Deconstruction

Overwhelmed with life, the whole pandemic thing… and everyone in the house has gone a little crazy.  Finally, it is the holidays here.

I was encouraged to write this blog because I have recently read books by a number of exceptional authors recommended to me by a friend.  These authors include Rebecca Solnit and Deborah Levy, who have written about being writers, and writing.  There are many reasons people write; I do find it helpful, it carves out some time for me and my words.  Carves out means “create through painstaking effort” according to Merriam-Webster - well, that’s very apt.  Predominantly, I generate words for other people.  I don’t often create space for my words, my feelings and experiences.

My baking’s gone off the agenda.  Like some people, I baked a lot during our lockdown.  I do bake for comfort.  When my daughter was very small and my son was in bed, I would hand her over to my husband and start baking so as to not completely lose my mind.  She loved company, and would stay up far beyond what seemed reasonable.

At the moment, with some tricky paid work occupying the segment of my brain-energy leftover from family work, the evening meal is languishing on the priority list.  Make it easy, with what is to hand, to get food eaten.  I am not pleasing the palates.  This is simply doing enough.

Luckily, we have a beautiful dog in our family now.  So much exercise is being had by walking the energetic creature.  Hunger is important in reducing expectations.

What are my go-to evening meals at the moment?

1. I know the elements that everyone will consume:

• Pasta spirals or potato wedges/cubes or sushi rice 

• Carrot sticks or carrot sticks (cooked or raw)

• Meatballs or canned tuna or fish bites

2. I add in the more contentious items for those who favour more flavour:

• Homemade tomato sauce (canned tomatoes, 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, cinnamon, handful of sultanas, simmer; another option is diced fried onions, diced carrots, diced peppers, canned tomatoes, large pinch oregano, 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar)

• Grated cheese

• Pickled ginger and/or chutney and/or wakame (seaweed) seasoning

• Mayonnaise

3. Green stuff for the parents - I keep asking my children if they want some, or placing a portion for their consideration in front of them, encouraging attempts at eating these foods; but my success rate remains low, almost incalculable:

• Salad leaves

• Frozen peas (just short boil)

• Broccoli (just a shorter boil))

• Dress with balsamic and olive oil as desired

Combine elements of the above as appropriate for the individual.  On one or two or three plates or bowls, depending on how much you like food to be segregated.

I suppose it is more construction, rather than deconstruction.  Separate elements can constitute a whole.

I feel like my mind is becoming (even more) fragmented.  Maybe my cooking is following suit?  Yet there is orchestration and coherence in the deconstructed / constructed food and most importantly, it is enough to sustain my children (and us parents!).  So in writing this, I began to feel less guilt and frustration and then wondered why I was feeling it in the first place; what was I trying to achieve?  Deborah Levy writes about being a mother of young children and unlikely expectations:

Mother was The Woman the whole world had imagined to death.  It proved very hard to re-negotiate the world’s nostalgic phantasy about our purpose in life.  The trouble was we… had all sorts of wild imaginings about what Mother should ‘be’ and were cursed with the desire not to be disappointing... If we felt guilty about everything most of the time, we were not sure what it was we had actually done wrong.^

^Deborah Levy, Things I Don’t Want to Know. United Kingdom, Penguin Books 2014, pp 21 - 22

Across the bridge, over the hill, into the forest...

On a course for caregivers about play there was a bridge metaphor: to play with an autistic child, meet them halfway, don’t expect them to completely cross the bridge to play the way you would expect.

I liked that.  But over the years I have realised that there are times I need to pack a picnic and join them.  Often the picnic has some plain, fresh, white bread and apples.  I go across the bridge, over the hill, into the forest...

The forest is glorious, it’s lush and colourful.  

We sit and eat and my son tells stories.

There are many mythical creatures, but it isn’t noisy.

He enjoys the apple.  Wanders around, biting and chewing the apple.  This is therapeutic.  (There are no wasps or bees in this forest that are interested in the apple.  They stick to the flowers.)

If you are not relaxed, if your child isn’t relaxed, then eating together can be pretty stressful.  If you don’t take things down a notch, some days and evenings are interminable.  I think it is a good idea to be with your autistic child in their own way, as sometimes it is too much to expect them to walk on to the bridge (or even come out of the forest).  In play, in eating… you are there with them, and you are their person, and they love you for that.

Potatoes

Potatoes are a staple in our house.

I’d come home from work and my husband would have a pot of potatoes on the stove.  He’s Irish and he’s been brought up on potatoes. (But beware the stereotype: he doesn’t like Guinness.)

