Sauce == Greasy

We were able to piece together a bit of something the other day; dad seemed to think that any sauce covered meat is greasy. We figured this out by him mentioning that barbeque chicken on a TV commercial for some restaurant, don’t remember which one. He said look at all that grease, I said no that is barbeque sauce, he said, “It’s the same thing.” We tried convincing him that it wasn’t. The problem with this, is that he doesn’t like meat that is tough or dry, but doesn’t like sauce or to spend a lot of money going out.

Also a few weeks ago we took him to endless pasta at Olive Garden, We thought he was okay while eating it, but soon after he began calling the Olive Garden a greasy spoon restaurant and was just about the worst place he had ever been.  Now if you haven’t been to Olive Garden, it’s a Italian restaurant serving and not a greasy spoon in fact pretty much the opposite in that most of their sauces are made with vegetable and there isn’t even butter on the table and no real fried foods or french-fries to be found except for perhaps a veal patty. I think being overwhelmed by the 5 pasta choices along with 5 sauce choices they gave him pretty much completed the bad experience.

The contradiction of this is that one my dad’s favorite meals at family restaurants is broasted or fried chicken despite being cooked in oil. So Barbeque sauce or spaghetti sauce that are mostly fat free and vegetable based are “greasy” but chicken coated in flour to absorb grease and fried in oil is all fine.

We use Restaurant.com certificates quite a bit, which allows us to eat great meals for only a couple dollars more than McDonalds prices, we usually pay $2 for a $25 gift certificate, the only requirement Is that you have to order $35-$50 in food to get the $25 off. Yes these tend to be nicer restaurants, so dad gets sticker shock looking at the prices in the menu, it’s almost like he becomes a dear stuck in the headlights. Yes the meals cost $15, but after 1/3 of a $25 gift certificate is about $8 off each meal, the $15 entre turns into a $7 meal about one or two dollars over what McDonalds prices not including the 18% tip, but being in a nice restaurant and being served is worth a few bucks and better for your health as well compared to French fries and a burger.  After much coaxing we are usually able to get him to order something, but its usually a bowl of soup or a small sandwich.

The other trick we learned is to give dad a few choices of what to eat, he as with most Alzheimer’s sufferers get confused by lots of choices, 2-3 choices work best for him.

I guess to wrap things up, eat early, sun downing and restaurants don’t combine well, give only a few choices, and perhaps don’t even give him a menu, yes these seems wrong but in the end it works out better for someone that rarely goes out and recalls prices from 30 years ago when a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup was less than a $1 including a decent tip, than current prices.  And gets overwhelmed by more than a couple choices.