Note: if you’re a “Crohnie” or UC patient or parent of an autistic kid who came for the recipe, feel free to skip ahead to the recipe. (Although I’m guessing most kids won’t be too into lox.)

Likewise, if you’re a self-involved tool equally disinterested in understanding the suffering of others and broadening your body of knowledge, feel free to skip ahead. Although be warned: just because you don’t have IBD now doesn’t mean you or someone you love won’t someday, especially if you keep on eating your crapass, Corporo-Fascist-approved Standard American Die-Yet? Incidence of IBD on the rise in Westernized countries.

No, really—go ahead: blow off the back story. We’ll be here via the Google when your insides have turned into raw hamburger. Hopefully, it won’t be too late! Toodles!

Okay.

For the rest of you…

THE BACK STORY

Readers come here from all kinds of search strings, but one that comes up a lot is “Specific Carbohydrate Diet” + (”you name it”).

Most likely this is because the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is notoriously difficult to follow. The list of legals and illegals only makes sense up to a point: Why navy beans and not kidney beans? Why provolone and not mozzarella? Why honey and not maple syrup?

I noticed. And while we’re at it, what the hell’s up with you hippies and your homemade yogurt?

Bottom line is this: the SCD is predicated on the thesis that undigested matter lingering too long in the gut provides a 24-hour feeding station for irritating intestinal bacteria. The more bacteria, the more mucous (yum!), the less the gut is capable of doing its (you’ll pardon the pun) duty; also, the more irritation, the more abrasion—again, leading to a reduction in functional capacity. Not to mention the garden of attendant earthly delights like diarrhea (regular, explosive and bloody varieties), extreme fever and underweight, energy loss, body aches, pain and…wait for it…puppy-killing farts.

Or, in the words of the wise and eloquent Seth Barrows,

The SCD combats bacterial and yeast overgrowth by restricting the energy they require to live while keeping the host well fed.

But no one really knows why it works—just that, in many cases, it does work.

Unfortunately, in many cases it doesn’t, but no one knows why on that count, either—it could be user error, as the SCD is notoriously difficult to follow. Even when you start to get what you can and can’t eat; even when you’re well enough to eat the full range of allowable foods (in the beginning, when you’re really sick, many “legals” are verboten), there’s hella prep involved in eating legal.

So there’s no getting around it: following the SCD is a pain in the ass.

For those of us who’ve found relief, however, not following it is an even bigger pain in the ass. I fell off the wagon shortly after meeting The BF (not his fault! not his fault!), and have been on and off in the three years since. (I was in Fanatical Adherence mode for the two years prior.) I started to get another scare just before Thanksgiving, and had an epiphany much like I did when I felt the bronchitis coming on for a third time and quit smoking on the spot, in mid-pack: 20 years, and I’m still smoke-free.

Of course, it is MUCH harder to stay on a diet than to quit a substance entirely, because hey, you gotta eat. And not only is it difficult to steer clear of the temptation all dieters are faced with, there are literally hidden evils in everything. Every. Thing.

So we eat mainly non-processed food. Nothing canned, bottled, boxed or to-go. No convenience foods. Which makes life…inconvenient.

There’s another downside to this: food gets scary-boring. I mean DEADLY boring. Because it’s so much work finding and making food, one’s intake on the SCD gets numbingly repetitive. Honestly, if I could have any luxury—when I can have any luxury—the first one I want it a private chef to come in three times per week and cook me stuff. (And for my chef friends out there, now you know that the thing I love most is being asked over for a tasty, SCD-legal dinner!)

One trick I’ve learned to apply from the other part of my nerdy life is batch-processing. Make a tub of yogurt and then figure out the 17 different ways you can use it. Find a recipe that freezes well in portions and make a shitload of it. Four dozen cookies, six loaves of “bread” (which you then turn half of into toasts).

So the following recipe is what you do with some of the homemade goat’s milk yogurt it takes you 26 hours to make. It’s fecking hawesome, as Shane Nickerson speaking in a bad British accent might say, and it made my night.

