One of Chloe's favorite foods is tamales. If you have never really eaten a tamale, I suggest you head to your nearest traditional Mexican restaurant and try one. Don't go to a Tex-Mex place where they'll give you wrapped up enchiladas swimming in cheese. You need to find a little mom & pop Mexican place where the cooks speak Spanish and there are tamales on the menu and they come charmingly and individually blanketed in little corn husks--small piping-hot bundles of bliss.
The traditional ingredients are masa or masa harina, pork, and red chile. Three simple ingredients, none of which are on the allergen watch list.
Masa harina is ground corn treated with a solution of lime and water, also called slaked lime. The literal translation is "dough flour," which sounds a little frightening to those of us who have watched their children wither away from diarrhea caused by a wheat allergy, but I assure you, it is nothing but corn.
Red chile sauce is made from those dried red chiles a lot of people hang in their kitchen. Some of you will find it easily in the Mexican section, others will have to search for it in a special location or store. Over the summer Chloe's babysitter taught me how to make red chile sauce, and it is as simple as simmering the dried pods in water, pureeing the soft pods together with the liquid, and then straining out the small bits. It is a rich, deep red sauce you can use for lots of different things.
Most of the women I know who regularly make tamales use a steam cooker to cook the pork; I assume you could get similar results by slow-cooking a regular pork roast in a crock pot and then shredding it.
The actual assembly process of the tamales remains a mystery to me, because I've never done it.
But the final product is oh-so-delicious. And allergen-free.
Frozen tamales are going to be Chloe's "convenience food." I admit to occasionally giving Andrew a Hot Pocket when there is nothing else, or eating a frozen commercial burrito. Everyone eats convenience foods sometimes. But when you're allergic to milk, eggs, wheat and peanut, processed convenience foods just don't cut it.
The gift of being able to pull out one perfectly-sized tamale, microwave it, and watch Chloe eat it with gusto is priceless to a busy mom who more often than not makes three separate suppers.
Best of all, ever since I put out an email at work (a smallruralHispanic school) various friends have been letting me know, so-and-so is making tamales tomorrow, they're really good, do you want some?? I am able to support someone who is expert at doing something I can't or don't have time to do--like buying farmer's market produce or a handmade pair of earrings at the local gallery.
Tamales. We love 'em. Go get some.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
communion
When we got back from Pennsylvania, about which more anon, I went to church at the little Episcopal church in town for the first time in about 2 years. That's another story in and of itself.
The fact that I hadn't been in two years meant that I pretty much hadn't had communion for two years. That's the part I missed the most. The familiar, liturgical words, and the eucharist. I craved it: the words, the taste, the sights, the sound of it.
When the bread and wine had been blessed, I got up along with the thirteen other people there that morning to receive. They were using what I remembered, whole wheat tortillas. I placed the piece in my mouth, took a sip out of the common cup, crossed myself, and headed back to the pew.
Once I sat down it hit me. Chloe couldn't have communion bread because she is allergic to it.
Damn.
Then my mind started tumbling: what would you use instead that would still be appropriate?
We all have our feelings of what is appropriate for communion bread, and I've had some communion that just didn't feel right to me--Wonder Bread, say.
But instead of wheat bread or tortillas, would you use rice crackers? Polenta crisps? Gluten-free cookies? Potato chips? Cold oatmeal?
Ack.
The fact that I hadn't been in two years meant that I pretty much hadn't had communion for two years. That's the part I missed the most. The familiar, liturgical words, and the eucharist. I craved it: the words, the taste, the sights, the sound of it.
When the bread and wine had been blessed, I got up along with the thirteen other people there that morning to receive. They were using what I remembered, whole wheat tortillas. I placed the piece in my mouth, took a sip out of the common cup, crossed myself, and headed back to the pew.
Once I sat down it hit me. Chloe couldn't have communion bread because she is allergic to it.
Damn.
Then my mind started tumbling: what would you use instead that would still be appropriate?
We all have our feelings of what is appropriate for communion bread, and I've had some communion that just didn't feel right to me--Wonder Bread, say.
But instead of wheat bread or tortillas, would you use rice crackers? Polenta crisps? Gluten-free cookies? Potato chips? Cold oatmeal?
Ack.
Monday, January 5, 2009
the allergist
I finally made the call and we took Chloe up to Springs on a Friday. Daniel doesn't have school Fridays and I just took the day off. It happened to be Halloween, a gorgeous fall day. Driving over La Veta pass was soothing. I was pretty nervous. We left Morgan at home.
