Still Sick

I am still sick and have developed some nasty complications. I'm also trying to type on the laptop so try to bear with the typos. I have to recall the food adventures too, and future food adventure plans.

So for the food adventures: I had a friend over and we tried to make some liver and onions and bone marrow with roast beef. The beef liver was horrible - it just had the nastiest flavor ever. I'm pretty sure I'm done with liver and onions, but I might try it marinated for a few days because letting it soak in milk for an hour wasn't enough. The bone marrow was once again a disappointment for two reasons: One was that the bones were big soup bones from the ends of the legs so they were mostly hard spongy bone with very little accessible marrow; two was that the flavor and smell were no better than last time. The marrow was actually cooked this time though, so it wasn't bad smeared on top of a slice of roast beef. Speaking of which, the roast beef was phenomenal - lots of onions and leeks in the broth that tasted so good after stewing for a couple hours. And the beef tasted good too of course. Cooking it was tough though :/ my oven is a bit touchy, and I had to watch it to make sure the temperature wasn't wrong for two whole hours.

In addition to liver pate, I'm really looking forward to experimenting with duck and duck innards. I have a friend who loves to hunt, and even though it's not really duck season right now, there's still a chance that I may be able to get one before too long (ducks are very expensive at the grocery store). I also found a recipe in a cookbook for a pork shoulder simmered in milk for a few hours that I think sounds really really good. I'm also looking forward to doing a bit more with cheese and cream, since I've been doing so much with eggs and butter it's time for a change of pace.

That reminds me of something else! Butter basted eggs are amazingly good! I've also found a way to soak up leftover oils from my plate when I'm done - canned tuna. It goes great with a couple of basted eggs and some shredded cheese and bacon. I've graduated to whole milk from 2% and I don't think there's much of a flavor difference, but it makes the fat goals a little easier to reach. So do breve lattes, though they put a dent in the wallet a bit more than I like.

So, about being sick. I figure that all I have is a cold, but it's been especially uncomfortable and today marks one week of it. I've had an unproductive cough and a shockingly painful sore throat. The cough has been intermittent but really bad when I have it, to the point where I've developed either a cracked rib or a strained diaphragm that hurts really bad at the bottom of my ribcage when I stretch or cough. I've been experimenting with treatments for it and found that none of them I have tried have done much of anything. Aspirin and Acetaminophen are good for the sore throat but do not help the cough. Caffeine makes me feel good, but doesn't really help any of the symptoms. Alcohol and prescription cough suppressants make me forget I'm in pain but also make me dizzy. Hot tea is soothing, but doesn't do much aside from hydrate me.

It's too late to try to recall past inputs and outputs, but I want to mention that I ate some bread the other day. My boss had a meet and greet for her tutors, and I was among them, and she offered us bread and other starchy foods. I didn't want to be rude, or reveal myself as being a complete whackjob in front of my boss and peers, so I just ate. However wonderful I think it is to be a meatetarian, I'm not going to be upfront about it like vegetarians endlessly are - I know that eating in a strange way is strange, so I don't want to appear strange if I can avoid it, especially in cases where money may be an issue. If I had told my boss, "Oh, no thanks. I don't eat plant products." I would have been stared at blankly, asked if I was crazy and treated oddly, much like I treat most vegetarians. The way I eat ought not to inconvenience anyone who tries to give me food in order to be polite, so I will politely eat what I am served.

So to reiterate, no formal input and output for this post, I'll try to get back into that soon. Probably when I'm no longer sick. I'm convinced that the dehydration has had an effect on it, even though it hasn't been devastating and hasn't led to diarrhea. I also haven't been going to the gym - I don't want to tempt the cough.

Until next time.