Would you be able to care for a relative or friend who is diagnosed with dementia?

Food For Thought

Source: The List (Issue 598)
Date: 13 March 2008
Written by: Claire Sawers

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Alasdair Gray

73, writer and artist

I generally start the day with a bowl of oatmeal and cold milk for breakfast. Not porridge though – I believe the Scots word for it is ‘drammoch’. I add in some prunes out of a packet, and drink a coffee with milk.

For lunch I’ll maybe stop what I’m doing and have some cheddar cheese toasted on bread. I like it with slices of fresh tomato and garlic cloves rubbed on the bread.

I eat whatever my wife makes for me for dinner. Sometimes it’s fish, other times chicken. We eat a lot of veggie meals too. Something we have quite often is steamed fish with Brussels sprouts and boiled potatoes. During the day, I’ll have a few teas and white coffees. I like fresh orange juice too. We drink wine with dinner – usually white.

I’m not really supposed to take anything sweet because I’m diabetic. So I don’t tend to eat a lot of snacks. I may have named one of my characters after a Tunnock’s Tea Cake [John Tunnock is the main character in Gray’s latest novel, Old Men in Love] but that doesn’t mean I sit about eating them.

Old Men in Love is out now published by Bloomsbury.

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