We got to the office and waited a few minutes. Then the nurse came and took us to a room with a table, several chairs, and a desk. Andrew was a little stir-crazy for being in the car for several hours (and our walk around the block to kill time because we were early didn't take the edge off much) but he had some little cars and he found he could run them along the beam under the table so he stayed busy. Chloe pulled up and toddled all around the room.
The nurse asked us a bunch of questions, to determine what we thought Chloe was allergic to. Then the doc came in. I had picked him because he was a pediatrician specializing in allergies, just what we needed. His partner at the office was on this board and that board, but his biography said he had done this research and that research...he seemed like a very smart doc, and wanted to continue being smart.
He was also around our age and one of the first comments he made was that he had children exactly the ages of ours, three and one, and that when he saw kids like that it made him want to go home and be with his. He put us at ease immediately.
We told him Chloe had had a reaction--hives on her cheeks--from stuffing a handful of Daniel's sunflower seed shells into her mouth. They were sort of under his chair and might also have had dog hair on them. (Can you say "bad parent"?)
We told him about the incident with the yogurt, and the egg/mayo potato salad smear, and the diarrhea after eating semolina noodles. We told him we had a dusty house full of dog and cat hair, which we tried to clean as often as possible, honest we did.
He ordered skin tests for: milk, egg, wheat, peanut, dog, cat, sunflower seed, soy, ragweed, dust, and a couple of others. My mom and sis had had this done but I had never seen it done.
The nurse came in with a tray of indentations, each with a tiny little stick in it. She put blue dots all over Chloe's back. Then she put the sticks in each square made by the dots; some of them she had to poke Chloe.
Chloe was all fine and dandy with what was happening up til that point, even when we took her shirt off, but once the nurse starting pricking her and putting stuff on her back, her face changed. We could tell that suddenly the nurse had gotten on Chloe's bad list and there was nothing she could do to redeem herself. We were sure that as soon as Chloe got big enough, she was going to come back and kick the nurse's butt.
The nurse left and we sang and talked for fifteen minutes while Chloe's back got redder and redder. Then she came back and when she saw Chloe's back she exclaimed, "oh my! It's really red!"
I was confused. I thought nurses weren't supposed to say stuff like that. Anyway, the skin tests showed, graphically, what we already highly suspected: Chloe was violently allergic to milk and had strong reactions to peanut, wheat and egg. She also showed a red reaction to the dog, cat, and ragweed.
The silver lining was that she did not have a reaction to the sunflower or soy.
The doc came in after that and talked to us. He said, get the epi-pen duo packs and don't split them apart. He said, delaying medication for an allergic reaction will put Chloe's life in danger. He said that kids die because they aren't given the epinephrine soon enough.
He told us, keep doing what you're doing, and do it well. He ordered blood tests, to break down the allergens and get specific numbers, and shook our hand, and left.
I don't know what I expected to feel but relieved was not it. Not relieved. I guess I was relieved to have the information, to know for sure, and to be told what to do. He gave us an allergy plan to show Chloe's teachers and family, with instructions on what to do, along with lists as long as my arm on what ingredients with deceptive names that are really milk, egg, and wheat we had to avoid. It included all gluten as well as dairy and dairy and egg derivatives, and of course, peanuts in any form. We weren't to even introduce fish or shellfish til the age of three.
We walked back out into the sunshine, got some food, and headed home. We really didn't feel like hanging around Colorado Springs despite the fact that there were a Home Depot and Target there.
I felt like it was a pretty good day, and Chloe slept most of the way home.
We got to the office and waited a few minutes. Then the nurse came and took us to a room with a table, several chairs, and a desk. Andrew was a little stir-crazy for being in the car for several hours (and our walk around the block to kill time because we were early didn't take the edge off much) but he had some little cars and he found he could run them along the beam under the table so he stayed busy. Chloe pulled up and toddled all around the room.
The nurse asked us a bunch of questions, to determine what we thought Chloe was allergic to. Then the doc came in. I had picked him because he was a pediatrician specializing in allergies, just what we needed. His partner at the office was on this board and that board, but his biography said he had done this research and that research...he seemed like a very smart doc, and wanted to continue being smart.
He was also around our age and one of the first comments he made was that he had children exactly the ages of ours, three and one, and that when he saw kids like that it made him want to go home and be with his. He put us at ease immediately.
