25.4.07

It’s been 11 weeks since my ass so painfully parted ways with horse & saddle. At looong last, leaving the house has gotten easy enough so it no longer has to be all about doctor’s appointments & physical therapy. I guess you could say the terms of my house arrest have gotten more flexible. Maybe I’m on parole now?

The latest example of this delicious freedom: Last night I got an urgent phone call from Eve, reporting breathlessly that Bakesale Betty is now making lemon slushies out of neighborhood lemons! (We can only assume this heartwarming micro-localism is a legacy of the recently-decamped Temescal Amity Works.) If I had gotten this message even a couple weeks ago, all I could have done was sigh wistfully, shrug, & add it to the long list of Deferred Delights Of The Outside World.

Instead, this morning I took cane in hand to accompany Donna on a studio-scouting mission in the neighborhood, after which we walked (walked!!!) up the block to Betty’s. How happy I was just to be there again! My delirium only increased upon discovering that the famous chicken pot pies, which went AWOL last winter due to kinks in production logistics (ironed out by sacrificing cakes!), have made a comeback, now in take-and-bake form. The instant gratification factor is gone, but I am willing to wait & bake the pies for dinner tonight. Besides, this also meant we were not forced to choose between the pies & Betty’s even-more-famous fried chicken sandwich, that irresistable bundle of banh-mi-meets-downhome-Americana.

But what about the lemon slushy?? Well, I’ve always wished that we had streetcorner frozen lemonade carts here like they do in New York. But now… Betty & her Temescal lemons kick East Coast frozen lemonade booty, & hard. Best of all, my stomach uttered nary a complaint. Thanks to too much ibuprofen & other such drugs, I’d had the most non-acidic early spring in memory. An entire February & March suffered without benefit of blood oranges! I’ve been testing my recovery with tart early strawberries, & now with the lemon slushy I can declare the battle is won!

For those of you suffering from ibuprofen-torn stomachs, the very excellent advice I got from my herbalist is: marshmallow root. You take a handful of the dried herb, throw it in a quart mason jar with cold water, & stick it in the fridge overnight. Drink it throughout the day, squeezing the herbs to get as much of the viscous goo as possible. I was drinking this stuff for weeks, & it really does help.

There, how’s that for a comeback food post?

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10.4.07

Oy vey. Where do I even begin? My excuses for not blogging just get better & better, but trust me, I’d rather be blogging. Back in February I got bucked off a horse, fractured my pelvis, & I think you can imagine the rest from there. I’m hobbling around with crutches now & doing physical therapy exercises of various kinds, & gnashing my teeth with impatience. If you can walk, be fucking grateful!

Speaking of gratitude, here is a particularly blogable tidbit: in the East Bay (that’s San Francisco Bay Area), if you have old medical equipment you’re not using, or if you are in need of free medical equipment, Home CARES Equipment Recyclers is the place to go. Obviously a shoestring operation, they work out of a church basement on Broadway & 27th in Oakland. They’re only there on Thursday afternoons between 1-4pm. You drive into their parking lot from the 27th Street side, go down underneath the building, & there the good people are on your left. You can get a tax deduction receipt if you’re giving them stuff, or if you’re like me & want a cane, they’ll bring out a selection for you to pick from. Too cool!

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