CSA Week 13

CSA Week 13 Haul. September, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

The No Ladybits, No Politics, All Food and Other Random Fun Crap Edition

Okay, folks, let me first say L'Shanah Tovah to one and all—happy 5769 to EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. This new year has already had a rocky start what with work and general agita, but I allegedly have 9 more days to get my shit straight as far as getting written in the Book of Life for a sweet New Year.

At least I broke it in correctly with some new schwag. Traditionally, one wears new clothing of some sort and has "first fruits" of the season with family. As I am not a clothes horse, and more of a geekgrrrl, I wore a new shirt.woot.com T-shirt and took some family pix with my schweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet neeeeeeeeeeew deeeeeeeeeeeegeeeeeeeeeeetaaaaaaaaaal caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamera. You won't be seeing pix from that for another few weeks (week 17 to be exact) but hopefully you will be rewarded with much more clear, sharp pix. The visual chippie-bit-thingie in the old camera died, leading to streaky purple pix and total blackouts. Yes, I tried taking pix, new battery, swapping out memory cards, etc. I had a good five years with that camera and given that my new, twice-as-powerful camera was less than half the cost of the old one originally. My one gripe is that not one single component except for the cable from my old camera fits the new one—as in totally new battery size, different memory card size, the whole nine. Even my bloody case is loose on the new jobbie, but I'm using it anyway because it has better padding than the new case that I got for $5 more as part of an accessory package. I figured I may as well get a fresh case, a lanyard, a neck strap, a new spare battery, and other crap for only $5 more than the cost of a new battery alone. That's another thing—I'm kind of pissed/grateful that the cost of memory has gone down, but aggravated that I now have zero use for the two cards from the OLD dead not-worth-repairing camera.

Oh yeah and I gave my Mom some of the tomato jam that I made and my bro got some pesto and I bought Medjool dates and decent Greek red wine also.

Having said that, let me also apologize for not keeping up with my posts on a more regular basis. As per my last post, life has been coming at me fast, and we are starting to get the thin edge of the wedge RE year-end crush at my day job. I also MUST take time off before year's end (paradoxically) or lose them. So it's a catch-22. I'm using up some days for the Jewish holidays and will probably take a crapload of time off between Xmas and New Year's but I still may not be able to roll all my days into next year (which will be a total fucking moot point if I lose my job but I'm mentally not going there right now). Right now, I am making up from my "forced take-offs" by working until 9ish on the days that I AM in.

Oh yeah, one last thing and I'll say it now and get it out of the way. I am BOYCOTTING the debates. I see post after post on CNN.com and the NY Times site—people saying that they are subscribing to cable TV just so they can watch the debates. Fuck that; I'd sell my blood by the pint in order to keep my cable until November 5th—so that I can watch Gordon Ramsay reruns on my DVR and 24/7 cartoons until it's all the fuck over. It makes me SO SO glad that I DVRd crap like Anthony Bourdain and that Zimmerman guy and the US second season of Kitchen Nightmares (which is being pre-empted this week by the veep debates, which in my book proves there is no G-d) even though this season totally, totally SUCKS and is produced like crap compared to the UK version, which actually uses more than one cameraman, isn't only 30 minutes padded by 30 minutes of commercials and 2-minute replays of the prior 5-minute segment, and the contestants aren't reading from fucking cue cards. Tonight I watched vintage MGM cartoons, old Scooby Doo reruns, some horrid Hanna-Barbera Superfriends third-generation shittily-produced Superman property knockoff, and have "The Biggest Loser: Families" on now. I'm so mentally exhausted that I can't even be bothered to fire up my dying stereo (next big purchase: New receiver) and put on my new Santagold CD. I'm drinking lukewarm rum and water mixed with a little honey because I had to take out my ice cube trays to make room for more stuff in the freezer.

However…that segue ways nicely into the FOOD part of this post! Yay! As per the pic at the top of the post, Lucky Number Week 13 brought the following goodness to my world:

• Eggplant
• Peppers (part of a choice of a mix—peppers and/or squash)
• Apples
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• A large bunch of gorgeous flowering Basil
• Yellow Tomatoes

One of the things I treated myself with was some fresh mozzarella, so that I could make myself a single-serving delicious veggie gratin. This, my friends, is why it's worth it to have a smallish single-serving cast-iron pan. I made mine thusly: Fry down garlic and onion. Add sliced leeks and sauté those down with salt and pepper. Sauté in a sliced green pepper. Let it cook down a bit; add a splash of water if needed. I added some dried oregano also, and a pinch of hot red pepper flakes. I also had a bit of home-made tomato sauce left, so once the veggies were almost cooked I added that in and let it cook while I fired up the broiler. Then I arranged a few torn basil leaves and the mozz cheese on top and put the whole cast iron pan under the broiler. The result looks like this:


CSA Week 13 Gratin. September, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

I ate it with farmhouse multigrain bread from my CSA. Yes it was fantastic.

That particular week, I also broke in a new little lunch-related toy; a cute little sandwich-and-side holder. I'm really having fun with this one, especially on the days I get fresh bread. I stash the sandwich in the lower half, cut up veggies with no dressing for one little holder, and put some fresh fruit in the other one. I love the fact that the whole Fit & Fresh line has built-in washable ice packs—there is NEVER any room in my floor's fridge, and it's usually pretty skank anyway. If I use the ice pack and pack the whole container in my insulated lunch box, it stays cold just fine.

One of my better lunch "re-discoveries" from my childhood that week was tuna and egg salad. The recipe couldn't be simpler: Take two hard-boiled eggs and a standard can of tuna. Mix with a bit of mayo and whatever herbs and seasonings you like. You can also add onion, pickle, however Your Folks made Your Favorite Tuna Salad. Makes 3 or 4 sandwiches (you can stretch the filling by putting more veggies in the sandwich).

Also, my Mom had gotten me a colossal can of canned white chicken meat during one of her forays into Costco, which I would normally never think to buy. I wound up making a big batch of Pesto Chicken Salad and putting that in sandwiches or packing a blob of it with a green salad or eating with pasta until I used it all up also. Both salads were phenomenal. Oh, btw, chicken pesto salad: Take very soft cooked chicken. Mix with pesto until spreadable. Add salt and pepper to taste. This would also make a great canapé' on bread rounds—you could also stuff celery ribs with this, and so on. In fact, I have an in-house wine tasting party in a few weeks and I may just do that.

Otherwise, that's it for that particular week. The next week will be a tad more exciting, I promise, as it was a meat and cheese delivery week.

One final food-related idea for discussion in the comments section: WTF is UP with all of the "X-TREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME! FOOD! FLAVORS! that are being added to normal commercial food items? Case in point: One of my secret weaknesses is Blue Diamond Smokehouse Almonds. Now, for the past zillion years since I was a kid, you could get these at the supermarket right between the Planter's row and the overpriced macadamia nuts. Now, they have seemingly vanished from the shelves. However, they now have BOLD Salt and Pepper almonds and BOLD Salt and Vinegar. I've also seen knockoff brands of BOLD SMOKEHOUSE like JALAPENO SMOKEHOUSE. They are all overseasoned and taste too intense. They stand out too much in a salad, and they're too salty and peppery to include as part of a cheese-board dinner with fruit and bread (another fave guilty pleasure of mine, and the sole reason why I haven't lost all the weight I want to despite my very much increased veg and fruit intake as a percentage of my diet).

I also can't seem to get NORMAL fucking Doritos anymore (something I only buy once a year anyway, and some brands of potato chips are also endangered)—it's all BOLD this or EXTEME that; completely oversaturated with fluorescent flavor powder. Even the humble pickle; unless I go for the kosher brand, it's all BOLD EXCITING FRESH taste and whatnot.

You know, I'm not expecting my snack food to swing in from an open window ala' Tarzan or play retro-punk music for me at 3 AM to wake the neighbors up or go down on me at my desk during my lunch break. I just want my G-ddamned smokehouse almonds. In my salad.

Discuss.

Until next time, BIG HUGS to all and happy healthy eating! Also, a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year for one and all!

There's more...

