Food Challenge Round 40: Cindy vs. Lox

When I was a child, one of the things I wanted most in the world was to grow up and eat chocolate covered lox. Now, before you gag, understand: my friends/peers would only make me feel bad about being allergic to two foods — chocolate, because what kids don’t like chocolate; and lox, because it’s a staple of the American Jewish diet. I hadn’t ever tasted either, so I assumed if everyone loved both, eating them together would be stupendous. I’d tell my family and my doctor that when I grew up, I’d eat chocolate covered lox.

Today, I learned that dreams do come true — just not how you’d expect.

I challenged lox today in my second post-Xolair challenge. It started off like spinach — touched it, rubbed it on my fingers, freaked out about my lack of hives. Did ya’ll know fish is super slimy? Gross.

Then it stopped being like spinach.

I took a bit of the lox — like a sliver the size of my thumb — and put it in my mouth. Spit it out on the doctor’s desk almost immediately and shouted “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” Fish, it seems, is an acquired taste.

I didn’t want to eat more. It was vile. And slimy. And gross. But I want to be able to eat fish. So, after whining overdramatically and having the nurse come in to soothe me, I took a bite. I swallowed. I SWALLOWED FISH. LIKE A SEA LION. I haven’t swallowed fish in years — maybe since I was a toddler. Never swallowed lox. It never got that far.

I then asked the nurse if I could take a bite of chocolate to fulfill my dream. She said sure. With the taste of lox fresh on my tongue, I ate a piece of chocolate. And you know what I have to say to all you naysayers out there who gagged in the beginning of this post? The tastes sort of blended. Like chocolate covered pretzels. Bittersweet chocolate with a salty smoky edge. If Gwyneth Paltrow “Goop’ed” it the whole world would be on that like it was a kale chip.

My dream of opening a lox and chocolate factory was soon dismantled. I got extremely nauseous. The doctor tossed me his trash bin. I didn’t use it. But I started feeling off. Ear burning, throat scratchy (though that was solved with water). My vision was intact and there was no sign of hives — both the typical symptoms I’ve gotten from touching fish — but I was lethargic, cranky, and groggy. Also typical symptoms of close encounters with the sea kind.

I stayed for monitoring and just kept getting more nauseous. The doctor gave me Claritin, which helped. We assessed that I can’t eat lox, though if I want to, I can challenge other fish and other cooked salmons (I may not want to). We also assessed that my threshold had significantly changed — I could now swallow fish without a severe reaction. A reaction not even worthy of Benedryl! This means I can touch it, I can be near it, and most importantly — I can now go to restaurants, not just in LA, but anywhere careful.

Am I disappointed that I can’t eat fish? Sort of. Am I cranky because I still don’t feel great? Sure am. But, I’m also really happy, and here’s why:

1. I grew up to eat chocolate and lox, and even though I’d given up on that dream long ago, it still feels great to have achieved it, even for a moment. The world is never how we expect it to be, but it sometimes surprises you and lets you have a taste of something you really really really wanted. I’m feeling very empowered.

2. I can now get closer to fish than ever before. I can feed a sea lion. I can go to the New York Aquarium and touch the starfish. As a kid, when we’d go there on class trips, I’d sit in the hallway by this fountain thing and wait until my whole class had touched the fish and soaped their hands. No chaperone ever stayed with me (seriously, the 90s were cool) and while my friends joined me once they were done, I was alone for most of the time and bored to tears — and also sad. Like, really left out sad. But now, I can touch the fish like the rest of them. Also, zoos and aquariums aside, I can be around fish eaters. Cooking just got so much easier for large family gatherings. I can clear off a plate that had lox on it and help my dad out after he’s done eating. That’s big.

3. It’s confirmed that the food challenges I’m set to do to keep assessing the Xolair aren’t for naught — each allergen will have a different threshold, and it’s important to find out what they are. But they’ll all be better. BETTER. That’s pretty damn good.

A keeper at my old stomping ground, the Prospect Park Zoo. I could be her!

FOOD CHALLENGE TALLY

Cindy: 28

Allergens: 5

Next Up: Vote?

Food Challenge 39: Cindy vs. Spinach (aka THE PLAYOFF GAME)

This was the big one. Spinach. A food I hadn’t eaten in years, and never successfully. 27 years of spinach being poison, and today, I willingly consumed it.

In case you’re just finding this blog or don’t remember or just like recaps (have you read Vulture’s recaps of Pretty Little Liars? You have to.), I’ve been taking this medicine called Xolair that has been known to mitigate allergies. I say mitigate, not cure, because 1. it’s an ongoing treatment and if you stop doing it, the allergies come back and 2. it’s doesn’t make the allergies completely go away, it just makes them lessened and builds up a tolerance.

So anyway, after four months of injections, I was ready to see if it was all worth it — if the Xolair made any changes to my IGE levels and body chemistry.

AND IT DID!

I was super nervous in the days running up to the challenge, mildly calmer this morning thanks to certain dream cousins, and nervous/excited/adrenaline-y when I got to the doctor’s office.

I started out by touching the leaves. Previously, being in the same room as too much spinach made me dizzy. Touching it was worse, and involved hives. I ran my fingers, then my palms, over each leaf. It felt like basil. I looked at my hands. They were fine. My arms — fine. My chest — fine. My eyesight was good.

“Do I just like, eat it now? Like straight up put it in my mouth and eat it like it’s food?” I asked my doctor.

“That’s the plan.”

I hesitated, but took a deep breath and ate a leaf.

