As previously mentioned any recipe can be made without added salt but, you do have a challenge. As people age they tend not to taste foods as they once did. Then they make up for it by salting the food. You need to start with foods where you can 'kick it up a notch'. Things like chili with the hot peppers and onions. Saute fresh veggies and then deglaze with white wine making sure the water and alcohol are completely evaporated. When you make chicken soup you would make the broth of course (No canned! Not even "low sodium"), but add lemon rind. The oils bring out the flavor of the meat and veggies. Consider buying organic fresh foods that have more taste than factory farmed foods. So many people nowdays salt fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe because they have no flavor. Introduce him to new veggie and fruits that he has never had before so he has no "memory" of what they taste like. Try using snowpeas instead of the common peas for instance. Depending on how strict his diet must be, you may be able to buy low sodium versions of some items he loves. You can get things like soy sauce in a low sodium version. That way he can 'taper down' with some dishes until he can love eating them with no sodium at all. They key is using quality ingredients. Making French style dressing using balsamic vinegar and olive oil and then customizing with fresh garlic, dried red peppers, dill, and other things, beats out those bottled dressings. Use goat yogourt as a base for creamy dressing. Canned condensed soups at the store have so much filler in them - usually flour. That is why they salt them up. Making you own soups with lots of flavorful veggies you will wonder why you ever bought canned soups in the first place. Condiments and garnishes are going to be hard to substitute with no sodium version. Unsalted butter for instance tastes just awful on its own on top of mashed potatoes. It just gives one a greasy mouth feel. Try making the mashed potatoes adding garlic or using yogourt, sour cream or buttermilk to make them flavorful. Stir in some herbs too. So many people buy canned and jarred items loaded with salt and HFCS they themselves for got how foods are suppose to taste. Once you get to making your own sauces and salsas you will want to make them in huge batches for the whole family. It he is one who is used to salting meats try marinad or meat rubs. Make your own from dried spices. By making your own salt free dishes from raw basic ingredients you will notice a drop in your grocery bills too. Ka-ching!

Hmmm. We don't really do formal sit-down meals. Although we sit down together to eat, we tend to make plates in the kitchen and take each plate to the DR. Although I have nice china (a set of 12, even), it's pretty much for looks and has really only been used 3-4 times over the span of a 13-year marriage. Our everyday dishes, glasses and "silverware" are all of the Costco-Phalzgraff-Target-earthenware variety because we tend to overload the DW, drop and chip with frequency and I want to be able to replace as needed. I can't really see myself or anyone else in my family carrying dishes on a tray (or storing said tray). Maybe it would be best to store the dishes near the DW to make clean up easier, and just make the longer walk for prep/snack? Nobody will be making snacks at the same time as cleanup, so I can't see anyone getting in the way of cleanup at that point, and when we do have formal holiday dinners (all parties are informal buffet/bbq style), we generally clean up dinner before serving dessert so that everyone has a chance to digest and chat before moving to the next course anyway.

Most of us over the age of 65 have never had to worry about what we served when entertaining except for shellfish - perhaps a severe peanut allergy but I only know one man with this. He simply never eats anything prepared in anyone's home as he knows they probably have used peanuts or peanut butter in their mixing bowls/skillets. I usually just dealt with the shellfish by never serving it unless I absolutely knew my friends ate it. But when we were younger and had and went to lots of dinner parties, no one was on any "special diet" - no gluten-free (not sure anyone had even heard of gluten outside a home ec class!), no paleo, no Mediterranean, no vegans or vegetarian. When I was married 40 years ago, my matron of honor did not eat red meat at the rehearsal dinner, but she found plenty of other things on her plate and did not go hungry. I think she was the first person I knew who didn't eat red meat. If one has never learned to cook for such diets, it's pretty hard to learn, especially when entertaining. I never serve a recipe I have not prepared multiple times before. At my age, just preparing a meal for others is not easy and trying to figure out what is "allowed" is frankly just more than I am up to doing. I wonder how we all survived all those dinner parties in the past. Have people's bodies really changed that much? I don't remember anyone ever becoming ill and we all knew one another pretty wells.

Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream chips are my 'guilty pleasure'. Also Godiva dark chocolate raspberry bar. Cappuccino or hazelnut gelato, (don't remember brand, but it comes from Italy), or Breyers Raspberry Cheesecake Gelato. Lindt extra dark chocolate truffles. Snyder's pretzels. Circus Peanuts ( the banana flavored candy). All that makes me sound like a junk food junkie, but honestly, I'm not! I'm supposed to eat a low sodium diet, and mostly I do. I cook without adding any salt to anything, and carefully read labels on foods I buy, and try to always chose the one with the lowest sodium content. But I do love those Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream Chips, so occasionally treat myself with the smallest bag I can find, and try to make them last at least two days. I've always preferred salty snacks over sweet, but over the years I've developed more of a taste for the sweet, I guess because the salty ones are off limits to me. And chocolate has got to be dark, very dark. If I eat more than a few bites every now and then, I get a very itchy rash. That's a pretty good deterrent to eating very much of it, and I'm durned sure not going to waste those few bites on wimpy milk chocolate. Rusty