I realized today that I have not yet conveyed my love for food. This is the equivalent to my forgetting to mention that I’m female.
It is impossible for me to speak of my identity without including how happy eating good food makes me. On the list of things that make me happy, I’d say eating good food is in the top five…maybe even top three. (Struggling with my weight has made me equally unhappy, which has caused quite a dilemma for me in my lifetime, but that’s another story.)
When I turned three, my friend’s father held my birthday cake hostage until I could properly pronounce the “th” sound of my new age. (What an asshole.) I would do whatever it took - nothing was going to get between me and my cake.
At milk-and-cookie time in kindergarten, I would swipe more than my allotted share of butter cookie to savor at a later date. I would be crestfallen when it prematurely crumbled in my pocket.
In fifth grade I would opt out of running around the playground during lunch recess in order to carefully lay out my thermos and sandwich to better enjoy a proper, civilized meal.
Under the special skills section of my acting resume, I used to include “orders well.” When I read a menu, I can mentally taste the combination of ingredients in the dish and measure that effect against my mood. My selections are usually spot on. Not infrequently have my dinner companions sampled my entrée and conceded that mine was better than theirs. I know, I think to myself smugly.
If I were to have a credo, it would be that there is a food for every occasion. And a drink to go with it.
It’s no surprise, then, that my fiancé seduced me with food. In the early months of our dating, I would take note of the meals he cooked for me, reporting back to my sister and friends. When he baked halibut on a bed of ramps and served the side salad with a topping of edible flowers, I was done for.
Imagine my distress last year when I was diagnosed a Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerant. It was hard to ignore my internist’s caution that if I did nothing I might be looking at an auto-immune disease in ten years. Giving up all things gluten meant no more wheat, barley or rye. No more thin crust margarita pizza, no more tagliatelle with duck ragu, no more red velvet cake, no more fresh baked bread, no more almond croissants … and so on. I anguished over the decision. Were all these delectable delights really worth my health?
And so, beginning on January 1st, I became That Person. I gave up gluten. I reminded hostesses of my needs before dinner parties. I turned down O’s nephew’s birthday cake. When I went to Chinatown for dim sum I printed out Google’s Chinese translation of “please show me on the menu what does not contain wheat.” I became the special requester.
In return, I have discovered rice crust pizza. It’s not anywhere close to the Neapolitan deliciousness at Luzzo’s on First Avenue, mind you, but it scratches my gastronomic itch. I have found addictively delicious cookies in the health food stores and paid a small fortune for gluten-free beer. I have incorporated my new lifestyle to the point where, this Christmas, I’m bringing the gluten-free breadcrumbs with me to Atlanta so my sister can make H-friendly Swedish meatballs.
Today my doctor gave me the results of my annual check-up. My numbers are now below the alert level. The year’s efforts have restored my GI health. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I can’t go back to a gluten-filled life, but I survived the year without it. And if that doesn’t call for a gluten-free treat, I don’t know what does.
No comments:
Post a Comment