The Ghosts of Birthdays Past

Photo by Manuel Bahamondez via Flickr

Tomorrow, I turn 29. I'm on the brink of my thirties. It's very strange to think of myself as a soon-to-be 30 year-old. I can't really milk the whole "young adult" thing anymore. I guess I'm... *looks around uncomfortably* an adult. It's funny how I've marked that status for myself over the years: I wasn't really an adult until I graduated college; and then when I had to pay my first rent in my first apartment; when I got my first car; when I landed my first full-time job; when I got engaged and then married; when I leased my first car; when I bought a house...

It's like I've kept pushing back my own adulthood status with each major life event. But at 29... well, now I'm pushin' it period.

Working in higher ed for the last 6 years, this is the first time in my life I've ever really felt the distance between my life experience and the those of my undergraduate students and even graduate colleagues. Try explaining the burden of having a mortgage to someone who's biggest financial worry is about using all their meal plan points by the end of the semester; it's the first time in my life that this age disconnect has ever felt so distinct.

It doesn't sit well with me because I like to think "I'm with it, I'm hip... taka taka taka!" But the fact of the matter is, most of my students have no frame of reference for that previous sentence. College freshmen this year were born in 1992. Austin Powers didn't come out until 1997. I was a freshman in high school. They were five.

This is the first time in my life I genuinely feel old.

. . .

So I refuse to end my pre-birthday post on a such a downer. I thought it would be fun to do a little retrospective of all my birthdays in my twenties. Because once I turned 20, of course I was an adult, so I got to party hardy. So here goes:

2002: Jazz Hands
When I turned 20, Larry and I headed to Philly for a night of good eats and even more delicious music at Ortlieb's Jazzhaus. It was a narrow, tiny little place where we literally sat within two feet of the stage, the jazz jumpin' and the food divine. We felt so grown up.

2003: Under the Boardwalk
When I turned 21 I did what any self-respecting Southern New Jerseyan does: I headed to Atlantic City for the weekend to gamble and drink the night away. I didn't win big and the drinks were pretty watered down, but the buffet the next morning at the casino was the stuff of dreams.

2004: A Blah Birthday
I turned 22 just days after graduating from college yet had to take a couple of classes at my local community college to finalize some credits. I had spent all day in class and had a terrible summer cold on top of it. Larry took me out to dinner with a friend of ours. My nose was so stuffy I couldn't taste anything. I think I was in bed by 10pm.

2005: 23 Skiddoo
My first birthday in our first apartment together. Larry baked me a scrumptious (looking) hazelnut chocolate cake. When we ate it that evening, I made a comment about how it was really sweet that he made me a cake... but that the cake itself wasn't very sweet at all. Larry double-checked the recipe and saw that it had no sugar... it was a diabetic recipe!

2006: The Worst Way to Celebrate a 24th Birthday
We went to Friday's and rented Hostel. My birthday was a little overshadowed by getting engaged the previous month but I mean, Hostel? Really? Why did I think this was an okay way to celebrate?!

2007: Happy 25th: Here's an Air Conditioner
We moved to Massachusetts the day before my birthday in 2007. The drive was long and tedious. Moving in all of our stuff, with Larry's dad's help, was just as long and tedious. The next morning we headed to Home Depot and bought our first window AC unit. Oh, and Larry bought me a peace plant. That I never watered. And then it died. And then we moved out of that place six weeks later.

2008: A Ghostly 26th 
I have always wanted to stay in a haunted hotel. Larry booked us a lovely room at a haunted inn in Concord. The most haunted room was already booked, so we had the room across the hall. We had a lovely stay except I didn't get any sleep. I was so excited about possibly having a ghostly experience that I stayed up all night looking and listening for things to happen... and nothing did. Still, it was a lovely weekend just the same.

2009: Guns. Massage. Meat on Swords. And Earrings.
I turned 27 with a literal bang. I went to the shooting range with Larry and another friend and fired my first gun. I had a nice spa day massage. We capped it all off by heading to a Brazilian BBQ with a huge group of friends. Dee-lish!

2010: I'm Melting, I'm Melting
We went to the Melting Pot last year. I was particularly excited because I love fondue. My birthday was unseasonably hot last year and the Melting Pot we went to didn't have their AC turned on yet. So there we were, sitting at essentially an open stove top in a restaurant with no AC on the hottest day of the year so far. That said, it was still delicious and worth the heat.

2011: The Fruits of the Sea
I disovered on our anniversary this year that I like love oysters. This year we're headed to B&G Oysters, a Barbara Lynch joint right in the heart of downtown Boston. My goal is to consume nothing but oysters and champagne. I'm also getting a saltwater fishing rod. Now that we live literally less than a mile from the ocean, we don't need fishing licenses to fish in saltwater. And Larry assures me there's one other surprise related to our sea-faring theme, so I can't wait to find out tomorrow! And, my interview about our infertility journey should air tomorrow night at 11pm on WBZTV Boston. It's going to be a fabulous night indeed!

So there you have it, my Ghosts of Birthdays past. What's been your favorite birthday? How did you celebrate? What did you get? Dish, people, dish!

The Matzo Balls Are Coming.

This post is part of the IF-Free Zone: a commitment to blogging about something other than my infertility journey every now and then. Why blog off-topic? We are more than our infertility. So enjoy another installment in the IF-Free Zone series. Here's another peek into regular 'ol me.

. . .

I'm not sure how it happened this year, but all of a sudden, Passover is this Monday night. Rosh HaShannah felt late, Hanukkah was way late, so I guess it makes sense that Passover is wicked late this year. We have done absolutely zero prep for Passover... we haven't even bought our boxes of matzo yet!

But we need to get on it this weekend, because folks: the matzo balls, they are a-comin'.

If you're curious: they're sinkers THEN floaters.

Last year we were Passover CHAMPS. We held a Seder at our apartment and invited many dear friends. I was a cooking fiend that weekend, churning out matzo balls like they were going out of style. I could give you Larry's Mom's/Nan's recipe... but then I'd have to kill you. Larry made a (delicious) brisket. There was charoset and fresh-made maror and even vegetarian options!

This year... well, we're skipping First Seder on Monday night because Larry has a Masons meeting he can't miss. So we're hosting Second Seder, the first in our new home, on Tuesday night. So far we have six people coming and we haven't even picked the menu yet.

This should be an interesting weekend. I need to get a jump on the matzo balls and the soup, because they taste better if they've had a couple of days to soak in the flavor. But I also need to finalize our menu and do the shopping. We should also probably, yanno, clean the house too. That would be good. Somehow we plan to squeeze all of this in while painting our bedroom.

Now, painting wouldn't be such a challenge if we didn't also have to paint our bed (that Larry made himself right after we moved in) and if we didn't have to paint the very awkard, very high catherdral ceiling walls in our bedroom either. Thank goodness Monday is Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts, a state-wide holiday that just happens to be when the Boston Marathon is run every year.

It's going to be a busy weekend for sure.

I do have a question for the masses, Jewish or otherwise: I have two vegetarians joining us this year. I'm making separate matzo balls without chicken schmaltz and a veggie-based broth for them, but I'm at a loss for a vegetarian entree for  them. Last year I made parmesan-stuffed portobello mushrooms, but I'd like to try something different this year. Any tips or ideas on some delicious vegetarian entrees for Passover?

Alright, I can't wrap this post up without sharing at least one recipe with you; I've been going on and on about food, so it's only fair. A little backstory to this recipe: Larry's uncle's ex-wife apparently made some delicious Passover layer cake with full sheets of matzo and delicious frosting. For the last 14 years, at every Passover Seder at his parents' house, I've been hearing about Dahlia's "amazing Passover cake." The funny thing is, no one had the recipe. So when she left the family, the recipe went with her. And still, this Passover cake gets mentioned at every Seder table with the Zolls. I have been mystified and intrigued by this "amazing Passover cake," and last year I made it my mission to find the recipe.

