C is for Cookie

I have found a reason to live! And it is a jar of gluten-free cookie dough. There are many things in the culinary world in which I take great comfort, and cookie dough is very close to the top--that should be saying something. After testing out so many gluten-free cookies, I was convinced that nothing good would come from exploring the pre-made, unbaked (pseudo)deliciousness terrain, so I refrained. Until last night.

Last night that funny packaging caught my eye again. Once I read the entire label (as I am want to do these days), my curiosity was piqued--I felt I had a piece of gold in my hand, and even though others might catch a glimpse, they knew not the quality of gem I held.

Eat Pastry from San Diego made by two chefs who met in pastry school and have been in love ever since. That is their tag line. I'm hooked! I can feel the love they share with each other and for their product in every fluffy bite. Not only is this product gluten-free, but all of their products are vegan and mostly organic (the FAQ on the web site is very informative about the extents that are taken to achieve particular standards).

There is a query out about expanding the gluten-free line, but until then, the chocolate chip cookie dough will slake my craving. Maybe next time I will even bake some off!

In-N-Out=Explosive

This has been an incredibly therapeutic summer, all things considered. Many sunny days have been spent languidly lounging at my favorite swimming hole, soaking up the golden rays of Ra. This particular spot is deeply sacred to me, but a couple of friends proved worthy of the secret knowledge of the Emerald Pools, and I showed them the way.

On one such day of exhausting adventures scaling rocks and frolicking in the currents, we worked up seemingly insatiable hungers. I had been doing so well, and feeling as good as I do when not eating wheat (or dairy), I felt invincible! We hit the road for home just as the sun was setting, tummies grumbling. A friend had planted the seed of desire weeks before with a Facebook post about In-N-Out, and now with the lion charging in my gullet, I had no will to deny such temptation--I got a double-double animal style.

The sun must've gotten to me this day because upon returning home I thought that a quick jog around the park sounded like a great idea. I usually like to run at night, so that wasn't out of character, but after an already exuberant day coupled with the double-meat-double-cheese burger--I was loco.

I think I made it about half way around the track before realizing there was major trouble ahead. I started to ponder which direction had fewer steps. With each thud of contact between foot and earth the fury in my bowls descended. It had been so long since I had experienced this pain--this spontaneous combustion--I had almost forgotten what my body was capable of. But on this day (night, really), she was right there to remind me. I slowed my gate as the cramps intensified and the confidence in my seal waned, erupting into a mad dash of pure panic once I spotted the truck (I knew there was still the modified gallon jug from when I was traveling cross-country; it was meant for less messy projects, but desperate times call for desperate measures). After wasting the time fiddling with my jogging pants/sausage casings, I concluded this was going to be a mess I wasn't willing to ride home with, and started praying. As I slammed the pedal to the metal, I prayed not to shit my pants all the way home. Every light seemed set against me, each pause at the stop signs seemed an eternity...

Alas, there is a god--I made it to the porcelain paradise of my inner sanctum without a moment to lose.

One would think that after a story like this, the teller would have learned her lesson. The problem is, I have a million more just like this (and some with less fortunate endings). This has been the norm in my life--calm and predictable bowl movements have not. Have I stopped ingesting wheat and dairy products because of this? No. Will I continue to progress in my acceptance and understanding of this malady, and advance my well-being? Yes. Every time I return to the old loves, only to get beat up again, it turns into a comedic ointment of detachment and renewal. Laughter is the best medicine!

Chocolate Cake

A friend has recently been taken into the fold of Sacramento's yoga community. He realized this when he was invited to a notably fun, and selective, industry party thrown by the founding parents of the practice in this town; I happened to be his plus one. As any good Diva does, we arrived fashionably late. Immediately we were tagged as Malibu Barbies, since we both have blond hair and rode in on the 'Maxi Pad'--what Luke affectionately calls his convertible Mazda Miata. We spent the sunset frolicking in the many gardens, digging our feet in the sand pit, swinging under the stars, and dangling from the monkey bars; the funnest was catching a shooting star on the trampoline after what seemed like hours of giggling ourselves silly with the bouncing.

