Setbacks

Hey all. So I really cheated a lot on the diet around my birthday (think clotted cream, a few glasses of wine, tons of sugar, etc.)...

Consequently, my body decided to let me know how it felt about all that by kicking my butt this week. Woke up Monday night at about 2 AM feeling rotten, so I took my prescription anti-emetic in a fit of stupidity.

I hate anti-emetics. It is quite beyond my comprehension WHY I did it. It was 2 AM, and I was freaked out. Anti-emetics are a class of drug prescribed to treat nausea due to radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery. They were given to me (along with eternal refills) by my doctors, who had no idea what was wrong and were pretty sure that removing my gall bladder was a good way to find out. Their side effects caused me to go from having no opinion on medical marijuana to having quite a few opinions on the topic.

I really hate meds. Last time I was given this one through an IV, I had already thrown up all over the nurse (awkward...), so as I told her in my morphine haze, "A little bit of a moot point now, don't you think?" But on the bright side, I finally lived the dream of actually vomiting as a response to a frat boy's body odor later that day on the subway. Every girl should get to do that once. It's like doing dinner and a show in New York City. Iconic.

I've felt pretty crappy all week. I haven't helped it by all the maté and soy milk I've been drinking, nor the popcorn I just consumed waiting for my dinner to arrive. Popcorn... that's a killer. I should have known better. But it was lunch today that really did it. I was so horribly sick after lunch... my bones hurt. I don't really know what that was. It felt like a violent reaction to an avocado, but since I make avocado ice cream a lot, it doesn't seem like that could be it. It was pretty harmless... beans and rice with tomatoes and cilantro and a little corn and some guacamole. I'm not really sure what the deal was, but MAN it was rough. It felt like there was a rodeo going on in my pancreas.

Mysteries... Tonight, I'm sipping miso and doing a strong morning miso with steamed greens for breakfast. Taking a break from the gym (working on my 'finness,' as they say.) and doing some laundry.

Fish n' Chips and Macro Root Veggie Relish

Here's a fun summer recipe the whole family can enjoy. It's cheap, accessible in terms of ingredients, and a familiar food for those of us of Anglo-Saxon descent. It also would go REALLY well with the cool yogurt sauce of the previous entry. This is truly junk food, so I recommend mixing it with the root veggie relish listed below. If you're doing the relish with the fish, I'd either cut back on or eliminate the oil so that you don't have to do overtime at the gym tomorrow. Throw in my fresh summer steamer greens, a scoop or two of fresh watermelon, and you've got yourself a barbecue!

GLUTEN-FREE "FRIED" LEMON-BREADED COD FILLETS

Via Martha Stewart's Body and Soul:

Serves 4

• 2 cups Erewhon's Gluten-Free Brown Rice Crispy Cereal (Whole Foods), partially crushed
  
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 4 cod fillets (4 ounces each), skinned
• 3 ounces baby spinach (4 cups)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine cereal, oil, parsley, zest, and salt.
2. Set a wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet. Press fish in crumb mixture, turning to coat. Transfer to wire rack. Bake until golden brown and cooked through, 14 to 16 minutes. Divide fish and spinach among 4 plates.

GABRIELLE'S RAW ROOT VEGGIE RELISH

1 c. carrots, grated on a cheese grater through the big holes
1 c. daikon radish, grated
options:
Tiny diced red onions
Diced green apple
Celery

Apple cider vinegar, bragg's liquid aminos, dash avocado/grapeseed/flaxseed oil, organic vegan Italian dressing to taste.

Combine liquids into a sauce and add shredded root veggies. Toss. Can be saved and used over several days, and you can re-shred and add new veggies to the same old sauce if you want more. I'd go verrry easy on the dressing if you want to serve it with anything fried.

Cool Down with Cool Soy Yogurt Sauce

I swear I have a picture of this sauce somewhere, but with the limited space available on my cell phone camera, I think it may have been replaced with this picture of my dog:


So this is not a post on how to cook Homer. We keep it vegan around here.

I don't love using "fake" vegan products made with soy or corn, because I believe that too much of anything is no good for you, even if it's for the noble purpose of avoiding animal products. When you start doing "soy" this or "soy" that, it slowly creeps into taking a major place in your diet, and with all the Monsanto soy shadiness going around, I don't like to use any soy products that aren't guaranteed non-GMO.

That being said, this sauce is freaking delicious. I'm putting it on here to be used with fritters, fish fingers, or any other fried goodness that needs a cooling sauce. It also makes a great "ranch" substitute if you're looking for a party dip for carrots and celery stalks.