Vancouver Peak Oil: "This is Insane" Day

On October 6th, at 12 noon, Vancouver Peak Oil is sponsoring "This is Insane" Day (also known as "street theatre for long suffering citizens"). As the above video demonstrates, anyone who thinks we're headed in the wrong direction (on oil, food, population, politics, toxins, transportation, pollution, the environment, the economy, ta policy, militarization, or anything else) is encouraged to step outside and shout "This is Insane". VPO also has a Facebook page for you to post pictures of your "This is Insane" Day moment.

I'll be supporting VPO on Monday, and I hope you will be too.

Use the comment thread to talk about all the ways that "This is Insane!"

There's more...

CSA Week 12

CSA Week 12 Haul. September, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Apologies for the Delay; Life Coming at me Fast

Greetings, all. Apologies for the lag—I realize that I am at this point about 2.5 weeks behind on my posts. Please realize that the past few weeks—hell the past few MONTHS—have been hell for me. I've had to work extra-long hours on the days that I work a full day, and do lots of doctor-related crapola on the days when I don't. We're not even going to talk about—nay, THINK about—the state of my apartment and its general cleanliness/clutter levels at this point, so forget I said anything. On top of that, I seem to have picked up a shitty summer cold that I thought was just allergies/sniffles at first, but now seems to be blossoming into a full-blown fever and sinus infection. Can you say "weakened immune system" folks? Having said that, you're in for a treat this week, because on this particular week, I had two very big CSA things happen:

--I took delivery of another huge bunch of basil (4 HUGE mutant attack-of-the-killer-basil bunches) and

--20 pounds (!!!!) of Roma tomatoes, ranging in ripeness levels from "perfect" to "okay, these go in the sauce pot FIRST." Note about these: In a 20-pound box, I only got ONE that was too rotten/disgusting to use, so I count myself pretty lucky. Yes, I hand-sorted them before putting in the fridge to avoid spoiling the whole shipment. Yes, making ROOM in the fridge at this point required a call over to Stephen Hawking himself, in order to re-arrange the laws of physics in my fridge to allow for all this stuff. He couldn't help with the freezer, though—after all he hasn't won a Nobel prize in physics yet. Seeing a psychic to contact Einstein next week, but I digress…Enjoy the box shot and the close-up of these lovelies.


CSA Week 12 Tomatoes. September, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Of course, I also got my usual gigantic quantities of fresh greenery and whatnot. To wit:

• 1 pound local varietal apples (Cortland, I think)
• 1 pound smallish yellow-and-red streaked plums
• 1 pound baby squash (this time I picked the tiniest ones in the box)
• 1 pound green bell peppers
• 1 pound green string beans
• 1 big bunch mutant funky yellow carrots
• 1 pint very VERY small yellow-red grape tomatoes (literally smaller than smallish olives)

So, on the weeks when I get a basil drop (one more left this season), my first order of business is to process the basil. If I didn't, it would a) take up all the space in my produce drawers of my space-challenged fridge and b) turn black and gross anyway. So, that meant more pesto. As this delivery was my second basil delivery, I tried using the food processor instead of the blender to make it this time around.

Folks, night and day. I started this time by adding the garlic and oil FIRST, and then adding some of the basil. I kept trickling in oil and finished with the pine nuts and cheese. The texture was superior to the blender-made version. NOTE: As said in prior posts, I do NOT add salt or pepper to my pesto; I adjust that according to what I'm going to use it in/on.

I also made a smallish jar of Basil Vodka, as I still had herb share vodka from another delivery. To do this, just pack a jar half-full of clean basil leaves. Add vodka to the top. Shake. Let hang out in the fridge. If you're a purist, strain when it's strong enough for you. If you're lazy, just leave it and drink it down and cut with water if it's too basil-y. Basil vodka, water, and a squeeze of lemon on ice is an amazing summer cocktail.

Then there's the matter of the pesto. Other than pasta, what DOES one do with it (other than make craploads of it and freeze it and put it on pasta)? I'm open to ideas. Yes, I know I can put it on cooked fish/chicken/etc. But other than just using it as a sauce what can I do? I thought of making a bruschetta of sorts with it instead of tomatoes. Ideas, please, folks, I have a LOT of it and need to use it down to make room in the freezer (would give to Mom but she grows her own basil and has enough pesto to paint the Houston Astrodome in her freezer).

One thing I did do was take some of the soft, stinky cheese that I got the week before and slice it and eat it on pesto-smeared bread, with just a hint of salt on the pesto before the cheese went on. In fact, I may do that again tonight as I have fresh bread, need a reason to drink more red wine, and haven't eaten yet. Lemme go get my cheese out to warm up…

Anyway, I spent that following Saturday taking care of (most) of the tomatoes (thought I used em all up but found another bag hiding in the back of my fridge—they're still actually in great shape). I made home-made tomato sauce and home-made spicy tomato jam. I froze a lot of the former (but made ziti with a friend with the bulk of it) and jarred up the latter as it has enough sugar where I don't need to go through the whole "canning precautions" thing.

Yes, of course you can have recipes! First up: The sauce:


CSA Week 12 Sauce. September, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Take as many tomatoes as you want. I used a hair over 9 pounds. Oh, that reminds me, I finally caved in and got a kitchen scale. And, now that I see the Amazon link, I realize that I overpaid. Anyway, I love the fact that it fits in between my cookbooks on my very tiny kitchen counter. So, I started with 9 pounds of Romas. And then I committed heresy—I put them in the blender. Yup, no blanching and skinning, no straining, none of that—I am neither Julia Child nor an Italian grandmother. I puréed all the tomatoes and put them into two huge prep bowls that I have. Then I used a garlic press and pressed out about 11 fat cloves of garlic. I heated up my biggest pot and put in about ¼" of olive oil. Once that got hot I VERY quickly added and stirred up the garlic just so that it started to release its flavor—you don't want to burn it, and it burns REALLY quickly. I then poured in some, not all of the tomato puree—this was just to get the garlic to stop cooking. Yes it will splatter. Add the rest of the tomatoes, a sprig or two of basil (I saved time by pureeing the basil with the last batch of tomatoes), a fistful of sugar, and just a pinch of salt. I also added a pinch of dried summer savory and the blossoms off of three small sprigs of dried lavender. Add a really good grind of black pepper, but leave the salt and pepper out.

Now just boil. And boil. And boil. Stir a LOT. This requires attention or it will burn. I reduced mine by a little bit more than half. This does spoil fast so either use it or freeze it.

I also made sweet/savory/spicy tomato jam.


CSA Week 12 Jam. September, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

I adopted this from a recipe in the New York Times, but this is how I did mine:

I started with about 5 pounds of tomatoes, which I cubed up. This went into a heavy pot with 3 ½ cups of sugar, a tablespoon of cumin, about a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a shy half-teaspoon of ground cloves, a tablespoon of salt, three fat tablespoons of freshly-grated ginger root, about ¾ cups of lime juice, and three seeded jalapenos, cut up. Then I just boiled it and kept stirring, stirring, stirring until it got very thick and reduced. Note that tomatoes have no pectin so this won't "set up" like regular fruit jam does. Put into clean jelly jars and get the tops on as soon as you can. Mine has kept pretty well. Flavor-wise, this is somewhere between very good barbeque sauce and the best ketchup you ever had in your life. I may make some oven—bbq chicken with this someday.

So far, the jam has been amazing on bread with good cheese on it, and just served right on the cheese itself. I have the feeling it would also be very good folded in with cream cheese, or as a side-accompaniment to any kind of pork or fowl.

And now a health update. As always, if discussions regarding Lady Bits puts you off, you can stop reading here.

And now…on to the health issues. First let me state, emphatically, that if you don't think that a lack of universal health care in the US isn't one of the top 3 issues facing the country right now, you're either lucky or stupid or both. So far, my little adventure in uterus ownership has cost over $5,000 on paper, and that's NOT including the cost of the exams or the diagnostic ultrasound that I had to kick this whole party off. Out of pocket, even with some of the very, very best health insurance that I can get, I'm looking so far at around $450 out of pocket. Had I (G-d forbid) had serious complications, you could tack on a few zeros to both of those numbers. As a reference point, Gilly's first open heart surgery and hospital stay cost almost $350K on paper. Yes, you read that right. $350K. And that was a surgery without complications.

