Food Focused

I find myself caught up in a bit of a cooking whirlwind this week, a sort of end of the holidays wrap up.

The Southern tradition of New Year's Day dinner of ham, greens, black eyed peas and cornbread is alive and well in my husband's family. Which means come January 2, I've got (another) ham bone, poking at my good sense to not let go to waste. Too many years watching cooking channels, too many cooking reality shows, too many cookbooks, or maybe just my ever increasing age not wanting to let an opportunity go by to do something with leftover bits I would have once happily chucked.

In my youth my dad would take the ham bone and make ham & beans. I think it might have been soup. It might have just been a bunch of cooked down beans and chopped up ham bits. I really couldn't tell you. Not a big ham person, especially back then. And legumes have always been on my no-fly list. It's the texture.

But I'm older now and aside from my own personal distaste for wasting food (my grandma would be so proud) I have a house full of older folk who circle me like vultures on roadkill wanting to know what my plans are for the leftovers. For a few years I've tried to make ham & beans, using the dried beans that come with seasoning packets from the grocery store. My older folks ate it, but I still wasn't touching it.

This year, I opted for soup with the slightest addition of one kind of bean: the benign cannellini bean. Ham soup? Still not my thing. But it was a gateway drug into a week of various soups and recipes all chopped and simmered from scratch. I guess the first question should be, can I cook? Is part of my distaste of certain mainstream food a lifetime of burnt cereal, raw toast and microwave-roasted chicken? (That last one, while not something I have ever made, IS something someone made me. More than once. Dis-gust-ing doesn't cover it. Also, I knew someone who burned a pan boiling water. And don't get me started on ketchup spaghetti.)

Yeah, I can cook. I can really bake, but I can hold my own cooking. Not, like, against a seasoned professional chef. Let's not get crazy.

So yesterday I made chicken noodle soup, from raw chicken to warm, comforting goodness. Bonus points because I remembered to write down the changes I made to the original recipe that made it turn out so good. Today I made pasta e fagioli (fah-zool - because pronunciation matters here), a hearty pasta and bean soup perfect for a chilly day. And if my husband is willing to A. eat it at dinner and B. take the leftovers for lunch the next day, it was yummy. Bonus points again because I wrote down my changes again. My father-in-law said I was spoiling them. Compliments are rare from my older folks, so I'll take it.

Tomorrow there is a battle of wills going on: 2 different cabbage-based soups. Hold on to your pedal pushers, kids. We get Kuh-razee around here.

I've made a lot of different recipes. I enjoy (mostly) cooking. I like to try new things. But I'm really surprised that I've mostly steered away from making soups. I can make pecan pie or a loaf of bread with my eyes closed. Lip-smackin' homemade chicken wings, ribs or chili. Cookies for days. But soups have always intimidated me. So it is with a little bit of pride that I'm relieved this soup business has turned out so far so good. Also, I realized today that I'm getting a callus on my index finger from chopping so many vegetables lately. So many vegetables.

As for how I'm doing on my New Year's progress:

Jan 3: 839 words
Jan 4: 0
Jan 5: 953 words

Naps taken: regrettably, 0

Reading: 2 out of 3 days & added a 7-day limited library book

Language goal: slacking here - have not visited new French pastry shop, have not loaded my language podcasts, have not sat at my computer long enough to start lessons.

Coffee consumed: averaging about a cup a day, going into espresso withdrawals

Positivity: on the heels of tonight's soup triumph & watching one of the best Sherlock episodes, thumbs up

I'm sick

 I spent a lot of September talking (writing) about a particular condition I have and how it relates to my inability to have children of my own. Talking about myself isn't something that comes naturally, mostly I think, because I don't want to be thought of as a whiner or someone who seeks sympathy for a lack of any other connection with others. I think I also don't want to come across as someone who thinks my day to day "stuff" is on par with someone facing, say cancer or ALS. So I was determined the next few blog posts would offer some variety. But as I prepared to sit and type, my hands were blotchy red, angrily swollen to twice their size, heat radiating off the skin and itching to the edge of madness. It was a little hard for that to not grab my focus.

See, if you know me, and at this point the only people reading this do, you probably don't know that there are days I can't walk without a cane. That I can go from a mild cold to sinus infection to pneumonia in literally less than a week. That at the end of each sentence I typed three days ago, I rubbed my fingers together in exquisite agony to scratch the endless itching that no amount of allergy medications or hydrocortisone cream can ease. And I'm just thankful that this flare up is only in my hands and not in my feet. This time.

I have an autoimmune disease.

Couldn't help myself...

My immune system, for some unknown reason it has not seen fit to share with me, attacks my own body.

And at this stage in my life, it's more of a nuisance than something to get all up in arms about. Which is good, because there are days I can't lift my arms. That's a little dramatic. It's also a true statement, but one that thankfully doesn't occur all the time. As I get older, I will lose my range of motion and my ability to do certain things for myself as my immune system attacks everything from skin to joints. On a good day, I can't open a sealed jar of say applesauce or pickles on my own. Two days ago, I couldn't make myself a can of soup, open a package of crackers or hold a cup without using two hands. In the end, my hands swelled to almost three times their normal size, skin along my arms, chest and face became fragile and large red blotches came and went - and all that was before the pain set in. All that stuff other stuff is just to let me know that crippling pain is on the way.

Because my immune system attacks itself (with exceptional joie de vivre) I generally have a hell of a time not having a cold, the flu, an allergy attack, pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma attacks, sinus infections, etc. I cannot begin to tally up the number of times I've heard in my life, "You're sick again?!" Yes. I am. Again. It's thrilling. A laugh a minute. The taste of copper as I cough, the vice threatening to push my brain out of my skull from sinus pressure, breathing through my mouth like I eat paint chips for giggles, not being able to catch my breath, my poor stuffy/runny/cracked nose. My monthly and quarterly sinus infections are down to yearly or less. But this year, flu shot be damned, I got sick mid-flare. Lotion tissues & congestion meds, stat!

People I think, tend to focus on the extremes. For attention. To keep interest. So I want to be sure to point out that the stupid pain, the swelling extremities, the sinus infections, they aren't an every day thing. It's frustrating to be sick, in any capacity, but aside from the past four or five days (and yeah, the stomach  bug bout I had a few weeks ago which may have been the trigger or may have been an early warning of this flare) my autoimmune stuff (technical term) seems to be under control. I haven't had a flare this intense in several years.  So I'm tired. A lot. So I drop things. A lot. I'm still here. I woke up. I felt better today and I'll feel even better tomorrow. There are some days when I have more limits than other days, and that's an internal struggle not an indication of my worth as a person.

The swelling in my hands is almost completely gone. The heat remains, as does just a bit of mild pain. Compression gloves, ice packs and targeted medication are wonderful things. Various bones and joints in my body randomly feel as though someone reached into me and is pulling my bones apart from the inside. Weird, but it's the best way I can describe it. It's like a sharp ache from time to time. I'm sniffly and snuffly, but I was able to breathe through my nose most of today and I'm still on my first box of tissues.

So chances are if I simply say 'I'm sick', there's some weird thing that's gone haywire that takes six paragraphs to kind of explain. And also, it's not code for loafing at home, eating candy and binge watching four seasons of a show. It does probably mean I've probably got a few movies cued up to watch/listen to while I nod off periodically or zone out in a zombie-like haze.

Two points if you can guess what one of those movies has been been this week.