We did have a period where there were too many nights of potatoes and the children revolted.  Understandably. Interestingly, the nutritionist talks about ‘food jag’, when something is repeated too often within 48 hours, this results in a limited diet and also can mean a person refuses that particular food after a while.  Food jag can be avoided by, for example, a subtle change such as using a different kind of sugar for porridge, or presenting it differently. I appreciate this change isn’t subtle to someone with food wary-ness, though, so it takes a bit to sell it and get savvy with the changes.  I have a list of changes in my head for our regular foods, but I am not good at writing up menus for the week. This relaxed approach has come to an end as we face isolation and limited supermarket visits.

We do rely on certain foods (yup, it’s the carbohydrates). I am a bit worried about the potential for dwindling supplies of weetbix, oats, rice… not helped by images of people ransacking supermarkets.  Commenting on this frantic buying, an Irish survivalist recently said (like others before him), that ‘hunger is the best sauce’. I get that.  It’s why we have regular exercise in our house and limit snacks before meals. But I am a bit concerned about adopting a very different space food-wise, on top of the sadness, fearfulness, and unsettled-ness of a pandemic...

Back to the tatties.  Potatoes are very flexible: add toppings to boiled or roasted spuds, mash them, slice them into rounds and bake in the oven to make lovely chips, etc etc.

The toppings!  Beans: baked beans, fancy mexican beans, pesto-covered white beans.  I have seen in a magazine delicious ideas with pastrami + sauerkraut, steak + kimchi…

My husband mashes boiled spuds with a fork, then half mashes-half stirs baked beans in with them, adding butter.  I think it looks a bit gross, but the children love it and I can’t quite seem to replicate the dish to their satisfaction.

My mother does a free-for-all choose-your-own topping extravaganza with wee bowls of creamed corn, bacon, herbs, grated cheese, sour cream, chopped scallions.  That works pretty well for those of us who have strong preferences.

What to do with leftover boiled potatoes? What we do...fry them to make wedges (as long as they don’t get too crispy - not a desirable texture for my wary eater), eat them cold with mayo (my daughter enjoys this), make a proper potato salad (me, I am all about gherkins and capers and mayo, the sourness and the creaminess), skin, cube them, and reheat slowly, then mash them once warm with butter.

Yum.

Deep Time

Geological time is so hard to comprehend.  There is a term called ‘deep time’.

James Hutton, a Scotish geologist, is attributed with the concept of deep time.  He and his mathematician friend, John Playfair (great name) were looking at some (very interesting) rock in 1788.  Playfair later commented*: 

The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.

Sometimes I feel giddy at the slow pace of change in our house.  Careful and sometimes exasperated parents perform supportive acts that often result in barely perceptible change.

New activities, new foods… a lot of effort is put into respectfully introducing and embedding something different.  A year passes. And another. We are facing our own kind of deep time. It is perhaps unthinkable to parents of neurotypical children, to teachers, to most people in public services we deal with.  There are exceptions: the nutritionist I met with, she understood.

We do live with our own sort of deep time.  I don’t fully understand it, you can’t understand someone else’s mind.  But you don’t have to, you just keep learning to live with other people.

My daughter loves the Clarice Bean books (so do I).  Clarice Bean has worries^:

I have made a list of them in my notebook - it’s a notebook for worst worries - because people say things aren’t so bad if you make a list.
And then you can tick things off when they are solved.  So far I haven’t ticked anything off.

I empathise.

Clarice struggles with infinity (it is her number 1 worst worry).  But by the end of the book she’s coming to terms with it, that perhaps infinity helps you remember “things in the world aren’t as big as you think they are - not compared to infinity anyway”+.

* John Playfair quoted in Edinburgh Geological Society; Hutton’s Unconformity https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/edinburghs-geology/huttons-unconformity/ accessed 24 January 2020

^ Lauren Child, Clarice Bean, Don’t Look Now. London, Orchard Books 2006, p 7

+ Lauren Child, Clarice Bean, Don’t Look Now. London, Orchard Books 2006, p 252

Respectable Risotto Regrettably Repugnant

My son loves Terry Pratchett (fantasy + sci fi author, known for the DiscWorld series).  A word he has taken from these books is repugnant. An excellent word, it’s a great addition to his vocabulary.

Regrettably, he has decided risotto is repugnant.

Risotto is respectable.  My baked tomato risotto has onions, carrots  and tomatoes. I always feel relieved and a little virtuous when this risotto is eaten.