After getting descriptions from both Larry and his mom, I set about Googling and found this recipe from AllRecipes.com. I made it last year, and as Larry took the first bite, you could see the years of nostalgia flooding back to him. I had found Dahlia's cake.

So here now is a near-diabetic coma-inducing Passover dessert to make this week. I've tweaked the recipe I originally found so that it's basically guaranteed to send your glucose through the roof.

Dahlia (and Miriam's) 7-Layer Passover "Cake"
I realize it looks unassuming. It's basically just sheets of matzo soaked in alcohol layered with buttercream frosting. I know, I know and yes - it is that good.

I am full of sugar and joy.

You will need:

• 3 1/2 (1 ounce) squares bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup butter softened (because margarine is a cop-out)
• 1 cup superfine sugar (confectioners' sugar can work for this)
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 egg whites
• 8 matzo sheets
• (750 mL) bottle kahlua, kahlua creme, Bailey's or Godiva liqueur (or... all of these.)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped nuts (optional)

 To make the frosting:

1. Melt chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave by heating at 30 second intervals, and stirring between each one. When chocolate is almost melted, just remove from the microwave and stir until smooth. Set aside. You can also melt the chocolate with a double boiler if you have one (my preferred method and I don't have a double boiler; I do a smaller pot resting in a larger pot with about an inch of water in the bigger pot.)
2. In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time until well blended.
3. In a separate bowl, whip egg whites with a pinch of superfine sugar until stiff.
4. Fold the melted chocolate into the creamed butter/sugar mixture, then fold in the egg whites.

To assemble the cake:

1. Pour 1/4 of your potent potable into an 8x8 inch baking dish. Soak one of the matzo sheets briefly on both sides, then remove to a serving platter. If you soak too long, it will break apart and become hard to work with.
2. Spread a thin layer of the chocolate cream over the soaked matzo. Continue soaking and layering the matzos and chocolate cream, leaving enough of the chocolate mixture to frost the sides when finished.
3. Break up the process by having a sip of your potent potable from a separate glass. Add more alcohol to the dish as necessary for soaking.
4. Optionally: press chopped nuts onto the sides, or sprinkle them on top for garnish. I'm not a fan of chocolate and nuts, so I skip this step.
5. Refrigerate overnight to allow everything to soak in and become amazing.
6. Upon eating, just try not to have your eyes roll back into your head with each bite. I dare you.

The Best Pretzels. Ever.

It's time for another IF-Free Zone post. Shocker: it's about food.

Larry and I are self-proclaimed foodies. We like to cook and we love to go out and eat. I have always fancied myself a good cook: I can make some tasty sauces and I'm not afraid to dabble in spices. The dishes I make best tend to be entrees. I make a killer tomato sauce, and honey dijon chicken is so simple, and so delish on a Friday night. I love it. I also can execute complex desserts: chocolate ganache with candied orange peels, for example. I know, I know - try not to drool.

Larry's much more adventurous: pork chops, roasted chicken, brussel sprouts.

I'm sorry, I need to take a minute to talk about brussel sprouts:

They are... amazing. I never in my life thought I'd be cooking them, much less a Rachel Ray recipe for brussel sprouts but good G-d, they are delish. We were lucky enough to find baby brussel sprouts, and they're much sweeter and more tender than their teenaged cabbage siblings. Bacon, shallot, chicken stock BAM! You have one helluva side dish.

Right, back to the paragraph at hand.

Larry's also the default steak-cooker in our house. But he's also mastered the one kitchen role with which I still struggle: baking. Sure, I make a mean sugar cookie (easiest cookie to make ever), but he makes chocolate chip cookies from scratch. He bakes a great challah. His cakes are light and fluffy (except for that diabetic no-sugar birthday cake he made me years back. That was kind of a disaster. He didn't realize it was a diabetic recipe until too late in the process).

I've never considered myself a good baker. My challah is always too dense. I've never made cookies other than sugar cookies. And the banana bread I tried to make two weeks ago?

To get a sense of scale:
This is a 9" dinner plate. The loaf weighs about 2lbs.

So... the recipe called for a bundt pan. I didn't have one, so I thought my silicone loaf pan would do. I filled the batter to the edge because I didn't think it would rise, not realizing that baking soda is a levening agent. I should have really used 2 loaf pans. Instead, I ended up with Attack of the Giant Banana Bread:

Wait, who's attacking what?
This is a common picture pose for me, actually.

And no joke - it took almost 2 hours to bake and it STILL wasn't done all the way through. I cut the loaf in half and brought it to work. I mean, it tasted okay, but not great. A bit... doughy.

Baking FAIL.

And then Larry discovered Working Class Foodies, quite possibly the neatest food vlog out there. And we found a recipe for homemade soft pretzels. Now, to be fair - our friend Claire had gotten us turned onto homemade pretzels because she makes some BANGIN' brown sugar based pretzels from scratch. They are pretty incredible. Her recipe is metric, so she has to reconvert everything when she makes it, so sometimes the measurements might be off between batches. That's what lead us to go looking for another pretzel recipe and wow... they're good. Different than Claire's, but equally as good.

These pretzels are also the first baking foray I've made that have come back successful, delicious, and leaving my guests wanting more! I made these for Halloween and they lasted, maybe 10 minutes on the table.

Here's the whole recipe in action:

 The only drawback to Working Class Foodies is that they don't write down their recipes; they're always contained in the videos themselves. So as I was making them, I had the laptop on the counter, rewinding and pausing. My dear readers, I will save you this trouble :)

Working Class Foodies' Homemade Soft Pretzel Recipe

Seriously, they are stupid easy and wicked fun to make.

 You'll need...

• 1 packet/tsp of dry active yeast
• 1.5 cups warm water
• 1 TBSP of sugar
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 4.5 cups all purpose flour
• 4 TBSP melted butter
• 1 TSSP veggie oil (to coat your bowl)
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda 

Directions:

1. Dissolve sugar and salt into warm water. Add yeast. Allow to proof and get frothy for about 5-10 minutes.
2. Once the yeast has proofed, add butter and yeast mixture to flour. Form into shaggy dough.
3. Flour a work surface and knead dough until smooth, about 5-10 minutes. Place into bowl rubbed with veggie oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to double in size, about 1 hour. You might want to preheat your oven to 450° and set your bowl on the stove; the warmth helps it rise.
4. Preheat your over to 450° if you haven't already. Add baking soda to 10 cups of water and bring to a fast rolling boil. 
5. Once doubled in size, flour your work surface and knead for another 5 minutes. Divide into 8-12 pieces. We ended up with about 10. 10 makes HUGE pretzels.
6. Roll pieces into 2' logs, about an inch thick. Make a U, cross the ends, twist once, press ends down into bottom of U. Tada! Pretzel shape.
7. Place pretzels on baking sheet or place to get them out of your way.
8. Once you've made all your pretzels and the water is boiling, carefully and gently add them to the water, one by one. Don't overcrowd and take each one out after about 30 seconds.
9. Place boiled pretzels on greased parchment paper on baking sheet. Sprinkle with course salt to taste. (Optional: you can add an egg wash before you salt them, but I didn't it without the egg wash and it worked fine. It just makes them look fancier.)
10. Bake pretzels for 12-14 minutes, rotating halfway through. Take out, slather with mustard, dip into cheese, or eat them as is. Delish!