Something is very very wrong here.

I never stopped bleeding after my diagnostic D&C. I went from a slow and annoying trickle of reddish sludge right into a period at (surprisingly) the correct and usual time. And it was the worst period I ever had since I was 13. Super-heavy flow, bright red, lots of crunchy bits, and completely debilitating cramps—the stuff that made me go on the Pill the second I got to college so I wouldn't miss class for three days every month—except that I AM on the Pill, and this was scary. My ob-gyn told me to keep an eye on it and theorized that the D&C removed any hormonal buildup that I would normally have. Also, I may have had "minor injury or irritation from the instrumentation." I truly thought I was hemorrhaging this past Wednesday and Thursday. I was given strict instructions to get my ass into the office either Friday morning if it wasn't much improved by them or to the ER on Thursday night if it got worse. And then…after waking up Thursday AM with the usual heavy AM flood..at around 2 PM that day…it just…stopped. No wind-down, no brown-down (ladies, you know what I'm talking about—please explain to the guys reading over your shoulder). After 5 days of ejecting loads of heavy flow every time I stood up or went to the potty, I got about two hours of pink staining and then…nothing. I wore a pad to work Friday, fully expecting an Act 2 of, well, something, but nothing happened. I DID feel incredibly, horribly tired. Yes, I am still taking my iron supplements for a few more days. I don't know if this is coincidental or not, but on that same Thursday (this past one) I also kicked off the 2008 Winter Head Cold Season with a sore throat which made coming into work on Friday feel like I was walking to my own execution—I was SO tired I literally almost fell asleep on the subway to work, and again at my desk. I tried my best to stay up to watch the 11 PM news last night and barely could.

Last night (Friday night) I slept for the first time without one of those fucking Barbie-mattresses between my legs. Did I mention that I am SO OVER pads? HATE EM. I hate having to pay a million bucks for them (good ones cost a fortune, and believe me, you want a GOOD brand not a shitty generic), I hate having to lug them around to work, I hate wearing them, I hate throwing them out and having fucking medical waste in my kitchen garbage. You know how bad menstrual blood STINKS, even with the amazing blue-gel moisture absorber better brands use?

Another positive happenstance brought about by the cessation of this bleeding: According to my ob-gyn, I can now both take a bath and have penetrative carnal relations again, and while I am in no kind of mood for the latter right now (sorry, Silicon Joe) I may do the former later tonight. A really, REALLY hot bath with some of my star anise bath salts may just be the ticket once I'm done cooking my cabrito (hint, hint—wait till next week!!).

So, now, we're in wait-and-see mode. If I HADN'T stopped bleeding, I would have needed an emergency ablation. If I still get funky bleeding over the next few months, we may yet have to do the ablation. I'm still getting all my info together RE how often, if indeed more than once, one can have this done, and what the next steps are if THAT doesn't make a difference.

One other thing is that for years, I have been considering a tubal ligation. I never wanted kids, and want to get off the pill eventually. I've been bugging various ob-gyns for a cut since I was 19. Personally, I don't consider birth control "reliable" unless it's close to 100% effective. I've tried crap like the cervical cap in the past, and it's just not for me. I know that at my age, it's pretty hard to get pregnant without really trying, but still, having been through a D&C once, it's not something I'd like to ever have happen. However, any form of tubal ligation requires at least one, usually two incisions through the body wall, and also requires general anesthesia. One very good alternative that actually has a HIGHER effectiveness rate than physically cutting the tubes is the Essure method. There, you pretty much use scar tissue to permanently block the tubes. It does involve inserting two MRI-safe metallic springs into your tubes, vaginally. That can be done sans any anesthesia; my ob-gyn just gives a muscle relaxant and it takes about 20 minutes total. Then, three months later, they fill your uterus up with a special dye and using a special external scope, literally just make sure that it's a fluid-tight seal between your uterus and tubes. The game plan is that if I DO need an ablation, she'll put the implants in after she does the ablation. The 10-million dollar question is that if I get the Essure and then need an ablation afterwards, ie if I don't need the ablation right away and get the Essure sooner rather than later, can an ablation be done at a later date? So far, the limited information seems to be yes for a thermal ablation (one using hot water) and probably OK for electrical ablation (issue of metallics is the question here). However, as Essure has been around for about 10 years and the first crop of women who got them are getting Lady Bit Issues pre-menopause, more and more data is coming in. If any of you readers (or your partners) have gotten Essure, please contact e and let me know how it's going.

So, friends, that's a wrap. I'm running a fever now; going to go find aspirin and dinner. Be well, eat well, stay mad, and get the Dem message out! Hugs to all!

--Jen

There's more...

CSA Week 11

CSA Week 11 Haul. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Note: This post was delayed roughly 36 hours in going up due to my travel schedule home from Denver. --Jesse

Mucho Food with Pix and More Lady-Plumbing Stuff

Hello darlings! Sorry for the lateness again; life has been coming at me fast lately (as per prior posts) and here, on this gorgeous last-bit-of-summer Saturday evening, I am finally catching up with the CSA post that should have been up earlier this week. Instead of pissing away time playing Age of Conan, I have spent the evening cooking, but more on that next week. My timing may be off for the rest of the season so please be patient.

However, as per my promise last week, I am supplying you-all with Extra Food Pron Photos!

Without further ado, here's the rundown of who's who in the group shot:

• 5 Peaches
• 2 Nectarines
• 1 wedge Raw Milk Blue Cheese
• 1 large but thin Ham Steak (smoked)
• 1 package (about half a pound) Frozen Sliced Beef Liver (grass fed grass finished; cows went to Harvard)
• 1 loaf Farm Bread
• 1 Large Squash (actually two Siamese-twin squashes joined along the long axis)
• 2 pounds Red and Yellow Artisanal Tomatoes
• 2 pounds Apples (Cortlands?)
• 1 head Wild Feral Dark Green Celery (very bushy, leafy, and herbaceous; nothing like the anemic stuff at the supermarket—a whole 'nuther plant in my book)
• 1 pound Green String Beans
• 1 bunch Basil
• 1 bunch Summer Savory
• 1 bunch Dill
• 1 small container Blackberries
• 1 large Cucumber

Being as I am still bleeding, and last week was a rough one, I mostly made salads with what I had and otherwise Minimized Effort.

I did manage to hang up last the Summer Savory to dry (see pic). Love the little purple flowers on it!


CSA Week 11 Summer Savory. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

One Very Good Thing that I did was break out the Le Creuset Grill Pan and pan-grill the giant ham chop (see pic). This became part of a wonderful Scandinavian Salad, based roughly on the cucumber-and-cold-meat based salads of Finland and Scandinavia.


CSA Week 11 Ham. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Basically, I cut off 1/3 of the cooked chop and diced it. The entire large cuke got peeled and cubed. I also cubed one of the smaller apples, and tossed it with a little lemon juice to prevent browning. I added to this a VERY thick grip of dill, chopped up (stems, fronds, and all—a grip of dill about as thick as my index finger at the stem end, which is a lot for a single serving). This got tossed in my Salad Cube Thingie. In the little dressing chute I put a lot of white herb vinegar, some salt and fresh-ground black pepper, and a tiny smidge of olive oil (the ham when cold is very moist and fatty).

The next day I substituted a lot of the celery for the cuke and added some almonds, some of my Mutant Yellow Carrots cut into pennies, and added a smidge of mustard to the vinaigrette. I also took along some dried fruit as a snack; the past week I've been getting 4 PM cravings and energy crashes like nobody's business.

I also indulged in many Guilty Pleasures, as I started to have some serious food cravings last week—I think it's because my body and hormones are all fucked up from the D&C and blood loss from the biopsy.

Guilty Pleasure #1—fresh peach halved; pit removed, pit area filled with home-made Greengage Marmalade (from last week). Eaten as-is.