Our appetites sufficiently stirred, the time had come to indulge our other senses with plenty of goulash, chocolate cake, and palaver over agave-sweetened tequila. The house is designed to be a texturally rich den of iniquity, so with the stimulation of so many interesting people from differing backgrounds, it was easy to fall into theatrics and wax philosophical. While justifying my indiscretion with the chocolate cake, I threw my head back and howled with the torment of never being able to eat such divinities again! And, was quickly put in check by the matriarch of the household--"What reality are you creating for yourself?"

Words express our focus and intention. Wherever our focus lies, is where our energy is directed, and this is what will be manifested. Instead of insisting on keeping my gaze locked on what I am sadly moving away from, why not focus on the new and creative gastronomical adventures ahead. If what we are seeking is peace and joy, then let us focus on that, and quit giving our energies to that which is debilitating. Seems simple enough. I am grateful to have been invited to such an ethereal event. I am also grateful for the gentle reminder--and the chocolate cake.

On a Bender

I broke; I succumbed to the nagging cravings and incessant depression. The two forces combined with a ghastly moon time to conquer my will for good health. But the past two weeks of indulgence and self-torture were not all for naught. I have learned more about this plague and the details of its affect on my body than I understood before.

It all started with Chef Simone McKinnley's pot de creme. These are the things I live for! I know what a good chef she is, and such a similar palate to my own. The chocolate custard was perfect--the creme was silky, not too sweet, nice and firm around the edges moving to a soft, slightly jiggly consistency in the middle.  She was blowing them out at $4 a pop for the next menu change, so I simply had to indulge. I savored the whole dish all to myself over about two hours. That night I went to bed with clogged sinuses and a little bloat, but none of the intense cramping or interminable diarrhea that was expected.

The next morning, it was on! I marched my butt over to the co-op and bought a big loaf of cheesy, garlicky sourdough bread. I had made up my mind to eat the whole damn thing that day--and, no matter what the consequences, I would like it! Well, those consequences were sever. The familiar cramping and IBS symptoms always associated with milk, were actually caused in my digestive tract by the wheat.

Above is a video of Robyn O'Brien relaying some of her research on the rising number of food related illnesses

Beyond the most obvious physical maladies caused by these food sensitivities, a few other issues have become glaringly apparent. For two weeks while I was binging, I truly wanted to find some focus when I sat in front of my computer screen to write this blog. I barely had the focus to get through my emails, and sometimes even they wouldn't get cleared for days. (I could zone out to video games, though!) I noticed the aching in my neck that was all but gone just weeks previous, was now completely inflamed. No amount of stretching or popping would assuage the pain.

Then there was the writing. I had heard that wheat sensitivities can be linked to forms of dyslexia, which I have had for many a long year. I have also heard that wheat affects the 'soft' muscles of the body (i.e. heart, eyes, sexy parts, etc.), so if you are one of the many who are taking issue with the grain, things might not be functioning as well as they could. For the past ten years I have noticed that, when handwriting, I have difficulty forming M's, N's, and H's. Strange, huh? When I stopped eating wheat, the need to mentally force my hand no longer existed. That didn't take long to return, however--just a few days of toast and it was back.

On top of the physical, there is the mental. Before this binge I was six months clean. I felt like I was glowing. For me, the Rapture was real! Then, the bender, and it felt like someone threw a wet towel on my fire. Try though I might, it was drudgery to think positively.

Strangely enough, for all of my wanting, none of the foods I was lusting after were quite as good as my mind remembered--except the pot de creme. They work so hard to hurt me--it's hard to keep them close. These days I love myself too much to allow that kind of abuse. I love myself so much that I am giving up what I love most in life.