These go excellently with Sunday football. Enjoy!

When Foodie Met Iffy

As I have mentioned on many occasion, I have a thing for Anthony Bourdain. Larry is fully aware that I would leave him for Anthony Bourdain, should the opportunity present itself. It's strange: I'm not really an "older man" kind of gal, but there's a hipness, a realness, a damn fine sexiness about the man.

I'm sorry, I need to mop up this puddle of drool down the front of my shirt.

Now that I'm commuting to work, I've got nearly two hours in my day of uninterrupted me time. Since checking my email or reading the internet while driving is generally frowned upon (in fact, now recently illegal in MA), I could get back into my habit of listening to NPR in the mornings. Instead, I'm taking the audiobook route. I just finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I know, late to the game on that whole series. (Sidebar: it's incredible - a slowly building, unsettling climax that makes your jaw drop.) I'd already read Kitchen Confidential, so I figured Medium Raw was sure to be a great read with Mr. Bourdain himself narrating again.

Medium Raw IS a great read/listen. This morning, I felt almost dirty listening to Tony describe his favorite bowl of Hanoi pho in his chapter about food porn, aptly titled "Lust." And as I listened to the opening chapter [SPOILER ALERT] where he describes his practically godless experience consuming ortolan [/SPOILER ALERT]- I felt almost ashamed listening to it... and instantly jealous.

So, knock me over with a feather as I'm bawling last night after I finished chapter 13, "Dancing." I was listening to it over dinner since Larry was at a lodge meeting. Bourdain devotes an entire chapter to his 2.5 year old daughter and why he wanted to be a father.

Fuck, I can't even listen to an audiobook in an entirely non-infertility related category, read by one of my celebrity crushes no less, without being reminded of this profound lack in my life. Thank you infertility, for managing to crash yet another "I thought this was a safe area of my life" parties.

Not to spoil the whole chapter, but Bourdain speaks of how he practically worships his little girl: she's his whole world, and rightfully so. From prying Play-Do from under his fingernails to dancing without a care, to ditching the leather motorcycle jacket for a pair of Dockers khakis - Bourdain leaves for his daughter a loving, razor-edged legacy of wit and wisdom, and ultimately, a love letter of empowerment.

He does spend a good bit of the chapter talking about his desire for fatherhood. After his 2006 ordeal in Beirut, where he and the crew of No Reservations was stranded due to nothing short of a war, Bourdain came back to the US and pretty much got off the plane, went home, and made a baby. Seriously. This isn't so much paraphrasing as it is nearly verbatim from the book.

Lately, I have been way down on myself. There's been some flutter of varying pregnancy-related announcements again in my life, so once again I feel like the last kid picked for the team. I've been wrestling with the idea of getting a second opinion, and worrying that depending on what Doc #2 could say, might change all of our plans. This past weekend I had to scurry home suddenly after a lunch date with a friend. After we parted, I continued to browse the little shops all over Salem's downtown, when I was suddenly hit with an overwhelming sadness and ache.

I want a little kid to dress up for Halloween, too.

I nearly burst into tears in the middle of a confectioner shop. FFS, I was surrounded by chocolate and yet I nearly started to cry. To add insult to injury: the fastest way home is right past a boutique maternity wear shop.

As I walked briskly home, I watched that same movie reel play out in my head that I fear sadly, will never play on any major screens in my actual life: a passionate love scene, a nervous glance at a watch, coming out of the bathroom with a positive test, our faces glowing, eyes glistening, clever announcements to family and friends, three seasons of bliss and preparation, and the climax of the film: a slap, a baby crying, tears and laughter and gazing adoringly into the eyes of the future.

Roll credits.

When I saw Larry that afternoon, I told him how down I was. I told him, "I just want to make you a daddy." He hugged me, I cried, and he assured me that we'll get there.

So last night, when I thought I could get just an hour of non-infertility related headspace, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I was eating dinner at the time and I actually lost my appetite.

It was the moment where foodie met iffy.

I fucking love food. Probably a little too much, as reflected in my BMI. Food is a highly sensual experience. Flavors may last only a few minutes on the palate, but forever in the dark recesses of our memory. Flavor, much like aroma, marry themselves to very acute, precise memories and when recalled, unleash such a hunger of both physical and mental proportion that the latter can nearly overwhelm the former. It's a sort of culinary nostalgia: the memory of taste awakens the ache of something once delicious long ago.

Like tilting my nose toward a sizzling, aromatic entree as the waiter passes by my table, I feel that twist in my stomach: I want. It's that ache, that hunger - that I understand, that can consume me.

I want a baby. Forget adoption for the moment, because hunger can make us irrational - I want a baby of my own. I want to experience motherhood, parenthood, of imprinting the clean slate that Bourdain speaks of when referencing his daughter. I want the intimate baby-making. I want the swollen belly like an ancient Goddess totem, to feel the surge of the Divine Feminine, to fill this most gaping absence in the story of Women's Mystery and Creation.

Infertility is an ache that reaches far deeper into our bellies, unlike any other hunger we have known.

When Foodie met Iffy. Foodies savor abundance and hunger for more. And this iffy weeps for her empty plate and hungers for just the chance.

Just give me a taste of what this could be like.

A little self-nourishment

Ironically enough, I'm writing this as I have a little post-lunch munchies. *reaches for a granola bar* (Baruch ata ", borei minei mezonot for those of you playing along at home.)

I got to work 20 minutes early this morning, after running out of time to finish getting ready before I left home an hour earlier. So I painted my nails a shiny hot pink - a bold and unexpected color choice for me... still not sure if I like it yet.

My hair was down for the first half of the day, washed, airdryed and combed. It now rests in a soft, loose ponytail rather than in a tightly-wound still wet from my morning shower bun or hair claw.

I'm wearing a very cute new navy blue carigan with flowers on the lapel, a new ruffled tank top, and new brown peep toe flats. I bought these randomly on Tuesday night because, well, I thought they were all cute and I wanted them.

For breakfast I at a hardboiled egg I had made before I went to bed. For lunch, leftover Japanese curry my husband made for dinner last night and a salad with homemade Asian vinaigrette (mirin, rice vinegar, light and hot sesame oils, soy sauce, and black sesame seeds). And rasberries and vanilla Greek yogurt.

Right now? 15 minutes to myself at work to just breathe, write this post, and maybe take 5 minutes to walk outside and get some fresh air.

Tonight: dinner with friends at a new restaurant nearby and then back to work for 2 hours for an RA program. I'm looking forward to my commute home much later this evening so I can listen to the second chapter of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Sunday: a haircut and style for $29 at a Newbury Street salon because my husband so thoughtfully passed on a Groupon deal to me and said, "You should buy this and treat yourself. You deserve it."

He's right: I do deserve it. Sometimes it's just good to be a little selfish, take a little me-time, and treat yourself once in a while. It's so easy to keep putting off that me time and say, "I don't have time for that now. I have more important things." Well, I'm important too. If I don't take this time, then it'll be gone before I know it.

I've been making more of a commitment to both eat healthier and save some money by bringing healthy, filling lunches from home. If it means taking 20 minutes the night before to put it together, it's worth it the next day when I feed myself good things and don't break the bank by ordering pizza again.

It's about nourishing myself: not just body, but spirit. I said to Larry last night how I felt weird about my new suburban routine: get up nearly 2 hours earlier than I used to, shower, get dressed, have an hour commute to work, work all day, hour commute home, take a little time for myself, eat dinner, make my lunch for the next day, clean the kitchen, straighten up, check the weatehr and lay out next day's clothes, relax for a bit, bed. Get up at 6:30am, lather, rinse, repeat.

