Okay, so I'm probably a little obsessed. . .

but this stock has become such a critical part of my life it's hard for me to NOT be slightly obsessed with it!  LOL

The not-so-appetizing what's-strained-out
(look closely and find a couple toe tips with nails and a lovely swath of ripped skin,
and this isn't even half of what gets strained out -
there were three more feet (or feet remains, at least- ha ha) and a partial carcass!)

And the oh-so-appetizing finished product - just like liquid gold, I tell you!

Perhaps it's clear why I now just drink the broth rather than try to salvage as many of the solids to eat as I can.  It's quite time-consuming to sort through all of the solids and too easy to miss some of the things I'd really prefer not end up in my bowl, much less in my mouth!  The only things I pick out are the large chunks of chicken, and those I save for the big 4-legger.

A good week ending on a good note

A few people have asked me this past week how I'm doing, so I thought it would be good for me to write up a quick update for the record.  This past week, in particular, has been wonderful in that for most of it, I've actually felt close to normal.  It's amazing how easy it is to take feeling normal for granted!  But for me, for now, feeling close to normal and feeling relatively healthy again is simply spectacular and something I am cognitively extremely grateful for. 

My days still revolve around that funky chicken stock (a new batch is simmering as I type), super-incubated homemade yogurt (made using local, cream-top milk from grass-fed cows), as-raw-as-possible honey (I even found some that is an actual slice of the honeycomb itself - beautiful!), hot green tea, and mega doses of probiotics.  I continue to focus on using as many organic, local, and/or fresh foods as possible.  Every day, I add a different food or two to the mix, and so far, it's gone very well.  I haven't had a negative reaction to anything I've added back in, not even that giant dark chocolate peanut butter cup I couldn't resist getting on Friday!  It's been over two weeks, probably close to three, since I've had any of that severe abdominal pain, tissue loss, or bloody mucus.  And while I can still feel the inflammation flare up from time to time and while that can be quite uncomfortable, I've found ways to alleviate it.  Pretty regularly now, I'm eating cottage cheese, vegetable quiche, bananas, and applesauce.  I've also had some cherry tomatoes, cooked snow peas and asparagus, pizza (yay!), raw milk cheese with crackers, naan, and a turkey sandwich (on a soft kaiser roll).  I've snuck in a few cheez-its, chocolate squares, and pita chips.  And last night, I had a whole vegetable samosa!  I'd really like to try a tuna or carrot slaw sandwich on 12-grain toast, nuts, or an apple, but I'm still a little nervous that too much fiber will be hard on my system right now.  And I haven't even started considering yet chia seeds, ground flaxseed, or beans.  Hopefully I'll get there though.

When I write it down, it sounds like my diet has been pretty limited, and I suppose it has been.  But it hasn't really felt that way at all, especially compared to not being able to eat anything!  Even if I were to stay like I am (knock on wood, I really hope I don't get worse again), I think I'd be able to accept and be fine with it - in large part because I feel absolutely nourished again.  I swear that broth has been nothing short of a miracle.  I feel as if it literally feeds life and energy into me.  Made with the chicken feet, it contains a ridiculous amount of collagen and gelatin.  When it cools, it becomes almost solid and you could cut it with a knife if you wanted to.  I don't keep any chicken or veggies in it anymore; I strain them out and drink the hot broth from a mug.  My nails have become so thick and strong that I had trouble getting the big nail clipper through them the other day!

When this first started happening, I was terribly dismayed and couldn't even comprehend it.  I could have been a poster child for what to do to have a healthy colon.  How could mine be diseased?!  The thought of my having to see a digestive disease specialist seemed pretty ridiculous.  After a while, though, I realized that if seemingly wacky foods and diet can help you get through it, I'm your girl.  I already had enough experience in the kitchen to tackle anything that needed to be tackled in that regard.  Sometimes I feel happy and guilty about that at the same time.  Happy that I I'm in a position to do as much help for myself as I can but guilty realizing that not everyone, for whatever reason, can do the same.  I fully understand how some people could be too overwhelmed to even try (make my own yogurt - what? who does that?! what's wrong with the yogurt in the store?!; chicken feet - seriously?  where in the world does one go out and get chicken feet?! and then I have to boil them and cut their toes off?!; prepare this soup/broth every week - do you know how incredibly long that takes?  that would take an entire day!; hot green tea - I don't want hot green tea, I want my coffee!).  I truly believe they would find the effort SO beneficial though.

