Stuck With The Turkeys

It's Thanksgiving, a day that always makes me sad when I'm out of the country. I just heard a radio DJ say it's okay to eat any food you see today, to cram yourself full of any old crap, and if anyone says anything to you, you should just tell them, "It's okay! It's Thanksgiving! The Americans are doing it!"

Foreigners just don't get it.

I feel really strongly about Thanksgiving, and when the atmosphere is missing, it leaves a horrible void. It's a day to spend with as much family as possible, no matter how dysfunctional that family might be. When I was growing up, we often spent the day with my father's first family, which meant a bizarre combination of me, my mom, my dad, his first wife, their children, and their children's children, most of whom were older than me, and who started bringing their own kids as they had them (my father's great-grandchildren - I was in my teens). We'd all gather in the fire station across the road from my half-sister's house, and the chaos in there was awesome (by which I mean "awe-inspiring" as opposed to "rad, dude.") As an only child (in my father's second family, if that makes any sense), I was usually lonely, and life was very quiet. Claiming all that color as my family - albeit slightly DISTANT family, and just once or twice a year - added facets to my otherwise boring person, I felt. It was like being the baffled participating audience member in an intricately choreographed dance.

(My half-sister has probably spewed coffee across her screen by now. I somehow feel sure that my memories of those occasions have a slightly rosier glow than hers...)

For my first Thanksgiving in South Africa, my husband's family very gamely went along with a "proper" Thanksgiving meal. Their enthusiasm touched me (and still does, eleven years later), but there's something about having everybody working on a day that should be a massive holiday for everyone, regardless of race, religion, or personal beliefs, that's just not right. It's the atmosphere that's missing.

I think one thing that a lot of foreigners don't understand is that Americans are proud, yes, and we work hard to be the best we can be, but that we judge ourselves against ourselves, nobody else. Being proud of who we are doesn't mean we think less of anyone else. We just don't think in terms like that. It's not a competition for us, so nobody wins and nobody loses. We're far from perfect, but we keep working to get there. I can't seem to adequately explain that here.

Anyway, I'm going to make a pumpkin pie today. I normally wouldn't ever use canned pumpkin for this - I always roast my own - but since the right kind of pumpkin isn't available, I'll open one of the huge cans of pumpkin puree that I brought here with me.

A friend told me yesterday that Martha has been baking up a storm all week (I'm still cross with her about the Katonah incident). My friend says Martha drains her pumpkin puree in cheesecloth overnight. I see the point of that: to thicken it. But I've always preferred the flavor and texture of moist, fresh pumpkin. If it's too thick, it'll taste like the canned stuff I'm being forced to use.

I've never made a pumpkin pie with fructose, though I think it will be okay. The thing about fructose is, it's not sweet when it's warm, only when it's cool. So I'll cook the pie, and then have to let it cool completely before eating it, which is a shame, since it's so delicious warm. Of course, it's delicious cold the next day, too. Actually, I could screw up the recipe a fair bit, and it'd still be great. Pumpkin pie just is.

This is my egg-free recipe, which I've been using for years. The original recipe, from The Joy of Cooking, makes an amazing pumpkin custard, but eggs are still off-limits, and the cornstarch works. I might have to play around with the sweetness of the pie, since these amounts of fructose and Karo are guesses. I like to use Karo when I can, since Leander has a high tolerance for it (Karo is basically high-fructose corn syrup), and it adds some of the gooey texture you'd get from real sugar, particularly if you're trying to use dextrose as a substitute for sugar. With fructose, maybe I don't really need the Karo, but I'm going to use it anyway, particularly since I've substituted the eggs with cornstarch. I might decide later that I should have used dextrose instead of the Karo, but we'll have to wait and see.

I won't bother making my own pie crust this year. Homemade crust is delicious, but I find it's rarely worth the effort. Locally, there's a "savoury" frozen crust. You could probably use the sweet one, but it's got sugar in it, and the savory frozen one they sell here has a crunchy texture that is really very nice.

If you use real cornstarch, and not the kind made with wheat, and a gluten-free crust, this pie would be gluten-free. Also, I'm sure the milk and butter could be substituted for a dairy-free pie. I'd never do that, since we don't need to avoid dairy, and I think the real milk and butter add a necessary richness, but basically, you could adjust this recipe for a lot of different dietary restrictions.

Here it is:

Sucrose-free, egg-free, nut-free pumpkin pie:

2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin
1 cup milk
3/4 cup fructose
1/4 cup Karo light syrup
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp butter, melted

Mix all, pour into unbaked pie crust.
Let sit in refrigerator overnight before baking, if possible.
Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake one hour.
Allow to cool mostly before serving, though it's nice warm.

