Gone Fishing

Well...foraging, actually. I'm in a food funk. I'm sick of my own cooking. This is probably a precursor stage to another blitz of "cooking dangerously," but I'm not there yet. The weather is certainly a reason to draw me out of doors, being summer and all, with all of the activities that summer affords. We've been out of pocket this entire week doing Family Things. That doesn't leave much time for cooking and I doan wanna be in the kitchen any more than I have to be at the moment. Needless to say, I've been pulling out all of my Breatharian "fast food" ideas. The Hobbits should be heartily sick of them by this time. I know I certainly am.

I'm thankful for any excuse to get out right now. Gardening is still a bit of a tender subject, but there are things that are doing well enough. Almost everything that I planted is going to produce at least some amount of seed, so I'll be able to have seeds to save for next year's garden. It's been interesting to watch the arugula shed its petals and see little seed pods fatten up. I never knew that lettuce went to seed that way. Not sure what I had in mind, but that wasn't it. There are a couple of tenacious beans asserting their existence in the garden and I figure something that is that determined to live is something that I want reproducing next year. My newly settled asparagus crowns are sending spindly ferns up way past the point of being able to support on such thin stalks. Even though the brochure assures me that I can harvest briefly this year, I'm abstaining, once more thinking ahead.

This is a good time for thinking ahead. Thinking back to last winter with all of the miasma that floated around, I'm planning. The elecampagne plant in my garden is taller than Tool Guy and that's saying a lot. This looks like it is going to be a mullein year, too. Last year, I began looking for them late in the summer and gathered enough for a few cups of tea. This year, like the model car one has recently bought, I see them everywhere. Great stands of them littering the roadsides. I've already harvested a grocery bag...fabric, thankyouvermuch...full of the broad, flannel leaves, dehydrated them, and they now occupy four quart jars in the bottom of my basement.

In an enthusiasm of tincturing, I decided to make mullein oil, as well. I pounded a bunch of leaves into a quart jar and glopped olive oil over the top, suctioning all of the air out with a lovely vacuum seal to finish it off. And while I was on the phone, chatting to my herbal mentor, she informed me that the flowers provide the virtue of mullein oil for earaches. Oh. Flowers. My bad. Feeling like Roseanne Rosannadanna prattling about violins (violence) on TV, I grabbed a mason jar and headed back out to do some more foraging.



Picking mullein is not unlike picking cotton. Well, it doesn't have the spikes that lacerate fingers, so bonus points there. But the very small blossoms make harvesting a rather painstaking process. And mullein oil requires a lot of flowers. It's beginning to become apparent why mullein oil sells in these petite little bottles for a not-so-petite price.

It's a pretty straightforward tincture...stuff as much as you can into a jar and cover with oil and forget about it for 6-8 weeks. I cap mine with a canning lid and a vacuum seal to help draw all of the not inconsiderable air out of the whole morass. I have been more active with my particular batch because mullein in an unevenly blooming flower. The blossoms don't all blow at the same time, so a tincture may very well be best done in stages. About every three days, I do another round of foraging and collect what flowers are open and ready for harvesting. I throw these on top of the previous batch, press them down into the saturated flowers below and top off with more olive oil, sufficient to cover the top. Looking at the resulting oil, I'm thinking that straining this through a cheesecloth would probably be a good idea when all is said and done.

I'm working to forage as much as I responsibly can. Seems to me if the herbal plants are having a bumper year, it might be because we'll have a bumper need for them this winter. So every few days, I head out with my bag or my jar and collect new batches. And gingerly step around the blackberries...the crop that I didn't obtain permission to harvest. Drat.

Another Hill To Climb

Tool Guy is inducting again. For the uninitiated, that's Atkins Diet speak for being back on the wagon. He's coasted along complacently, thoroughly enjoying the dangerous activities going on in the kitchen, like sourdough bread and pear butter muffins. It was Princess who shook him out of that complacency. Small children are brutally honest. She told him that she was no longer able to hug him, because he had "a hill." This is the same child who a few years ago deduced--and announced loudly--that the reason I didn't camp out in the tent was that I was "too old and fat." (Vanity forces me to report that I was 43 and 115 lbs. at the time.) She demands that I inform everyone that, as a newly arrived five year old, she no longer says this about me. It doesn't, apparently, preclude her from making such comments about her father. There's probably some logic in there, but it is too arcane to follow. Such are the vagarities of a pre-schooler.