So if I take a few minutes to primp myself (haven't gotten to full on makeup before work... still not THAT motivated) or finally start using our Audible credits and listening to audiobooks on my commute to/from work, or even splurge on a couple of new clothes and some nail polish - all of this just to break up this new monotony, well, there it is. I'm doin' it.

What on earth does this have to do with infertility?

Take 5 minutes for yourself. Paint your nails. Make yourself a nice lunch. Give yourself a foot soak in the tub and lotion your feet afterward. Buy that cute top. Get up from your desk at work and go for a 5 minute walk outside. Nourish yourself.

I'll say it again: nourish yourself. Savor the feeling of doing something good for yourself, even if it's just 5 minutes in a busy day or an hour in a busy week. We can get so bogged down in all the craziness of treatment and homestudies and lawyers and needles and dumb FB posts from friends and disappointment and blood tests and waiting and loss of control that well...

It's enough to drive you crazy.

So nourish yourself. Feed your spirit.

It'll be that spirit that carries you along the next step in your journey, that pulls you up from the dark places, that dusts off your shoulders and says, "Alright, let's do this."

Holy OMNOMNOM-ing

Welcome to another ICLW! I've been missing from the blogosphere recently and I thought that ICLW was just what I needed to get back into the virtual swing of things. Past ICLW intros can be found linked here, but to give you the quick rundown:

• I'm 28 with POF. Hoping to pursue domestic infant adoption with my husband Larry in the next 3-5 years.
• Just bought our first house! Also, had our first (hopefully only) fire. Homeownership is full of adventure, I'm quickly learning.
• Recently featured in Tablet Magazine last month for an article about infertility and reconciling Jewish faith.
• Getting awarded next Tuesday night in NYC at RESOLVE's Night of Hope Awards for Best Viral Video.

So there's the quick schpiel.

This has been a very contemplative start to the Jewish New Year for me. While I don't think our fire was any kind of punishment from G-d, it certainly was a wake-up call. The takeaway message I got from all of this: we have a new home. It's time to really start living Jewishly.

It's time to find a shul. It's time to really start observing Shabbos, perhaps rising to the call of the Sabbath Manifesto, as we were called to do at Yom Kippur services this year. It's a neat concept that Larry particularly finds intriguing that I could get behind too.

For me? On a more personal way of being Jewish? Sanctifying the ordinary, most basic everyday act: saying the blessings before food. If I won't keep kosher (because I'm sorry, bacon cheeseburgers and lobster are too delicious for a foodie to give up entirely) then I can at least make the act of eating holy.

I'll be honest. This is not easy; there isn't one catch-all blessing I can say. There's a blessing for bread (ha-motzi lechem min ha'aretz) but a different one for pasta and crackers (borey miney mezunot). And you say one blessing for grapes and wine (fruit of the vine), one for apples, pears and the like (fruit of the tree), and another entirely for most veggies and contradictingly enough, bananas (fruit of the earth).

But I do it because it forces me to give pause before I eat, to be thankful for daily sustenance, to sanctify the ordinary and to be mindful and take note of what I'm putting into my body. I've figured out that the more blessings I have to say, the more balanced my meal ^_^

And with that, it's time for lunch. Bon apetit and happy noshing.

The Mammogram Primer

Had my mammogram yesterday. When my doc first mentioned last Monday I should get a baseline reading, I kind of freaked out a little bit. No history of breast cancer in my family, but the possibilities of what it could detect are still unsettling, at the very least. I had a pretty chill morning going to NIA dance class (more on that later) and catching up on Weeds and eating leftover Indian food for lunch. By the time I got to the hospital, I decided it wasn't worth getting myself worried sick over a simple scan, so I just let it go with the flow. Since I know many of my readers will eventually have to have a mammogram done at some point (hopefully never at the age of 28), I thought I'd make a little primer out of this. Other general life updates after the jump as well.

Mammogram Tip #1: Take a couple of ibuprofen before your appointment. I'll get to the pain part in a bit, but as a first step: pop a couple of Advil on your drive over to your imaging center. Trust me.

Mammogram Tip #2: Know your family history of breast cancer. They'll ask you both in-person and on your intake form. Other things of which you want to make sure you know the details: any hormonal medication you've taken, including birth control pills, a patch, progesterone supplements, or any kind of fertility drugs (Clomid, Gonal-F, etc.). If you've had a complicated fertility treatment history, it's not a bad idea to just have it all written or printed out with the dates of your treatment and what you took for how long. They also asked me lots of questions since I had no family history of breast cancer and was coming in here at only 28 years old. I had to do the whole "POF/POI - doc wants a baseline" schpiel.

Mammogram Tip #3: Seriously? Don't bother wearing a bra. It's gotta come off anyway, so use the appointment as a chance to swing free for a day (or in my book, no bras on the weekend). Also, wear a comfortable shirt. It'll come off too, but at least when you're done, you'll be wearing something comfortable. I cheated and wore a bathing suit underneath (went to the beach afterward); taking everything off from the waist up was a breeze :) The robe was cute too: I had my choice of pink or white kimono style, opening in the front. Of course I took the pink one!

Mammogram Tip #4: Strike up a conversation with your technician. Mine was kind enough to start it for me- I'm weird with small talk with strangers. She was very curious as to how I was diagnosed with POF and what it meant. We ended up spending almost the whole scan session talking about how adoption works in Massachusetts. And instead of asking me before my scan if there was any chance I was pregnant, she asked if I ever could get pregnant. I wasn't offended either- it was all a very nice distraction to the otherwise very comfortable procedure.

Mammogram Tip #5: Yes, it's going to hurt, but it doesn't last. The mammogram itself is VERY simple. They take four pictures to start, frontal and side views of each breast. Frontal views are the way you're probably imagining mammograms are done: lay your breast on the scan plate, and a top plate lowers down on top of it. As a mammogram is trying to make a 2D image out of a 3D object (your boob), it has to compress quite tight on top. It's definitely painful, but I know it varies based on breast tenderness and size. The scan for each picture only takes about 15 seconds; I found it helped that I inhaled as the plate compresses and exhaled on release. The side view is a bit more painful in that they rotate the bottom plate to about 45° and it compresses from the side. For some reason, on both scans, this one stung a lot more. I compare the pain to anytime you've ever walked into a corner or a door and hit it with your boob. My left breast, for whatever reason, hurt a lot more than my right one. They also have to pull all the breast tissue onto the plate, so that means potentially pulling some armpit fat up there. I know- uncomfortable, but it doesn't last. However, my boobs were definitely a little sore for about a half hour afterward, so I wish I had thought to take an ibuprofen as mentioned in Tip #1 before I left. The soreness was gone within an hour, easily.

Mammogram Tip #6: Don't be alarmed if they call you back for more scans, especially if it's your first mammogram. Since they've never had pictures of your breasts before, they may need more detailed pictures taken. This doesn't instantly mean they've found something. As I mentioned, they're making 2D pictures out of a 3D object, so depending on the compression, some areas of breast tissue may look denser than others just depending on how the breast spread out. My technician explained that they may use weights or other means of compression to help spread out any dense areas that come up. However, for most standard mammograms, such as your annual scan starting at age 40, they'll just be taking those 4 pictures.

Mammogram Tip #7: Do something nice for yourself afterward! My mom makes a "date" out of it with her friend. They both go at the same time and then usually go out to lunch together. It turns something mildly scary into something enjoyable. I ended up going to the beach. Once the scan is done, there's really nothing to do about it, so you might as well spend the time doing something nice for yourself rather than worrying about it.

Mammogram Summary: A few minutes of pain for an important women's health diagnostic, and a great excuse to make a pampered day out of it for yourself afterward.

