Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Never trust a skinny chef


I may have mentioned that my softball team calls me a "sack of antlers". Recently, one of my buddies on the team thought she located a vestigial dorsal fin on my spine, which led to much speculation that I used to be a dolphin or perhaps a snapper. Before long, I started to hear "let's go BONES" when I'd get up to bat.

Alright, so I'm skinny. And quite tall.

A tall drink of water, as they say in the south.

As a chef, this is a liability. Let's all say it together: "Never trust a skinny chef." Here's another saying, newly developed, "Never trust a chef who won't eat her own food." Or this one: "Never trust a chef who develops hives shortly after eating her own food."

Last night at the Redmond PCC, I was teaching a recipe that involved braising short ribs in coffee and spices. It's finished with 70% dark chocolate swirled into the pan juices. A take on mole, it is utterly irresistible. Not wanting to spit out my own food in front of the students I took a micro-taste of it, along with a similar baby-sized teaspoon of the mashed potatoes (finished with butter, cream and sour cream). Before the night was over, I also sampled a tiny bit of a chanterelle soup that had some butter and cream in it.

Fast forward an hour later, I'm home relaxing when my abdomen, back and arms break out in hives. I've only had hives one other time in my life. This is highly unusual for me and I can't help but think my body is now very sensitive to whatever it is I'm allergic/intolerant of. I now believe my doctor is right about one thing. Garlic is not the only problem.

Sigh.

4 comments:

Jesse Selengut said...

So sorry you got Hives. That is so weird! It's almost like homeopathy in that even the slightest amount of something will have really magnified consequences. Does the fact you ingested some of the things that were not on your list set the time table back for your experiment? Does the experiment require 100% chastity to be effective?

Chef said...

Good question. I don't really know. I told the doctor I had to taste some things some of the time and he didn't seem to think it would wreck the whole experiment.

Anonymous said...

I hope you dont get the hives again after teaching the class today!

Anonymous said...

Hi Becky. So sorry you got hives. But doesn't this narrow your list a bit? It seems like dairy was prominent in the tastings. Anything else on your list?

The one thing about this diet is that it's made me a little afraid to eat! )-: And I get super paranoid. Right after I eat, oh is that a headache coming on? Is my stomach getting upset? Etc.

-- Julie