Guilty Pleasure #2—a nectarine, a few Shiro plums, a few figs, and the last of my peach ice cream (a box hanging out in my fridge all summer, picked at slowly), mixed with milk and sugar in the blender. That was dinner one night.

Less Guilty Pleasure: Asian Slaw: I shredded the two very tiny cabbages from last week (so that they wouldn't turn to mush) and salted them lightly. I then rinsed and added fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, some smoky sesame oil (seasoning grade, not cooking grade), and black pepper. This was VERY salty and yet very satisfying—I've been having these fucked-up salt and protein cravings all week.

Totally Unguilty, Zero-Calorie Pleasure: Stolen shamelessly from Freeze Peach Café, the place where my CSA has its pickups—Campfire Tea. To make: Get some loose Lapsong Souchang tea. Either use a REALLY big tea infuser or make one yourself by putting a goodly amount of loose tea in a coffee filter and tying it up into a sort of dumpling with kitchen string. If you are lucky enough to find decent Lapsong Souchang done up in teabags, use about 6 per quart or so. Put in a pitcher or jar of cold water and let hang out in your fridge at very least overnight. If you put this up in the AM before going to work, it'll be ready by the time you get home. Squeeze out the giant teabag if you made your own (or the commercial teabags) into the pitcher. You'll have a very flavorful, smoky iced tea, hence the name. Very good with a squeeze of lemon and/or a shot of whiskey in it. I like mine as-is but both variations are good also.

Final Guilty Pleasure from this Delivery: Take the ends of all the luxury cheeses that you have left that you want to use before cutting into any new cheese. Put on a cutting board with thin slices of fresh bread cubed up, figs from last week that are about to self-destruct, some blackberries, some mini tomatoes (also threatening to rebel/riot in the fridge), and a blob of greengage marmalade on the side. If you feel really decadent, also put a blob/shotglass of home-made pesto out as well, for putting on the bread. Add a small pile of rock salt on one corner of the board if you need it for the pesto. Make assorted little bites washed down with good red wine and cold water until you're full and sated.

Yes, I know that I've put on a tad of my weight back, but at this point I'm just happy to be motivated to eat right again. Yes, I'm still taking my vitamins and especially my iron supplement. Which leads me to…

Female Plumbing Update of the Week: I'm going to jump ahead to this week's fresh news.

I was bleeding as of this past Thursday, which meant that officially, I may Have Complications. It acted like it was going to stop, and then would start up again—fresh, watery red streaks all day (think thin red water—like watercolors diluted or when you cut your finger and run it under water) followed by a bunch of flow first thing in the AM when I would get up (makes sense if it was pooling in the uterus all night). I called my ob-gyn and she said that this may be normal and that I may be putting up with this shit until my next period, whenever my body gets around to that. She also said to sit tight until my pathology report. My follow-up is next Thursday.

So yesterday I bailed from work a tad early (I was the only one left in the office anyway) and when I got out of the subway to my destination (a schwank restaurant that makes killer cocktails—I was dying for one at that point) my cell phone started to beep and I saw that I had missed a call and had a voicemail.

It was my ob-gyn, G-d bless her. She called to say that I can relax this weekend; my path reports and biopsies all came back negative for cancer (thank G-d!!!). The actual physical analysis (ie when they take the uterine evacuate, aka the hideous bloody mess that they scraped out of me and actually LOOK at it carefully) seemed to indicate that I had an endometrial polyp, which can as a category bleed like a motherfucker even when tiny. They are also pretty much invisible to an ultrasound, because unless the uterus is filled with fluid, they tend to collapse against the uterine wall—think seaweed underwater (waving around all feathery) versus dry on the shore (collapsed and small). As such, a D&C can pass right over it—argh. My doc is hopeful that we got all of it out; however, if not, there DOES exist a procedure to find the little fuckers now that we have a culprit—basically the uterus is filled with water before the hysteroscopy, and then when the doc sees them floating up they can be easily targeted and cut off.

In the meantime, I've moved (in the past 48 hours) from the constant annoying "red water whenever I wipe myself" smudging to "nasty brown water with bits in it" smudging. I still can't get away with wearing just a panty liner, but I DID switch to thin-form regular long pads as opposed to the post-surgical weight diaper-feeling things that I was stuck with before.

I also still can't have any vaginally penetrative sex for at least another week, and this includes with myself/Silicon Joe, which is kind of a pain. I also can't go swimming or take a bath (thank goodness showers are OK), which sucks because I REALLY REALLY wanted to hit Coney Island this week, and had to turn down and invite for a trip to a beach house as well. This may be extended for a longer period, depending upon the status of my cervix—if I haven't fully closed up from the surgical dilation, it's at least another week. Fuck. Hating this.

Want my body back, kthxbye.

And I am still goddamned cramping—I was told that at this point it's probably from the biopsy site from my fibroids (I still have one protruding into the uterus but that doesn't seem to be the cause of the bleeding—except for now being as a piece got cut out of it).

Still, I am SO FUCKING GLAD that I got a GOOD Ob-Gyn. Again, my old one just said that my bleeding was "normal" and indeed if it is just that damn polyp that was doing it, we NEVER would have found it just from the ultrasound. I'd still be clueless and she would still be pushing an IUD on me as opposed to figuring out what was causing it.

Anyway, need to go Napalm my kitchen after an all-day cooking session (hint…tomato delivery…hint hint).

Be well and thank you everyone once again for your good wishes, recipes, ideas, and stories!

--Jen

There's more...

CSA Week 10

CSA Week 10 Haul. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Veggies with a side of Gynecology

Hello all! Thanks for your patience this week! As per the headline and prior updates, this week's posting was delayed due to Female Plumbing Stuff. However, by way of make-up, I happen to have EXTRA pictures this week (of the FOOD, people, NOT the gross medical stuff). I will address the former first, and then keep the latter until after we get the food business out of the way.

I'm sitting here now, on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. Half of me is telling myself to take a shower and go outside, but the part of me that has a Demerol headache that would fell a wooly mammoth and the bits of me that feel like they've been forcibly worked over with a series of sharp metal objects (because they were) are telling me to sit here and work on my post. Drinking coffee, which I KNOW is doing jack shit for my headache, but as I had none yesterday I'm really jonesing. Drinking Liberally Queens is having a get-together tonight at the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria, and part of me wants to go. However, the idea of being in a place with rock-concert-loud background noise, rush-hour-at-Grand-Central crowds, and talking about politics—while drinking beer—just sounds like a prescription for exhaustion-related complications right now.

OTOH I may just take that shower, shave (so that I don't feel like a fucking Yeti) and go take a nice walk to the park. I could bring one of my two laptops along, but I have been remiss in keeping up my Norton. I have a three-seat license and theoretically CAN download and install the remaining two seats on my two laptops, but that would be a massive bitchfest of updating Windows on both machines (since I got my fullsized tower and am not taking any writing courses right now I have turned on neither deck in months), uninstalling Norton (its own nightmare scenario) and then getting each new download to properly install and update. Overall, I predict at least 3 hours of "sitting around with my thumb up my ass" time for EACH deck, and whilst that may seem like an ideal activity for someone who's not exactly about to get up and run the Boston Marathon just about now, I really think I'd rather do any number of other unpleasant chores (which I am also ignoring just now btw) than do that. So if I do go out for fresh air, I'll just grab a book and my magazines.

Okay, on to the food! First of all, about the photos. Some weeks I know they are a little blurry—my camera is prone to heat failure, which I sometimes get a LOT of—the focus goes south and the whole screen gets purple and streaky. My apartment gets very hot in my absence and sometimes the tech just doesn't want to play along. Yes I'm replacing it eventually but not now. In the meantime, rest assured that I'm taking the best pix that I can with what I have.

Okay, so here's the main shot of the haulage, which was most massive. In addition to getting a fruit, veg, and herb share, the first of my four basil deliveries came. That meant four HUGE bunches of basil.


