Part of the series of cooking and blogging entitled: #WhileIWatchHer

Grown-up Peanut Butter Mouse with Banana and Shaved Chocolate Dust

It was a long week. Very long. And Monday the 17th was a doozy of a beginning. After an accelerated series of outbreaks, wild tears, anger, and sleep-walking over the last 4 months, Jean, my mother-in-law, collapsed in my arms while I was bathing her and had her fourth seizure in 13 months. Coming home from only a one day hospital visit I didn’t know if I was ready to face who she might be — this time. But it was a surprise to see the next day that she had already regained a lot of her ability to function. We discovered via a very kind and astute on-call Doctor that she probably needed to have her seizure meds increased – a lot – a WHOLE heck of a lot. I have to say, it may have been a key to easing the nightmare of this disease, since Tuesday she has been a new person. And that is very good news.

As you read this blog entry you may wonder how this has anything to do with food. But since it has everything to do with me, and since I care for Jean, along with my amazing husband Ron, it is the parallel story to why I Feel Like Cooking. And always, you should know, it is cooking that helps me stay sane.

Second in a series I like to call, “While I Watch Her,” #whileiwatchher I am sharing this original recipe and excited about how delicious it is. Dementia often presents itself in a kind of reverse maturity, with childlike habits returning and certainly an inability to process abstract thought. So, it seemed like creating a dish that was both at once the amalgamation of the favorite foods of a small child and something so grown up and mature that you could serve it on any occasion, would fill the space of my event-filled week with the joy it had been missing. This Grown-Up Peanut Butter Mouse with Bananas and Shaved Semi-Sweet Chocolate Dust is a delightfully creamy and grown-up, yet matches the tastes of a child, just like Jean.

Ron and I often muse about how much of her we will still discover was lost during this seizure. But for today, she’s doing better, which in turn keeps us surviving with a smile and our kitchen full of experimentation, joy and fun!

#whileiwatchher