There was a ceremonial reading of the Burns poem on haggis, then there was the serving of the beast. It looked nasty and, honestly, to my palate didn’t taste much better, but I am glad I tried it. Kind of like a feral, inept sausage cut by too much oatmeal. I’m pretty sure I won’t ever need to eat it again. Still, it was fun, and the company of Jersey Girl’s friends was good.

And, well, haggis. Come on. How often do you get a chance?

Haggis in the pan

Haggis on the plate

Photos © 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Yesterday I was daring and made egg salad. H— had recently brought me some homemade sweet, hot relish, so I used that plus a dash of olive oil mayonnaise. Then I made a sandwich with a section of toasted baguette, the “T” in BRAT(y).

What, did you think I was going to eat Wonder Bread?

Everything went okay, other than maybe a tad more rumbling down below, but within the BRAT(y) norms.

I’m now at the point in my cycle where I can probably resume eating most foods. Which is going to be put to the test today, as our region’s slightly retro, more-or-less sustainable and locally sourced burger chain Burgerville is having a 50-year price rollback today. My Dad wants to go bust out the nostalgia on cheap cheeseburgers. A family outing is in order this afternoon. I may be overcome with enthusiasm and have a salad as well. More to the point, I can for a few moments fulfill my dreams of eating boy food once more.

The question is whether I’ll spend a few hours or days paying for it.

Even for that I was grateful.

Then I woke up.

Consciously and unconsciously I’ve been integrating my experiences of food these past couple of weeks, both being on BRAT(y) and my episodic excursions from the restrictions of the diet. This is complicated.

First of all, everything is cyclical. From about the Sunday of chemotherapy to the Sunday or Monday after, I am in a very dietarily sensitive mode. From that trailing Monday the few days to chemo Friday I can eat more or less what I want within general boundaries of good sense and nutrition without disrupting my upper or lower GI. This except for the growing persistent food intolerances which inflect what I am willing or able to put into my mouth.

The digestive issues that disrupt my GI in that first week fall into several categories, which of course mingle and overlap. The chemotherapy I’m on interacts badly with insoluble fiber, so fresh greens, many vegetables and some fruits are right out. I’m missing my gall bladder and part of my colon so my fat metabolism is strange and very triggery. The damage to my gut lining from the chemo makes me transiently lactose-intolerant, sometimes spectacularly so, so dairy products must be limited or eliminated. The proteins in meat interact poorly with my chemo-inflected digestion, so I have to be very cautious about red meats and conservative about chicken.

In other words, pepperoni pizza and salad hits every wrong thing about my digestion.

Guess what I’m craving? Not just in my dreams, but in my daily life.

The upside is that this is all reasonably clear and easy to deal with. Lomatil as needed, Gas-X as needed, and sticking pretty close to BRAT(y) are keeping me from the absolutely disastrous GI disruptions of a few weeks ago. But man I miss real food. Last night, for my sister’s birthday dinner at one of the nicest fish/steak houses in town, I ate bread, hummus and sauteed mushrooms. Even that was me being a bit adventurous. On the plus side, I seem to be able to tolerate cake.

Cancer sucks.

I know this because every day or two I have something different for lunch, out of sheer unadulterated boredom, and, wham, things fire right up in an ugly way.

I don’t know if it’s the protein or the fat or what, but I pay for stepping outside BRAT, even for something as simple as yesterday’s chicken and salad. I could go on an exclusionary diet and try to sort through it, but in truth, I’ve only got about ten weeks left of this, and it would take me longer than that to properly do the exclusionary work. On the plus side, it’s keeping my weight very flat.

So I have a solution to the lower GI stuff that works, at least for now, and it is boooooooring. But at least I have a solution. It’s funny, what helps and how simple this has been.

the_child

She wanted to watch Kick-Ass, which is a decidedly twisted movie. I wound up having to explain a lot of the filmic references, especially the music riffs. She’s a bit familiar with John Woo, but it’s not like she’s ever bumped in Sergio Leone before, though now I suppose I’ll have to fix that.