I have not yet rescheduled my tests, and I'm not sure when I'm going to do so.  I have to admit I'm in no hurry as I am still very, very worried they'll end up throwing my system back out of whack, and I'm terrified of going back to being as sick as I was.  Not sure what to do about this one.

So I don't know who all reads this blog of mine besides my small circle of safeties (as I like to call them!) , but my hope is that someday, someone experiencing similar GI issues as I have will stumble upon it and perhaps benefit from some of the same things I have benefited from.  These are the two books I'm using as my primary guides.  Restoring Your Digestive Health is the one that has the broth recipe.  Oh yeah, and yesterday I made a batch of peanut butter cookies using a recipe from the Breaking the Vicious Cycle book - peanut butter, butter, honey, almond flour, baking soda, and vanilla.  They are so good!

  

Heading upstairs now to take a long, hot bath with epsom salts and lavendar, start reading a new novel, and enjoy a nice hot cup of green tea with honey.  :)

Did you know. . .

that if you've posted a comment, I've responded to it?  I just mention it to make sure you know - because I have no idea if you realize that I'm responding to you or if I just end up talking (even more) to myself.  :)

The kind of friend I try to be

http://www.etsy.com/listing/77280001/inspirational-art-friendship-is-a

This evening after work, I had the unexpected and distinct pleasure to sit and catch up a bit with a lovely lady I happen to think the world of.  We sat together at her house, and because it was unexpected, there was no way for her to even think about preparing for a visitor.  She warmly invited me in anyway, saying her house was a mess (we all tend to be too hard on ourselves, don't we?) but that was okay because I was one of the few people she wasn't worried about seeing it that way.

I was happy because that is precisely the kind of friend I try to be.

Years ago, a friend and her young child were at my house.  Something insignificant-to-adults but not-necessarily-so-insignificant-to-young-children occurred, and the child starting really throwing a fit.  The friend was surprised by the behavior (as the child was past the typical tantrum stage), knelt down to talk to him, and said "if this happened in front of anyone but T, I would be mortified".

I was happy because that is precisely the kind of friend I try to be.

When my husband and I were in the early stage of our relationship, he would get really annoyed with how I talked about my friends.  He couldn't understand why I always acted like they were so amazing and could do no wrong.  I couldn't understand why he couldn't understand - since it was ridiculously obvious and all.  They WERE so amazing, and even if they DID do wrong (whatever that might mean), they did so beautifully and quite perfectly.  Still are and still do.

Didn't he know that that is precisely the kind of friend I try to be - one who believes her friends are simply amazing and perfectly imperfect?!

A while back now, I was chatting on the telephone with a friend.  I was thanking her for something and mentioned that sometimes I feel badly because I feel like she does so much more for me than I do for her.  She laughed and said she feels the same way about me - that sometimes she feels badly because she feels like I do so much more for her than she does for me.  I was struck by the the exchange and the realization that perhaps that may well be an ideal description of a true friendship. 

I love my girlfriends with all of my heart and I hope they know that.  There are very few things in life as precious as true friendships.  I've been blessed to have some absolutely glorious women enter my life, and each and every day, I am grateful for their simply "being".  I try to be a good friend, to live up to the kind of friend that they deserve, and I will keep on trying.  Each and every day.  

I love you dearly, friends of mine.

It's all relative, right?

Just a funny little update about the soup.  Parts of getting to the finished product are actually quite disgusting.  Instructions say at the end of the simmering time to take out the chicken, remove the meat, and throw away the bones.  They also say to remove the feet and discard them.  What they DON'T say is that after it has simmered for so long, the parts of the chicken have pretty much fallen apart.  There's really no stripping the meat off of the bones because it's mostly already fallen off.  Most of the chicken feet are no longer recognizable as feet.  They've transformed into strange little blobs that you guess must be what's left of them.  Last time (I didn't have any organs this time), the neck completely disintegrated and I ended up eating it because it was impossible to separate it from everything else.  And of course, as I've already mentioned, bits of the organs were also left behind.

