Haggis has always scared me a little. When I was younger, I had some offal experiences when eating liver, and ever since organ meats have been avoided. Also, the idea of a sheep stomach being involved in the presentation was somewhat off-putting. Heck, I visited Scotland and opted not to taste the celebrated dish. Well, no more I said, when a dinner invitation was extended (much like my own stomach was later to be).

Dinner was prepared by a Scot. I was liberally watered with a few substantial glasses of Laphroaig. The warm-up was cock-a-leekie soup. I was ready. And, hey! this is pretty good! It's really not so frightening. The sheep stomach isn't eaten - it's an just old style 'seal and steam' ziplock. While the haggis itself contains organ meats, it's all part of the mix, which is a fairly dense, oat-based concoction. All served with neeps (turnips) and tatties (mashed potatoes).

As part of the Robbie Burns celebration, I was asked (as the resident newbie) to recite some of Burns' '(Address) To a Haggis'. I got through the first page, but my pronunciation was so poor, the book was yanked before I could conclude: Gie her a Haggis!

An intact haggis on the left. A larger, split open one on the right.
Close up of the smaller haggis after the jump.

Turns out that there is already a maple bacon donut in production at Voodoo Doughnut. I'm sure that's good and all, but the maple bar bacon wrapped hot dog is more my thing - it just adds an extra layer of meaty flavours.

(bacon food knowledge courtesy of http://www.baconunwrapped.com/)

They are supersizing their snacks.

Behold!

clicky pic for more

The meal consisted of:

1. Pomodori al Forno
2. Frisée and Apple salad w/ Dried Cherries and Walnuts
3. Mac and Cheese with Pancetta
4. Key Lime Cupcakes

By far the biggest winner of the evening was the Pomodori al Forno, which was also the easiest to make, so go figure. I'm definitely making that again. You're invited. The Mac and Cheese was pretty darn good too, if you ask me, but I wouldn't want to know the calorie count on it.

With the salad, I couldn't find frisée, so I picked the spring mix that looked the most frisée-like, and that was fine. Also, dried cherries were substituted with cherry-flavoured craisins.

The Key Lime cupcakes win the prize for being the 'most different' of the items: lime and baked goods isn't a very common pairing. After hand churning batter and icing, I decided that I need one of those fancy KitchenAid mixer jobbys, like Alton's.

The meal was a hit with my mom, which is the main thing.

Earlier this week, I bought the latest issue of Bon Appetit. As a result, I've been inspired to do some cooking.

Last night (at 10:00 pm, no less), I baked from scratch - for only the second time ever - Banana Bread w/ cinnamon crumble topping. They were actually 'squares', but it turned out damn good.

Today, for supper, I made Banh Mi, a classic Vietnamise sandwich (w/ French influences). It's a strange combination of liverwurst, slaw, cilantro, jalapeno, meat, and it works. We couldn't locate a daikon, so we substituted a parsnip (completely by accident) instead. Whatever, it worked.

Yum.
On unrelated news, I am now done my co-op (although I am pleased to be able to help out on a pt basis throughout the fall). Back to classes.

One of the standard tests in Crohn's disease is the small bowel follow-through (sbft), which is essentially an x-ray of the bowels. Unfortunately, the prep for the sbft isn't particularly fun. First you need to evacuate the bowels and get them moving, which can lead to much cramping and pain, and then you have to consume two bottles of this chalky, faux fruit flavoured barium drink. The barium is what makes the bowels stand out in the x-ray.

The techs need to take a number of x-rays as you drink the barium to find out how much it has travelled through your system, and when it finally has started to pass into the colon, you get to go to the super-x-ray machine, with a doctor who prods your guts with a giant oversize mallet thing (like a Styrofoam Thor's hammer).  One perk is that you can actually see your x-rayed guts live on the monitor, and watch them move around as I'm prodded. (The downsides: getting fried by x-rays: bye bye offspring!, and having to pass all that barium at the end.)

In the spirit of sharing, I thought I'd show what one of those x-rays looks like.

Do you see on the lower left where the white bowel seems to dissolve into a whisp of 'smoke', and is very thin compared to all the other white parts? That's the diseased part. Because of inflammation and scar tissue, that part of the bowel is very narrow, and not much barium can sit inside there, hence the wispy look.

Anyway, that was my day. Thought you might be interested.

In the meantime, I've gone and lost 10 lbs., been hospitalized, heavily medicated, broke my computer, finished Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village, and spent some days working from home.

I've taken to drinking protein smoothies in the morning, and am supplementing myself with Green Tea, Fish Oils (and other omega-3s), L-glutamine, calcium and vitamin D.

Today is my first day back at McMaster in about 2 weeks. I'm very grateful my boss is so understanding.

I'll dig up something exciting to post about (other than my health situtation) soonish.

This time, Sarah is advocating that we team up and 'flush' for 21-days. Apparently Dr. Joshi didn't convince her to try, but Oprah and her diet guru did.

Unlike the Joshi diet, this one isn't hard and fast, and Sarah makes up some of the rules as we go. The few firm rules are:

1. no wheat
2. no meat
3. no sugar
4. no coffee
5. no liquor.
6. no dairy (almost forgot!)

As with my last go-round, the hardest parts of this kind of diet are giving up the coffee (bambu coffee substitute is poop), and finding snacks that fit into the rules.

After reading some articles, I'm convinced that a detox diet isn't really about de-toxing at all. The body is well equipped to handle toxins as they come through the body, excepting severe cases (heavy metals), and of course certain poisons. What the diet does is minimize the amount of toxins (additives, pesticides, preservatives, and other challenging food types) that enter; kind of a 'defensive' diet. Maybe this places less load on the gut and liver, maybe it just cuts the sugar and fat. In any case, it is probably a better way to eat.