I’d like to get to a point where my children share a desire for a decent number of the same dinners.  Perverse, are my children. My daughter, who once cried “oh yuck” at the mention of risotto, is now joyful when she hears it is being served.  My son, who ate this meal without (too much*) complaint, now finds it distasteful. I am not sure why. I need to find the right moment to ask.

After a wee break, I will present this meal again.  Foods do tend to come back into favour...eventually.

*Most days, there is fuss.  I try to ignore it. Sometimes I am patient, sometimes not.  I prefer to eat without causing combat at the table but I tend to be argumentative, and like to win.  Also, I am not a restaurant and therefore present limited options. This does not please the royal highnesses/children.

P.S. My daughter is currently learning about alliteration, hence the title.

On Holiday

Holidays are a change, that can be part of their appeal.  I say ‘can’ because this is not true for everyone, not everyone likes change.  There are so many changes to manage on a holiday - new sleeping arrangements, the accommodation smells different, routine is disrupted... on top of all that, a change in food can be an unwelcome surprise.

On holiday, out of your usual country, food is not the same: the packaging, how it tastes, how it smells...

Considering this environment, it is useful to expect reduced variation in diet, and go with it.  Maybe take some food with you and do some research. I confirmed the type of Weetbix eaten was available, otherwise I’d definitely be packing some.

And then… you go out for a meal because you are on holiday and it is your birthday and you are celebrating with family.  Eating out with a wary eater is about preparation and compromise.

Restaurants are noisy, smelly, full of strange people - make allowances for these stressors!

I must note that we rely on an ipad and headphones.  A lengthy lunch is too much to expect him to tolerate, and it ends up as no fun for us either.

We review the menu the day before.  We consider the options. There are fries, sometimes that will work, they are being contemplated.  But we arrive at the restaurant and fries are dismissed. So for my son, today, ice cream for the main course is totally fine.  (And I order the fries anyway, just in case. I will always eat them - I have a thing for salt...and fries. And anyway, no one complains when there are extra fries.)  But there are other children present! How to avoid the sense of injustice? Explain. Children do actually listen and are pretty cool about these things. Our daughter has had many explanations as to why people are different.  She’s promised ice cream for dessert, and finds pizza delicious, so it all works out okay.

Our son sits by the open doors where the fresh air will reduce the smells of other food.  And eats his ice cream.

An Ode to Porridge

As promised, in my last blog, here is my Ode to Porridge:

Oh, porridge!

I sense your warm comfort, and

anticipate how you will break my fast.

Oh porridge, your humble mushiness is undemanding.

Oh porridge (and brown sugar!),

this is happiness.  I am replete.

Oh porridge,

I have no idea what we would eat without you.

(Really, no jokes, porridge is a fundamental part of our diet.)

 With thanks to great instructions from the Scholastic website on how to write an ode, “Explore Poetry That Turns the Ordinary into the Extraordinary: Write an Ode!”.

Weetbix is Excellent

I know that it is important to have a balanced diet with adequate nutrition.  This can be really difficult when you have autism because there is a tendency to stick to certain foods, certain textures, certain smells...  I recently made an appointment with a nutritionist to check my son’s diet is acceptable (provoked mainly by a period of illness where the eating went downhill).  However, we do seem to be overly preoccupied with variety in these food-obsessed times.

Healthy breakfast cereals are a friendly, helpful sort of food.  Especially if you are a ‘no surprises’ type of person (like my son).  And if you are suddenly really hungry and really need to eat ASAP (again, my son often fits this description).  Managing hunger can be a tricky business in my household. Limited options due to wary eating leads to crazy, desperate searching of the fridge and pantry.  We mainly eat porridge for breakfast. Homemade bircher muesli is consumed when I get around to preparing it. Oaty hotcakes are a regular thing and a favourite with my children.

Weetbix is a breakfast cereal made from whole grain wheat and I am relieved it is something that my son will eat.  I know it is not perfect as a food but I would really like to stress that it is GOOD ENOUGH to be eaten some times outside of breakfast times.  Ideally not for every meal! (So don’t try out the points 7 - 10 below in the same day.)

Good enough + food option readily consumed by my son = well, excellent in my world.  And so, here is a list of ten ways Weetbix is excellent.

1. The portions are uniform and tidily packed.  

2. Weetbix can be crushed if desired.

3. It’s predictable (a great characteristic of breakfast cereals in general).  

4. Fast to make, fast to eat.

5. Components are the same, always.  Bowl + spoon + Weetbix + milk = food.  Ideal for independent preparation. We are all for fostering independence.

