Nebulous Mooch

Everyone has a favorite food. Here’s a video about mine.

I had a busy morning so here’s a fast post. It’s another episode of name that vegetable. I used to think I was well versed in veggies, but when I moved to the UK I saw a few that were new to me. This is one of them.

My husband ate the worst salad in the world in the Madrid airport. It most have been pretty bad, because it seems to have left more of an impression on him than the salad with a German cockroach in it that he ate in the Canary Islands. He brought the napkin from the Madrid airport restaurant home with him because he thought the name of it was so funny. The napkin sits on our dining table and every time we eat he picks it up and asks me if I’ve written a post about it yet.

My husband tends to have lots of ideas about posts for this blog. Usually if I stall long enough he forgets about them, but this napkin thing just won’t go away. So here’s the napkin.

He says that if he had noticed the name of the resturant before he bought the salad he would’ve gone somewhere else.

The reason I was reluctant to post this is because before I moved to the UK that would’ve meant anything to me. My husband says that I’m in the minority and that most people know what that means. So if anyone else out there is completely unaware of how the English pronounce certain words here’s an explanation. Ars which I think should have an e on the end so it is spelled arse is how the English pronounce the word ass. (I’m pretty sure that’s a run on sentence, but I so don’t care.)

You shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. I think I remember Richard Simmons or Oprah or some such person saying that once or twice. I consider myself a responsible shopper and try my best to always follow this rule, but whether I’m hungry or not sometimes I can’t resist certain foods.

My latest impulse buy was a package of venison sausages. It’s not a bag of chips (crisps to my British homies) or a box of doughnuts, but this package of sausages does cause a bit of an eating dilemma in our home. My husband doesn’t eat gluten. He says that avoiding it makes him stronger. While I admit that he is stronger than he looks, I’m not sure that his strength has increased any since going on a gluten-free diet. Wheat flour is the last item on the sausages’ short list of ingredients, but it is still there.

Now I have a pack of six venison sausages and–here’s were things get a bit tricky–no freezer. Looks like I’m going to be eating sausage for most of my meals this week.

My in-laws spent their last day in town at our flat. I planned to cook a chicken with roasted potatoes for them. I thought that was a good safe meal that most people would eat. My usually fair is curry and I know they don’t eat curry. The day before they were to come to our house my father-in-law suddenly starts talking about how he doesn’t eat chicken.

My husband: Oh no. We were going to make a chicken for you tomorrow.

My father-in-law: Don’t worry about us we’re easy to feed.

My husband: What do you want to eat then?

My father-in-law: It doesn’t matter. We’ll eat whatever you give us, but I don’t eat chicken or lamb. I don’t like any chunks of meat.

My mother-in-law: He’ll eat mince.

My husband: Do you eat fish?

My father-in-law: I like cod.

So I ended up making chilli. That’s an easy dish made with mince. I grew up just calling it chilli, but here they call it chilli con carne. I guess that’s the dishes full name. The problem is that I’d never seen it written, I’ve only heard it said. All this time I thought it was chilli con cardy. So I’ve been saying chilli con cardy to people and either no one has noticed or people here are too polite to point out my mistake. I only learned I was saying it wrong when my husband pointed it out the other day.

Anyway, if we lived near my in-laws I’m pretty sure that my father-in-law would provide an endless amount of material for this blog. I could probably get a week’s worth of blogging material from one two-hour visit.

Airline food has never been good. I think the the best food I’ve eaten on a plane was on Korean Air. They used to serve bi bim bap (a traditional Korea rice dish) and it was always quite delicious.

We usually fly on Delta, because they love to fly and it shows. Really it’s just because we usually find the best prices on Delta. My anti-jet lag fasting regime is made easier by the fact that the food is so bad. They always seem to serve a piece of rubbery chicken that tastes like it’s been rubbed in someone’s sweaty armpit. The chicken is usually service with odd tasting rice and vegetable cooked beyond recognition. If you don’t want the chicken and you’re not avoiding gluten you can have the pasta that’s been cooked so much that you don’t have to bother with the inconvenience of chewing. It just dissolves in your mouth like pasta should.