Appalachia

Unci means grandmother in Lakota, it is also a term of great respect for a woman of wisdom. Kiaya was the name of grandma's grandma. Unci Kiaya, Sr. (if you will) was a Lakota medicine woman who walked the mountains of Appalachia speaking to people of the affects this new way of life was having in her community, primarily through diet.  Years later her granddaughter Star would pray to understand all that her grandmother knew. Be careful what you wish for. Star discovered first hand what chemical poisoning is all about, and just how keenly food affects our bodies--whether or not one has a compromised nervous system.

Star has carried on her grandmother's work, and has also been given Kiaya's name. After her whole family was poisoned in their home by a fumigation company, Unci did all she could to figure out how to heal them, and herself. She discovered things like dryer sheets being made from the same chemical components as nerve gas, and the enzymes found in many laundry detergents would soak into their skin and burn them. Therefore, just the act of washing the family's clothes, although likely to have been weakening their nervous systems all along, was now visibly killing them. And she started to see how eating things like wheat or processed sugar could cause sever depression, dyslexia, and boarder-line autistic behavior; while some food sensitivities could manifest in homicidal tendencies--eggs, for instance.

Throughout this time she remembered the Medicine Wheel. The Medicine Wheel is comprised of four directions: white, black, red, and yellow representing the north, south, east, and west. Each tribe assigns different colors to different directions, but red is generally in the south. Just like on the Chakra system, red denotes the root and the body. While going to school to study nutrition and eventually get her Ph.D., she employed her indigenous knowledge to start whittling away at what was hurting her family so she could begin to nourish them back to health.

Even though Kiaya had been feeding her family relatively healthy and nutritious food, she had learned that the body only has a certain number of enzymes to process all the food we eat--each one being tasked with the breakdown of a specific ingredient. When she would cook her family bacon and eggs with toast and jam, maybe a glass of orange juice and coffee, for breakfast; then move on to turkey sandwiches piled high with lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise and mustard for lunch; finishing the day with a pot roast, potatoes, and a salad, she discovered a very long list of possible triggers for the reactions occurring in her husband and children. Each of those enzymes was being used throughout the day, and some, like those used to digest wheat, were being taxed with every meal for years.

Just like anything in life, if you are being worked hard all day, every day, for a very long time--you will eventually burn out. The same thing happens with our digestive juices. That is when we start to discover our bodies having negative reactions to the things, perhaps, we love the most. To discover what she and her family were having reactions to, she devised a menu plan based on the Medicine Wheel. Four foods a day, simply prepared, as a recipe for better health.

_______________________

When I got to the backwoods of Pennsylvania, I was so exhausted from work and travel, both Unci Kiaya and I slept for many hours. When I awoke she was cooking for me, and I ravenously ate whatever she put in front of me without paying it much mind, other than everything being quite tasty. This food was also a refreshing change to the conference cafeteria food we had been gorging on for the past week, as it was actually healthy and wholesome--quite in line with my Sunshine State sensibilities. On the second day of my stay at grandma's, to be blunt, I felt like shit. I was stinky and tired, everything in my body ached down to my teeth, and I was sweating with a slight tremble--anyone with an alcoholic in their life might recognize these familiar symptoms as the DT's. Indeed, when I awoke on the third day, after about eighteen hours of sleep, she informed me that when detoxing from any food sensitivity--especially grains like wheat and corn--one will experience very similar symptoms to delirium tremens, and when one relapses after the cleanse, one might experience effects similar to drunkenness.

This was amazing! Kiaya had written her dissertation on the connection between food sensitivities and alcoholism, so was well versed on what I was going through. Even though my physical person was in agony, my head and my heart were titillated that Unci had been teaching me unbeknownst--and using myself as the project!

