Lick the Bowl

Latkes are definitely a labor of love. A very greasy, oily, labor of love.   A time consuming, set off the smoke detector (twice), back breaking, use up half a bottle of oil, not to mention a 45 minute cleanup, and the entire house smells like a diner, labor of love.   Can you feel all that love for the miracle of the oil?   I have made latkes over the years in different ways according to the tastes of my family.   I prefer the home-style kind where you can actually see the grated potato sticking out in crunchy, jagged edges.   My daughter likes the mealy kind, where everything is ground up in the processor and poured out like pancake batter-she really likes the gigantic frozen kind (UGH).   My husband is just happy that I am making something that can’t really be considered healthy.   Poor thing has had to suffer through broccoli, spaghetti squash, and turkey meatloaf (all which were eaten along with seconds…hmmmm).   But, bona fide carbs a...

Holiday season is a time of joy for most, and stress for others. I admit that I fall in between the two.   Unfortunately, for those kids with food allergies, holiday season can become a landmine if no one is at the helm keeping watch.   I have made my son vigilant about food allergies;he knows not to eat anything at school, in class, in the lunchroom or otherwise.   For every treat he has to turn down, he gets the equivalent at home-safely.   The teachers in the school all comment on how great he is about managing his food allergies, and as a result, they take notice of my six-year old who maturely gives up some of the irresistible goodies in school.   Most of the teachers know who my son is simply because they are so impressed by his fortitude (not to mention that he can be so darn cute). Every school year I introduce myself to the lunch aides, provide a note for the teachers to send home to parents, talk with the nurse, discuss my son’s   allergies ...

I have had a serious hankering for gingerbread, which is ironic because I never used to like it. I find that since I officially hit middle age with the recent celebration of my (fill in the blank) birthday, there are changes within myself that I cannot seem to control. ·      I now have to remove my glasses to read something up close. ·          I need mega doses of drugs to get over a common cold. ·          I can no longer say, what up? ·          I actually prefer a minivan to a sedan. ·            I take medication that I have seen advertised on TV. ·            Low rise jeans…well let’s not go there. ·          It seems that I like gingerbread.   I have always backed away from ginge...

I have decided to get back to my Lick the Bowl roots.   While this blog was originally intended to discuss food allergy related material including recipes and news items, I realized that my life was not just about food allergies.   Don’t get me wrong, they take up a big chunk of my energy, but the blog seemed to take on a persona of it’s own and I liked the direction it took.   Nevertheless, it’s holiday time and the one thing I love to do is experiment in the kitchen.   A few weeks ago, I received a fabulous new cookbook from my Facebook friend, Nava Atlas.     It’s funny how people find each other in this big, wide world because prior to Facebook, Nava and I never knew each other.   Nava is an author and illustrator of many well-known vegetarian and vegan cookbooks.   She also has her own website Vegkitchen.com.   Some of her books include Vegan Express, Vegan Soups and The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, amongst many others.  ...

Ah…finally, we have survived the six-year old on steroids.   It was a long, frustrating trip fraught with “increased” (and that’s an understatement) energy and major meltdowns.   He went to one of those bouncy places for a birthday party yesterday, so I timed the predinisone exactly 1 hour before he left.   Let’s just re-name the kid “Tigger” because he bounced every steroid laden cell out of his body and fell into a coma-like induced sleep afterward…sigh…the worst is over.   Now we move onto the inhaled steroid.   It’s pretty pathetic that my son calls us…”puff” buddies.   We stand together by the sink with a cup of water and we each inhale from our Flo-Vent (an inhaled steroid), then we both swish water in our mouths and rinse the residue out.    It’s like doing drugs with your kid.   Actually, it is doing drugs with your kid.   It’s a bit surreal and frankly a bit disturbing on so many different levels.   Bottom line, if you...

Yes, these are the cries of pain.   These are my muscles screaming out in agony…”why are you doing this to us? We want to go back to the way it used to be?”   Believe it or not, I have not worked out in almost two months since this nasty little chest infection took my lungs hostage.   It’s been a long trip, filled with steroids, inhalers, antibiotics, and other assorted medications, but alas, I have been released from my arrested breathing and have begun to cautiously join the world of the living again.   Of course, nothing is as easy as it seems, because now my itchy, sneezy, wheezy, coughing, allergy afflicted six-year old suffers the same fate as his mama and is on the same course of drugs.   Let’s just say that steroids on a six-year old can turn a seemingly sweet, even-tempered child into the incredible hulk on speed. I specifically switched his dosage time from morning to late afternoon, because I really like his teacher and didn’t want her to have to ...

Wow!   I have been sick.   Sick as a dog sick.   Sick, as I never want to be sick again for sickness sake sick.   It all started out innocent enough.   A cold. A tickle. An annoying drip.   Who knew what a drip could do?   Well, if a drip of water over millions of years could produce the world’s most humongous stalactites, I guess a drip in my throat for a month could build up just as well.   So, perhaps there is a stalactite in my chest. Sure felt like one.   A crushing, pressing, invasive, stalactite.     As I helped my son with his inhaler (because he was sick too) I’m having visions of taking a hit off of it, like a drug addict looking for a fix.   You know, there is something inherently wrong if you are fantasizing about suckin’ off your kids inhaler.   Bad mommy.   Desperate mommy.   Breathing is not overrated.   I needed help. Off to the doctor, who by the way was impressed with the fact that I h...