Recently, we flew United and I have to say that after dealing with Delta’s disgusting food so often United’s meals seemed luxurious. The vegetables were recognizable. The chicken was still rubbery, but didn’t have the armpit aftertaste. For a snack before landing we were served a chickpea and eggplant salad that was actually nice.

Flying with United isn’t all sunshine and sausages though. They do have a bit of a bad reputation for their treatment of musical instruments that they live up too. While my husband’s bass was still in working order, his bass case was all busted up when we claimed our baggage after the flight. Flying with United is too much of a risk for us. We’ll just have to suffer with Delta’s disgusting meals.

Picture by Like_the_Grand_Canyon.

My mother says that when I was a toddler every time I got sick I’d lie in bed and ask for cheese. After about a day of eating only cheese I’d be just fine. I guess that’s why cheese holds a special place in my heart. I’m especially found of unpasteurized cheeses. My favorites these days are gruyere and some other French cheese that I don’t remember the name of. It smells kind of like old crusty feet, but it tastes really nice.

My husband is big into soft cheeses, but I don’t like those at all. I especially hate brie and reblochon. I’ve never liked brie and I got sick after eating some reblochon once. Okay, the reblochon in question had been open in the refrigerator longer than it should have been, and if I’m completely honest I have to admit that it did look a bit suspect. But, what is cheese exactly? It’s bad milk. If it’s already gone bad how can it go bad any more. That was my theory at least. Sadly, my theory was proven wrong when I promptly brought up the contents of my stomach after eating a piece of slightly questionable reblochon.

The point of all of this is that my husband wrote a song about cheese for his upcoming album. Here it is.

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I bought some pâté the other day because I’ve never had it before. I thought that since I like liver so much I’d like it. I bought these little crackers to eat it on because we don’t usually have things like crackers in our house. I was so excited to try it, but when I put it on the cracker and went to take a bite I started heaving immediately. I made myself eat it anyway, but only half. I had to throw the other half away. Then I had to eat some left over potatoes from Sunday’s roast. Then I had to eat a piece of cheese. Then some sauerkraut. Then some kimchi. Then another piece of cheese. Then some more kimchi and sauerkraut. Then some almonds. Then I brushed my teeth and I swore I could still taste the pâté.

When my husband came out of his cave a few minutes later I told him that I’d already eaten lunch and he could have some of the pâté if he wanted, but I think it might be bad. He ate almost the entire thing of pâté. The whole time he was talking about how much he liked it and I was gagging.

There’s something about making a paste out of meat that really disturbs me. I thought I had gotten over it, but obviously I haven’t. Actually, it’s not just meats in paste form that bother me. I used to feel the same way about mashed potatoes, but recently I’ve been able to control my gag reflect while eating them. I just have to try really hard not to think about what I’m eating. Oh yeah, and soggy bread products. Just the sight of them makes me feel like I might barf. Bread pudding or anything that involves wetting bread is just too much for me to handle. It’s strange really because I love humus and that’s a paste-like food. I think refried beans are great too and they can be pasty.

So I guess the lesson to learn from this is that beans are about the only thing it’s okay to mash. Everything else should stay in its original unmashed state. Something to remember if you ever invite me over for dinner.

My husband was told by the doctor not too long ago that he has a Candida problem. He keeps getting yeasty ear infections. Candida treatment isn’t covered under the NHS. He would need to see a private medical professional to take care of the problem. So in true Bettison fashion we’ve decided to take care of this problem ourselves.

We’ve been on a torturous anti-Candida cleansing diet for a week. Basically we couldn’t eat anything. Really, that’s a gross exaggeration. We didn’t eat any starches for a week. It was all veggies and protein and I hated it. We’ve also had to cut out two of my favorite cooking ingredients, soy sauce and fish sauce. Normally, we practically live on Thai curries. I’m also a huge fried rice fan. We’ve also had to stop eating sugars which isn’t a problem because we rarely eat anything sweet. I do tend to eat piles of raisins during the day though. Apparently, that counts as sweet.