H— took me out for an early birthday dinner at Pok Pok in SE Portland, which was astonishingly delicious. Not that I had low expectations or anything, but it just hit the spot big time. We shared kai yaang (roasted chicken), yam samun phrai (herbal salad) and muu paa kham wan (grilled boar in spices), along with sticky rice. The muu paa kham was beyond exceptional, assuming you have any taste for pork or game in the first place, and I can highly recommend it. Also had a pineapple drinking vinegar, which was a completely new concoction in my experience.

Given all my weird dietary restrictions on the current chemo course, this meal was very nearly not cheating at all. Unfortunately once my oral intolerances start kicking in, I won’t be able to handle the spice load any more. The meal was a real flame-thrower, to say the least.

Today the_child has a lacrosse game in Hood River, OR, followed by her team party. As that’s an hour+ drive up the Gorge, that’s pretty much today sorted.

Do good, be well, write more.

ETA: Duh, I also walked all the way up Mount Tabor early yesterday morning with a friend, and back down again. Which isn’t a bad walk even when healthy, and is a heck of a walk given current circumstances.

Highlights including sampling the “Don’t Eat This Chocolate” hot chili chocolate bar, from a chocolatier who told me that adding bacon to his blue cheese truffles was over the top; checking out the truffle woman; and eating some righteous food.

My three favorite samples were the rose caramel from Cocoa Velvet Chocolates, the Thai chocolate truffle (with lemongrass and curry powder) from Snake & Butterfly, and the white chocolate espresso bar from Forte Chocolates. Wow.

The Roy G. Biv all-girl precision team in the lobby

Truffle woman

The chocolate tree

© 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

I cook a few slices of pepper bacon on medium-high heat in a shallow, 12″ teflon frying pan. While that’s happening, I beat a large egg with a teaspoon of milk and a tablespoon of truffle oil (olive oil base), along with healthy shakes of garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder and black pepper.

Once the bacon is done, I drain the pan off and turn the heat down to medium-low. This leaves pepper bits, bacon fragments, and a coating of bacon grease in the hot frying pan. Pour the beaten egg into the pan and quickly circulate it across the entire pan bottom. Cooks in about 30 seconds that way, paper thin, soaking up all that bacony goodness. Then I ruck it up and shove it around for a few seconds with the spatula.

Voila, a truly awesome scrambled egg.

Just in case you were hungry.

Just sayin’. No particular reason.

One problem. Foti’s isn’t open on Sunday.

Right across the street was a pub we’d never heard of, the EastBurn. Not wanting to drive further for lunch, we wandered in.

ZOMG.

The decor is hip with an emphasis on interesting rather than self-involved. (The basket chairs at the front of the main dining area fascinated the_child and gave me a serious 70′s flashback.) The menu is innovative, strikingly so, nouveau American with a northern European inflection. The service was pitch perfect, just the right amount of waiterly attention without being up in our grill.

We ordered Brie tempura with marionberry jam and sliced apples for an appetizer. That may have been the best fried cheese I’ve ever eaten. (It could have come with half a dozen more baguette slices, but this is a quibble.) the_child and calendula_witch both had steak salads, which included cranberries and diced apples amid the copious greens, very nicely dressed. I ordered the “Über Sondvich”: char-grilled Carlton pork medallion, potato pancake, scallion sour cream, caramelized onions and bourbon-apple chutney on grilled ciabatta. With their trinity fries on the side (sweet potatoes, russets and leeks fried together).

This is what people in Texas call “granny-slapping good”, meaning food so good you’d slap your own granny away from the plate. I think that was the best sandwich I’ve ever had.

The rest of the menu ranges from quirky to fascinating, including items on the Happy Hour menu such as pork-and-elk meatballs, and spaetzle sautéed in duck fat with pancetta, shallots and fontina. Loads of regional microbrews, for them what drinks, an ambitious wine list, and some rocking lemonade for those of us currently eschewing alcohol. All priced quite reasonably, only slightly more than a burger-and-fries at your neighborhood bar.

We are so going back. If you’re anywhere in greater Portlandia, I suggest you make haste to the EastBurn. I know I am in restaurant love.

Rangoon
112 North 9th Street
Philadelphia, PA

Feel free to come if you’re in the area. You don’t need to be a personal friend, or even have met me before. I always like finding new people at these things. See some, all or none of you there.