CSA Week 10 Basil. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

The rundown of the haulage:

• 4 Big Bunches Basil
• 2 lb. Shiro Plums (like greengages)
• 6 Nectarines
• 5 Peaches
• 2 lb. of local Apples
• 1 Bunch Dill
• 1 Bunch Funky Mutant Carrots
• 1 Bunch Thinnish Leeks
• 1 Pint Tiny Little Grape Tomato Thingies
• 3 Green Bell Peppers (very VERY fresh—vine leaves were still crisp)

So, to state the obvious—yes, I made pesto, that very night. Here's the recipe I used, courtesy of Diana's Kitchen:

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup Olive oil
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts or walnuts
• 3 garlic cloves, finely minced

I realize that the instructions said something about when to add the oil and everything, but I pretty much just eyeballed everything, used a LOT more garlic, and used the olive oil to keep everything going in my blender. I would start by adding some of the basil and all of the oil and garlic, let that paste up, and add the rest of the basil little by little and add a bit more oil to keep things loose. Put in the nuts last, with any more oil needed. NOTE that this recipe calls for NO salt or pepper—the pesto will taste a little flat and that's OK; you should be adding the salt and pepper as per whatever recipe you are going to use it for. I made two huge batches of this stuff, while listening to what's considered one of the best recordings of the DreiGroschen Opera.

That night, I made some amazing pasta with basil and had it just as-is, with some amazing burrata cheese on the side, and some fresh figs (no pic, sorry). For lunch the next day I made up a little caprese salad of the baby tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and a little oil. As a side I had the rest of the basil pasta, cold, and some fresh fruit.


CSA Week 10 Mini Tomatos. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

The dill went into the freezer for reincarnation as chicken soup.

I continue to just eat up my stuff as fresh salads and fritattas. Right now, I'm going to sauté down some veggies from last week with some of my home-made recaito from last week and make a sort of "New World Fried Rice." The apples are still hanging out OK in the fridge but I have to eat them to make room for other stuff.


CSA Week 10 Japanese plums. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

For your viewing pleasure, also grok these additional food pix. I really like how lush the basil is. The plums are also ultra-fresh, as were the very ripe tomatoes. The carrots are starting to grow on me; they are yellow, sweet, and really, really funky looking.


CSA Week 10 Carrots. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Most of the past two weeks, however, has been consumed by the gyn issues (yes, folks, that does it for the food part of this post, so if you want to, you can stop reading now). Here's how all that has gone down so far:

Before I say anything else, there is one thing I want to get out of the way, RIGHT away. I have heard a lot of anti-choicers—mostly men—rant about how some women "use abortion as a form of birth control" and seem to think that a D&C is like getting your hair done; something you absentmindedly just squeeze in between (I guess) between having unprotected sex and shoplifting Lee Press On Nails or something. To them I say:

FUCK YOU.

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUU!

Yeah, scheduling at least 2 weeks in advance (unless it's a potential medical emergency—I got lucky; someone cancelled theirs), no food or water for 18 hours before the procedure, getting up at the crack of dawn, getting the shit drugged out of you, having everything hurt like hell ANYWAY, the bleeding afterwards, having to wear those fucking sanitary pads for two weeks because nothing is supposed to be going in there for at least 2 weeks afterwards (wonder how that works out for abused women who can't refuse sex with their partners?), intense, can't move cramping, and feeling like shit for a few days afterwards. REAL fun. REAL walk in the fucking park, man. Don't need cable TV when you have that kind of fun, no siree.

I'm just so, so grateful that at least I don't live in a state where medical procedures need to be reported to the State, and that I live within easy access of a huge selection of healthcare providers.

I am also really, really, REALLY annoyed with self-described "liberals" who still think that there is room for argument that "well, in theory, if we consider a fetus a potential life, why NOT allow some limitations on abortion?" I actually had to listen to this, while drugged out on Demerol and hurting like a mofo on the way back from my not-an-abortion-D&C from the person dispatched to PICK ME UP after the procedure. This man (of course) insists that he's a staunch feminist, and thinks that while "abortion as a debate has been made redundant by technology, at least in the US", there is still "a real argument to be made that a woman should be required to carry a healthy pregnancy to term." He then went on to say that "I really don't have a problem with balancing a woman's freedom of movement/inconvenience with a potential life's—I think there's real room for debate there."

I snapped back at him that he's just in love with the idea of being able to bring a woman's world to a complete, grinding halt with his dick, and that while yes, being able to automatically disqualify most of half the population from the job pool may make his life easier (he's out of work), that doesn't make it right. I am really really getting fed up with people saying "I'm a liberal, BUT…X." That's like me saying I'm a vegetarian, which as those of you who know me, I am NOT.

It's the same kind of tautological sophistry that you can do with any subject. "Well, if vegetarians are truly defined as people who do NOT eat meat, what about people who don't eat meat at every meal? Are they not vegetarian for the duration of that meal? What about micro-organisms that live on vegetables? By cooking said vegetables or even eating them raw, are they not as guilty of taking an animal life as someone who eats a cow? Why can't someone identify as a vegetarian on certain issues? At what point do we define an animal? Why can't I be labeled a vegetarian then?"

It's the same kind of "I know you are but what am I?" schoolyard logic fuck that people who claim to be Dems but are McCain supporters because Hillary isn't on the ticket espouse. Long story short: If they don't feel like their petty academic hairsplitting brainfarts are validated, then to hell with everyone else.

Now, I'm picking an absurd example, but this is what talking to this guy is like. He insists that "it doesn't matter if abortion is outlawed, people can still get them safely" and that "that's not the issue." Also, he rejects out of hand that men shouldn't have a say in the abortion debate 'because just because I'm not a minority doesn't mean I can't have a concern in the outcome of policies aimed at them, for example."

Now, of course, I don't have the strength to argue ad-nauseum with a guy who insists on trying to win even stupid arguments. Also, I can't help but notice that if you Google "pro-choice arguments" all you get is a huge list of bought-for crap by pro-lifers.

So, if anyone wants to let loose with some good ones in the comments, go right ahead.

And I've already informed my ob-gyn that I am taking my own damn self home after any further procedures, period. Keep me there all fucking day if you want but I am NOT relying on anyone else again (they say it's office policy but fuck it—I don't want Mom along for the ride and I certainly am not dealing with this guy again)

Interesting side note—friend in question was a women's study major in college, and given his on-again off-again employment sitch has been the "babysitter/pickup person" for a LOT of his female friends with plumbing issues. It's the one thing about his personality that really, really REALLY bothers me DEEPLY. He totally denies that he's got some kind of a control wish going on—and this is a guy who despite his major, came out with the great line "but wait…tubal ligation prevents ovulation, right?"

Yeah. He also admits that yes, crime in the US dropped since Roe v. Wade, "but still wonders if that's relevant today."

Anyway, I'm getting aggravated just typing this, so I'll jump to the summary: Too much Demerol, not enough painkiller, needed a full extra hour of recovery before I could tell whether my eyes were opened or closed (had this funky hallucination going on—when I opened my eyes I saw the lights, too bright—when I closed them I STILL SAW THE ROOM but normally illuminated. It's like my brain freeze-framed on pause for the visual input. I still responded to verbal questions, and complained when the pain got really bad, but FLAT FREEZE on the visuals), was a beached whale on the table for almost 90 minutes. Normal breathing and heart rate, but NOT THERE. Then, all of a sudden, I felt better all at once. Sat up, yelled for the nurse, who brought me a juice box of apple juice and a Motrin. I asked her to get the bottled water out of my bag and I did—I drank almost a quart of water during recovery and then I just wanted out. I had my tough cab ride home, went upstairs, ate lunch, and slept for 5 hours. Been babysitting the Demerol headache since then (although it's dying down now).

Still, my new ObGyn is FANTASTIC and I love her. We spoke today and we're waiting for the biopsy results—she did a D&C, a full scoping, and spot biopsies. Thank G-d it seems that the one protrusion into the uterus—and it's a smallish one—is probably a fibroid and not Adenomyosis. My ultrasounds seem to confirm this, as did the visual, but she took a biopsy anyway.