Unci Kiaya's cleanse is simple. Choose one protein, one vegetable, one starch, and one fruit per 24 hour period. Don't go hungry--eat as much of those four foods as you want. When preparing the food, remember any oil, seasoning, stock, etc. is another food and should be extricated. So, for example, lets choose chicken, brown rice, green beans, and apples for our four foods on the first day. Roast off a whole fryer, or if one gets chicken in pieces, baking them might be the best preparation(when buying frozen, check the label to ensure the pieces are not coated in anything, like wheat flour); steam an ample enough amount of rice and green beans to get through the day; and with the apples, eat them any way you choose: fresh, baked, or sauced--but just remember, no cinnamon, butter, sugar, or other deliciousness. The second day, mix it up--maybe mahi mahi, quinoa, cucumbers and orange sound good as the orange can be used to season the fish. The ingredients can be used in any combination, as long as one sticks to the four. Also, if something like grapes are part of the daily menu, feel free to use a little pure grape seed oil, since they are essentially the same item.

Part of what is happening on this cleanse is a release and opening of one's detox pathways. The lymphatic system starts to drain, and the kidneys and liver relax from not being so stressed. The whole endocrine system is being given a chance to rest and heal, as well, since things like sugar, caffeine, and salt are no longer inundating it. At first the food might taste incredibly bland, and the olfactory senses might hardly be functioning. Guaranteed that after the fourth day, food will be much sweeter, smells will be much more distinct, and the head will be much clearer.

Sticking with the rule of four, any given food takes about four days to completely clear from the body. That is why most people have the feeling of being ill on the second and third days--they are going through withdrawals. If embarking on this particular gastronomical adventure, the other part of what to look for is triggers. What are the foods that are causing the withdraws? So, make sure that there is variety and creativity with the menu plans, and watch how the body reacts to each of the foods ingested.

Unci Kiaya recommends living this way for at least ten days to begin to really notice a change, but going longer is strongly encouraged.

Convergence

I always thought that doing what you loved most in life was the bee's knees. But, what happens when you're physically not capable of performing anymore? The majority of my days spent working in restaurants was done purely for the pay check--or so I told myself--because, I could at least tolerate the work; it was only for the time being until I found out what I really wanted to do when I grew up. Then one day, after taking a short hiatus from the biz, a friend suggested I read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. When Bourdain gets to the part where he's describing the working conditions of his first job, my palms started sweating and my pulse had noticeably increased. I realized that this was more than just a stepping stone for me. The memories came flooding back of all the times in my life when food had moved me; the alchemy of turning raw product, of the earth, into something unrecognizable--an explosion on the palate. I realized that this was artistic expression at its peak for me; the experience of that expression encompassing all of the senses.

With this awakening, I decided to dedicate myself completely to my work, something I had never done before. For years I had secretly wondered what would have happened had I actually committed to cooking (this pondered during one of many brief periods of unemployment where I thought I was finally free of the industry), and was amazed at how quickly I was able to climb the ranks once I had set my intention! One year almost exactly after making my decision I earned the title of Executive Chef at a very nice local restaurant. I was brimming over with pride and exhaustion. Shortly after achieving this pinnacle of success, I was dragged through the emotional trenches when my lover of four years came home to tell me he fell in love with someone else--well, he didn't exactly tell me. I walked into the bedroom for my evening collapse, only to discover him whispering sweet-nothings to some other woman, on the phone, in our bed.

Needless to say, I was devastated. This emotional blow coupled with the physical depletion from the job created burn-out on so many levels. For anyone who has seen the film, Like Water For Chocolate, you understand a little of the interaction between alchemist and experience of the finished product. I had been flying high on Love, Grace, and Joy in order to achieve my status; but now I was wallowing in a trough of despair, breaking out in convulsive sobs for no apparent reason--for months. Debbie Downer doesn't make good food. My creative juices had been sapped. I needed help. I needed a cocoon. I needed a break.