Tool Guy took this to heart, however, and is inducting faithfully...more or less. It made me think about the beginnings of his love affair with Atkins' theories. It was quite a few years back...even before Dog was born. After years of low fat, high carb eating--you know, all the stuff that the "experts" say is heart-healthy and "good for you"--he was over 250 lbs and even at 6'3" that's more than he wanted to be. When he tumbled across the Atkins plan, he was excited to be able to eat, not feel hungry and still lose weight. And there's a good reason for that. Fat is the trigger that controls our appestat; it's what tells our body that we are full. When we don't eat enough fat, we are hungry in a very short time and "portion control" becomes torturous or impossible. Traditional diets prized fat for lots of very good reasons.

This was probably the very embryonic beginnings of thinking outside of the nutritional box for us, because everyone...including Tool Guy's doctor...swore that it would be the death of him, it was unhealthy, ad infinitum. Tool Guy even had a full physical done before starting and had a check up six months later. When his doctor called with the test results (this was pre-HIPAA), I took careful notes of the numbers. I asked him to repeat the cholesterol numbers from the first test. It had dropped 60 points. Being the professional gadfly that I am, I pointed out this little detail to the doctor. He was not amused.

Going low carb had other benefits that we hadn't expected. Persistent skin conditions that the doctor couldn't cure, repeated ear infections that resisted all treatments disappeared never to return. He even seemed calmer and in a better overall mood. It wasn't after we'd discovered gluten intolerance that we began to connect all of the dots. Because the main carb that Tool Guy avoided was...yeah, you guessed it...bread. Wish we'd known to have that rash biopsied. Dermatitis Herpetiformis is a topical manifestation of gluten intolerance and we might have had an earlier diagnosis. A few years later, while networking with other folks who were going gluten free, we began to see a pattern: a goodly percentage of them had also responded positively to the Atkins Diet...so many that we began to quip that it was an unofficial diagnostic tool. If you lost weight on the Atkins Diet, then you were gluten intolerant. And only half in jest.

In addition to low carbing, which means no sugar at all as well as cutting back on carbs, Tool Guy has decided to start winnowing out the corn syrup and not go back. I guess all of my preaching is starting to seep through. He doesn't know it, but I've been playing King Corn in the player next to the bed while he sleeps. I, for one, have never believed the tommyrot that subliminal suggestions don't work. Mwahahaha... So this time, one of the first things he struck from the menu was that bottle of hunter's orange-hued French salad dressing. Since this is his favorite topping for just about everything, I promised to provide him with an Atkins-friendly version.

French Dressing

1/2 cup vinegar
2 tsp. dry mustard
1 T sweetener or to taste
1 1/2 tsp. Real Salt
2 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup olive oil
1 raw egg yolk (from pastured hens)

In a food processor or blender, mix vinegar, sweetener, egg yolk, and dry ingredients. Slowly, while blending, pour in oil until thoroughly mixed. Refrigerate.

Dr. Atkins, while vilified for a very long time, is slowly being vindicated by the fact that science is finally catching up with many of the things that he proposed. You can go without bread and still remain healthy. Animal fats are good for you. Red meat won't kill you. It's the sugar, refined carbs, and trans fats that are bad for you. It is a pity that his ideas have been co-opted into selling more processed junk food, albeit low carb, instead of encouraging people to continue eating healthy whole foods.

Tool Guy is presenting a trimmer, more svelte figure these days and Princess has deigned to hug him again. Oh, and he turns the big Five Oh this year. Can we say that he's over the hill?

Humble Pie and Sin On a Spoon

Shh...

