I was tired of the same old Sunday dinners so today I varied just a bit. Imagine homemade pasta as the base with sautéed chicken cubes, eggplant, mushrooms, red peppers, garlic and onion in olive oil with a hint of basil and parsley. A glass of white wine and garlic bread. mmmm. We had the salad for lunch.
All this under light cream sauce topped with parmesan cheese. I should have taken a photo.
Happy Sunday!!
Posted in Allergies and Feelings
Today is a perfect day because I spent a large part of the morning sitting on my deck sipping hot coffee accented with dab of cardamom, half and half, a teaspoon of honey and the sun warm on my body. The best part; today is the start of a new beginning for me. I am finally calm, almost at peace, and my health is mending.
Over the last 6 years, I have been a nervous wreck; like a cat in an animal shelter from a lifetime of stacking, financial, relationship, and career issues. Truly unbelievable, Its amazing that I am still standing. Like Ally McBeal, I have a song; the chorus of Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing.”
How can I go six years like that? Easy breezy I have super dysfunctional powers. Call me the queen of “Avoidance-Avoidance”. Although I have these super powers my body doesn’t always coöperate, over these years I have battled the pitter patter of stress disorders like constant stuffiness, shedding hair, recurring migraines, very noticeable weight gain, and food intolerance.
I recently had to have a biopsy done, my third biopsy in the last 7 years. Maybe there is a correlation between stress and illness 
and maybe the lesson is don’t do things your gut says not to do no matter what! Although the biopsy came back negative I knew I was lucky and would never take hormone treatments again.
As soon as I scheduled the test, I went into trauma thinking my major hormonal mood swings would return now that I was stopping treatment. Who needs that Jekyll and Hide thing?
I didn’t know what to do since my first attempts to manage the original symptoms with homeopathy were not successful and the reason I turned to hormone treatments in the first place. A coworker suggested I have a consultation with her Ayurveda teachers.
What an amazing consultation I felt right at home. Dr. Naina Marballi and Amita Banerjee prescribed a treatment plan for me. They said “this is not magic (I was a little disappointed as I am always looking for the magic) it will take 3 months and if you follow our instructions exactly you will feel better” Just so you know it’s about one month and I feel better already.
I believe the reason this treatment plan suits me is because most of the treatment is food and I love food.
One of the diet changes was eating an egg white for breakfast a few days a week. I haven’t eaten eggs in over 10 years and I missed the simplicity of the dish.
In hoping to get better I tried the eggs: Two egg whites scrambled with minced basil, spinach, garlic, salt and pepper. Delicious
Eggs and I are back together again and the options are growing every day.
Yummy.
Posted in Allergies and Feelings
Eating out is a tricky thing when you are epi-pen allergic to soy. Soy is one of those foods that is in just about everything. I usually have to ask the waiter/waitress to ask the Chef what oil they use. In higher end Italian restaurants the waiting staff usually insists they only use 100% Olive oil.
I have learned the hard way that some restaurants mix oils for whatever reason. So I have to ask the wait staff to ASK the chef. Amazingly, about 90% of the time it turns out the chef mixes the oil. This is only a problem for me when they mix vegetable oil. The real tip for me is when I then say “I am allergic to soy, nuts, shellfish, and tomatoes, please ask the chef what I can have”. Most times I end up with a salad. Woe is me.
The greatest experience I had is at a french restaurant whose Maitre D’ brought out the can of olive oil to show me when I said “are you sure the chef does not mix the oil? ” Thank you Saju Bistro!
Posted in Allergies and Feelings
As soon as I read about the Mayor’s looming ban on BIG soda’s I couldn’t wait to write this blog. Food feelings are a 7th sense for me and the Mayor’s release about soda definitely triggered my food feelings.
As a people, we Americans, are a mixing pot of all financial and educational levels. But at all times we are responsible for ourselves. The impact of our actions are our own. The law clearly defines its reaction to bad behavior, our bodies give clear feedback to our lifestyles and food choices. Interestingly enough some smokers never get cancer and not all people who eat sugar have a BMI over 30 kg/m.
What I didn’t understand was why the focus on soda? There smaller drinks with equal or better sugar content. If you Google drinks with 25 calories in 8 ounces you will stumble upon the CDC site that gives calories per ounce for many drinks at (http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/drinks.html) . For example fruit punch tops the list at 192 calories in 12 ounces and soda at 136 calories for the same 12 ounces. Could it be the sugar content? If so, the Harvard study (Copyright © 2012 The President and Fellows of Harvard College) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/files/how-sweet-is-it-color.pdf clearly shows that cranberry juice has 20 teaspoons of sugar versus soda at 10. So why the Big Gulp issue? Why not ban Twinkies or cranberry juice in big cups or is this a trend?
I still feel violated and I don’t even drink soda. Do New Yorker‘s need a sugar safety watch dog ? I don’t need or want sugar safety. I prefer my safety issues to focus on more police on the street, having enough firehouses, and fixing our roads, tunnels, and bridges.
Mr. Mayor, I suggest thinking again, please.. take a Mulligan, make the big statement and to guide New Yorkers to a long-term solution that would create long-lasting positive results. You know what that is … Education, Education, Education.