Toward the end, an Angel came to me. One of our regulars gave me a gift certificate to see a woman named, Bonnie Cummings. Bonnie is a Reiki Master, hypnotherapist, and so much more! I had recently been trained for the first level of the Reiki practice with a woman in Nevada City, thinking it might give me the boost I needed to recover my career. Instead, I awoke the next morning with a case of sever spinal stenosis and laryngitis. Being that I could neither pick up a pan nor bark out the wheel, I made the uncustomary (as Chef always comes in, even when sick) phone call to let work know I wasn't coming in. On the second day, I realized my back apparently wasn't going to fix itself, and I went to the chiropractor. When he came back with the x-rays I thought he must be showing me an example of what can happen to your spine if you continue down this road, blah, blah, blah. But alas, to my shock and dismay, these were actually my slides. While the doctor had been processing my film, I had had the chance to study the chart of degradation with osteoarthritis in the neck, a condition--by the way--that can lead to paralysis and premature death. The pamphlet mentions that this is relatively common once you get into your late 60's and 70's, if left unchecked. I was 32 and entering my second phase of the disease.

When I walked into work the next morning I was let go. My prayers had been answered! Here was the break I needed, exactly when I needed it. I filed for disability and used that money to expand my exploration of what was wrong with me, and how to fix it.  For some reason, I had been procrastinating going in for my free session with Bonnie, but now the time had come--I was not equipped to handle all of the changes coming my way on my own. I came in for my session, and immediately felt the shift. Bonnie mentioned she would be holding a weekend-long workshop for Reiki levels 1 & 2 the next week, and would I like to join. I jumped on it, feeling the training would impart the healing and self-assurance that I so desperately needed to recover.

I had, also, been honored with the privilege of doing ceremony with a group of Lakota the previous year. During my time as a Gypsy, I was able to connect with a broader spectrum of the group. While at the Sun Dance ceremony in Iowa the year before, I had made a friendship with one of the Grandmothers, Unci Kiaya. She is not only a Lakota medicine woman, but has earned her doctorate in nutrition. When I traveled out for ceremony the year The Shift occurred in my life, Kiaya offered to have me come stay with her. This was exactly where I wanted to start taking my food knowledge, and figured, "What the hell?"

I had nothing to lose. I've no husband or children; my cat had just died; my roommate was a raging alcoholic who was selling her house, and whom I had spent about four (out of six) months too long with; and I had already given away nearly every material possession that I had ever owned. So I packed up the pick-up, put a few things in storage, and headed back East for the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and some amazing awareness.

It was in those mountains that I would discover my addiction to wheat (and dairy).

Where to Begin?

For years now I have silently, and not so silently, protested blogs. I have partially blamed them for the degradation of our written language, and figured no one was really interested in reading what is essentially one's journal. Well, I was wrong. Recently a few things converged to weaken my resistance. Hence, this post.

 I have spent the past eighteen years of my life in the restaurant industry, working both sides of the floor. The kitchen is, however, my most passionate, co-dependent, love/hate relationship of all the schizophrenic lovers in The Industry.  I love playing with knives and fire; I love the adrenaline rush of The Rush; I love going home after twelve to sixteen hours of busting ass, uncorking a fine Belgian ale, and crumpling comatose on the bed for five hours, or so; and most of all, I LOVE FOOD!

There is a picture of me in my high-chair on my first birthday. My face is covered in barbecue sauce, and the pork rib bones are piled high for me to gnaw on. Later in my life, I couldn't have been any older than six, I was helping to make breakfast with my mother and step-dad. My job was to crack the eggs, and when it came my turn, I exclaimed to my father, "I'm going to be a professional egg cracker when I grow up!" Indeed I was.

I can recall a thousand memories throughout my thirty-three years on this planet that surround food~mostly, all in a good way.

For more than two decades I have consciously associated my reason for living with food, and eating--with gastronomical delights! And, for longer than that the food I've been so Hedonistically indulging in has really been hurting me.

I discovered in November exactly what my milk sensitivity was doing to me. But much more than that, I found out just what a wheat sensitivity was capable of. Since then I have modified my diet, with only minor diversions. My body has thanked me in so many ways, but now a deep seated depression has settled in about the loss of life long friends I've held with such succulent regard.

My prayer is for this blog to be catharsis, for the reader and the author.