It didn’t taste like anger, darkness, or sadness, like the previous spinach I’d eaten in my life had. It tasted like a slightly more bitter basil and leafy. I finally get what people mean when they say “leafy greens taste leafy.” They’ve always tasted like the world stopping. The fact that I could now taste “leafiness” and not “sadness” meant I was maybe going to be okay.

Another half a leaf.

I paused.

“Are you going to eat a leaf every hour?” my doctor asked. “Just eat five leaves, and we’ll see what happens. You will be fine.”

“This is a moment! I’m scared!”

The nurse came in, and I started to cry from excitement. From the fact that my allergic reactions are always immediate — a minute, maybe two after consumption — and I had a leaf and a half of spinach swirling somewhere in my body and it had been five minutes or so, and I was FINE.

I downed the other three leaves while I was still brave enough to.

And then I waited…and waited…and waited…

And nothing!

Nothing!

It was like I had just eaten food. And that was all. Not like I lost my coherence, eyesight, breath, what have you. Spinach was like any other food.

My poison had become food.

The Xolair worked.

IT WORKED.

It worked?!

I’m euphoric, as my mom says. I feel surreal. I don’t know what to do with this new paradigm. I took a class in college called “Paradigms of Biological Investigation” about how scientific paradigms shift throughout time (the world once thought science said the world was flat, etc.) I feel like I just did a biological investigation that shifted my paradigm. Spinach was once thought to be poison, but instead it’s food.

***

So next time on Cindy’s allergies…

1. Now that it’s proven the Xolair works, I can eat things I was previously not allergic to before I became allergic to them in 2012 and then unallergic to again after testing. Specifically, wheat. More specifically, beer that isn’t Heineken. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fave, but grabbing a craft German beer at lunch today in celebration was JOYFUL. Also, COOKIES. Without traces of nuts of course, but COOKIES.

2. I am now going to challenge the other forbidden foods on my list. Weekly, if it all keeps going well. Paradigm will keep shifting.

3. I keep getting the Xolair once a month.

4. At some point, I’ll have proved Xolair is working enough to cross contaminate sort of at restaurants. Maybe eat pizza? Maybe just EAT AT A RESTAURANT.

It was a shock to me to go into full hyperallergic mode. Now I’m coming out of it more than I ever thought I would. Eating out again was on the table, but eating SPINACH? Who am I, Popeye?

May as well be. I’m definitely not Super Allergic Cindy.

 

The spinach — thanks F & K for dropping it off!

The first leaf. Scared and excited. #spinachselfie

My fifth leaf! I’m alive! #spinachselfie

FOOD CHALLENGE TALLY (note: I barely blogged about challenge 38, the 4th tsp of peanut butter because it was boring and I passed)

Cindy: 28

Allergens: 4

Next up: LOX (maybe covered in chocolate…story to come another time).

A Sketch That’s Funny For The Wrong [IMO] Reasons, A Podcast, and Other Thoughts

It’s a stream of consciousness type of day, so don’t expect any order to this post. Order’s overrated anyway. Not overrated? David Wain and Michael Showalter’s new romantic comedy spoof “They Came Together” starring Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, available in limited theaters and on demand. God, they are comedy geniuses. No, that has nothing to do with allergies. Except maybe it does. There’s a scene

[SPOILER ALERT]

in which Amy’s character gives her order to Paul’s character at a coffee shop and it’s completely wacky and overdone and impossible to remember except he totally remembers it and it’s definitely love, and I feel that way sometimes when I order food. She was being spoofy, but I completely related because I’m a completely awkward food orderer, and any man who can remember the random nuances of my diet is AOK in my book. Or a keeper, as they say. (Speaking of, did you guys hear about the travesty that is muggle quidditch players getting too cool for Harry Potter?)

[END SPOILER ALERT]

Sort of related to Harry Potter — well, very related to Harry Potter — I do this podcast called Common Room, where all things pop culture (especially “geek” pop culture, like HP) and food, fitness, and fashion converge. First of all, totally listen to it! Second of all, one of our segments is called “Customizable Cooking” where the group of us — a bunch of girls all around the world, from New York to Australia and inbetween — make the same recipe but tweak it in our own unique ways. In a recent episode, we recreated my gluten-free vegan pumpkin oat muffin recipe, which as you may know, has absolutely saved my life. Listen to the episode here (and discover the importance of giving the correct measurements when telling people a recipe).

I recently also made the original cookie recipe the muffins are based on, but as a sheet cake. They came out delicious, if not ugly.

One giant cookie!

It’s hard to believe that I invented that pumpkin recipe more than two years ago. Also two years ago? I learned that generic Benedryl doesn’t work as well as the real thing. Today, I dug into the pocket of the blazer I was wearing and discovered some generic Benedryl. I don’t think I wear that blazer very often.

Another thing I don’t do often is eat at communal dinner parties. Much like the characters in this Fourth of July sketch (watch below). In the interest of not spoiling the punchline, if you are a loyal follower of my allergies — or just know the basics, leafy greens, fish, horseradish — you should get why I think the ending is ironic for exactly the wrong reasons. PSA: people are allergic to more than just the popular things, people.

I’m pretty sure I’m still scared of eating spinach. One week from right now, I’ll know if I can eat spinach, and more importantly, how this Xolair thing is working. Last night I had a dream where the vegetables from Veggie Tales attacked me. Like verbally and emotionally. Mostly the tomato. Which is weird, because I can eat tomatoes. I’m not 100% sure if it’s anxiety about spinach or if I’m just reliving my senior thesis about Evangelicals in pop culture because The Leftovers premiered this week.

Which is another thing you should watch.