Also, for you normies, you can have it on real bread toasts, if you like. But the cuke makes it lighter and less caloric, in case you care about stuff like that.

THE RECIPE

Serves 1 hungry-ass SCD-er as a meal, or several dainty types as hors d’oeuvres

• 1 cucumber, sliced into 1/4″ rounds
• 1 cup DRIPPED SCD-legal goat’s milk yogurt*
• 1/2 cup chopped scallion
• a few tablespoons capers
• 4 oz SCD-legal smoked salmon**

1. Spread rounds with dripped goat “cheese”.
2. Press sprinkling of scallions on each round.
3. Press a few capers (to taste) on each round.
4. Layer with generous swath of salmon.
5. Eat your damn face off!

*Can substitute SCD-legal cow’s milk yogurt, although not as tasty
**Check package, even if brand you used last time was legal; I think suppliers change for brands, and many add sugar

This is very tasty with a Virgin or Bloody Mary. Vodka, fortunately, is 100% legal on the SCD.

Um…in moderation, of course.

xxx
c

Image by chocolate monster mel via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. And no, that recipe is totally illegal. Looks good, though!

Other SCD-legal recipes on communicatrix-dot-com:

• SCD-legal artichoke dip
• SCD-legal Salade Nicoise (aka tuna!)
• SCD-legal Strawberry-Chicken-Walnet Salad
• SCD-legal Chopped Liver

TOPICS: recipes, SCD/Crohn's disease.

This is Day 8 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

In my family, we were not blessed with good teeth and gums, cancer resistance genes, chemical balances predisposing us to happiness, or a low tolerance for alcohol: we got hair.

I’m not talking nice hair: I’m talking great hair. Hair of the gods. Breck-Girl hair. Movie star hair. Curly or straight or frizzy or wavy, male or female, dark brown or red or blond (and eventually, perfect snowy white), whatever our particular flavor of hair, we have shitloads of it. The kind of hair that turns heads, you’ll pardon the expression. That causes overheating in summer. Hair whose drying time alone provides a for-real all-night excuse to stay in.

Sometimes I would crab about my hair’s unruliness or color. I went from beautiful, stick-straight blond hair as a baby to crazy, Roseanne Rosannadanna pubes as an adolescent. And in the Chicago weather that I spent most of my life in, hardier hair than mine has a mind of its own. But most of the time, I didn’t give my hair a thought.

Until, of course, it started falling out.

The first round of thinning I attributed to stress and sympathetic hair loss. Out of the blue, my mom was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer which had metastasized to her lungs. Well, it wasn’t really out of the blue: that crazy alcoholic mistress of denial hid the massive swelling in her leg from the rest of us with her hideously frumpy long skirts for a long, long time. But it was a death sentence, and for the 18 months from DX to death, I was a mass of stress.

But after some time had passed, and I got over her death (and the deaths, in rapid succession, of my beloved grandparents), the hair came back. And stayed back, even through what I now know as my own long, slow onset of Crohn’s disease. (For the record, I was not in denial about said onset, but the recipient of some borderline unethical care from a particular colorectal surgeon. Live and learn.)

In fact, I looked my absolute freakiest (I thought) when my weight had dropped to its almost-nadir and my crazy-thick hair was dyed almost-black for a play in which I was cast as a Bulgarian art curator. Photographic proof of said period above, from the only headshot session I ever had where absolutely none of the photos were usable. I wept when I saw myself in them.

I even hung onto my beloved hair in the hospital during the 11-day incarceration. The steroid drip I was on didn’t kick in, hair-loss-wise, until I got home. And then, on oral meds, my hair started falling out in earnest. By the handful. It would fall out when I washed it, when I dried it, when I brushed it. It would pretty much leap from my head whenever and wherever. I distinctly remember my good friend, Mark the Carpenter, over to help retrofit my apartment during my invalid phase, coming up from a brief rest on the floor with a rat’s nest of long black hair woven into his fingers and a look of horror on his face. Steroids and hair do not mix. And as long as I’m on them or any immuno-suppressants, it would now appear, I will lose hair.