Serve it with fresh whipped cream, which I make. Fructose added to freshly whipped cream is absolutely delicious. In fact, I'd probably choose to use fructose even if I could use regular sugar.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Recipe: Grandpa Ed's Waffles

As I mentioned, Leander and I both went to the doctor on Tuesday. My appointment was great: we heard the baby's heartbeat, even though the doctor said it was a bit early and he wasn't sure if we would, and it was a "nice, strong heartbeat." Also cool was the fact that I still haven't gained any weight. At 21 weeks pregnant, I am nine pounds lighter than I was at five weeks pregnant. I'm only losing the weight I gained during Oliver's pregnancy, and the doctor is completely happy with the state of my health.

Leander and I both needed blood tests. Mine was to check up on a previously low iron level, and Leander's were for everything but the prostate screening, I think. We're a little concerned that with his limited diet, he might be missing some nutrients. It's been two years since he was diagnosed with CSID, and he's been a little tired lately, not quite himself. Also, fructose can build up in the liver like alcohol, and since that's the sugar he uses every day, it's a good idea to have a liver function test done.

Our tradition is that if you get a needle stuck in you, Mommy buys you something at the toy tore, mostly because Mommy is a sucker. Because Leander is the one who always gets the horrible things done to him, he's the one who gets all the treats. The other two understand this, though they would like to get the treats, too. They agree, though, that it's not worth getting poked with a needle.

But Leander said, this time, "Can we buy three treats, so Eddie and Oliver can have one, too?"

Which opens up all sorts of philosophical avenues.

If they all get treats, it kind of defeats the point of the treat. And will the other two start hoping Leander gets poked with a needle so they can have a new little tractor?

But Leander himself has requested equal treats for his brothers, and I hate to discourage that kind of philanthropic spirit.

What to do?

We've been talking about buying an ice cream machine, because ice cream is one of the boys' favorite things, and there's a place in Hilarys that makes one with fructose (for diabetics, which I don't quite understand, but I'm no dietitian). But it's $12 a liter, and it's made with soy milk, to cover lots of dietary requirements. I'm not so big on the soy milk. Also, it's hard for us to get, being in Hilarys and all. So after a month or two of batting the idea around, I made the executive decision to order the ice cream maker. Wandering around the appliance store while the guy was on the phone with another customer, I passed a waffle maker, one that makes a flower of five hearts. My dad gave me one like that for my birthday one year. I've never understood why he bought me a waffle maker, but he picked it out all by himself, and maybe I liked it even more because of the mystery. I couldn't bring it to Australia because of the power thing, and it's one of the few bits we left behind that I really miss.

That was way too much detail about why I wanted a waffle maker all of a sudden.

Anyway, the boys love pancakes, the American way, that is: for breakfast, hot, with maple syrup and bacon on a lazy Sunday morning. So I asked Leander if we should get a waffle maker for everyone as the treat. He happily agreed. We had waffles for dinner that night, but the waffle recipe in the waffle maker box was a bit floppy, not crispy like I like them.

Today, nearly eleven years after my dad died, I cried all the way back from the next town over. I think it was triggered by extreme exhaustion, and thinking of the daughter of the electrician I like so much. I saw her yesterday, and the obvious affection with which she spoke of her father made my eyes leak, though I blamed it on pregnancy hormones to cover my embarrassment. My dad was an electrician, too, and I miss him just as much now as I have for the last eleven years.

On that half-hour drive today, it occurred to me, for the first time, that my father must have thought, at some point in his life, about the fact that he would be 87 when I was 37, and that the odds of him knowing me for much more than thirty years were pretty slim.

That makes me incredibly sad.

So in honor of my father, who I think about every day, we're having waffles again tomorrow morning, and here's my own recipe in all its nut-free, egg-free, sucrose-free glory:

2 cups flour
4 tbsp dextrose
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp lemon juice
1¾ cups milk
4 tbsp melted butter
a dollop of glucose

Melt butter, milk and glucose together. I'm not listing a measurement for glucose, because you could spend a LOT of time trying to get it to cooperate while you try to measure it. Be sure to melt it, though, since otherwise you'll have a lot of semi-sweet waffles, and one glucose-waffle.

Sift dry ingredients.

Add butter, milk and lemon juice to dry ingredients and mix well. Allow to rest for ten minutes.

Pour by 1/4 cupfuls onto medium hot waffle maker and cook until nicely brown. Serve with real maple syrup for the people who can handle sucrose, and with Karo syrup for the people who can't.

