Presentation is everything – so they say! That statement is so not true. My dessert arrived at our table, a delicious apple caramel cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and bourbon crème anglaise. It looked like perfection placed ever so delicately on an oblong, white dish with cheesecake on one side and the illustrious crème drizzled so elegantly in the middle and to the right. There was even a dried green apple slice as a garnish.
It was delicious! Incredible creamy cheesecake with a tasty crumb topping, and the sauce was the perfect touch…except, it was way on the other side of the plate! Who thought that would be a good idea? It took coordination to take my little bite of cheesecake and move it over to the other side to soak up that luscious sauce. That is fine for your average diner, but not me with my CMT (Charcot Marie Tooth) shaking hands. Precious crumbs were flung off the fork onto the placemat. The luscious sauce was difficult to scrape up. It was still tasty, but why did it have to be so hard to get the full effect of all those wonderful flavors?
For someone who may have benign or essential tremors, eating out can be challenge. Dinner parties or weddings can often be a challenge. I often think of the scene in “Pretty Woman” where she is trying desperately to figure out how to eat her escargot when it goes flying across the room. That can happen at any time, food across the room, onto the floor or crumbs on the table.
Mostly, this is the way it is and people with tremors adjust. We get help from family and friends getting us the hot hors d’oeuvres or the food from the buffet line. Or we take smaller portions and hope nothing falls off the plate or flies across the room. Besides, the real joy at these events is the people, not the food right!? That is what we remind ourselves.
Honestly, it was not a big deal and made for a great laugh. My friend and I were laughing so hard we were crying. It truly wasn’t a big issue but did provide a small example of how the simple becomes not so simple anymore. I was fine, I was with friends. Thank goodness I wasn’t out on a first date with someone!
If I had really been thinking, I would have moved the whole piece of cheesecake over into the bourbon crème anglaise. Now, that is what I will do next time!
Finding Abilities 