Archive for the ‘ Health ’ Category

Reverse Retail Therapy

Author: ilana

Apr 23

I had a stressful day yesterday. As I recently posted, I’ve been struggling with managing stress lately and even with an evening trip to finally see Hunger Games with Kirios and a friend, yesterday was a difficult day. This morning I found myself dragging a bit more than a typical Monday morning. While it doesn’t help that I’ve cut back on my caffeine consumption at my cardiologist’s request, I know that my morning blues are a byproduct of a non-relaxing Sunday. So in an effort to change my spirits this evening, I plan to partake in some reverse retail therapy.

It just so happens that Kirios and I went on a major TJ Maxx & Ross shopping spree on Saturday. I had never actually been to a Ross’ before, and I’ll admit, I went a bit overboard. But what woman doesn’t love a new dress that compliments her curves? And at only an additional $15, how could you not buy a second one? Truth be told, I purchased a total of seven dresses, ranging from casual to professional to little black dress. I also purchased two skirts, a pair of shorts, and a handbag which came with a matching compact umbrella. I know, I know, a bit overboard.

Kirios and I returned to his house just before 10 pm. We stayed out shopping so late that we missed out on an opportunity to attend a party downtown, and we still hadn’t had dinner. We were both excited about our purchases, and the prospect of future occasions to show them off around town. I knew that Kirios’ parents would be home and eager to see what we returned with, and I was more than a little embarrassed by my Santa-sized sack of clothes. To my delight, rather than suggesting I return some of the items, they ooh-ed and ahh-ed at each item, agreeing with how nicely the dresses matched my turquoise sandals, or jewelry Kirios has given me. When I was done with show-and-tell, Kirios’ mother even reminded me that if I had gone to a department store, I could have easily spent the same amount of money on just one or two dresses.

My shopping trip moved to the back of my mind when less pleasant things filled my thoughts yesterday. So tonight, I plan to try on all of my clothes again. Of course, it’s reasonable to try them on again before I take the tags off and wash them to make sure I chose wisely. But I’ll admit it, twirling around in a new dress (or seven) seems like just what the doctor ordered to send my bad day blues away!

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Filed under: Health, Shopping

Blogging while Mad or Sad

Author: ilana

Apr 17

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged… I’ve struggled with it a bit lately. It’s easy for me to write about the nice things in life – trying a new restaurant or a new recipe in the kitchen, visiting friends and family, and celebrating life’s special occasions. But some days I’m mad, I’m frustrated, or I’m feeling somewhat deflated. And on those days, even if I have the time, I usually don’t like to blog. It’s not that I want everyone to think that my life is full of rainbows and fairy dust all of the time, but I’m afraid to say something which will hurt someone I care about; to complain when so many people have it so much worse; or for some tidbit of information to be googled and used against me at a job interview or in court or something else crazy off into the future.

I have a friend who’s living abroad while in the Peace Corps. She sends out email updates from time to time, and I am always impressed by the way she shares and communicates her experience. She talks about the trips she makes, and the beautiful sights she sees, and the relationships she’s forged. She also discussed the cultural differences she’s found, and the projects she’s hoping will help the community in which she serves, and she discusses the poverty, lack of medical care, and sex tourism which plague the area. She frequently discusses how she’s coping with the experience, giving a glimpse into the immense emotional and physical demands which plague her. Her emails show determination and optimism, frustration, and acceptance of an imperfect situation. They give me a very real sense of how she’s doing, for better or for worse, and they make me proud to be her friend.

I suppose what strikes me the most about my friend’s emails is that despite being a mass communication, they share a level of honesty most of us reserve for intimate meet-ups and phone calls. When you run into someone on the street and ask how they’re doing, how frequently do they tell you that they’re struggling? Usually, we just say things are going well. My Zaydie struggled each and every day after my Grandma, the love of his life, passed away. Every time we spoke, for almost a decade, I’d ask him how he was doing, and he always replied, “I’m doing the best I can.” He never said he wasn’t doing well, and yet, he could never say he was doing well either.

Since my last post, I have been doing well… Kirios and I have cooked revithia, chickpea stew; savory whole wheat herb crepes; and delicious soutzoukakia, Greek meatballs (with some alterations to make them kosher). We’ve gone to birthday parties, explored the National Park Seminary (a very strange and interesting place worth reading about!), and even saw a high school musical! I traveled to Portland, OR for a business trip, gorged on extra-large sushi pieces, and then flew out on the red-eye the next night so I could spend the beginning of Passover in Pittsburgh with my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and Kirios. I am lucky to have so many wonderful adventures, large and small, on a regular basis.