Next step is waiting a few months and seeing if the D&C solves the bleeding issue—in my Mom's case, it did, when she was only a few years older than me, and she has very severe fibroids. In the meantime, we're keeping our fingers crossed RE the biopsy and making sure that everything else is kosher. I see her again in two weeks, once we have the pathology report back, and we can discuss next steps. If the D&C doesn't help the bleeding, the next step is probably Endometrial Ablation. My doc uses the hot water version. I have the feeling that I will ultimately wind up doing this. In one third of all cases, it stops your period entirely. I would so SO love that and a tubal ligation—just get the reins back on my girly bits and getting them doing what I want.

Under the category of "support from family and friends," Mom is NOT at all down with most of what's been going on. It's very hard. We have a strained relationship anyway, and this is NOT helping. She pays a shitload of lip service to being OK with me not having kids, while stringently not wanting to deal with the fact that this involves contraception and sex. She can't really openly just come out and say "you're a fucking freak if you hate kids enough not to want them, and a hideous slut if you have sex otherwise," being as my brother is gay (and she was the biggest homophobe until he came out) and can't give the appearance of playing favorites (OTOH I still think that she thinks my bro is in it for the clothing and doesn't actually get fucked in the ass and suck dick—even though him and his BF have a bound copy of the BUTT magazine collection on their coffee table, which does NOT get put away when she's over). Still, I'll never forget that when she was still working, a rather large co-worker of hers had a pregnancy go undiscovered (I still can't believe that happens, but I guess it does) until it was way too late to abort and wound up having a baby by a guy who can at best be described as a looser. My Mom's response to all this was "you know, Jen, if that ever happened to you, I'd be OK with it and help with the kid" (her unfortunate co-worker's family flipped out). Trying to explain to her that I would kill myself before having a baby—and I used those exact words—were a simple, curt, "no you wouldn't." Her attitude towards all that bleeding I did? "I dealt with it, my mother dealt with it, YOU deal with it."

On top of that you get fuckwits like my OLD ob-gyn. She got my ultrasound results also. So, what does she do? Instead of calling me on my cell—I have tried to get her office to stop using my work number for 5 years—she LEAVES A MESSAGE on my office voicemail: "Hi, Jen, this is Doc A., got your ultrasound results; the fibroids look stable, I don't think that's what's causing your bleeding, let's wait and see—feel free to call me back."

Um, lady, been "waiting and seeing" for about 3 years now and it's getting worse not better.

Anyway, I seriously need to do my dishes and take a shower. I'll end this with a food note—I actually did make that New World Fried Rice. Here's what I did:

I cut up one leek, both of my remaining green bell peppers, two smallish carrots from a few weeks ago, and one of the summer squashes (last one from old batch). I sweated the carrots, leek, and peppers down with salt and pepper, and then added about 2 Tablespoons of my home-made recaito (the last I had unfrozen in a baggie). I continued to let it all sweat down. When it got mushy I added a tad of water and the squash. I let the squash simmer, covered, and then tasted for seasoning. I still had some green hot sauce from my Authentic Navajo Green Chili, so I added some of that in. Once the squash was tender I added one more splash of water and about 2 cups of cooked, cold dryish brown Basmati rice. I stirred and folded until the rice absorbed all the liquid. I had some of this with some smoked cheese from a few weeks ago, and tomorrow I may just heat some more up and put a fried egg on it and call it breakfast. It was wonderful.

Now I'm gonna go take a shower. I swear, I hate pads. I feel disgusting. Now I know why babies cry when they're wet. Now, they are a damn sight better now than the ones that I had to use back in school (I started very young)—I remember hideous things with belts, then ones with glue on the bottom to stick to your panties—but they were both essentially cotton with gauze on them. Of course, Mom had issues with the idea of a youngish girl using tampons (which I started using in high school anyway).

Now they have gone totally high-tech, which I can appreciate. Not only are they longer (if you have a deep pelvis you need something long for coverage, especially at night), but the glue is better and you can get ones with flaps that wrap around the bottom of your panties so that they don't slip or leak. Also, I gotta say, that blue gel shit they put in diapers and pads is amazing—it really DOES keep you feeling drier. Still—and this is another entire post—the confusion of options is astonishing. What really IS the difference between, let's say, Overnight, Extra Heavy Overnight, and Maximum Protection? I stood there in the drug store, thinking, well, it's SURGERY for chrissakes, better go with the biggest option available. Still, despite the packaging and a very cutesy little graph-like code on the box, I never did figure out if Maximum Protection was actually better than Extra Heavy Overnight. I figured I'd better have the best coverage for night-time. So I got two different kinds. So far they seem to be working out. It's kind of gross knowing that they're hanging out in my garbage can.

Either way using ANY of em is still pretty icky. Still, I'm glad that I don't have to use those fucking cotton wad things anymore.

Now I'm going to stop typing, before I gross everyone out, and go take my vitamins while I remember. More next week!

Please keep the recipes, good vibes, advice, and rants coming.

Hugs,

--Jen

There's more...

Packin Up, Getting Ready to Go

Well, we are getting ready to move part of this show to Denver. Mrs. R and Evan are on the road. Various Overseas Dems are catching flights today. And we are DENVER bound!

My question to you, GNB family, is

Has anyone been to Denver before? And what should we do/see/eat while we are there. Hoping that there will be loads of suggestions by the time I touch down.

Getting ready to Rumble!

There's more...

CSA Week 9

CSA Week 9 Haul. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

More Food Tales, with Iron Supplements and More Gory Details

Hello all! Typing this Monday night this time around, not day of delivery, as tomorrow night means more CSA-post-delivery food prep and an extra-early bedtime. Have a 9 AM that was scheduled at that hour for no particularly good reason…followed by a 7 PM transvaginal pelvic ultrasound after work. That means drinking half a gallon of water one hour before the appointment, taking a cab all the fuck the way up to the far Upper West Side to the lab (while having to piss like a racehorse), and then arguing with the lab to get my own copy of the results—I never got my LAST set of results that I asked for—for both my mammogram and last TV Ultrasound, but that's another story.

But I'll get to all of that later. First,the food part, for people who are just here for the food as it were.

Not only did I get an herb, fruit, and veg share, I took another delivery of CSA dairy/meaty/poultry/bread goods. To wit:

• 2 Bunches Cilantro
• 1 fat bunch of Baby Fennell (think smallish bulbs; total thickness about 1" or so each)
• 3 Peaches
• 2 Nectarines
• 2 Big Mutant Japanese Eggplants (shouts to SteveK—I need a tentacle/futonari reference for this one)(srsly each one is about 1" thick, 2' long, and twisted like a mutant tentacle)
• 1.25 lbs. Summer Squash (translated into two smallish guys)
• 1 Bell Pepper (Green)
• 2 (very) Small Cabbages (each one the size of a flattened Wiffle Ball)
• 1 lb. String Beans
• 12oz Fresh, Dry Cottage Cheese (Goat Milk)
• 1 Bag Greengage Plums (about a quart)
• 1 Loaf 8-Grain 3-Seed Bread
• 1 Mini Crotini of something called Sushan Snow Cheese—very good!
• 1 Dozen Small Eggs (Pullet Sized)
• 1 2.2 lb. Cow Tongue, Raw, Unskinned, Fresh.

and…non-CSA but came the same day (finally): Gourmet Balsamic Vinegar from wine.woot.com.

See the picture. Quite a haul!

Pickup this week had its own drama. For those not in the know, beef tongue is quite the hallmark of the Old Skool NY-Jewish table. Go to any proper real kosher fleischig (i.e. serving meat, as opposed to dairy) restaurant and in addition to the corned beef, beef pastrami, and carved flanken, you will be able to get carved fresh or smoked cooked tongue. The famous Junior's in Brooklyn includes tongue in its "carving table sandwich" collection, and in the course of my most recent trip there with The Talking Dog and his family, we both partook of sammies with said ingredient. Mine was a tongue and pastrami Reuben on rye; his was an obscene and delicious combo of tongue, chopped liver, and smoked turkey heaped on thick-cut marble rye. I actually, really DID bite my finger eating my sandwich it was so tasty. Yes I had cream soda. Yes it came with sides of sauerkraut, pickled tomatoes, and three kinds of pickles. Yes we had cheesecake afterwards but I digress. Anyway, as I was saying, it's a classic Jewish thing. So after I pick up my fruit, herbs, and veg, I go to the "cold case" area with my receipt to pick up my cold order. The young lady helping out looks at the order (which had been neatly packed into a paper bag and stapled shut with a copy of my order), looked at me, and panicked.