About Candida

Candida albicans is the name of a yeast that lives in your gut. Your digestive tract is full of lovely micro-organisms having a big party. They all live peacefully together, but sometimes things horribly go wrong. The friendly bacteria in your gut gets killed off by illness, medication or maybe even injury. Without anyone to keep them in check the Candida get out of control like teenagers left alone by their vactioning parents.

The Candida start having a big keg party and inviting all their yeasty friends to completely trash your body. That’s when you start noticing symptoms like diahrrea, bloating, and gas. The systems aren’t limited to the digestive tract though. You may also experience headaches, fatigue, joint and muscle pain and cloudy thinking. My thinking has been cloudy ever since I can remember, maybe I have a permanent Candida infection. The Candida party will eventually start to spill out of you causing yeast infections, thrush, jock itch and rectal itching. (Isn’t that lovely)

You know the party is getting really wild when the Candida starts to do damage to your intestinal walls causing an illness known as leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut syndrome occurs when the walls of your intestines become permeable allowing toxins and food partials to spill into your blood stream.

Because your gut and immune system are tightly linked Candida overgrowth has also been linked to some autoimmune diseases.

If you’re looking to start a Candida diet here are some foods you need to cut out.

Sugar

Yeast loves sugar. That means cutting out all the sweet yummy foods in your life, like cake. Her are some other foods to avoid.

• sugar
• honey
• maple syrup
• agave nectar
• high fructose corn syrup (you really shouldn’t be eating that anyway)
• dried fruits
• super sweet fruits (bananas, oranges…)

Simple Starches

Simple starches turn right to sugar once they hit your system. That’s not good. You don’t want to give those yeasties more of what they want. Avoid white rice, pasta, white bread and other pasteries.

Yeast

The last thing you want to do is invite any more yeast to this party. That’s why foods that contain yeast are not a good idea. So no store bought fermented foods. I really wish I knew how to make soy sauce at home. Here’s a list:

• soy sauce
• vinegar
• most condiments
• pickles
• sauerkraut
• olives
• bread (again)
• alcohol

Now that you’ve cut all the joy and pleasure out of life the Candida party will die down a bit. Once the party winds down and they start to tire out it’s time to hit them were it hurts.

Bring in the Anti-Fungals

Now that they’re weak it’s time to hit them with some anti-fungals. You can get your doctor to prescribe you an anti-fungal medication, but if your cheap like me you might want to go for an all natural one. Here are a few:

• grapefruit seed extract
• oil of oregano
• coconut oil
• garlic
• clove oil
• olive leaf extract
• aloe vera

We’re using grapefruit seed extract along with a bit of coconut oil. We use coconut oil all the time anyway.

Probiotics

Once you’ve killed off the yeast you need to repopulate the space with some healthy bacteria. Take a good quality probiotic supplement. If you leave that space unpopulate Candida riffraff might move right back in. Getting good bacteria in there as soon as possible is necessary to make sure your Candida problem doesn’t return.

We’re in week two of our Candida diet and I can say that even though I hate having a restricted diet it’s going okay. I mean I’m not alive and well enough to write this post.

I used to think Candida sounded kind of pretty. It could be my first child’s name…Candida Marie Bettison. I’ve changed my mind now. Our first child will definitely be named Lactobacillus Bettison instead.

Last night we had ratatouille for dinner. It was good, but there was a small amount left over. I was trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers to feed both of us for lunch today when I came across a wonderful suggestion online. Ratatouille omelets!!! It may not seem very good to you, but you have to trust me on this one.

Just make an omelet like you normally would. Then put goat cheese in it. Follow that up with some ratatouille. Now fold that bad boy in half and slide it out of the pan.

This is the best leftover recipe I’ve ever had. Even if you weren’t planning on eating ratatouille any time soon I suggest you make it just so you can have this omelet the next day. Heck, you could even skip eating the plain ratatouille and just jump right to the omelet part. Click here for the ratatouille recipe I use.