6. And compared to lots of other breakfast cereals it doesn’t have loads of sugar…and has whole grains and fibre and some other ingredients that aren’t too bad and it isn’t that processed...

7. Weetbix is excellent for breakfast.

8. Weetbix is excellent for lunch.

9. Weetbix is excellent for dinner (or dessert!).

10. Weetbix is excellent for snacking.  

Weetbix is excellent.  The End. Next time…”An Ode to Porridge” (maybe...TBC...depending on how poetic I am feeling.)

P.S. I went to the Nutritionist and Weetbix is fortified with iron which I blithely chose to ignore given I am sceptical of such claims. But it is a useful source of iron, actually, and thank goodness! Meat is not an easy sell (chewy-ness and texture issues).

Illness

When you feel sick you want familiar things, comforting things, to eat and drink.  If it’s a sore throat then it can be uncomfortable to eat. I had such a sore throat recently that I ate only smooth food like mashed potato and soup as well as lots of warm drinks.

 Feeding my son when he is sick can be super stressful if I don’t relax and focus on just feeding whatever he will tolerate (and not taking it personally!).  My son is over-sensitive to touch and feels a sore throat more intensely than most. But really it can be any kind of illness that puts him off kilter. That means eating food he is totally comfortable with in the moment.

 So, there’s this ongoing sore throat and we don’t know why.  But my son reckons a possible cause is an injury inflicted by a rogue fish finger (he has short periods where he will eat these).  A naturally cautious person, he had concerns about hurting his throat by eating rough food. The unpleasant sensations were signs of further injury.  By eating smooth food, he felt he was allowing it to heal. My son is very rational; this all makes sense. And anyway, even if it didn’t - it is important to listen to his concerns because they are real to him and I can address them if I know about them.

 And then there is the medication.  Medication often has a strong taste, can be sticky and thick, or the inside of capsules are gritty - in this case they were tiny hard spheres.  Swallowing a whole pill seems impossible so we’re left with the spheres. I don’t hide stuff in food. The trust thing is too important. However, medication like this makes me desperate and I figure it is too important.  So it goes into butter. Or yoghurt. Turns out - despite their size - white, hard balls are not easy to hide, visually or texturally. I had to give up. But luckily (or rather unluckily) that medicine wasn’t working anyway.  Then there was the antibiotic. Too sweet, a bit chalky. I had to dilute it. I always ask the doctor if liquid medication can be diluted, and what I can dilute it in e.g. water, juice, milk. Tolerance goes down as the 10-day course of medicine progresses.  This is hard work.

 Oh for the sickness to end.  And the eating to return to our-kind-of-normal.

Quince

My son is incredibly sensitive (hypersensitive) to smells, tastes, touch, and visuals.  How sensory inputs are processed vary from person to person. Over and under-sensitivity seems to appear with people with autism and the National Autistic Society (NAS) in the UK has some great content to explain these sensory differences.

 Sensory sensitivity affects how food is experienced...and also makes it really tricky to introduce new foods.  However, if someone has already enjoyed other similar foods this may give them confidence to try something new.  In this case, some of Grandmother’s homemade, soft, naturally sweet preserved fruits such as peaches and apple were a nice prelude to quince.

 Quince is a perfect example of how the senses can contribute to a happy eating experience.

 Quince is an unusual fruit that smells amazing when it is ripe.  And this beautiful smell is present during and after cooking. Quince also turns a lovely shade of peach-orange-pink when poached for a while.  

 The fruit draws you in with its strange looks.  The quince is endearingly knobbly, has a misshapen pear look to it.  Pick it up and smell it. It has a delicious smell. My son wandered around with one for a bit just enjoying the smell.

 While it is cooking it smells great too. Floral and sweet.  I used a simple recipe without the cinnamon from The Spruce as my son isn’t a fan of spice but I loved reading David Lebovitz’s page on poached quince.

 The poaching turns it a pinkish/rose colour from its raw creamy colour!  I did some research on the colour change and it is because of the anthocyanin molecule released during cooking which an article by Render Food explains really well. The somewhat magical chemical transformation also makes the food of interest to my wee scientist.  And cooked quince is simply pretty which is appealing too.

 After it has been poached for an hour or so the fruit goes from hard and rough to meltingly soft.  This is a preferred texture for my son. No unexpected hard bits (I am very careful to ensure all the core and rough area next to it are removed!).

 Such happiness when food is enjoyed and there is a little variation introduced into his diet - especially when it is a fruit or a vegetable!  (Although I confess I do not have much luck with vegetables.)