. . .

Before my mammogram, I went to my NIA dance class. NIA requires a lot of letting go of your pre-conceived notions about aerobics and also your limits of bodily expression. I certainly got a workout (my legs are super sore this morning). But my back doesn't hurt at all. If anything, I have a greater awareness about my body movement and what feels comfortable. You don't have to know dance or martial arts or yoga to appreciate this: there is no "right" way to do NIA. You just do what feels good for your body within a set of given movements. The rest is up to you. I loved it; I wish my next two Saturdays weren't busy so I could go back again. I need to find more NIA classes, because it's a really invigorating, celebratory, expressive workout. Oh, and it won't kill my knees or my back.

Afterward, I hit the beach. Plum Island in Newburyport, MA, is seriously the hidden gem of beaches in the state. Larry is out of town this weekend at a bachelor party on Nantucket, so I thought I'd hit the beach as well. Growing up in NJ, I got spoiled by Atlantic City and Ocean City and Wildwood... NJ beaches are pretty nice and it's amazing how much warmer the water is just 5 hours south of here. Plum Island is the closest thing to a Jersey Shore experience I've had in the 3 years since moving up here. The only catch? The water is FREEZING- like, "I meant to get a tan but I got hypothermia instead" cold.

I fully intended on reading and writing while I sat on the beach: oh no. I passed the eff out. Like, I'm pretty sure I was snoring at one point PTFO'd. It was wonderful. I went for a dip in the ocean to cool off a couple of times, and then realized I was starving. I hit up downtown Newburyport and the River Merrimac Bar & Grille for dinner. Newburyport is so cute and quaint! Lots of Georgian brick-edifice buildings with neat little shops. Parking is a bit of a hassle, but walking around in the nice warm June evening air was just lovely. Dinner was exquisite: a glass of riesling (14 Hands- best riesling I've had), a beet and arugula salad with toasted sunflower seeds and applewood smoked bacon pieces with a red wine vinaigrette and for my entree: wild mushroom risotto, with oyster, portobello, and shittake mushrooms lightly sautéed with garlic, shallot and Madeira wine, served over braised greens & creamy risotto, finished with goat cheese & truffle oil. It was pretty friggin' fantastic. Topped the night off with fresh strawberry ice cream from Gram's Ice Cream and then drove home, sunkissed, tired, and super-relaxed.

With the craziness of the past few weeks, I haven't felt this relaxed in ages. Today: Strawberry Festival, one more home tour of our favorite spot, and a BBQ with friends afterward. It's been a great weekend.

Top photo by: Manuel Cacciatori via Flickr. Bottom photo by: Keiko Zoll ©2010.

June is bustin' out all over.

First: good thyroid numbers. Then: promotion. Third: House-hunting. And finally... a pre-approved mortgage, after some dicey moments on Thursday. What could possibly be left?

...We found a house. We have totally fallen in love with it. Fingers crossed, we have one more home tour on Sunday, but come Monday morning, we're hoping to put in an offer. I've been holding onto this info since Wednesday, but I didn't want to jinx it until I knew we were pre-approved for the mortgage.



This is certainly shaping up to be one helluva summer fast.

Tomorrow morning I have dance class. Given the recent state of my back, I'm glad I signed up for a no-impact style, called NIA. Has anyone tried it? I'm intrigued, so I'm dropping in for a class at the Somerville Armory tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. NIA originally stood for No-Impact Aerobics, but is now called Neuromuscular Integrative Action. Very very hippie in its approach, but I'm kind of interested by the celebratory tone of it. This video provides a great overview of NIA. Neat looking, right? I'll certainly post how it went here.

Tomorrow afternoon? Not so fun: mammogram at 2pm. I will also post about that.

Larry's away for the weekend, back Sunday night, and then out of town until Thursday. Part of me is kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop... it's been quite a while since we've had good fortune. For now, I'm spending this time to relax while I can, because this summer is going to gear up fast.

Shabbat shalom folks.

Thyroid Update: The Butterfly in My Neck

Why the butterfly in my neck? The thyroid gland kind of looks like a little butterfly as it sits on your larynx. The butterfly is also the symbol of thyroid cancer survivors as well (no, I don't have cancer, but I like the transformational inspiration associated with the butterfly).

As you know, in addition to POI, I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Monday I had yet another followup appointment with my doctor. After my latest round of bloodwork, and for the first time in just over a year (by 2 weeks!) my TSH values would appear to be normalized and in optimal range. Triumph! I've made some definite progress since my last thyroid checkup in April. My numbers have come back the best ever, and not just my thyroid results.

My TSH is currently at 1.0. Free T3 is chillin' at 2.95, and free T4 is looking good at 1.17. These are all rather good numbers. The 137mcg of Levoxyl seems to be doing the trick, even while I'm on the pill. I thought for sure we'd have to double the dosage (the steroidal estrogen in the pill binds to the thyroid hormone in my medicine, zeroing out the actual amount of thyroid hormone I receive) but apparently the jump from 125mcg to 137mcg was enough to do the job. Symptomatically, I feel the best I have in a year. The brain fog is basically gone and I'm not walking around like a zombie. I still get fatigue, but I imagine it's likelier the result of diet, going to bed at 1am every night, and stress. My doc mentioned something about iron deficiency, so he's having my iron levels tested.

The numbers that surprised me the most were my lipid panel. My total cholesterol went down from 222 in January to 194 in June! No medication, no exercise... all just changes to my diet. (Speaking of- given the recent loss of my grandmother, we might have fallen off the good eating wagon a little hard.) My LDL and HDL numbers look good too; they've also decreased since January. I fully credit Dr. Organic with this progress. My triglycerides were high at 196; more indicative of insulin resistance than anything else. The doc recommends sticking with lifestyle change at this point, because it's clearly working, and triglycerides can be managed by lifestyle.

The only bad numbers I had were my vitamin D levels. I'm a bit low. Not in the "gonna get rickets" range, but I seriously need to start taking the supplements that my doc prescribed and I never got filled... oops.

These are the first positive set of numbers I've had all year, and I've got symptoms (or lack thereof) to back them up, which is vital to proper thyroid management. I just need to keep an eye out for my adrenal function. Basically, Hashi's is an autoimmune thyroid disease where my body just kind of eats my thyroid until it stops working. As my anti-thyroid antibodies are so high (over 1000), my POI is most likely caused by autoimmune disfunction as well. It is very possible that I could develop polyglandular autoimmune disorder where the next thing my body goes after is the adrenal gland. That would not be good at all, so I need to be on the lookout. The doc ordered that blood test as well.

Speaking of blood tests... It took one hour, three phlebotomists, and six- yes six attempts to draw just one vial of blood from me. I have awful, awful veins, and the two I can count on refused to cooperate Monday. I tried hydrating, hot compresses, pumping my fist, letting my arm hang down - you name it, I did it. I may look a wee bit like a junkie with bruises all over the insides of both arms and the back of my right hand.

Other testing: I'm getting a mammogram on Saturday. Not too thrilled about that; less upset about the discomfort and more about the fact that I'm 28 and now have to start regular mammograms. My doc wants this as a baseline but recommends that I have them done annually since I'm now on HRT. The test itself doesn't unnerve me, but the implications for what it could detect does. Cancer does run in my family (mostly bladder, colon, and skin) so yanno, in my paranoid mind I'm quietly freaking out. Oh, and I got my annual gyno exam and pap smear. Love the boob massage- I mean breast exam, hate the "wham bam thank you ma'am" tone of the pelvic exam.