Also since my last post, I have I have struggled… I won’t delve into the different stressors in my life. They are mostly outside of my control and normal, albeit unpleasant things, similar to those that all people deal with at times. But mostly, I have struggled with managing that stress. It’s easy to say “stay calm and carry on,” but honestly, my mind and body seem to have the opposite idea these days. My blood pressure went up again, and I’m once again taking medication for that. This past week I learned that my platelets are also elevated, and I need to see a hematologist. (This is likely being caused by the Crohn’s Disease, and I don’t believe it’s an indication of a more serious problem, so please, don’t worry.) Between this news and my Passover diet last week, my Crohn’s wasn’t exactly cooperating with me either. It’s easy to get frustrated with life sometimes, but things definitely aren’t all that bad, and I’m doing the best I can.

Hopefully this will end my Challahbear hiatus, and I’ll start to blog more frequently again. I anticipate that I’ll continue to post about good times, good people, and good food. After all, those are my favorite things. But if I need to, I just may share when I’m having a bad day too.

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Filed under: Health

Don’t Kill the Dinner Guests

Author: ilana

Dec 22

Dinner party etiquette can be extremely complicated, and while I don’t typically host formal events requiring the use of a confusingly high number of scary utensils, there’s one rule I try to live by: don’t kill the dinner guests. I learned from my mother, when inviting someone for the first time; always ask if they have any food allergies. What about other food restrictions, medical, self-imposed, and the ever pleasant ridiculously picky eaters? Depending on the type of event and the number of people you’re cooking for, it can get tricky.

When you’re not serving a meal, it’s typically pretty easy to provide a variety of snacks that can keep everyone happy. And individuals with more difficult restrictions are generally accustomed to asking in advance, bringing something along they can eat, or at the very least, showing up with a full stomach. But when it comes to a home cooked dinner, I have a lot of sympathy for people with dietary restrictions. After all, I keep kosher and I have Crohn’s Disease. I think choosing to keep kosher is similar to choosing a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. I have certain traditions, beliefs, etc, and while others may not share them, I want them to respect them. And while my disease is well-controlled through medication and for the most part, it won’t hurt me to eat anything in moderation, there have been times when that’s not the case, and my diet is incredibly restricted. I may not go into anaphylactic shock, but trust me, Crohn’s flairs aren’t pretty, and can lead to severe malnutrition, dehydration, and a need for serious drugs, hospitalization, or even surgery.

Generally, by asking people if they have allergies, they’ll volunteer any other pertinent dietary information. But at the same time, it’s not as wishy-washy as asking people if they have any likes or dislikes. If someone doesn’t like the texture of mushrooms – will eat them if they’re mixed all together, but pick them out if they’re big enough pieces, tough toenails! (I know – what a ridiculous phrase. My boss says it all of the time and I couldn’t resist.)

So this brings me to the Friday night Shabbat dinner party I hosted last week. My brother was visiting from Seattle, although his wife had to leave for New York Friday morning. Kirios was busy with his company’s holiday party. But I was taking the day off to spend time with my brother, and wanted to ensure that our evening was filled with good food and good company. I invited our first cousin who lives in the area, as well as her roommate who is also a friend of mine. I invited a childhood friend who lives in the area, and hadn’t seen my brother for a decade, and with his boyfriend. 6 people, no problem. There were a couple of allergies in the group – tree nuts, fish, sesame, and cocoa. As depressing as being allergic to chocolate sounds, this didn’t seem like a menu-planning challenge at all. In honor of my brother and cousin, and I decided to make our Grandma Magda’s Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage – a real patschke recipe that I had never tried myself (Yiddish for a production), but a wonderfully heavy and distinctive meal for a winter’s night.

Then all hell broke loose. And by that, I mean my brother casually asked if he could invite his fraternity brother who lived in the area over for dinner. I can seat 8 at my table, and cooking for seven or eight isn’t really any more work than cooking for six, so I naturally agreed. In fact, I had recently seen this guy at an event, which he attended with a lady friend. So I told my brother to go ahead and invite his girlfriend as well. They both graciously accepted our dinner invitation. “Ask about allergies,” I instructed my brother. Turns out the girlfriend is a diabetic who eats no carbs (including rice) and is allergic to soy. GREAT.

That’s when I started to panic. I realized it would be easy enough to keep some of the stuffed cabbage separate for her, without any rice mixed into the beef, and without any sugar in the sauce. The Hungarian version of this recipe is sour, and only includes a spoonful of sugar anyway (unlike the Polish, who make it sweet with raisins). Obviously I was planning to make challah for Shabbat, which she wouldn’t be able to eat. But I was determined to plan the rest of our menu to include her dietary restrictions. In the end, my brother and I settled on making a butternut and acorn squash soup, and roasted broccoli, onions, and mushrooms to accompany the cabbage. We were told she could eat fruit, nuts, and chocolate for dessert. Since nuts and chocolate were already on the allergy list, we had been planning to make an apple crisp. For our diabetic guest, we took some of the sliced apples, doused them in cinnamon, and baked them for her.