"OMG you don't keep kosher, do you? I'm SO sorry; I put your cheese in the same bag as the tongue…"

"It's OK, I guess you didn't catch the pork shoulder slices on my last order," I joked.

*relieved sighs all around*

Gilly would have found great humor in this, as my background/faith was never questioned or discussed before, and as noted, I look like Little Miss Viking with a Short Haircut.

Here's what I've done with it so far, or highlights thereof:

See the picture for my own take on Chinese Braised Eggplant, a takeout dish that I love but that usually has way too much salt and sugar.


CSA Week 9 Chinese Japanese Eggplant. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

To make this, I simply sliced both eggplants into uniform slices. They were thin, young, and tender enough so that no presoaking was needed. After a quick fry in peanut oil, I stirred in a heaping teaspoon or two of black bean sauce with garlic and a few cloves of raw chopped garlic. As it continued to fry down and get sticky, I splashed in some mirin, water, and heavy black soy sauce. As it all bubbled down, I stirred in a blob of blackstrap molasses to get in that "caramel" taste. Near the end, as the eggplant got tender and the pan got drier, I stirred in some fresh cilantro. The next day, I packed a lunch of brown Basmati rice, that, and a side salad of whatever greens I had left.

I also made home-made recaito from the cilantro—much better than the stuff in the jar! Just yesterday, I made a frittata of Italian frying peppers and that, with three of the baby pullet eggs. A few days prior, I made a frittata out of some summer squash with a few of my regular-sized eggs and some of the herbed butter that I made from Week 1.

Of course, I also had a few nights where I had my fresh bread with various cheeses, and fruit cut up and sprinkled with that amazing balsamic vinegar.

Saturday night was boil-the-tongue night. I had done almost nothing that Friday and during the day Saturday—I'm STILL bleeding and actually felt weak; I hadn't taken my iron supplements yet. I had almost collapsed in the supermarket earlier that day when I went to buy more salt and sugar. Still, around 8 PM, I got my act together and got started.

I did it Old School—big ALUMINUM pot (you want to be able to lift it when full of water, and have a fast hard boil), with a few fistfuls of salt. Yes, that much salt. I simply put the tongue in and boiled, and boiled, and managed boil-overs and added more water as the water level dropped, and boiled it…for 3.5 hours. Really. Until a fork went into the root end up past the tines like melted butter, but before the tip got tough.

Then comes the really fun part. You have to take the steaming hot tongue with tongs. And pull the outer skin off. It helps if you cut said tongue into chunks first. I cut mine into 5 portions—it shrank a lot. Still, I needed to use tongs and a fork to take off the papery, thick outer skin (ones I the supermarket come skinned already). A few second-degree steam burns later, I realized that I had only had fruit and coffee all day. Before I devoured the whole fucking thing right off of my cutting board, I put 3 sections in baggies—two in my fridge and one in my freezer for Mom.

Then I cut a chunk of that 8-grain 3 seed bread, and put two blobs on the board—one of mustard and one of the last of the home-made stone fruit chutney that I made a while ago. I had saved the root end and the tip of the tongue to eat that night.

And I opened a bottle of red wine and went to town. I DEVOURED that tongue. I also ate some of the figs I bought last week and some more stone fruit. It was amazing. I just had another chunk of tongue today in my take-to-work salad (tongue, fennel, cooked kale, the rest of the Roma beans from last week, almonds, and home-made mustard vinaigrette).

You know, I've been writing this piece for almost an hour now. I put up two eggs to boil for my salad tomorrow when I started. I guess they're done now. *Jen goes to turn off eggs, get em under cold water* Shit. Good thing I didn't burn the pot.

Anyway, I did one more Glorious Food Thing this week: I had a surplus of stone fruit, especially greengage plums. So I cracked open my old cookbook from 1945, and made…Greengage Plum Marmalade. All you have to do is take a quart of greengages and pit but don't peel. Cut into chunks. Put into a heavy pot. Add 1 cup water, not more. Simmer until fruit is tender. Dump in 3 cups of sugar. Yes, 3 cups. Boil and boil until the mix is thick and clear, or until you're afraid of burning the whole mess. Pour into heatproof jars.

Friends, this is AMAZING stuff. It set up by itself in the fridge; the plums have tons of pectin (you can do this with any high-pectin fruit). It's amber with chunks of deep golden/brown fruit. It's like someone melted down a tiger-eye gem and poured it in a jar.

I had some of this on my dry-curd goat milk cottage cheese this AM.

Tonight I fried down those pork shoulder chops from a few weeks ago—it turns out that it was 3 very, very thin cuts. Saved 2 and ate 1 (pan fried with good seasoned/smoked salt) with green beans and tortillas. Delicious.

And tomorrow, I get another whole shipment of goodies.

And that, friends, concludes the Food Part of this post. So, you can stop reading now if you want.

I do need to vent a bit though RE my medical stuff a bit more. Yes, after over a week, I am STILL bleeding. Every AM it looks like it may let up but then once I'm out of bed a few hours I start to cramp and there it goes again. The ob-gyn that I had recommended to me still needs to return my call RE an appointment; if I don't hear back from her office I'll call her OLD office off the number I have (for NYU's ob-gyn center) and just pick ANYONE at this point. I am also now taking iron supplements daily, which has evened out my energy a little bit.

In the meantime I'm still worried. This is the worst irregular bleeding I've ever had, and even though I had a Pap smear only a few weeks ago that came back normal, my current ob-gyn is so crappy that I don't necessarily trust it.

Another reason why I may just call NYU and pick one off of their roster is that I know they have on premises MRIs and ultrasound (when I lived outside of NYC for a while, at my old place, if I needed an ultrasound, they just DID it—no separate appointment or other drama).

Either way, I'm getting worried and scared over all of this. Never mind the looming danger of cancer or anything serious—it's the WEAKNESS and near-fainting spells that has me spooked. I'm a big gal—5'7" and a sturdy mix of Viking and peasant Jewish. I can only imagine what it would be like if I had less flesh to buffer the loss.

Also, I am just FUCKING SICK of having a tampon in all the damn time. In retrospect I'm lucky—I don't have to start with pads yet (which just gross me out). And the VERY heavy stuff from the start of the spell seems to have laid off thank G-d. In the meantime, thanks to the power of the Internet I have greatly expanded my descriptive vocabulary for my discharge—according to the Intertubes, what I have going on has ranged from "dog food" and "chicken guts" to "getting a cut wet under water." Either way I am just so OVER MY FUCKING BODY RIGHT NOW. I HATE feeling weak and faint.

On top of it, they just announced that they are consolidating office space in my building and I may lose my (adult, nice, grown-up, tastefully decorated, has-a-closing-door) office to a fucking CUBICLE with no privacy. Yeah, my boss will really groove on hearing my gyn issues in gory detail.

Never mind years of being fiercely underpaid, the saber-rattling, the constant management changes, and mindless policy changes; if I lose my office I am the fuck out of there all the faster.

Did I mention that I hate my body right now? Lots?

I'm tired. I know I should make my salad for tomorrow. I even know what I would put into it—more fennel, those eggs, that green pepper cut up, maybe some raw beans or a small raw summer squash, cut up, and maybe some cashews. And a vinaigrette in the little dressing cup. I KNOW it would take me 15 minutes tops. I know it would be a Good Thing for myself. And yet I can't. I'm exhausted.

My apartment is a messy wreck and I don't care. I have bales of paper recycling to bring downstairs and I just don't want to, never mind try.

In clear, stark, horrid focus, I'm starting to see how cycles of self-neglect can start (on one side of the coin) and how vacuous and fucking STUPID statements like "go get a manicure/your hair done/etc—it will help your self-esteem" sound (on the other side of the coin) when your body starts to flake out in a serious bad way.

And then there's the other stark horror that if I didn't have health insurance, I'd be homeless taking care of this shit right now.

