Friday, July 30, 2010

The Chicken Debacle

I'm a little bit of a wimp.

After weeks of being pescetarian, I decided to go to the farmer's market and get me some free-range, corn-fed yard bird to try. I had tried some a couple weeks back, but the results were basically inconclusive. I suspected there was another gluten culprit at the time.

I was planning my first foray into homemade chicken stock this weekend. Conventional grocery store chicken has been identified as problematic of late, so I had to go out of my way (after lots of internet research) to get some chicken that could possibly be ok.

So I go ask to buy a chicken, and (stupidly) say "Yes, I would like it cut up. Thank you." So the dude whips the chicken out of the cooler with his bare hand and slaps it up on the scale. No paper, no nothing. Tells, me what it weighs, I think ok, it is toward the end of the day, maybe he had already cleaned off the scale...

He proceeds to cut the chicken into pieces, again with bare hands, using a cutting board and knife that had just been sitting out on the counter. Not sure how long they had been there or what they were used on before (at this point, while writing this, I'm so ashamed of myself for keeping my mouth shut)

He dumps it into a plastic bag, then retrieves the outer bag for it, again, without washing his hands. I can only imagine the salmonella slime on that bag.

And I paid this man and said thank you. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??

I spent $7.00 on a chicken. That I can't eat. Heck, that people without cross-contamination issues shouldn't eat.

Ugh.

A word to the wise. The meek shall inherit expensive, possibly dirty chicken.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Blog Fail (and other assorted thoughts)

It's been awhile, I know.

If I want to give this blog thing a fair go, I need a little more commitment.

But all I do is cook. And clean up the kitchen. Then cook. Then clean. Then work. Then cook. Then clean. Then work...... you get the idea...

I've spent the last week or so being pescetarian. Funny enough, pretty much all meat is a problem. I'm looking into finding some more "natural" stuff, but it is taking awhile (ironic choice of the word natural, given my distaste for the myriad definitions of the word and ubiquitous use on food labels).

Have been doing better in general, but I had a sucky week on vacation. Not sure why exactly, but something about eating Larabars every day totally created a problem. Felt better after I stopped eating them! Scary though, they were one of my safe products! I'm still investigating why they are problematic. I need to get some for real GF nuts and make sure nuts are ok. But I don't trust nuts, been sick from them too many times. PB today was ok. Might order some from nutsonline.com, but it is so expensive with shipping! Maybe once Publisher's Clearing House comes with my check. Hey, a girl can dream.

I tried eating beans for some protein. Felt awful, not like you usually do with beans (if you catch my drift), but just felt sick and repulsed by the thought of eating more of them. And I love beans...

I've mentioned it before, but I really need to learn to trust my body a little more. If it tells me not to eat leftovers of something, or if something sounds disgusting, I need to NOT eat it.

Some days, I feel like I might be making progress. Other days, I lose the ability to hope that I will ever feel normal (using that term loosely). I'm still tired, still with DH, although the other stuff seems to wax and wane somewhat unpredictably. Drank some wine the other night, was sick for 3 days. Weird. Usually if I have sulfite issues, the sx are gone within hours, so I'm not sure what to think.

I've been living on potatoes, which seem to be the only thing I want to eat and settle my stomach. Until tonight, when they upset it. Ugh.

Peace out. I'm done trying to figure it out for now. Says the girl whose every waking thought (almost) is about figuring out what to eat...