Shoutout to St. James Healthcare's Art Therapy Interns!

In this very exciting (for us) post I'd like to share how many special ways food can be used as therapy, touching lives and bringing people together from different generations. I am a Creative Arts Therapist at a geriatric nursing facility and am lucky enough to always have amazing interns throughout the year. Recently as one of them approaches the end of her internship she had the very bright idea of cooking a goodbye meal with the residents she has worked with because cooking has meant so much to them in their lives. Because they are of Italian descent they decided on spaghetti and meatballs with homemade sauce and guess who's recipe they decided to follow!!

We couldn't be more proud! Here are some pictures that highlight their process:

Some pointers that came up during their cooking therapy group were:
-If the sauce looks pasty and thick, add a cup of water and let the steam boil off as it's slowly cooking on low heat.
-When forming your meatballs try to physically handle them as little as possible. The more theyre handled the chewier theyll be.
-For a sweeter sauce don't use salt pork and add a 1/2 cup of sugar. Ours is more meaty & savory.
-Because we were cooking in a healthcare facility we had to be extra careful with the raw meat. Make sure not to handle anything else once youve touched raw meat, and thoroughly disinfect any area where the raw meat touched.
-Prebake the meatballs in the oven or pan fry them before adding them to the sauce, just to make sure they're cooked through.

Everyone in the building smelled the meatballs and sauce and came running! It was a truly successful and beautiful therapy group to watch and we are so honored to be a part of it.

See original "Tomato Sauce" recipe post here:  http://couplesfoodtherapy.blogspot.com/2010/04/infamous-sauce-recipe.html

And For "Meatballs" here:
http://couplesfoodtherapy.blogspot.com/2010/04/meatballs-spaghetti-andsauce-recipe.html