I feel so stuck.

The good stuff (good job change, getting better, getting medical answers) is happening far too slowly, and the bad stuff (bad job change, health going downhill) is happening too fast.

Hate it all. And it's a downward spiral. Keeping my mental energy up has been the hardest thing—just keeping all the pieces together.

And having not my health but my fucking health INSURANCE be the key here is what is making me even more nuts. That has got to change somehow.

Goodnight.

---Jen

There's more...

CSA Week 8

CSA Week 8 Haul. August, 2008. photo Jenonymous/Group News Blog.

Not Entirely About Food this Week, but Certainly Food is Part of It

Hello all. Jen here, and as always, it's past my bedtime, I'm exhausted, and I'm writing to you all ANYWAY because I LOVE talking about all this shit. :) Seriously, thanks for reading.

Right now, I just got done cleaning up from dinner, but ya have to wait until NEXT week to find out what I cooked. After I send this missive out to Jesse I'll pack my lunch for tomorrow. In the meantime, onward I go. I used tonight as an opportunity to pull out yet more of the perhaps 75+ free sample CDs that I got at South by Southwest this past March, and listen to them for the first time. More on that later.

First up, before I get to the food part, let's just say that this week has had its highs and lows so far. I'm going to get to that in a second, because I don't want to hold out on you-all and make you read through the rest of my shit before we get to the foodie part. Having said that, DO grok the one but very good pic of last week's haulage and read da list:

• 1lb. Roma Beans (picture a string bean run over by a steamroller; same length and color but …flatter)
• 1.25 lbs. Summer Squash (see pic—I got four little guys of diverse colors, sizes, and textures…get your mind out of the gutter, folks!)
• 1 bunch fathead scallions
• 1 medium bunch Oakleaf Lettuce
• Yellow-stem Swiss Chard
• 7 Peaches
• 6 Plums
• 1 bag of green plums (about 2 lbs)

Now here's what I did:

Right off the bat I cut up the wonderful chard and flash-fried it in a teeny bit of peanut oil. No salt, no nothing. I figured it would be cold as an add-in to salads and I was right.

I also steamed the Roma Beans which I will go through THIS week as last week I mostly ate up the wax beans from last week. Made headway into the bread and cheese also.

I've almost used up all my greens, and (sneak preview) NO lettucey things this week, so it's cold shredded veggies this week for the most part and fruit fruit fruit. On top of all this fruitage, I walked past one of my local greengrocers and saw that he was practically giving away entire FLATS of black figs for $10 for 36 count medium-sized, which for here is amazing. Now I actually need to buy more wine to go with all of this fruit, bread, and cheese.

This weekend I hope to get around to consuming those thin shoulder pork cutlets and more of my eggs for brekky. Speaking of which, I used up two of the tiny squashes to make an amazing two-egg frittata. All I did was saute' the sliced squash with salt and pepper, and poured the eggs over to set when it was almost transparent. Amazing, especially with the parm bread from last week and (yes) still more fresh fruit.

I have a recipe from the 1940's for greengage plum marmalade; may make a batch of that before they turn to mush. Pretty simple really—cook cut-up plums in sugar and a splash of water or wine and spice of your choice until clear. I figure it will go well with bland cooked proteins in winter.

Other than that I've just mostly been exploring my salad options this week. Lots and lots and lots of fruit with cheese for dins, and big salads with tuna or eggs for lunch. Been gradually using down my herb vinegars and winter sage oil. I even have a smidgen of lemon thyme vodka left to my amazement.

And now, dear readers, I'm pretty much done for this week's food part of this post (don't fret; took a HUGE delivery today and will have much more to say next week). Now on to the kind of not food part of this post. You can stop reading now if you want, but if you feel charitable, read on.

The Good:

First of all, and biggest: Despite everything else, due to a totally fucked-up accounting system at my place of (current, tenuous) employment, I VESTED. As in my PENSION is VESTED. As in if I walk in tomorrow and two burly guys from security are standing behind me as I swipe-and-reswipe my key card in vain, and all my shit gets packed badly into a box and sent back to Queens after me, I still am guaranteed a smallish but still difference-making sum once I hit 65. If I'm living on an island retirement community in rural Estonia it may even make a major difference. Still, holding out this long feels like a moral victory if nothing else. It also gets re-assessed every 6 months so that if we get invaded by space aliens/the Messiah comes/Enterprise gets reissued for less than $100 a set new and I get a raise, my pension goes UP.

Next good thing: I said FUCK worrying about my job and health (see below); I'm not going to constantly fear the wolf at the door. I booked for THIS year's SXSW as I had such a blast last year, and it was actually a pretty cost-controlled vacation. BIG SHOUT TO ANYONE PLANNING TO GO AND/OR LIVING IN AUSTIN: Email me and we'll try to get together. A guy who I work with is actually having his band play, and having a record release party. We can all go to Curras' and watch me get totally fucking full/hammered on Mexican breakfast food/avocado margaritas. And bribe people to fill the spare space in their luggage with more of their amazing in-house-roasted Oxacan coffee for me. I'm all set; paid up for my badge, hotel room, etc. and getting my flight tomorrow. Wish me luck all! You know what they say: Man plans, G-d laughs.

Which leads me to The Bad:

Work could be much better. I still feel the knife on my neck every time I go into the office, and my other prospects for staying in the company (which is really what I want to do) are thinning out to nil in the near future.. I also keep getting more worked dumped on me—I know I'm getting set up to fail. I refuse to just quit though. On paper I have only slightly more active projects than everyone else in my group but I turn them over faster and have MUCH higher volume, something which does NOT come out in our metrics that would be seen by anyone inclined to try to help me out. Ouch.

I also got my all-time highest ConEd bill EVER. As in even when my fuckhead landlord was siphoning my line for the month before I moved in, my bill was STILL lower. As in…wait for it…$160. Yes, folks, $160 fucking dollars and I am not running the stove or the A/C more or less than I ever did in my prior 7 summers here. YAY! WOOT! LOVE YA GEORGE BUSH!! I may have them re-check the meter but as my gas cost has gone up also I know it's the price of energy, period.

Speaking of periods, we now move on to…The Ugly.

I always had a tumultuous relationship with my girly bits. Not the front-of-house stuff but the back plumbing. Always had terrible cramps. Over the years, it was discovered that I have both ovarian and uterine cysts. The latter seem to be acting up again. As in I've been bleeding badly, heavily, nonstop, for about a week out-of-cycle. Worst of all, my ob-gyn seems completely unconcerned. Upon my complaints she half-heartedly is sending me for an ultrasound (she's also doing this because at the age of 40 I am now apparently old enough to decide to NOT be a parent and finally talked her into that tubal ligation, which she won't do without the ultrasound). The last time this happened, I bled for 6 weeks and lost enough blood to feel weak, and I can't deal with that now. On top of that, when I'm not bleeding, my breasts are tender for no reason—this is something new. Yes, going for my mammogram soon as well. Yes I'm on the Pill to regulate all this shit but want to go off all together and just see what happens if I let things reset. I'm a mess right now, despite eating healthier and having lost some weight.

To add insult to injury, my ob-gyn is reluctant to explore various fibroid treatment options like ultrasound and infrared "because they generally don't give it to you if you didn't have kids yet." Um, FUCKFACE, I AM IN THE PROCESS OF SCHEDULING A TUBAL LIGATION WITH YOU. DO THE MATH. PS—she's also TOTALLY into the idea of giving me an IUD instead of a tubal, which is SO NOT WHAT TO DO for people in non-monogamous situations. As in it's right on the websites and in all the literature. Because if you get a bacterial social disease, it acts like a wick and can KILL you. A relative of mine actually had this happen; she barely made it out alive, sans uterus, tubes, and ovaries.

My well-meaning Mom has been (alas) rather unsupportive of the situation—her whole line is "well, I bled a lot before menopause, just deal with it." And I say NO. NO, I will NOT live with this when there may be a medical solution. I'm not running to my ob-gyn demanding a hysterectomy (which I actually DON'T want), but to have my symptoms pooh-poohed is just…annoying. I think that par