COOL SUMMER HERB SAUCE

1/2 c. Soy Yogurt
1/2 c. Soy Sour Cream
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp. lemon juice
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. chopped parsley
2 c. cilantro chopped OR 1 1/2 c. garlic scapes, which might be the most delicious herb never mentioned.

Run all ingredients through the food processor until it looks green and dippable. Raise thy stalk on high and dip thee low unto the sauce, and chew it mightily, for it is good.

Steroids: A History.

Note: This was a really emotional post for me to write and even reflect on, and I hope that it covers some topics that haven't really been addressed by macro literature.

I recently looked back at a picture of myself three years ago when my celiac symptoms were beginning to appear, and I was taking steroids to manage the constant recurrent infections. I'm so emotional in doing this, and it's hard to pinpoint the reason. In some ways, that period of my life was one of the happiest, as I was traveling and studying under a professor whose research would permanently alter the path of my academic career. I was reading new authors and making incredible new friends. I was also beginning a three year battle that would culminate in two surgeries, countless hospitalizations, and enough prescription pills to stock a reasonably sized pharmacy. I would become intimately familiar with my kidneys, ovaries, and GI tract. In fact, I have a really neat scan of my ovaries that I'm TOTALLY framing and turning into bathroom art as soon as possible.

I guess I just can't believe that was me. I can't believe I was that sick, can't believe I was that disconnected from my body, can't believe all the medication I was on... It's so many things. It's really emotional. I feel I don't even know that girl. I worry a lot about getting back there. I know my propensity for sweets and for yin foods, and now that my diet is a little wider, maintaining moderation is really something I have to struggle over.

Sometimes when I read the macro books, I feel like this doesn't get addressed. I wonder if anybody else feels this incredible sadness looking back. When you know the pain and sickness that are going to rock your future world, you just want to reach back and shake that person by the shoulders and say "WAKE UP AND PUT THE BISCUITS DOWN."

The only thing I can glean from this is asking myself today what I'll be shouting back tomorrow. What am I doing today that I'll regret tomorrow? I think I made some of the best and worst choices of my life that year, but there's no doubt that it was one that would shape the rest of my life.

Spring of 2008 // Spring of 2010

Why Are We Eating This?!

I am too poor for Xanthan gum. It's $15.99 for a one-pound bag. Since most gluten-free baking recipes call for about one teaspoon of the stuff, this bag will last about a hundred years. What's wrong with that, you ask?

For starters, I don't really know what it is. I know that it's a mysterious white powder from a food engineering plant in Iowa. Xanthan gum was corn, once upon a time. Not only is corn an insidious vegetable that has woven its silky tendrils in everything from dog food to gasoline, it can be very hard to digest if you've got any sort of digestive issue.

The philosopher Wikipedia in his infinite wisdom had this to say on Xanthan gum:

Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide, derived from the bacterial coat of Xanthomonas campestris, used as a food additive and rheology modifier,[2] commonly used as a food thickening agent (in salad dressings, for example) and a stabilizer (in cosmetic products, for example, to prevent ingredients from separating). It is produced by fermentation of glucose, sucrose, or lactose by the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium. After a fermentation period, the polysaccharide is precipitated from a growth medium with isopropyl alcohol, dried, and ground into a fine powder. Later, it is added to a liquid medium to form the gum.[3]

You had me at precipitation from growth medium. Color me hungry.

Nothing makes a plant by-product more appetizing than knowing it's a primary ingredient in my cosmetic products. Sometimes, I like to munch on my facial cleanser if I'm too lazy to call for takeout.

The thing that really gets my goat is that it's ubiquitous in gluten-free, vegan cooking. It's everywhere from About.com to my holy grail, the BabyCakes NYC cookbook. As far as I can tell, there is nothing inherently beneficial to one's health in using Xanthan gum. Is there a better way?

As far as I'm concerned, yes.

It's kuzuko, or powdered kudzu root. Studies have shown that in addition to smothering your house and crushing your abandoned backyard automobiles, this super-plant can actually alleviate symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption, lessen alcohol cravings, strengthen the intestine to soothe diarrhea, and reduce bad "surface heat."

It's also awesome in cupcakes.

I know where it came from... Probably the side of a highway in Arkansas. I make a mean gravy with it. I feel good about serving it to my friends and family. It's a traditional Chinese herb. It's not corn. And maybe if we eat it, it'll stop eating us.