Stay tuned for an ice cream recipe, though there will no doubt be a fair bit of trial and error involved in that one...

It's Like I'm Famous!

So I've been just typing away at my little blog, entertaining my friends and family overseas. I forget to post a lot, and then a friend emails me and says, "Hey, post!" so I do.

And all this time, I've had FANS! There are whole bunches of people who find the trivia in my life so fascinating that they are eagerly checking to see if I have a new post! Oh, it's water-cooler time, for sure!

I'm flattered that you all find me so interesting!

Anyhoo... Since I have your attention:

All that crap you're hearing? All those rumors? Seriously. One of my faults is that I always think the best of people, even people who truly don't deserve it. It's especially sad for me, since, because of that, I'm so frequently disappointed by people. I have to say, it surprises me how many of you are willing to think the worst of me at a moment's notice. Would I seriously say nasty things about people on a blog that (in spite of an anonymous accusation that I am "hiding behind" my blog - that irony is too precious to NOT share it with you) can be read by every single English-reading person with internet access In The Entire World? Yeah, and I also demanded a 200 meter peanut-free perimeter zone around both the school and my shop last year, making it impossible for any shop in town to sell peanut products, and impossible for any travelers to drive through town if there was so much as a Snickers in their car.

People, I couldn't come up with that kind of crap if I tried. The person who did should be applauded for her creativity and imagination. And then be made to immediately begin using her talents for good, rather than evil.

Ditto the "nasty" comments. Is it nasty to tell you that I cried? Is it nasty to tell you that we got a lot of phone calls?

Yeah. I don't think so. But if you all keep chattering away about it amongst each other, pretty soon you'll have me drowning puppies and plotting against the government. Trust me when I tell you that I don't have that kind of free time.

And when I started to hear about all these "nasty" things I supposedly wrote, I was concerned. For about ten minutes. Because as far as I knew, I hadn't written anything nasty. But maybe my perception was off? I've spent the day showing people what I actually wrote - completely unmodified, not a comma changed (I think, if you haven't learned anything else, you should have learned by now that I am nothing if not honest). I've had people laughing, and suggesting that I publish the post in a newspaper, and every single person, without exception, has said that there isn't a nasty word in there. It is, by all accounts, a silly story about a horrible week.

So the person who greeted me with a cat's bum mouth in the bank? Every person is entitled to his or her own opinion, absolutely. It's a human right. I might caution you, however, that if you're basing your opinion on rumors rather than facts, you're only going to make a fool of yourself, not me. How many of you actually read the post, and how many of you just heard other people talking about it?

But hey! As long as you're entertained! Because let's not forget, that's what a blog is all about.

Let's talk about important stuff now. Leander had the beginnings of an anaphylactic attack last week. Wouldn't you find it more interesting and fulfilling to read about our frantic dash to the hospital than to do your laundry? Or to write a letter for Amnesty International? Or to crochet a chemo-cap for a cancer patient? Or to knit a little jumper for those poor African AIDS babies? Or maybe you could make a casserole for a house-bound neighbor or relative? Or clean out your pantry and donate some canned goods to that scheme run by the school's chaplain for Christmas boxes to disadvantaged children? Or just sit on the floor with your own child and a box of crayons and doodle some pages for him or her to color in?

Oh, never mind. You know you're going to just sit there and keep reading this page. Hey, I might mention YOU in here.

At bowls last Thursday night, during the presentations, Leander, outside, started to cry. Not so unusual in itself: a lot of crying gets done in a house full of boys. But he has a special undertone to a cry that I couldn't begin to describe. I can only tell you that when he hits that barely perceptible tone, I pay attention.

He wanted to go to the hospital. Immediately. That's not a request he ever makes, since he has a lot of needles stuck into him a lot of the time. He couldn't tell me what was wrong, and he wasn't showing any symptoms at all, as far as I could tell. But he wanted to go to the hospital, and my strongest belief on this earth is that
a parent needs to provide what a child needs, so that child can learn to identify and provide for his own needs when he grows up. If he wants to go to the hospital, he needs to know that I'll take him seriously, and that he should take his own instincts seriously.

We rushed to the hospital, and I said into the intercom, "Anaphylactic child! Please let us in!" Leander still showed no signs of anaphylaxis, but didn't feel well, and I wasn't taking any chances. His pulse was 136. The nurse (one of my favorites, who remembered me from last year when I brought Duncan in, suffering from serious anaphylactic shock due to a bee sting) was very thorough and attentive. Still no other symptoms, though she agreed that bringing him in and waiting there was the right thing to do. After a while, Leander's pulse dropped to about 100, and he got very sleepy. When we felt safe, we went home.

