TANDOOR CHEF!!!!!

I am not vegetarian, but gosh do I miss Tandoor Chef!!!!!!!!

I've run across the branf once or twice since moving to Northcentral Wisconsin (from central Illinois), but none of the stores carry them predictably (at least, not that I've found).

I even bought a curried saag (spinach, for those who aren't familiar with indian food) in a can out of despiration (which was horrible).

Even the ingredients for Indian food are pretty scarce, and I don't have the money or skills to do it right from scratch. Instead when we visit my family in Illinois I stock up on jarred sauces from the Indian grocery.

I'm flexible and don't really crave meat unless I'm hormonal (unfortunately with menopause approaching, I'm hormonal a lot lately) so I love good veg*n food as much as any other good food (too much, in other words). Hubby on the other hand is only willing to eat Indian vegetarian food (although he makes amazing vegan Chinese food when we've had dinner parties with veg*n friends). He was trained in a gourmet Chinese restaurant and they often cooked for Budhist banquets.

I've subbed frozen with what my store calls in house roasted turkey. Have the turkey plain. Then some hummus and veggies. Sometimes fruit, sometimes organic egg, cheese. So I am not cooking as much as assembling lunches.

BTW not using bread has been liberating. You don't need it on almost anything you think you did.

You can order spices online http://www.thespicehouse.com/

You can buy everything online. My health issues make it challenging to shop any other way (especially if I want to buy a gift for my husband, since he is my only transportation. I do not drive, because I have lost the ability to cocentrate or even stay awake behind the wheel (or anywhere).

The cognitive and neurological problems began about two years before I had to quit working. If I had had a job with closer supervision, I probably would have had to quit (or been fired) much earlier.

At my worst, it wasn't safe for me to use the stove or even a curling iron or any of my electric heating or cutting tools/appliances without my husband's close supervision.

I don't like to talk about that part of my disability. It's easier to talk about the pain, connective tissue damage and immune system failure than the neurological and cognitive issues. I have a master's degree in psychology and my brain doesn't work, how embarrasing.

I've pretty much become a hermit and primarily communicate online, because my cognitive impairment and neurological impairment is less apparent online. The only thing anyone might notice, if they knew me before is that my spelling, grammar and punctuation skills have declined and that I repeat myself more often.

In person though on a bad flare day; though, I can sound intoxicated (which is ironic consider how little I've ever drunk, even in college).

The REAL reason I'm having to rely more and more on frozen dinners is that the cognitive issues are worsening again and I'm having fewer days that I can cook safely.

The worst part is that I can't trust my own judgement. Just because I feel clear headed enough to be cooking, doesn't mean that I am. I've started burning food and even destroying cookwear in the process again.

To be honest, I'm now afraid to use the stove and the main reason I still try to do as much cooking as I can, is that I am stubborn and don't want to admit my true level of impairment. Oh well, it is what it is.

As to buying spices online, I prefer Spices, Etc. They have some pretty nifty ingredients. Wine, mushroom, and stock powders are my favorites. The powders have no salt or added seasonings, but they're awesome flavor boosters.

Sorry to hear that you're going through so much. It sounds like you may need some physical help in your home, I'd hate to think what could happen under these conditions. Do you have any family that can help you?

No, we really don't. All the family near us are at least a generation older and in much worse shape than us.

As bad as our situation sounds, it would have to be a whole lot worse to qualify for the kind of assistance we could afford.

Besides which, knowing just how many people are in much, much worse condition, and how underfunded such programs are, I wouldn't feel comfortable taking a spot of someone in greater need.

Especially since most of the "help" I would receive would come in the form of teaching me to do, what I'm already doing now. Even on a bad day, I could probably teach the teachers.

There are meal delivery services locally, but even if we qualified, they're even less healthy than frozen dinners (school cafeteria food with too much salt, sugar, and fat).

We manage fine, I just don't cook on bad days and my husband helps me determine if it's a bad day. And even if we both agree it's a good day, he pays attention to what I'm doing so if I get distracted I don't walk away from something that needs monitoring.

Most of my cognitive issues revolve around my brain working either too fast (almost manic) or too slow. Both have their risks. Manic, and I try to do too much simultaneously, and too slow my reaction and hand-eye coordination is off.

The issues I've had recently with burning food and leaving on burners... was a result of lost vigilance. I had been doing so much better, for so long that we had stopped taking the extra precautions. I was cooking when hubby wasn't home or awake and during flares. It was working well until it wasn't.


We've now gone back to the extra precautions.

On good days, you'd never guess anything was wrong with me. That's the mystery of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and autoimmune disease (chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia may actually be autoimmune diseases, doctors can't agree on that).

So on my good days, I do as much as I can, and on bad days I rest. I'm also relearning to rely on my husband to help me determine what I'm capable of.

I've even taught him a few caseworker tricks, such as morning treatment planning and goal setting meetings. We had gotten out of the habit (because I'd been doing so well). We've decided that it's better to use precautions that we don't need than not have them when we do.

I think everyone who needs help deserves to have it. That's my political stance in it.

I agree, but there just isn't nearly enough help to go around. One would hope that the most critical situations would take priority. Unfortunately, the programs don't have the staff, money, or time to determine who has the greatest need, so first come, first serve.

My skill set and experience gives me advantages most people in my situation don't have. In fact, I'm so far ahead of the curve that, as I alluded to before, the first tier of service would be to assign someone to teach me what I already know and do. And there's no way to "skip" the services that are needed.

Knowing that I would have to accept a great deal of help and services I don't need (but many others do) in order to eventually access the little bit of help I could use, just wouldn't be right - especially since my situation now without help is better than that of most people's will be with the help.

And my husband and I probably don't qualify anyway. Our SSDI income is too high, but not high enough to pay for services on our own.

I'm not complaining, because I think we do amazingly well. We found an apartment that is handicap accessible (though it wasn't advertised as such, it's more functionally designed and has more handicap accessible features than the handicap accessible apartments we looked at (but weren't handicapped enough to qualify for. We've cut our drug cost by asking our doctor to prescribe from the Sam's Club $4 list whenever possible (saving us and Medicare over $1000 per month). We're also super frugal shoppers.

It all works pretty well. It has though shown me how wasteful our pre-disability lifestyle was.