My GI doc doesn’t believe it. He sees plenty of hair still. And he is a man, grateful for any hair at all on his head. (For the record, he has a lovely head of hair and a handsome face to match). But I know. I am baldy, and that’s how it is. My crowning glory is gone, quite possibly for good.

So what, you might ask, is the good in that?

Tolerance. Acceptance. Understanding. In the same way that my newfound muffin top has made me more tender-hearted towards people who might be carrying a few (or a lot of) extra pounds, my hair loss and the corresponding reduction in feminine beauty status has made me far, far more generous and accepting of the less-obviously beautiful. Don’t get me wrong: I was never a raving beauty like my mother or grandmothers; but with makeup and effort, I could “pass.” And even without effort, I’m rather ashamed now to count off the many blessings I took for granted.

No more. I both care less about things that mattered so much so long ago, and am more appreciative of what’s left. I’m guessing that some of this is the gift of wisdom that time brings, but I also know myself. And I am about as stubborn and slow-learning a fella as ever was born to woman.

So thank you, my crazy, kamikaze hairs. Eventually I may have to shave you off entirely like the mens do. Let’s hope that my ginormous head isn’t as weird and lumpy as I’m afraid it might be.

Or let’s hope it is. My, what an adventure in learning that would be…

xxx
c

Photo of me, circa July 2007 2002, by Tom Lascher. Dreadful, large size gives you a better idea of how sick I really looked at the time.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, crohns disease, hair loss, happiness, illness, SCD/Crohn's disease, thank you sir may i have another.

Back in September of 1987, I met my friend, Karen Engler, for dinner in Lincoln Park. I asked her what was new and she entertained me with amusing anecdotes of her crazy job du jour.

She then asked me what was new; I said, “I quit smoking.”

“Really!?! When??!”

I checked my watch. “6:30,” I said.

She laughed and shrugged it off. I’d been smoking since before I met her, way back in my freshman year of high school, when I was just 14 years old. A nincompoop semi-authority figure furnished the contraband—Benson & Hedges Menthol 100s—which I smoked until I got hip to menthol’s ghetto/pussy status, finally ending up where most hard-core smokers do: sucking down 2+ packs of Marlboros (both leaded and “light” flavors) per day, bought by the carton. Which was good, believe it or not—that was down from close to 4 packs/day.

There was no getting around it: everything about me identified with “smoker.” My entire non-childhood persona, not to mention routine, was built around it.

But as I got ready to light that smoke at 6:25 pm, something flashed through me—or, more accurately, snapped. Partly, it was the very real projection of another seasonal bout of bronchitis. Partly, it was weariness—maintaining any habit so assiduously is exhausting. And just like that, I knew I was done. I don’t know why or how exactly, only that me and cigarettes, we were over. I stepped on the trash can pedal, let go of the pack and that, my friends, was that.

Not that quitting was easy; to the contrary, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, for the first three weeks was excruciating. I’d never experienced anything like it and hope I never will. (That goes for the flatulence, too, folks. No one ever talks about the extreme gastrointestinal upset that accompanies quitting when you’re a heavy smoker. All I can say is keep matches handy. Lots and lots of matches.) And the first three months was pretty rough. And the next three years? No picnic, to be sure. But while quitting wasn’t easy, it was simple, and it was clear.

Fast forward 19 years. Still a non-smoker, now a diet-cheater.

Here’s me, shoving an entire slice of pizza down my gullet between Ocean and Lincoln. Here’s me, burning through a roll of Rolos, a box of Smarties, a bag of Raisinets one by one (I’m a piece candy woman, not a bar candy one) like a chocoholic chipmunk getting herself squared away for winter. This is not the Me who used Will o’ Iron to leave her hometown, her marriage, her career, her misery for Parts Unknown; this is crap. I hate crap.