We saw our doctor yesterday, and he felt strongly that yes, it was the initial stages of anaphylaxis. He said his patients often report a sense of something wrong deep inside before there are any symptoms at all. On the way home from the hospital, Leander said to me that there was a boy at bowls who he didn't know well, and he thought maybe that boy had eaten something that wasn't Leander-safe. I don't think that's true (the boy is the child of a conscientious mother), but I like that Leander himself is trying to speculate the cause of his reaction. He didn't eat anything at bowls other than the ham sandwich I'd made for him (from ingredients he's had many times before). One of the most frustrating things about anaphylaxis is that we can't pinpoint exactly what caused it, and we can't say how close is too close, since testing that line would most likely be fatal. We just have to be glad that he was fine, that our healthy little boy is not in a coma, or worse. Those close calls are exhausting for everyone.

Two percent of children in our state are at risk of anaphylaxis. The Anaphylaxis Expert Working Committee recently discovered that the restrictions on children at risk give them a quality of life lower than children with rheumatoid arthritis or diabetes. Think about that for a minute.

Alan Carpenter recently approved, and committed $6.6 million to, all eight recommendations made by the Anaphylaxis Expert Working Committee. You can read about it here. And I hope a certain principal DOES read about it, and sees that it will be required of him to practice risk management for children at risk of anaphylaxis in schools. That's ALL children at risk - whether it's food, or bees, or whatever, risk management is required, and will be audited.

One of the recommendations is aimed at community awareness. I like to think I've done my part to raise community awareness. There are a lot of really supportive people out there, and now a lot more of them are aware of anaphylaxis. Sadly, the five percent of people who are complete fuckwits about it are usually the only ones who make a lot of noise.

Likewise, at least 90% of what you hear is a lot of crap. Trust me: my life is too boring for you to find it so interesting without a LOT of embellishment.

And while you're listening, let me tell you that I never, ever, not once did I demand that the school do ANYTHING AT ALL to protect Leander. I wrote on Eddie's enrollment form: It is imperative that Eddie not bring home any traces of peanuts because of his brother's severe allergy. The school decided to immediately put into place provisions for a risk management program, in order to protect Leander, who would begin school six months later. I can only fault them for letting people think I had demanded this. The school administration, rightfully, in my opinion, decided that the best thing for THEM, the best way to provide duty of care to ALL students, and to protect their teachers from a situation that could be catastrophic, was to put into place these policies.

Let me say that again: by asking parents not to send in peanut products, the school is not only protecting Leander, but is protecting the teachers and all the other children. When parents send in peanuts, not only are they putting Leander's life at risk, they are increasing the stress levels of the teachers and aides, who would be required to act in an emergency. If the teachers and aides are forced to think about this for a large portion of their day, they are less able to concentrate on their jobs, and less able to concentrate on all children equally.

Do you get that? Risk management helps protect everyone. Would you like your child to witness the horror of a classmate suffering anaphylactic shock? Would you like your child's teacher to be so obsessed with keeping one child alive during lunch times that she can't focus on all the other children in the room? What if it was your child's lunch that caused Leander serious injury? How easy do you think it would be to convince your child that it wasn't his or her fault? Why put your child in that kind of position?

That woman who made her kid bring peanuts to school, in spite of the fact that, as the child herself told me, she doesn't like peanuts? What would she say to her child if her little act of defiance had killed someone?

And I'll tell you what, if I hear ONE MORE TIME that crap about how kids with anaphylaxis "need to learn to live in the world," I might just scream. Kids at risk of anaphylaxis learn more about living in the world in their first five years than other kids do in their first fifteen. There are guns in the world, too. Do children need to learn to live in the world with guns? Should we just plonk a loaded AK-47 down on the kindy lunch table and tell them all not to touch it? A loaded gun is as dangerous to your kid as a peanut butter sandwich is to my kid. The only difference is that the bullet might MISS your kid.

We ARE teaching Leander how to live in the world. We're also teaching YOUR children how to live in the world. Your children are learning tolerance. Something a lot of you could stand to pick up yourselves.

I'm entitled to my bad days. And if I want to tell the world about them (or at least, the few people who are listening, by their own choice), that's my right. It's your right, too. Start your own blog. And if you've read all this and something has made you unhappy, don't complain to me; you've wasted your own time. A last thought: Every time you tell another person about this blog, you give me a little more power. Do you want to do that?

Thanks for listening. I really do, sincerely, appreciate it. Go do something useful now.