personal Category
Crohns Recovery – Week 8 at the gym
Crohns recovery means something different every time I’ve brought it up. Up until this last year, recovery meant laying down until a flare passed. Or sometimes it meant switching to a new medicine or doing a course of steroids. Ultimately, after two separate hospital stays of 3 weeks each, which included two major surgeries, recovery meant something else entirely. I lost 30 pounds. It was nearly all muscle tone, but that was a lot of weight to lose. I lost all my stamina after a year or so of “taking it easy” while my body ate away at itself. My…
Crohns and the last year.
It’s weird to write this at last. I’ve told this story to so many people, in so many edited and abbreviated forms that I felt like I’d told you all what Crohns did to me. Here’s the short version, and I plan on writing about some of the things in more detail: last year I had a mystery discharge and after 4 months of constant doctors visits and lack of detection on what it might be, I went to the ER just before Halloween, to get a CT scan with contrast before having surgery for what we thought was a…
To my Patrons
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Sausage and Mushroom Risotto
Ingredients 1 Tbsp olive oil 1/2 pound Italian sweet sausage 1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, diced 6 cups chicken stock (use the best quality you can get) 1/4 cup (1 stick) butter 2/3 cup chopped white onion 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 cups arborio rice 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese Instructions In a saucepan, heat the chicken stock until it’s simmering and then keep warm over low heat. While that’s warming, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove the sausage from the casings and break it up as you add it to the pan. Brown for a…
The Impossible Road for Women’s Pro Teams
The Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded suddenly this week. They had literally just had their championship game – the Clarkson Cup, where the Calgary Inferno defeated Les Canadiennes de Montreal. It came as a surprise to everyone – especially their star players, who were all on their way to Finland for the IIHF Women’s Worlds Championship. There will be a number of people wanting to talk about what the next steps are. Or how this is a sign that women’s hockey or women’s professional sports are bound to fail. I’m going to address the last part. Because that’s a bold…
Pork & Peanut Noodles
Since I was diagnosed with Crohns disease, I started making a lot more dishes from Asian cultures – a lot less dairy to be found. One of the things that I’ve come to appreciate is that many Chinese recipes are very quick, fairly healthy – and don’t require a lot of energy to make. I call them cut and dump recipes. This recipe is all my own, and came from a couple of different recipes I’ve learned to make – a peanut noodle recipe and Shanghai noodles. So, enjoy!
Being better about Latinx advocacy
In recent months Gina Rodriguez has come under fire for repeatedly putting her foot in her mouth when it comes to advocating for better wages for Hispanics, as well as more roles for Hispanics in media. And I’m sure there are some advocates who don’t know what you’re supposed to do in order not to offend people. So Gina tweeted something like ‘where’s our Black Panther?’ when Black Panther came out and that was a huge mistake. First, it was stepping on what is a huge achievement for the African American community. No matter where their lineages hailed from, the…
The Dallas Stars: An Exercise in Bad Management.
Two days ago, the internet blew up. The Dallas Stars, one of my favorite teams, have been in a slump the last couple seasons. They either ran out of steam as playoffs approached or caught on just too late. They are on their third coach in as many seasons – Lindy Ruff giving way to Ken Hitchcock, Hitchcock retiring (as brief as that was) to make way for Jim Montgomery. This season has been frustrating. Most of the major players in the Stars roster have been injured – leaving an ever revolving door of talent coming up from the Texas…
Burekas? Maybe now they’re just Tomato & Eggplant Pastries.
So. I’ve been absent a bit, but I promise I will write about all of that soon enough. But before I forget, I adapted a recipe that was SO good – I needed to document it for all posterity. This was adapted from a burekas recipe from the NYT, mostly to make it easier (using puff pastry instead of making my own dough – rolling it out would be hard right now) and then I made the swap of cheeses based on what sounded good at the moment. (So I don’t know if these can be called burekas anymore)
The Problem with Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture. Even if you don’t know the term, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about – a celebrity is terrible online and we declare them cancelled. Most of the time, it’s a worthy target. A continuously gross celebrity (like Roseanne Barr) who spews intolerance and hate. Someone’s who has proven that over the years they haven’t changed and remain just as gross, if not worse. Sometimes though, you run into a situation where someone said or did a lot of stupid things when they were younger – but have grown up and apologized for what they’d done/said previously…