Chickens have a lot of little bones, little joints, and little chunks of cartilage.  When you're dealing with a big pot of soup where everything has fallen apart and there are also a lot of chopped veggies, it's nearly impossible to get all of those interesting tidbits out.  You learn this by repeatedly realizing, when you're enjoying a bowl of soup, that "oops, I have something really weird in my mouth again; better get that out".  

When I was recently talking to a colleague at work about some of this, she was making faces and saying "I don't know; I don't know if I could do that".  I proclaimed emphatically that if you are sick enough, you will do things you would NOT ordinarily do.

Without a doubt, even though I'm not all better, I'm quite a bit better.  How do I REALLY know this?  Because when I finished up my soup this evening, I couldn't bear the thought of having any more of those weird things in my mouth, even though so far it's been nothing short of a miracle.  Since it cooked for so long, I have no doubt nearly all of the nutrition was pulled out of the chicken and vegetables, so I ended up straining it to just leave me with stock.  Sure, I won't have the bulk, but I'm eating enough other things now that I'm not worried about that.  My stock looks like liquid gold, and I very much look forward to enjoying it tomorrow with a piece of bread.  And nothing else - no surprises!

And that colleague?  Well, she has dealt with IBS issues in the past, borrowed the book I've been using as a guide, and is going to buy it for herself.  We'll see what she ends up doing with that soup.

My soup, it is simmering

Hee hee.  Last weekend, Chris came through for me and brought a big ziploc baggie full of chicken feet to GreenMarket for me.  I was expecting only a few, but she gave me at least 15!  She was so excited that I would be using them, as they don't rank very high in popularity.  Apparently, there is only one other person who requests them from her - a Chinese woman who I am sure must also be using them for soup.  

Anyway, I'm making a new batch of my funky soup and that there is a picture of it as it sits on the stove starting it's looong simmering process.  I ended up using four feet and pulled two of them up to the surface so we can see them in action.  How to prepare this quirky ingredient, that was the big question I had.  (My book conveniently doesn't discuss that!)  Every source I've seen says to boil them for 5 minutes, so that's what I did.  Nearly every source I've seen says to then cut off the talons at the first knuckle, so that's what I did.  The sources were divided as to whether or not the skin should also be removed.  After boiling for 5 minutes, it looked kind-of nasty, so I opted to remove it.  Frankly, though, I think the feet looked even worse without the skin.  I removed the toes quickly and without incident.  The skin?  Well that took a little longer, required more concentration, and sometimes smelled quite badly.  A few times, I got a big whiff and had to momentarily step. away. from. the. counter.  We'll see how this goes, but next time I might try leaving the skin on.  

I've been reading GLORIOUS reports about chicken soup/broth made with the feet, so I'm hoping mine lives up to the high expectations I now have.  I'll let you know, and if it truly is that amazing, perhaps you can give it a try too!

"P.S. Don't forget to bring your guitar!"

Ha!  That's the last line of J's acceptance letter from Hampshire! 
Very fitting, very perfect wording with which to woo him.  How clever are they?!


(one of his babies - a black Rickenbacker; wherever he goes, it will most definitely go with him! )

 

His acceptance letter from Hampshire College came in today's mail, with another decent sized merit scholarship.  I'm telling you again, though, that even "the largest, most prestigious" merit award a college offers doesn't necessarily look all that large when compared to the cost!!  

Next Monday, we're off to visit Bennington College.  That should be a fun day.  I haven't been to Bennington (the town) in a long time, but I really love it there.  Besides getting to know the campus in person, my goal is to find the Crazy Russian Girls Bakery.  Maybe we'll even sneak in a visit to Bennington Potters.

And Hampshire has special overnight stays for accepted students, so he'll probably sign up for one of them.  He'll stay in a dorm, eat in the cafeteria, attend classes, etc. - probably one of the best ways to get to know a college before actually attending.

To be young, to have so much of your life ahead of you, to have so many opportunities from which to choose - what an exciting time!  But how many of us appreciate it at that time?  I'm going to guess not many. :)