We told him Chloe had had a reaction--hives on her cheeks--from stuffing a handful of Daniel's sunflower seed shells into her mouth. They were sort of under his chair and might also have had dog hair on them. (Can you say "bad parent"?)
We told him about the incident with the yogurt, and the egg/mayo potato salad smear, and the diarrhea after eating semolina noodles. We told him we had a dusty house full of dog and cat hair, which we tried to clean as often as possible, honest we did.
He ordered skin tests for: milk, egg, wheat, peanut, dog, cat, sunflower seed, soy, ragweed, dust, and a couple of others. My mom and sis had had this done but I had never seen it done.
The nurse came in with a tray of indentations, each with a tiny little stick in it. She put blue dots all over Chloe's back. Then she put the sticks in each square made by the dots; some of them she had to poke Chloe.
Chloe was all fine and dandy with what was happening up til that point, even when we took her shirt off, but once the nurse starting pricking her and putting stuff on her back, her face changed. We could tell that suddenly the nurse had gotten on Chloe's bad list and there was nothing she could do to redeem herself. We were sure that as soon as Chloe got big enough, she was going to come back and kick the nurse's butt.
The nurse left and we sang and talked for fifteen minutes while Chloe's back got redder and redder. Then she came back and when she saw Chloe's back she exclaimed, "oh my! It's really red!"
I was confused. I thought nurses weren't supposed to say stuff like that. Anyway, the skin tests showed, graphically, what we already highly suspected: Chloe was violently allergic to milk and had strong reactions to peanut, wheat and egg. She also showed a red reaction to the dog, cat, and ragweed.
The silver lining was that she did not have a reaction to the sunflower or soy.
The doc came in after that and talked to us. He said, get the epi-pen duo packs and don't split them apart. He said, delaying medication for an allergic reaction will put Chloe's life in danger. He said that kids die because they aren't given the epinephrine soon enough.
He told us, keep doing what you're doing, and do it well. He ordered blood tests, to break down the allergens and get specific numbers, and shook our hand, and left.
I don't know what I expected to feel but relieved was not it. Not relieved. I guess I was relieved to have the information, to know for sure, and to be told what to do. He gave us an allergy plan to show Chloe's teachers and family, with instructions on what to do, along with lists as long as my arm on what ingredients with deceptive names that are really milk, egg, and wheat we had to avoid. It included all gluten as well as dairy and dairy and egg derivatives, and of course, peanuts in any form. We weren't to even introduce fish or shellfish til the age of three.
We walked back out into the sunshine, got some food, and headed home. We really didn't feel like hanging around Colorado Springs despite the fact that there were a Home Depot and Target there.
I felt like it was a pretty good day, and Chloe slept most of the way home.
stress
The stress surrounding Chloe's allergies was unbelieveable. Do you ever get into a situation where your stress is caused by something you don't know for sure, so you don't know how to handle it, but which you could easily find out about but are too worried that what you will find out will be dire?
That was the situation I was in right after Chloe's 1-year checkup. I didn't know the extent of her allergies and exactly how to handle them. We had been referred to an allergy specialist, but I hadn't made the call yet.
How dumb is that. But that's how you think when you're that stressed out, you're paralyzed. In the meantime, we were still giving her meat, fruits, veggies, and oatmeal, whatever she would eat. Thanksgiving was coming up and we had an invitation from Chloe's grandma, my father-in-law's wife, whose cooking is deliciously rich and full of butter and cream.
I was so stressed out that a couple of weeks of school went by in a blur. I rehearsed my students and dealt with small problems, I'm sure, I just don't remember any of it.
On about the last Friday of October my foot started tingling as I lay in bed that night. The next morning the tingling had gotten worse, and by Monday, I had tingling all up and down the right side of my body. I didn't know what to do. Every time I thought about it the tingling would get worse, my face would flush, my heart would race. Classic stress symptoms.
I mentioned this to Andrew's preschool director at the end of that Monday, and she looked at me in horror.
"WHAT?!" she screeched. "You've been having STROKE symptoms ALL DAY and you haven't done anything about it???" She then hauled me off to the doctor, the little clinic right by our school.
The first thing they did was hook me up to an EKG machine. I lay there thinking, am I dying? Am I really having a stroke? The EKG came back normal.
