Senior Living: Thoughts for food

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May I concoct a yummy column idea: Food.

This is a topic I haven’t tackled recently … not that anyone my age attempts to tackle much of anything. I just let a column subject ease gently into my head.

Or, in this case, into my stomach. And into nostalgia.

Simply put, I don’t eat like I used to.

When my divorce happened and, subsequently, when my daughter moved out on her own, food was the challenge for a septuagenarian living alone. And it wasn’t easy.

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It’s hard to cook for one person.

Correction: It’s not difficult to heat something up. But choosing that something can be difficult/annoying for one person dining alone at home.

Another challenge: I’ve never been skilful at whipping up tasty meals.

Another correction: Three-meals-a-day-wise, two out of three ain’t bad (a one-time hit by a singer named Meat Loaf, but I digress.)

So let’s tackle One Guy Eating Alone.

First meal: Breakfast is a breeze.

Cereal is super easy. Dump it in a bowl, pour in the milk. Or grease a pan and whip up a couple of eggs, with toast. Maybe even with sausage or bacon.

Not a problem.

On to lunch … and there’s some variety in my case: Sandwich and/or soup, either of which is easily obtainable at the grocery store.

Still not a difficult challenge for a guy dining alone.

Dinner, on the other hand … This can be hard for one person.

I tried a meal service that was a bit expensive. And there were complicated preparations that included too many bits of this and that.

Dining alone wasn’t much fun, either … even with fancy food.

Meals were much easier when I was younger.

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From the very early age of five, I grew up with a single parent. My mother worked as a bookkeeper in what was then a thriving Montreal clothing trade, and she came home to whip up simple dinners.

Beef or chicken, potatoes, sliced carrots. A hungry, growing kid gobbled it up. And I was dining with my mother — each of us summarizing our days, between bites.

Fast forward to high school.

I had to ride a commercial bus to downtown Montreal’s Baron Byng High School, where the alumni included author Mordecai Richler. I read him religiously, but Richler didn’t dabble in high school lunch preferences.

I was on my own. And lunch was the local steamie hotdog stand.

I could dine there because I had a few bucks. A weekend restaurant job saved my mother from financing this adolescent.

Working as a busboy at a steak house, this brought about my exposure to fancy food and a wallet that wasn’t empty. A bonus: They fed staff at the end of dinner, after the departure of what I perceived to be ritzy clientele.

They must have had money because they could afford good steaks. The diners tipped waitresses well and the waitresses threw a few bucks at the busboys.

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That was some cash in the wallet of an idiot like me who smoked cigarettes at a young age.

A few of the cool high school guys and gals were smokers. I was an uncool kid who wanted to be like those puffing hipsters.

And so it began, in Grade 10.

I had a weekend job. I had some dollars. I had a growing nicotine addiction that lasted into my early 30s.

I’ve digressed from the subject that started this column. So I’ll get back into it: Food … and what I should be eating in my 70s.

Simply put again: Don’t eat bad stuff during your eighth decade.

You need to be as healthy as possible at this delicate age.

I’m lucky in that regard. My partner is dedicated to quality food.

And she does most of the cooking. As a contributing participant, I wash the dishes.

I still cook occasionally. But I had the Dinner for One experience when I was living alone.

Now I’m the sous-chef … a gig I can handle.

— Mike Boone writes the Life in the 70s column. mchlboone@gmail.com

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