I'm laying low these days. There's a stomach virus making the local circuit and I don't want it to know that I exist. I'm sorry, but after two months of pneumonia and a month recovery time, I figure I've done my duty by the sickness fairies this year. One more bug this winter and I'll be ready to open an artery, you know?

I was agreeing with a foodie friend--who happens to be down with that little stomach bug thing--that it just isn't fair. Isn't eating right supposed to give us iron-clad immunities? Aren't we supposed to be able to sail through life, smugly consoling the unwashed masses who guzzle high fructose corn syrup and munch on extruded cereals sweetened by high fructose corn syrup and subsequently catch every little thing that comes down the pike? (By the way, did you know that a study of these cereals fed to rats found that the rats eating cereal died before the other two groups...one of which was only fed the boxes that the cereals came in? Nice, no?) It is more than a little humbling to find that we have immune systems of clay.

Yep. So these days, along with the other stuff on the menu, I'm eating humble pie. I'm less hostile to antibiotics these days, though the ear infections in the house didn't get dosed with them and everyone recovered with their hearing intact despite the dire predictions to the contrary. (I'll spare you the drama of trying to contact a pharmaceutical company on the cusp of a New Year's Eve weekend: No one answers the phone for five consecutive days.) In fact, there are a few other medications that I'm beginning to feel pretty grateful for. Along with the antibiotics, my doctor gave me diflucan to counterbalance some of the less pleasant and more uncomfortable side effects of killing off every little organism in my body. The diflucan accomplished in four little pills what I've been working toward, inching toward for an entire year: I can eat all my old foods again.

This resurrected some unresolved feelings of resentment I've had against a former family doctor. We went our separate ways when I'd asked him to prescribe diflucan for the Hobbits when it first became apparent--at least apparent to me--that dysbiosis was the underlying cause of the spiraling food reactions. He was quick to dismiss me and I remained dismissed. I pretended that he didn't know what he was talking about and began addressing the supposedly imaginary dysbiosis with alternative methods. And that's where we've been this past five years. My recent experience confirms to me I was right all along and this five year grind was avoidable. Sigh.

Still, there is a quiet thought that accompanies the occasional stabs of resentment that flare up: we needed to take that five year grind. We needed the discipline. We needed the journey. The struggle. There's no way of knowing until much further down the road what seeds have been planted during these five years that will produce fruit. In me. In them. Fruit that would never have come to bear any other way. "It has not yet appeared what we shall be..."* I rest on that.

I'm still staying away from sugar, though. So I'm still casting around for ideas of how to fill that hole. You know, the hole that still nags at you, even after you've had a full meal. Or when you're burrowing down under the covers with a toasty rice bag and a good book. Just the time when something to nosh on would make everything perfect. Just the time that I used to cuddle up with a bag of Rollos and not stop until the bag was empty. And of course, every sugar-free candy you can lay your hands on is...drum roll please...sweetened with corn. Um. Not. Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Nope. He was wrong. That would be 99% desperation, because it is during the times of desperation that inspiration strikes.

The taste I had in my mouth was for chocolate butter cream frosting. So I dug around in the dusty recesses of my food stores and came up with an almost empty box of powdered cocoa, left over from the days when the Hobbits could do chocolate...which blessedly they can again...but somehow this box got overlooked. Hallelujah. The rest of the stuff was near at hand and I went to work with a passion. The prospect of sugar free chocolate will do that to me. What can I tell ya? Sin On a Spoon was born.

Sin On a Spoon

(All ingredients/amounts negotiable)

8 T ghee
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 T coconut milk
2 T vegetable glycerin or agave nectar

Blend butter with balloon whip mixer attachment on high until soft. Pour in cream/coconut milk and sweetener, whipping until blended. On stir setting, add cocoa powder, turning speed up to high as the powder becomes incorporated.

Find most isolated spot in the house, lock the door, and refuse to share with anyone. Enjoy.

*_{1 John 3:2}

The Perfect Christmas

I'm channeling Joel Salatin's dad again. Well, not literally. No dolphins or long deceased Egyptian princesses or anything like that. Just some good common sense: "Good enough is perfect."