Change the curriculum in our schools, for beginners encourage elementary school teachers to give stars for healthy lunches, add a segment to the annual science fair to include nutrition and/or wellness demonstrations. Move the population to lasting change for generations to come through education.
Let’s keep the good feelings about food, banning BIG SODA’s will eventually give all of us a bad feeling. 
I love a bialy. My favorite way to eat a bialy is toasted with butter loaded with really good jelly. Sarabeth makes a great mixed berry spreadable fruit.
Because of my soy allergy my bread intake is limited. I am Epi Pen allergic to soy and totally avoid any food that may induce a Benadryl/ Afrin cocktail with Epi Pen anticipation.
Until about a month ago I felt deprived of bread and quested to find / make soy free bread. Low and Behold sitting at my local supermarket was Bell Bialys. Yes I could hear the ahhhhh as soon as I read the label. Bell Bialys give me a really good feeling.
This is a story of Easter weekend dinner gone badly. It really isn’t about the food but how the food or food experience makes me feel. This is one of those BAD FEELING experiences that I can’t shake. Truly the reason I started writing this blog. Sure we have five senses (smell, touch, hearing, taste, and sight) but I’d say that feelings about food are the seventh sense. There is already and acclaimed sixth sense (I hope someone is smiling somewhere about that remark; I am) so food feelings are seventh.
So here is the story that starts foodandotherfeelings.com; the point of origin for this writing.
We decided to spend Easter in Boston this year because our daughter is in college there and couldn’t get home long enough to enjoy Easter Sunday without rushing back to school. We were very excited to see her for the holiday, have her to ourselves, and show off our coolness by taking her to great places for dinner. We try to impress our only child as often as possible and although it rarely works we keep trying day after day. The hotel we selected is the Marriott Long Wharf, which we think is very cool (we like it there), next the restaurant.
So we started the process to pick the restaurant. I went through the top 100 restaurants in Boston found here http://www.bostonbestrestaurants.com/, narrowed them down and still wasn’t sure where to go. It so happens that I was in a meeting the week before Easter with two gentlemen from Boston and asked for a restaurant recommendation. One of the men called his sister who still lived in Boston and she made several recommendations (Thank you). I was ecstatic about receiving local recommendations and wrote down each recommendation.
One of the places that his sister recommended is Monica’s http://www.monicasboston.com, the place we chose because of the homemade pasta and that there was a kitchen on site (apparently not all restaurants in the North End of Boston have a full kitchen). We needed two places one for the night before and one for Easter Sunday. We made both reservations.
Monica’s was our first stop because they were not open on Easter Sunday. We booked a 5Pm reservation. We dropped off our stuff at the hotel and walked to the restaurant. We needed the air after the 5ish hour ride from NY to Boston. At 5Pm were happily seated at Monica’s and it looked perfect. We had perfect seating; we overlooked the street while being at an angle so that we could admire the restaurant decor at the same time. We were feeling very happy about our restaurant choice while salivating over the menu. The three of us have our dinner, from starters to desert, all picked out easily.
The waiter comes over to take our order (he brought drinks earlier and told us the specials). So far everything seems perfect. And then it happens. My husband and daughter give their orders, I always wait until last because I have allergies and have to walk through the allergies and make changes to the menu so that I can enjoy my meal Epi Pen Free.
I start to order and ask for the Caprese id Bufala Mozzerella (Imported buffalo mozzarella layered with vine-ripened tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil and basil). Just so you know I have a host of allergies and use an Epi Pen for the most severe (Soy, Tomatoes, Shellfish, and Nuts). So you can see I would ask for the Caprese salad without tomatoes. Are you ready for it? I ask the waiter to hold the tomatoes and the waiter says “NO, I can’t accommodate that request”. First, I bet you can’t believe that response. Of all the places where customer service is important is a higher end restaurant because usually the server works for tips.
Back to my story, so I say I have allergies and ask again. He says NO again; I think maybe he doesn’t understand that I have allergies and this accommodation is important to my physical health. Yes I am getting mad now. I live in New York and have experienced better restaurants making accommodations. So I ask to speak to the manager. A woman comes over and I explain my allergies and she asks (GET READY). Do you have an EPI PEN? I say yes, of course and then realize by her tone that maybe she thinks I am not being truthful. Getting madder. Then (GET READY) she says YOU CAN STAY. Wow, I can’t believe the rudeness and lack of customer service, even lack of allergy awareness or concern.
At that moment, I ask my husband and daughter what they want to do, but the day already a mess. My 18-year-old was mortified that I made a scene, my husband concerned that they still don’t believe me and will give me something I am allergic to and we’ll end up in the emergency room and remember we walked.
We decide to go. My husband attempts to pay for our drinks by leaving the cash for the sodas on the table. I am furious that our perfect dinner was ruined I take the cash and leave nothing. I was mad then and every time I think about it get mad again. I can’t believe that a restaurant is insensitive to someone with food allergies,
I started this blog to talk about food allergies and feelings. This experience caused a BAD FEELING about Monica’s of Boston.
Allergies are serious. Those of us with food allergies feel bad enough that we can’t eat what we want and that we must be hyper vigilant when we eat. Anyone who has gone into anaphylaxis truly never ever wants to experience it again.
Next is my experience at the Met Bay Back, a completely different experience.
Here’s to hoping your feelings about food are safe, happy, and delicious.
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