When I finally saw the doc, he was a younger man with a sweet face and a calm demeanor. He asked me what was happening, and I let loose a torrent of symptoms, which I won't go into in gory detail, but all of which had to do with extreme stress.
I told him about the biggest stress, which was Chloe's allergies, and as I talked he watched the redness suffuse my chest and neck all the way up to the roots of my hair. I hunched over the bench and clenched the sides with my hands.
I could see him thinking calmly. Calm. That's what I needed. Some information. He told me when people are under extreme stress sometimes they hyperventilate; and I wasn't doing the panting kind but the shallow breathing kind, and that meant that certain parts of my body weren't getting enough oxygen.
I immediately straightened up and breathed deeply. All the rest of the symptoms, he said, were superficial and would go away. Not knowing about Chloe would continue to cause stress until I dealt with it. He prescribed Prozac but I and especially my husband are skeptical of mood-enhancing drugs.
I then realized that my stress was not going to go away until I called the allergist--what I should have done in the first place.
I made the appointment for a Friday, and while my stress did not exactly subside, the tingling did go away when I made a conscious effort to breathe and think of something else. I felt stupidly foolish for letting the stress get out of control instead of dealing with it, but all I could think about--then and now--is my dear tiny little daughter losing her life because of poor nutrition or a badly handled allergic reaction.
It freaks you out as a mother. Other mothers I personally know have gone through much much worse, but to think of someone well-meaning giving her milk...or a peanut-candy or something...those little careless things of daily life were what could cause Chloe's demise and that was what made me so stressed that all rational thought was absent.
That was the situation I was in right after Chloe's 1-year checkup. I didn't know the extent of her allergies and exactly how to handle them. We had been referred to an allergy specialist, but I hadn't made the call yet.
How dumb is that. But that's how you think when you're that stressed out, you're paralyzed. In the meantime, we were still giving her meat, fruits, veggies, and oatmeal, whatever she would eat. Thanksgiving was coming up and we had an invitation from Chloe's grandma, my father-in-law's wife, whose cooking is deliciously rich and full of butter and cream.
I was so stressed out that a couple of weeks of school went by in a blur. I rehearsed my students and dealt with small problems, I'm sure, I just don't remember any of it.
On about the last Friday of October my foot started tingling as I lay in bed that night. The next morning the tingling had gotten worse, and by Monday, I had tingling all up and down the right side of my body. I didn't know what to do. Every time I thought about it the tingling would get worse, my face would flush, my heart would race. Classic stress symptoms.
I mentioned this to Andrew's preschool director at the end of that Monday, and she looked at me in horror.
"WHAT?!" she screeched. "You've been having STROKE symptoms ALL DAY and you haven't done anything about it???" She then hauled me off to the doctor, the little clinic right by our school.
The first thing they did was hook me up to an EKG machine. I lay there thinking, am I dying? Am I really having a stroke? The EKG came back normal.
When I finally saw the doc, he was a younger man with a sweet face and a calm demeanor. He asked me what was happening, and I let loose a torrent of symptoms, which I won't go into in gory detail, but all of which had to do with extreme stress.
I told him about the biggest stress, which was Chloe's allergies, and as I talked he watched the redness suffuse my chest and neck all the way up to the roots of my hair. I hunched over the bench and clenched the sides with my hands.
I could see him thinking calmly. Calm. That's what I needed. Some information. He told me when people are under extreme stress sometimes they hyperventilate; and I wasn't doing the panting kind but the shallow breathing kind, and that meant that certain parts of my body weren't getting enough oxygen.
I immediately straightened up and breathed deeply. All the rest of the symptoms, he said, were superficial and would go away. Not knowing about Chloe would continue to cause stress until I dealt with it. He prescribed Prozac but I and especially my husband are skeptical of mood-enhancing drugs.
I then realized that my stress was not going to go away until I called the allergist--what I should have done in the first place.
I made the appointment for a Friday, and while my stress did not exactly subside, the tingling did go away when I made a conscious effort to breathe and think of something else. I felt stupidly foolish for letting the stress get out of control instead of dealing with it, but all I could think about--then and now--is my dear tiny little daughter losing her life because of poor nutrition or a badly handled allergic reaction.
It freaks you out as a mother. Other mothers I personally know have gone through much much worse, but to think of someone well-meaning giving her milk...or a peanut-candy or something...those little careless things of daily life were what could cause Chloe's demise and that was what made me so stressed that all rational thought was absent.
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