Assuming my iron levels and anti-adrenal antibody tests come back normal, I don't need to see the good doctor for six months. It feels a little weird, I won't lie; I've been at his office every six weeks like clockwork and now to have this stretch into potentially the end of the year... Sometimes it's hard to let the idea that I'm actually getting better sink into my brain.

Other medical news: my back is doing leaps and bounds better. My x-rays revealed that yes, I have degenerative arthritis in my lower spine (AWESOME) and that it could flare up again. One (hopefully) last chiropractor appointment on Friday. I can now sleep through the night sans pillows around my legs and back and don't need to ice it as frequently. I've also stopped taking Advil like it's going out of fashion, so that's good. My stomach lining and liver are appreciative, I'm sure.

The healing that I've worked so hard on in my mind is finally starting to make an appearance in my physical body.

The butterfly has transformed.


Photo and original body art by Ally Averell via Flickr in honor of Thyroid Awareness Month 2010.

Thought for Food

I mentioned my husband and I have begun seeing a nutritionist. Hooray! It's another opportunity to invent a pseudonym! So, I'm going to calling her Dr. Organic. She's not a doctor, but she's wicked smart, and I like the way the name sounds.

So. Dr. Organic is a foodie like us! She gets it when we enjoy tasting, eating, and cooking. She understands that we live in such a great restaurant city how could we not go out all the time? She understands that food isn't just sustenance: it's a sensual, emotional experience. She appreciates our love of cheese, local foods, and gourmet experimentation in the kitchen. She appreciates the value of shallots. That says a lot to me.

In our first appointment with her, we realized what our biggest problem was: our eating habits and schedule were so chaotic. Our bigger problem? We never go grocery shopping. I come home from work, we play the "What's for dinner game?" and in our laziness either go out or order in because it's easier than going to the store, getting all the ingredients, coming home, and cooking. And we weren't making good choices about the places we'd go out to eat.

Dr. Organic's suggestion was so simple: plan your meals for the week. We spent a session just planning out what we'd eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day. We made a grocery list. We went shopping at the start of that week. It felt revolutionary to Larry and I, but it was the easiest solution staring us in the face the whole time.

By planning breakfasts, it reminded me there was food in the fridge or fruit in the bowl that needed to get eaten or it would go to waste. Our other problem was not eating breakfast. I never put it together, but when you have dinner at 8pm, go to bed at midnight, and don't eat again until noon, you're going almost 15 hours without eating. Your body goes into feast or famine mode, so it holds onto EVERYTHING in an effort to compensate for the fact that your body thinks it's not going to eat again, so it better start storing up all that fat. Who knew? So now I eat breakfast. It started small: a cup of yogurt here, a piece of fruit there. Now Dr. Organic is pushing us to have a little bit of something from each food group: maybe yogurt with berries and granola, or a quiche cup that we make in batches and freeze until we're ready to eat them. We've learned to make use of our freezer, to cook in advance, and adjust when our moods change and we suddenly don't feel like Tacos on Tuesday. (But I mean, how could you not, it's Taco Tuesday?!)

All this planning has helped bring a sense of structure to our somewhat chaotic schedules. We don't homecook every night; we plan nights and meals out, but we're putting so much more thought into what we eat. We're learning to compromise. If I had some cookies after lunch, do I really need dessert after dinner? If I'm ordering noodles at my favorite Japanese place, do I need the sushi or can I just get the sashimi? I really just want the fish, so why have all that extra rice with my noodles?

Larry and I don't do diets. And Dr. Organic doesn't weigh us, doesn't make us count calories. She's helping to create a lifestyle change, a cultural shift in our culinary pursuits. She's challenging us to engage our minds, not just our tastebuds. And we're losing weight- nothing dramatic, but it's happening at a natural pace in step with our lifestyle changes.

And change is delicious.

Welcome to April's ICLW!

Hi there! If you're stopping by from ICLW, welcome and thanks for visiting. I think most of my pages and tags should be good places to get started to know a little bit more about this blog, but here's the quick and dirty reader's digest version with links to relevant blog posts to get you up to speed:

• Hi! I'm Miriam Keiko. The hubs is Ari Larry. We are so totally in love it's kind of ridiculous; we're high school sweethearts of 10+ years, only married for the last 2.5. We're Jewish, we love food, we love to travel. Oh, and we really want to be parents.
• I've got one ovary, and it's way busted (premature ovarian failure). My thyroid is also pretty busted (Hashimoto's thyroiditis). Our options, as I was told a year ago, is IVF with DE or adoption.
• Current treatments: birth control pills as hormone replacement therapy. I'm currently having my first "period" in over a year. I use the term loosely since it's really just withdrawal bleeding from skipping a couple of days of the pill. Also, I'm on Levoxyl for my thyroid. I've got a regular thyroid monitoring appointment on Thursday.
• After much ruminating, we've decided to pursue adoption! Like, literally finalized this decision a couple of weeks ago. We're still in the info gathering stages and have lots of questions. I'm definitely on the hunt for other adoption bloggers to follow.
• Next week is National Infertility Awareness Week. It's a cause near and dear to my heart.

I look forward to discovering new blogs and meeting new bloggers this week. I'm also going for Iron Commenter status, and working on What IF: Part Two, so I'm hoping to get in at least 2 posts this week, but it might be rough. Want to know more? Leave me a comment or shoot me at email (miriamshope AT gmail).

Happy commenting this week!

EDIT: In light of posting my What IF? video, I've put our real names up here and changed my "About Me" page.

Blog Award from Sonja!

As promised, here's the blog award I received from Sonja over at The Mud and the Lotus. Thanks Sonja :) She's awesome, and her recently redesigned and retitled blog looks fab, so pop on over and say hello!

10 Things About Me:

1. I have a handful of trademark photos I take every time I have a camera in my hands: macro shots, interesting shadows, looking up through trees, anything with patterns, long angled perspectives, and playing with off-centering/cropping. I take macro shots of everything.
2. I appeared on Good Morning America with my second grade class, literally saying "Good morning, America!" as the lead in to one of their random segments. We still have it on Betamax. That's right- Betamax!
3. I absolutely love playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I'm level 37(? I think?) and my weapon of choice is the Scar-H.
4. I love shopping at farmers' markets in the summer, and creating all sorts of seasonal dishes on the fly.
5. I eat my cereal dry, but will have a glass of milk with it. I just don't like mushy cereal, but I do appreciate the taste combination of milk and cereal together.
6. I say the V'ahavta during every takeoff, and repeat it over and over from the moment we start taxiing until wheels have left the ground.
7. My favorite football team is the Washington Redskins, and my favorite player is Clinton Portis. Even though Mark Brunell hasn't been on the team in years, I still find reasons to make fun of him when I watch a Skins game.
8. I love reading very quirky non-fiction, such as Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, Kitchen Confidential. I also love quirky documentaries like Beer Wars, King of Kong, Helvetica, Contstantine's Sword. With the aid of these lovely context clues, you should be able to derive I am a huge dork.
9. I am paralyzingly terrified of jellyfish when I go in the ocean. I think they're cool looking and fascinating, but the idea of being stung by one freaks me out so much.
10. I am a terrible baker, but I make a mean tomato sauce and can cook fish to perfection. The only baked good I can make really well are sugar cookies, I think b/c it's simply the easiest cookie recipe ever. Also, I make amazing pancakes.

And now, I'm giving this award to the following 10 bloggers, in no particular order:

1. In Due Time
2. Elana at Elana's Musings
3. Wiseguy over at Woman Anyone?
4. IF Optimist, then...
5. Bella & Her Fella -(she's got new protected digs over at WordPress)
6. Hillary at Making Me Mom
7. An Unwanted Path
8. Pour Away the Ocean (formerly, Infertility Rocks!)
9. Body Diaries by Lucy
10. Hope at A Chance Worth Taking

Miriam's Foodie Fridays 1

Welcome to Miriam's Foodie Fridays! Since good food is better shared, Miriam's Foodie Fridays will be open to anyone on the blogosphere who'd like to participate!

