Throw Out the Rocking Chair and Maybe Even the Stove
By Pamelagrace Beatty
There’s an age bias happening and senior citizens are stuck with it. Isn’t that annoying? Even the president of the United States has had to deal with it. After being elected, as Joe Biden ran up the aisle to give his acceptance speech, one of the commentators remarked that he was running so as to pretend he isn’t 78 years old. What nerve! I thought “That’s a young guy who knows absolutely nothing about older people!” One guy friend of mine who is 71 rides his bike for 30 miles on a regular basis. My good friend rides her electric bike all over the neighborhood and goes for long walks, plays softball, and regularly takes Zumba classes. She’s 73. I do cardio dance twice a week and walk intermittently. I could name more of my friends who are in their 70s who are extremely active and very fit. I am not concerned at all about Mr. Biden‘s age. Older people are doing things differently these days. And we are intentional about it. It not just a show of nature. We have decided to enjoy life more and are stepping out of our comfort zones, trying new things, and paying attention to what we need to do to stay healthy and happy in our senior years.
Even my father who is well beyond the baby boomer age group, is living fully into his life at age 96. He is still active and willing to learn and do new things. He has lived alone since my mother died. He cleans his own house, mows his yard, drives up to the store to buy his own groceries, and not only cooks for himself, but eats it! Fortunately, my sister’s children have turned him on to a new app called Tasty, because his knowledge of what to cook was quite limited. Since he got the new app, he has tried a number of the recipes and done well with them. He is still willing to try new things. You certainly won’t find him sitting quietly in a rocking chair.
After helping dad find the app, I was charmed into trying it myself. The app has lots of different recipes for dinners, lunches, breakfasts, desserts, and more. I resisted getting it initially because I have two shelves of cookbooks, and if I want to cook something different, I just look through my cookbooks. But dad won me over to this app when I went by his house the other day and he couldn’t find his connection to the app. He had me check his computer, but it wasn’t there. Part of the problem may have been that he could not remember the name of the app so looking up the word “recipes” – which he could remember- didn’t help. That was kind of funny. Finally, he said, “Well I guess I’ll call your sister and ask her.” I wondered why he didn’t do that in the first place! He called my sister and got the name of the app, Tasty, and found that it was on both his phone and his iPad but not his computer. I chuckled out loud. He is still working on being technically savvy. He had forgotten that there was more than one screen page to both his phone and iPad. The app was on the next page. As I looked at the app. I was captured by the many different recipes, and that it also listed the necessary ingredients to buy, and how much of the ingredients to use. It even showed videos of everything being put together. Well, needless to say, I was hooked. I added the app to my phone and off I went.
The next day I found a delicious recipe for Tuscany chicken. It included heavy cream, Parmesan cheese, spinach, tomatoes, half an onion, garlic and chicken thighs. It didn’t even have any wine in it. I frequently cook French and Italian food with wine, so I was surprised. And oh my gosh, it was delicious.
I love to cook and what’s most fun about cooking is trying a new recipe. My mother was not a cook when she met and married my father. He talked a lot about having spaghetti every week. In fact, he said the only thing she knew how to cook was spaghetti. When we were children, we had spaghetti every Friday. We had hotdogs on Saturday. Mom and dad sometimes had steaks on Saturday; however, as a child I found the steaks very hard to chew and really preferred hotdogs. I like hotdogs to this day, and I neither care what’s in them nor do I want to know.
My mother never learned how to cook growing up. So, she depended on cookbooks to make interesting meals. Because she used to use cookbooks, so did I. However, this new app is so much fun. What I like most about cooking from recipes is that I learn how to cook. I now understand the difference between a rue and gravy, or browning versus braising. This new app is great for discovering new recipes and how to cook them. In the past, I only tried new recipes when I was planning to have people over for a meal. Now I experiment on myself! Of course, that means that I will need to up my exercise plan because some of these recipes that appeal to me are very rich.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I no longer have a working stove. it’s a long story, but because of the difficulty of replacing the stove, I decided to simply use the kitchen appliances I have on hand. So, I am making my masterpieces using an electric skillet, a baby oven, the standard microwave oven, a crock pot, and my new and most favorite appliance of all (drum roll), my Instant Pot! OMG! It’s the best!! At some point I will replace my stove but right now, since it’s just me I don’t care. Between all of these appliances I can cook a meal for four easily and a meal for eight if I wanted to. It is so much fun. And as I said, I’m going to either have to choose lighter recipes or go for more walks. I think more walks is going to win.
Getting older and having silver hair doesn’t mean we can no longer have fun and party! Even though we may not have work or have gatherings with friends that get us out of the house on a regular basis, we can still explore new adventures in our own living space and still meet new people via computers, and the latest avenue, Zoom. Keeping our minds young means keeping the mind engaged. Learning new things and having a playful approach to life makes these senior years so much more fun. We would love to hear what YOU do for fun. Drop us a note in the comment box.
Carpe Diem
