Back Burner Cooking

Some of us choose to become caregivers. Others have caregiving thrust upon them. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, you may well find there are days when the person in your care doesn't want to eat anything you prepare. You may not realize it, but this could be because they can't eat it, not because they won't. This might be especially true in the case of an older person, as chewing can become more difficult as we age. The author, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London and worked as a sous-chef, found herself in just this position. Understanding, in retrospect, that the closer one is to the patient the harder caregiving can be, she has come up with a cookbook that offers a variety of soft foods-simple family dishes and old time favorites plus a few more intricate approaches for the lightest and easiest to eat preparations from the arsenal of classic French haute cuisine. The more tailored the food to the ability of the diner to eat it, the less the struggle at meal time for both the caregiver and the person at the other end of the fork.