How can you participate in Miriam's Foodie Fridays? It's simple!

1. Snag the badge- grab the code here.
   
2. On Friday, post to your blog a new recipe that you've made over the past week. Make sure to cite your source, if applicable.
   
3. If you got some food porn, include that too. Everyone loves a tasty macro shot.
   
4. Tell us how the new recipe was: was it delish? Was it a bust? Would you make it again? Dish!
   
5. Leave a comment on the latest Foodie Fridays blog post here with a link to your post.
6. Ta da! That's it :)

On a ridiculously cold night here in Boston, I wanted to warm up our bellies with a deliciously oh-so bad for you version of macaroni and cheese that's so bad for you it's almost sinful. I bring you...

Fancy Macaroni, from Ree over at The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

I'm actually not going to repost the recipe here, so you'll have to click over to get all the details. And quite frankly, her recipe and the step-by-step picture guide is probably the most hilariously written recipe blog post I've ever read. It's totally worth the CTRL + click over.

A brief summary of the ingredients:

• 2 cups of whole milk (I used ultra pasteurized skim that tastes like 2%)
• half and half (This is where I made up for not having whole milk by using heavy cream... since I didn't have half and half)
• 2 cups of various cheeses (I ended up using vlaskas gouda, aged guyere, sharp cheddar, parmegiano reggiano, fontina, and chevre)
• caramelized onions
• bacon, sweet glorious bacon...
• ...and its decadent drippings

This is a labor intensive recipe - lots of prep, but totally worth the payoff. It is damn hard not to snack on all the various ingredients as you prep them for the final dish. It was amazing. We have a ton left too. With all the various types of cheeses, you have a very complex mix of flavors with each bite. Some bites were creamier, with that almost chalky finish of the chevre. Other bites were more pungent, the sweet onion playing off the fruitiness of the guyere and the sharpness of the cheddar. Ari thought that the complexity of all the cheeses actually made the bacon taste sweet. Yes, it's got a little bit of that "heart attack on a plate" going for it, but it is worth every extra notch up on my cholesterol scale.

Bonus recipe!

Grilled Tomato Salad, by yours truly

Take a couple of ripe tomatoes and slice in half. Throw on the grill cut side down until they're done. In my case, it's the middle of winter, so I put them on a griddle/skillet/pan thingie I have, put it on high heat, and just let them cook. Create a bed of salad greens in a bowl. Whip up a little balsamic vinaigrette with balsamic vinegar and olive oil (1:1 ratio) and drizzle over salad greens. Place the grilled tomato half cut side up on bed of greens, and drizzle just a smidge of olive oil right on top of the tomato. Feel free to garnish with fresh chopped basil.

What recipe do you have to add to The Collective Cookbook for Miriam's Foodie Friday? Leave a comment on the most recent Foodie Friday post here with your link to your recipe post!

Miriam's Foodie Fridays!

I'm starting a new tradition here at HWSL: Miriam's Foodie Fridays! As part of my New Year's resolutions (I'll have a nice long post about those this weekend), I want to cook a new recipe at least once a week for the entire year. I want to share that recipe, along with some serious food porn shots of the cooking process and end results, along with my reviews, here on the web for you to a) drool over and b) hopefully try on your own!  Since good food is better shared, Miriam's Foodie Fridays will be open to anyone on the blogosphere who'd like to participate!

How can you participate in Miriam's Foodie Fridays? It's simple!

1. Snag the badge- grab the code here.
   
2. On Friday, post to your blog a new recipe that you've made over the past week. Make sure to cite your source, if applicable.
   
3. If you got some food porn, include that too. Everyone loves a tasty macro shot.
   
4. Tell us how the new recipe was: was it delish? Was it a bust? Would you make it again? Dish!
   
5. Leave a comment on the latest Foodie Fridays blog post here with a link to your post.
6. Ta da! That's it :)

I'm hoping that by opening this up to others I a) actually commit to doing this and keeping my resolution and b) discover some really great recipes and recipe resources out there.

And the inaugural recipe?

Smoked Paprika Roasted Salmon with Wilted Spinach 

Ingredients
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon olive oil, divided
2 teaspoons dried thyme Leaves , divided
2 pounds salmon fillets
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon Paprika, Smoked
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt (unground)
1 bag(10 ounces) fresh spinach leaves

Directions
1. Mix orange juice, 2 tablespoons of the oil and 1 teaspoon of the thyme in small bowl. Place salmon in glass dish. Add marinade; turn to coat. Cover. Refrigerate 30 minutes or longer for extra flavor.
2. Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix brown sugar, smoked paprika, cinnamon, orange peel, remaining 1 teaspoon thyme and sea salt in small bowl. Remove salmon from marinade. Place in greased foil-lined baking pan. Discard any remaining marinade.
3. Rub top of salmon evenly with smoked paprika mixture. Roast 10 to 15 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.
4. Meanwhile, heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in large skillet on medium heat. Add spinach; cook 2 minutes or until wilted. Serve salmon over spinach.

Source: TheNest.com (link to recipe here).

Paired with a lil homemade garlic bread, and accompanied only by the finest Virgil's root beer. Candles optional.

This recipe was really a hit Thursday night! I thought 10oz of spinach would be too much, but I ended up using an entire 5oz box of baby spinach. It was just the right amount of spinach to the portion of fish. I used a little bit too much of the rub - I forgot I was only working with 1.5lbs of salmon, so I thought I needed to use all the extra rub. Smoked paprika is fantastic - the smokey, earthy flavor reminds me of campfires and autumn; it's delicious. A tip: mash up the dried thyme in your hands before adding to the marinade and rub to release the oils. If you use a salt grinder like I do, don't grind the sea salt. The crunch and texture of the salt is a nice contrast to the soft give of the salmon and the softness of the spinach. The richness of the rub would actually pair really nicely with a spicy red wine, but alas, it was root beer tonight.

What recipe do you have to add to The Collective Cookbook for Miriam's Foodie Friday? Leave a comment on the most recent Foodie Friday post here with your link to your recipe post!

Also, feel free to snag the handy dandy sidebar badge below:

Dear Thyroid: You suck.

My appointment with Dr. G was a disaster. Despite the dosage increase, symptomatically, I've felt the worst I've felt so far (horrendous brain fog, lethargy, sleepiness, coldness in hands and feet - the usual). And yet the numbers say the inverse: my TSH was 0.024 - well in the hyperthyroid range. This is apparently common for folks with Hashi's - they can yo-yo between hypo- and hyperthyroid. Given the random spurts of racing heart rates and palpitations over the last month, and the recent crazy bouts of insomnia I'm dealing with, I knew this was going to happen. I have all the classic signs of a "thyroiditis flare up."

Basically, my thyroid is losing its damn mind, as indicated by the graph below. My TSH levels are in blue:

Dr. G has again prescribed a dosage increase (up to 137 mcg now) and has moved me to Synthroid instead of Levoxyl. The difference between the drugs is minimal, but perhaps my body might prefer one over another. It's like the difference between a Honda and a Toyota - they're both good Japanese cars, but some people just like one over the other (for the record, I'm a Honda girl and Ari is a Toyota boy).

My T3 has also been steadily climbing with each dosage adjustment. I need to go back and do some basic primer reading on T3 and T4 levels and what the hell they mean, b/c I just can't remember. This thyroid stuff is complicated and confusing.