Christmas is always a busier time of year for just about everyone. Lots of hustle and bustle and stuff to do. I pushed decorating back until the last minute because we decided to get a real tree this year. It was a combination of discovering that a neighbor down the road supplements his retirement by selling trees from his property and the fact that the attic so obscenely congested that the thought of digging it out and dragging it down the folding stairs easily tilted the scale in favor of supporting this retiree in his efforts toward maintaining the style to which he is accustomed. The Hobbits were enchanted, since they've only ever known this artificial tree that Tool Guy and I have hauled with us from pillar to post since the early days of our marriage. This year, they climbed a snowy hill with saw in hand, each took a turn gnawing at the trunk with it and then they hauled it back to the vehicle to trundle home. They're still talking about it.

The homeschooling Christmas program was another departure. Not one the Hobbits managed to distinguish themselves, which was quite singular. In the five years since we've been participating, at least one of them has managed to do something like jump off the stage and announce that he was the "champion!" or stalk the narrator or vie for control of the song book or lose her balance and fall of the platform or...or...or...well, you get the picture. They were all angels, even the angel. Bug managed to control his weaponry, both during the time he was the Roman soldier, wearing a sword and while he was a shepherd, wielding a cudgel. (What can I say? Party Planner, who also planned the program, is very ambitious...as well as brave!) And Dog actually sang along with his group. Pretty remarkable for someone who didn't get a passing grade the first quarter of music because he refused to sing. I'm thinking it was the audience that made the difference. Of course, it could also have been his rather pretty partner. Who knows? Hmmm. Now that I mentioned it, I'm going to have to think on this one...he's turning 11 this year, you know.

There were other differences this year that were less anticipated. I should have seen it coming. I really should have. That persistent cough. Princess' ear infection. That persistent cough that started getting worse. And I did all the stuff I was supposed to. Extra C. Extra D. Extra A. Extra Zinc. Sambucol. Raw garlic. The whole laundry list. And that persistent cough kept getting worse. And Tool Guy, too.

My parents come up to visit every year for Christmas and quite a few times in between. Despite our persistent coughs, they decided to stay and spend Christmas at least with us. Mom was great and organized the Hobbits in their decoration of the tree that had been cut the day before. I laid on the couch and coached the selection and watched. Tool Guy pitched in with cooking and there was a lot of stuff made up in advance. For Christmas dinner, Mom made her version of This Pampered Chef's pork roast.

Granny's Pork Roast

5 lbs. pork roast
1-2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 T olive oil
1 t sugar

Mince garlic and mix with salt and pepper. Cut slits into the roast and stuff seasoning mix into the slits. In a roasting pot, heat oil and sugar to bubbling, then carmelize the roast on all sides. In a 350* preheated oven, bake roast, covered, until internal temperature is 160*. Toward the end, uncover and allow to crisp for a few minutes. Add water to make gravy as desired.

Serve with rice or potatoes.

The day after Christmas, with that "persistent cough" Tool Guy came home with a diagnosis of pneumonia, which was the boot I needed to go and get my very own diagnosis of pneumonia. Kind of a demented keeping up with the Joneses, no? The Hobbits went in to get checked, but they only had colds and ear infections, nasty as that is. Phew! We urged the grandparents out the door as graciously as possible, hung out a sign saying, "Plague House" and I deliberated the additional measure of sticking an occasional arm out of a window to ring a bell and cry, "Unclean!"

Running a household is difficult when the movers and shakers are both out of commission. Having food brought in was out of the question. Oh, we did have some very generous friends offer. But even if people could provide us with gf meals, the hazard of being high reactors means that cross-contamination in others' kitchens would put us at high risk of reaction. We did, however, have many enthusiastic responses to requests for additional video material when we had exhausted our supply. As one friend put it, "Our videos, at least, are gluten free!" Heh. Just so.

When I couldn't go grocery shopping, I had a friend very scrupulously go to my select stores to get our food and bring it to us. Another friend came over and helped me prep out all of the foods for storage. And the co-op team worked flawlessly dealing with the co-op food delivery. All of these things provided us with the best Christmas we could have ever hoped for. Love. Support. Sustenance until we could pick up the threads of our responsibilities again.