What exactly is going on here!?!

It struck me in a flash: I hadn’t a clue. It was time to get one. So I busted out a fresh notebook and made myself a list and a deal: write down the desired infraction and exactly what is going on in that brain of yours when you want to make it, then wait 15 minutes; if you still want it, knock yourself out.

I wrote the first retroactively, from memory, which was still pretty fresh. And I’d outlined the rationalization in detail for my pal, heathervescent, at breakfast that morning, anyway:

• “Toast @ breakfast”
• “I deserve it.”
• “It’s all I’m going to have ‘bad’ today.”

Next, the current desire, fresh and fierce:

• want to order pizza
• “nothing in house” (…except stew)
• stressed!!! (jobs, underbid)
• I deserve it

Finally, I sat it out. 15 minutes—that was the deal. Only an odd thing happened as the minutes ticked away. Monkey-brain continued to want pizza; Big Colleen brain breathed a sigh of relief to find out it was only Monkey-brain, got up and started preparing some semi-convenience food she remembered Monkey-brain had bought at the store (Tasty Bites Eggplant whatever, along with homemade red lentil dal and cucumber raita.)

At this point, you are, if you’re like me, wondering a few things. Since you are not me, and I had time to both ask the questions and answer them, I’ll close the loop for you.

QUESTION #1: Wow. She had all that shit in the house?

Answer: Yes, I had all that shit in the house. Apparently, Monkey-brain only registered sad frozen reminder of bad stew experiment.

Lesson: in its relentless pursuit of food crack, Monkey-brain is nothing if not fierce.

QUESTION #2: Wow. She considers making homemade red lentil dal and cucumber raita convenient?

ANSWER: Yes. After two hard-core years of cooking every single thing but cheese from scratch, yes, I do.

Lesson: change takes a long time, until it happens all at once.

QUESTION #3: Wow. She thinks this one-off incident is somehow worthy of her longest and most weirdly formatted post in months?

ANSWER: Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Lesson: The Communicatrix knows more than you, and don’t you forget it.

I’m laying it on the line, in black and white, or slightly gray and white, or whatever my CSS is dictating and your end-user device is capturing as you read this: the “snap” happened. I’m off the illegals*.

I suspected it two days ago but knew it for sure last night, when the lovely server at the Marriott Marina del Rey served me my breadless club sandwich with fully a half-plate of the most beautifully golden, sinfully fragrant, mouth-burning-hot-from-the-fryer specimens of thin-cut fries I’ve seen ever—EVER—and they sat, untouched, until our club treasurer showed up a half-hour later and (mercifully) polished off the pile in five minutes flat.

Me + a plate of hot, untouched fries = dunzo.

Next up, total global domination…

xxx
c

Image by keso via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

*Note to any SCD-prospectives out there: this does not mean I’m on SCD. I’m not yet ready to give up my beloved Americano, a rather liberal interpretation of weak coffee which Elaine Gottschall would likely have taken issue with, and I’m not, for the time being, going to worry about rogue illegals—the 2% floaters that creep into virtually every food served in American restaurants, even the so-called “legal” foods. If you are just starting, do not follow my example—do SCD full-out, 100%, like it says in the book. No f*cking around, kids, especially if you’re doing any of that lovely bleeding out of your rectum or spending time around doctors anxious to sketch out the new one they’re going to build you. I’m well, I’m almost fat, I’m on meds and I’ve been stable for a long time.

TOPICS: change, SCD/Crohn's disease.

It’s no secret that I’ve fallen off the SCD wagon, big-time. It started with espresso, the gateway illegal, over two years ago. Espresso, and a spoonful of some shameless hussy of a dessert by Suzanne Goin, who should have a mug shot up in the P.O., as far as I’m concerned.