In the end, the stuffed cabbage and the rest of the food came out well. No one went hungry, and as far as we know, no one got sick from our food. I’d consider that a successful Shabbat!

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Filed under: Food, Health, Holidays, Parties

Things that Frustrate me and Make me Sad

Author: ilana

Dec 1

I’m not going to gripe about being on hold with BestBuy for two hours or the fact that Starbucks charges an extra 60 cents for soy milk today. It’s time to talk about the things that really make me sick to my stomach, keep folks awake with worry, and bring out existentialist crises. Today, a long-time friend of mine lost her mother to a battle with non-smokers’ lung cancer. In itself, this is terrible and depressing. But to make matters worse, another friend of mine lost her mother to the same disease less than four months ago.

My mother called to tell me the news, and after a while our conversation drifted. My mom started talking about some other family friends who have been having a rough time. A little older than my parents, both husband and wife have been struggling with serious health problems. As my mother detailed medications, surgeries, and worrisome coughs, I suddenly told her to stop. “Enough for today.” My mother frequently brings up subjects I don’t care to discuss – Mothers never stop embarrassing you. I tell her to change the subject or I’ll get off the phone, and she gets upset, saying it’s unfair for me to control the conversation like that. But today, she didn’t object, she just obliged. She too knew the feeling – enough is enough.

I’m 24 years old, and I am not ready to lose my parents. I’m also not ready for my friends to lose their parents. I’m not sure if anyone is ever actually ready for that. I know it happens, I have friends who lost their parents when they were young. Maybe too young to really remember them. But my first memory of a parent’s friend dying is when I was in 12th grade. My friend was away from home for her first year of college, and her mother found her father – he had complained of a headache the night before, but no one knew he had a brain tumor until he was gone. It scared me. Since then, there have been more losses – some sudden, some with prolonged suffering. They don’t get easier. Each one is a painful reminder of how fragile life is.

I know that death is part of life. And until it’s our time, we must live on. But tonight, I’d like to publicly declare that non-smoker’s lung cancer, common in younger women, makes me frustrated. And when one of my friends loses a parent, it really makes me sad.

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Filed under: Health, Relationships

Veal to the Rescue

Author: ilana

Oct 31

For the past week Kirios and I have both been battling colds. His throat started hurting first, so naturally I blame him this time. But for all intensive purposes, we’ve both had the same symptoms – congestion and phlegm, mostly in the mornings and evenings. Nothing too debilitating, but especially with a long weekend trip toWisconsincoming up on Thursday, we both realized that we needed to take time to rest.

Last week I spent every evening at home, except Friday, which I spent watching movies at Kirios’ house. This is very uncharacteristic of me, as I tend to get stir-crazy, especially since I moved into a one bedroom at the end of the summer, sans roommate camaraderie and a cable subscription. During the daytime, I generally felt decent enough to get along fine at work. So on Friday when I worked from home, I was up for running some errands. During my lunch break, I went to the kosher store to pick up a frozen duckling. Kirios and I agreed to celebrate our second “semiversary” (a.k.a. eighteen months of dating) by cooking a kosher duck together, since duck is a very special treat for me. Our semiversary is on November 8th, so we plan to cook it the following weekend. But since it will take time to defrost and prep, and we’ll be away this Friday/weekend, I thought it was best to pick it up now and be safe. Plus I had a groupon for the kosher store which was expiring anyway!

While at the kosher store, I couldn’t help but browse. My freezer has a good supply of frozen chicken legs from Costco and some ground beef from my local Giant, so I wasn’t planning to make any purchases aside from the duck. But when I saw that veal cutlets were a daily special, with a package large enough for two priced at $6.29, I couldn’t resist. Veal is a real treat for me, and I had only cooked it myself once before, while studying in Rome.

Saturday was especially cold and gross out, with the Nor’eastern storm passing through, so I spent the whole day at home, mostly in front of the TV trying to rest up. I was super excited when Kirios decided he was feeling well enough to come over for dinner and provide me with a little company for a couple of hours. I threw some potatoes and sweet potatoes with rosemary and olive oil into the oven so they would get nice and crispy. When Kirios arrived, we made veal schnitzel – coating the veal with egg and then a combination of bread crumbs and spices before frying it in hot oil. Kirios did the frying, since the oil scares me a bit, and I must say, he did a superb job. The veal was cooked to perfection. We prefaced the veal and potatoes with some butternut squash soup. While it wasn’t homemade, it was nonetheless appreciated by two under the weather individuals on an unseasonably cold day. It’s safe to say that it was one of our favorite meals we’ve cooked together in a while, and it saved an otherwise crummy day!

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Filed under: Food, Health