I thought that perhaps Dr. G is moving a bit too conservatively, so I thought by telling a little white lie I might move things along more aggressively. I mentioned that Ari and I were earnestly moving forward with DE/IVF in the next six months (really, prolly not for another year), so let's get my body in shape to make that happen. The most aggressive thing he did was send me to the lab for 5 vials of blood and tons of bloodwork: vitamin D, folic acid, estrogen & progesterone (I think), cholesterol, hemoglobin A1C (glucose over time), and a host of other tests. I spent a half hour in the lab, b/c once again, my notorious thin/spongey/rolling veins played their little games and it took 3 sticks, 2 cups of water, and lots of fist pumping and overly tight tourniquets to be able to actually fill any of the 5 vials needed. It didn't help that the phlebotomist slipped when undoing the tourniquet and pulling out the needle and missed hitting the puncture wound with the gauze, sending a spurt of blood high into the air and almost all over my shirt (it did get all over my arm, her glove, and the tourniquet itself). I almost hit the floor - I just don't do blood, my own or otherwise.

It's been 8 months and I have little to show for it - I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life, I feel miserable, and oh yeah, can't have my own kids. I hate feeling like a prisoner in my own body. I hate knowing that I used to be 118 lbs just 9 years ago, could do a two-hour performance singing and dancing with only a minor asthma attack afterward, and I looked good. I looked healthy. My periods were regular, albeit artificial with birth control, and my sex drive was almost criminal.

Cut to me now: 186 lbs (I only gained a pound since my last appointment, but I just feel a lot heavier), wheezing just going up a flight of stairs, not to mention the joint pain in my knees (another side effect of Hashi's - joint paint), and the worst acne of my life, a generally puffy face in addition to my double chin (another Hashi's side effect), premature ovarian failure, and a sex drive that comes and goes, and never with any great fanfare. It's practically a passing thought that I try to actually respond to once in a while.

I hate knowing that I could do so much more if I just had the energy, if I just had a body that would cooperate with me for more than a couple of weeks at a time. I hate getting stuck with needle after needle, praying that maybe this time- this time-  my TSH will be in the optimal range and I can stick with one dosage for more than 6 weeks at a time. I hate feeling physically a lot older than 27. I hate looking in the mirror at myself and thinking, Miriam, what the fuck happened to you in the last decade? Where did that spunky spry go-get-em girl disappear to?

While I'm still coping with infertility, realistically, my bigger issue right now is my thyroid. I desperately need to find some Hashimoto's or Hashi's w/POF blogs out there. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love them. It's so frustrating to know that I can't even begin to address any of the infertility until my thyroid chills the fuck out... I told Ari at lunch today, it almost seems like we should just start the adoption process now b/c I'm sure that will move faster than trying to get my body ready for IVF.

I'm tired of feeling like everything in my life is perpetually on hold right now.

Makin' a list and checking it twice.

So, if we want to get this "having a baby" party started, I'll need to have a few things in order. It is astounding everything we need to consider in the grand scope of things. And when I look back on it? I want to throttle my high school health teacher for spreading this notion that getting pregnant consists of merely glancing at a member of the opposite sex, let alone actual contact. In a way, I'm thankful I was diagnosed before we started trying, b/c I've probably only spent about $75 in my lifetime on pg tests, back when I missed a pill here or there or my period was randomly late. Man, if only I knew!

DE/IVF affords us the rare opportunity to time things in a way that natural conception can't. And this might not be the best thing for us, since we (like to) get a little caught up in the planning stages of things. (Case in point- the nearly 2 years we had to plan our wedding. We had everything planned to the smallest detail.)

So here's what we need to have sorted out before we can begin this journey:

1. Insurance. This is pretty self-explanatory, but having an insurance plan written in the state of MA is a biggie, b/c MA has some of the most comprehensive infertility treatment laws in the nation. In a lot of ways, it really binds us locationally to this state (which is great, b/c I love it here). The other option is NJ, which is where Ari and I are from originally, but like I said, we love it up here and MA is where all of our friends are.
   
2. Income. Also pretty self-explanatory. Right now, we're working on 1.5 incomes as Ari gets the new business up and running. Seeing as we need to sack away upwards of $15k for one DE/IVF cycle, this is also a biggie.
   
3. Housing. I'm in the unique position of having free housing with my job. It's been a lifesaver for the past 9 months. However, there are also unique challenges with my job as a result of said free housing and how it relates to maternity leave.
   
4. Well-managed thyroid. Have another monitoring appointment on 12/21. I'm hoping I'm in a better TSH range, but my suspicion is that it has crept back up, as symptomatically, I've felt like poo since I upped dosages. I think I may have had another ATA attack, and I'm dumping TSH right now. My RE is a little slow on protocol, and I'm seriously considering getting a second opinion/more aggressive RE after the new year.
   
5. Lose weight. I've got about 50lbs I need to lose to get my BMI where it needs to. And losing weight will be next to impossible until I have a well-managed thyroid.
6. Adopt healthy lifestyles. Regular exercise, eating better, and getting everything squared away with my teeth, because oral health is directly linked to instances of miscarriage.

This is totally doable.


..right?

Show & Tell 3: No Reservations about Anthony Bourdain

Sushi, anyone?

This is Anthony Bourdain. I have a little bit of a celebrity crush on him.

That purple door really brings out your cigarette.

He's written a totally awesome book, Kitchen Confidential, which I finished listening to on audiobook a couple of weeks ago. In fact, it was the audiobook I listened to for the several long drives back and forth from NJ to MA the week Ari's Nan passed away. I've been a skeptic about audiobooks, but having watched No Reservations regularly, I knew Tony (yeah, we're cool like that) had a great speaking voice, and it would be an easy listen. It's a fantastic no-holds-barred look at the dirty underbelly of the restaurant biz. You will think twice about ordering fish on Mondays or brunch on, well, ever, and you'll have a new found appreciation for butter, Ecuadorian kitchen staff, women chefs and line cooks, and patient spouses. It is a highly enjoyable "read" (can I say that since I didn't actually pick up a book?) and a must for foodies.

Ari and I tune in every Monday for No Reservations (or at least we Tivo it and catch up during the week). We're getting ridiculously excited about our forthcoming two-week trip to Japan in mid-October. And yes, we've rewatched all the No Reservations Japan/Tokyo eps already :) There's a razor sharp wit and practicality, as well as a genuine sense of humbleness to Tony Bourdain that we both really love and appreciate, and it makes us think twice, or rather think intentionally, about the food we eat and the places we visit. We've decided that we both want Tony Bourdain's job - traveling the world, eating, and writing. Next on my reading list is his book about the No Reservation experience, similarly titled.

For the record, I find it kind of hysterical that I've grown up to become a foodie, when I was pickiest eater as a child ever. I will try just about anything that's not moving. I am sucking up the courage to eat kobe beef tartar when we make a day trip to Kobe. We are PUMPED about arranging a traditional kaiseki dinner in Kyoto or Tokyo. But what it comes down to it is that I love good food, good flavors, new experiences. I relate closely to that opening scene in Ratatouille, where Remy goes on about how food is just awesome, how flavors combine and collide and the resulting sensation in your mouth and there's all the corresponding fireworks and swirls... o la la!

Rats can be foodies, too.

But back to the task at hand: Tony Bourdain. The point of my Show and Tell this time around is that, well, I've got it bad for the man. And Ari is totally aware, b/c I make some inappropriate comment every time the show is on. He's suave, quite good looking for an older dude, he's well-traveled, cooks a good meal.. what more could a girl ask for?

How can you resist that boyish charm?

. . .

Make sure you visit Mel's place and see what the other kids are showing off this week!