clock on the stove.

"Mom, if you wait another 4 minutes it's going to be black," I tried again.

"No, you don't tell me what to do. I never would talk like that to my mom. I know how to do it, I'm a good cooker."

She continued burning the bacon, as I stood by, watching. When 4 minutes were up, she flipped the bacon and continued burning it on the other side. When she was finished, she put the bacon on a paper towel to drain the grease and picked up the pan with the remaining grease. With the flame still on the highest setting, mom began pouring the grease into a cup which sat right next to the flame on the stovetop. I quickly turned off the flame and exclaimed to mom that what she was doing was very dangerous. She completely ignored what I said and continued pouring the grease.



The smell of burned bacon consumed the house. Dad opened the doors and windows (despite mom's protests) to air the smell out of the house.

This experience was an eye opener to us all. We knew that mom needed to be supervised in the kitchen; I think we didn't realize the seriousness of that need until this night. I don't want to think about what could happen if she attempts to make bacon while we are not home. Dad has taken extra precaution to make sure that he is there when mom buys her ingredients for the broccoli-cauliflower salad and that it gets made while he is present. It's not an easy task...mom will argue about the way she cooks it and becomes very angry if we try to help (flip the bacon before the 4 minutes is up, turn down the flame, etc), but have to do what is necessary to keep her-and everyone else-safe.

What's For Dinner? Part 1

When I was growing up, my mom was a master in the kitchen. We rarely ever ate out; mom had a nice meal on the table every night and we ate together as a family. She acquired her cooking skills from my grandma, who was an amazing cook. I can still remember staying at grandma's house, baking with her in the kitchen while she listened to Melinda Lee's cooking show on the radio. As a kid, I thought she almost famous when she was featured (and spoke) on Melinda's cooking show. I was proud when I saw her name, picture and recipes in newspapers and magazines, and impressed with her blue ribbon from the Orange County Fair for her original "Avocado Cream Pie".

All that to say, my mom learned from the best. I was always proud to bring friends home and show off mom's home cooking. I'm pretty sure that's why my husband kept coming back night after night while we were dating...he was a bachelor who loved a good home cooked meal.

Over the past few years, her cooking has become less and less. At first, we thought it was just the "empty nest" phase-no kids at home to cook big meals for anymore. But eventually, our Sunday family dinners (which are a big deal in our family) were becoming less thought out, and very repetitive. We started joking around when Sundays would roll around,

"What will it be tonight, spaghetti or tacos?"

Those became the only two things mom would cook.

Another big change was her motivation to cook. Once passionate about cooking, she started losing interest. Her taste for the foods she was once loved were becoming obsolete. She used to always make the Sunday meals; over the past couple of years, mom has been doing less and less hosting of the Sunday meals, and my dad and I have become the coordinators and chefs of our family dinners.

One time, a few months before her diagnosis, we decided it was time to change things up. We told her we wanted her to make her famous crockpot pot roast.

"Pot roast...what is pot roast?"

After a very detailed description of what pot roast is, where you buy it in the supermarket, and how you cook it, mom finally remembered. The next night, at family dinner, we noticed she had put lima beans in the roast. Somebody made a comment about the lima beans,

"It's different, but I kinda like it," I believe was the comment.

"What are you talking about? Are you talking about those green beans? You told me to put in green beans," she replied defensively.

We didn't want to make her feel stupid, so we tried to explain nicely that what she used wasn't green beans, they were lima beans. She was upset and insistent that they "are too" green beans. She pulled the empty can of lima beans out of the trash can and showed them to us.

"See? They are too green beans!"

As she took a closer look at the fine print, she saw the words "lima beans". This upset her even more.

"What are green beans?? I'm so stupid. I don't know why my brain won't work right!"

How had my mom, who once ruled the kitchen, come to this point, where she couldn't tell the difference between a lima bean and a green bean? We tried to calm her down and reassure her that it was okay and that she hadn't ruined the meal.

"It's fine mom, they aren't green beans but they taste good! It's okay...you're not stupid...it was just a mistake...they are green..."

I felt so bad for her. I felt sad that she thought she was stupid. And I felt confused with what was happening to her, that she couldn't even distinguish differences in food anymore.

It was somewhere around this time, that I really began to realize that she was going to need more help in her meal planning and cooking. It wasn't this incident alone, but a series of events that had led up to this conclusion. A big part of this realization came from my dad. It was frustrating for him to go to work all day long (he is a tilesetter, so he is literally "breaking his back" at work all day) and come home to an empty dinner table. Although we knew something was "off" with my mom, we still hadn't gotten a diagnosis by this point and he was becoming increasingly frustrated with her lack of effort to prepare the meals, or do anything else for that matter. Of course, by the time we had received a diagnosis, we began to realize that this was beyond her control and that she would definitely need some extra help in this task.

And....because I am a busy mom, and this is the last week of summer break for my kids...I am going to have to end my post here. The kids are ready to go swimming! Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of this post, which is our solution to the "what is for dinner?" dilemma.