Indeed. What more could one ask for? It was the perfect Christmas.

Take Your Medicine

And still more milestones. In my ten year tenure as a mother, this is my first encounter with the dreaded ear infection. We were driving down the road into town to run errands when Princess announced that she needed her ears squirted out when we got home. She elaborated that there was a gnat inside her ear that was causing her ear to "boom." I got cold shivers when I heard that because it so aptly described what I remember ear infections being like when I was her age. And when I was her age, I got them all the time. I was one of those of that generation who got tubes in their ears...one doctor described what lurked in my inner ear as "airplane glue." Nice, huh?

I know that antibiotics are the normal course of events in most protocols for dealing with ear infections, despite the fact that the cure rate for sitting it out is almost identical to the cure rate for prescribing. Well, put me in the wait-it-out school of fish then. The more I read about antibiotics, the more I want to save it for things like tuberculosis and bubonic plague and not on frivolity like keeping cattle being fed a biologically inappropriate diet alive long enough to slaughter. Stephen Harrod Buhner talks about the overuse of antibiotics in his book, Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria, pp. 8-9. Particularly riveting was his description of how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. "As incredible as (their) capacity for literally engineering responses to antibiotics and passing it on to their offspring is, bacteria do something else that makes them even more amazing and dangerous. They communicate intelligently with each other." He goes on to explain how bacteria position themselves alongside each other and pass DNA back and forth, the resistant bacterium sharing its immunity with the naive one. As if this wasn't alarming enough, the resistant bacteria exudes pheromones that attract non-resistant bacteria to them in order to share this resistance. And exposure to only one kind of antibiotic lays in motion the chain that teaches the bacteria to be resistant to all antibiotics. It is believed that by these mechanisms, eventually all bacteria will be antibiotic resistant. To all antibiotics.

So it becomes clear why avoiding the use of antibiotics seems like a good idea, particularly in such ambiguous situations as a 50/50 chance of improving by not doing anything. And Buhner gives some pretty good suggestions about herbal alternatives that can be applied without risk of increasing bacteria resistance. While we wait and see how things with Princess' ears will progress, I dose her with garlic, licorice, ginger, and echinacea. While I was running errands, I picked up some mullein and garlic oil drops to put inside her ears and dose with that.

And, of course, there is the old traditional standby...chicken soup. Tool Guy tells me that before we got married, he hated chicken soup. Dunno what he'd been eating before, but when I whipped up my first batch of the homemade variety, he was hooked. He is an admitted chicken soup addict. Actually, all of the Hobbits are. With cold weather settled in outside and bronchitis settled in at least one set of lungs inside, we're swizzling the chicken soup. And now Princess' ear infection. Well. Nothing for it, then. Time to take your medicine.

Chicken Soup
(Or as Bug calls it "Chicken Noodle Doodle Soup")

2 whole chickens, quartered
4-5 carrots, bias sliced
1 lb. sliced mushrooms...anyone who has read Tolkien knows that Hobbits adore mushrooms, right?
1 bunch green onions, bias sliced
4-5 stalks celery, bias sliced
1 tsp. sweet basil
1/2 tsp. sage
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/4 tsp. rosemary
2 bay leaves
Black pepper to taste
2 tsp. Real Salt
1 gallon of water

In the largest stock pot you can manhandle on your stove, set the water and chicken to boil. (If you're in a hurry, this process can be shortened to 20 minutes or so in a pressure cooker.) Bundle herbs into a coffee filter and staple closed. Add this herbal sachet, salt, and pepper to the chicken while it boils. After the chicken is cooked, remove pieces into a bowl and allow to become cool to the touch in order to debone. Meanwhile, strain the broth through a cheesecloth and return to a clean stock pot. Place all of the vegetables into the broth and return to a boil, cooking until just tender. Debone the meat and return to broth. (Be sure to save the bones to make bone broth later!) Serve over hot pasta and enjoy!