The bad news: once you transgress at all, you are no longer an SCD-er. Any transgression, no matter how small, puts you back at Day One just as surely as a sip of Bookers kicks you to the back of the bus at Alcoholics Anonymous. There’s no judging; it’s just that in the absence of better researched reasons for why it does and doesn’t work, SCD requires fanatical adherence to the canon of foods handed down from Dr. Haas and Elaine Gottschall. There are no sanctioned cheats. Not a one. Period.

And so.

Yesterday, at the colorist’s, I appalled even myself. Of course, I was only publicly, officially appalled after my good friend, L.A. Jan (we share everything) clocked me shoving two, count ‘em, two Butterfinger-type crap candy singles into my mouth Augustus Gloop-style. (I’m reasonably sure I at least took the wrappers off.) When she replaced her eyeballs in their respective sockets, she asked me what the f*ck was going on.

I mean, I’m not even especially fond of Butterfingers.

I’m still sorting it out, but I think the kernel of understanding lodged somewhere in the back molar of my consciousness looks something like “You are not the boss of me!” Or, as I put it to my pal, Heathervescent, between bites of generously buttered, 100% forbidden rye toast at breakfast this morning, “F*CK YOU, MOTHERF**KER! You are not the boss of me!”

So many years of sucking it up, coloring within the lines, being a good girl, stuffing it down. So much rage. So much fear. It’s going to find voice one way or t’other. And “F*ck you, motherf**ker! You are not the boss of me!” is pretty eloquent, if you ask me.

I have a sense of perspective, of course: I’m not perched above the quad in a clock tower with a rifle, or bankrupting the kids’ college fund at the river casino’s ATM, or even skulking behind the Rite Aid with a Marlboro Red. But I hate having something other than me owning me, so I need to get to the bottom of it.

Step One is noting it.

Step Two is noting it and not giving in.

To Butterfinger singles yesterday.

Or rye toast this morning.

Or Pizza Hut Thin ‘n’ Crispy Pepperoni Lovers’ pizza, delivered—lukewarm and fresh enough—to my door in something under an hour.

Well, one out of three ain’t bad…

xxx
c

Image by LynnInTokyo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

TOPICS: change, SCD/Crohn's disease.

I had my gals over last night. They are an extraordinary bunch and deserve only the finest: delicious food, wine that costs more than $5/bottle and a clean, clutter-free environment in which to enjoy both.

Since we’ve finally been gifted with The End of the Horriblest Summer on Record, I thought I’d bust out the Chief Atheist’s family gravy recipe—a.k.a. pork-and-tomato-flavored crack, with meatballs—and kick off the season properly.

I am pleased to report that I have worked out the last kinks in making the recipe 100% SCD-compliant. I have not, however, received official permission to release the recipe to the general, salivating public, so you’re all going to have to feed your own red lead jones via the Soprano family recipe I linked to in a previous gravy-related post.*

But since I am not a complete heartless bitch, I will provide you with another amazing recipe I adapted from the back of a Trader Joe’s product:

Tasty Artichoke Dip

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 can artichoke hearts packed in water, drained
1 fistful fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, washed & dried, stems removed
buncha (1/4 c? 1/2c?) extra-virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Pulverize garlic in food processor. Add artichoke hearts and parsley. Process, drizzling olive oil as you go until you see a nice, pulverized mix (1/4 - 1/2 cup or more, depending on how decadent you want to be). Add salt & pepper to taste.

Eat with carrots if you are an SCD-er, or delicious bread if you are blessed with a normal digestive tract.

Bonus benefit: not only is it SCD-compliant, it is also IC-safe as well! And it actually tastes good, I swear!

Well, okay, not as good as the gravy, but come on: what doesn’t taste better with pork?

xxx
c

*UPDATE: Gravy boy pulled his link. Until I can post the real deal, this is the most authentic recipe I can find.

Most excellent photo courtesy of Patrick Q via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

TOPICS: gluten-free, recipes, SCD, SCD/Crohn's disease, Specific Carbohydrate Diet.