Like I said, I ended up taking Monday off of work because I felt so yucky and out of it — I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. As I joked to my old co-volunteer from Peru, Nick, maybe I was having anniversary sympathy pains for all of the stomach trouble I was having there at this time last year! I devoted an entire page of my photo album to the experience:

Little did I know how close to the truth my joke would turn out to be!

Aside from the debilitating stomach pain and somewhat visible stomach bloat, I had no symptoms — everything else was chugging along just fine, grrr. All the possibilities were running through my head: Was the yogurt bad? Was I suddenly lactose intolerant for real? Had I managed to catch some scary old-fashioned disease like dysentery or typhoid, the likes of which have not been seen in this country since the days of Oregon Trail? A quick wikipedia check told me that my symptoms had nothing to do with those ailments (phew!), so what’s a girl to do?! I called my mom, of course. My mom told me to call my doctor. The receptionist at the doctor’s office told me my doctor (who I haven’t even seen yet since my insurance just started last month) was away until 8/10 and they wouldn’t have someone to cover until the next day. Sigh. I drank some ginger tea and went back to bed again. I slept until 10 and was super antsy when I woke up, so I tried to keep myself busy by doing mindless things like cleaning the apartment, etc.

Around 2:00, I thought I detecting a growling tummy amidst all the other tummy feelings, so I had a cup of the flax pudding I had made on Sunday:



The pudding had a teeny bit of yogurt in it, so I also wanted to see if I noticed any sort of reaction or worsening of my condition in response. I actually felt a little better after eating this, so I decided to rule out the “bad yogurt” scenario.

My mom called to check in and told me to stop trying to make my body process all of this produce “roughage” and to just be nice to myself and have chicken broth. I sort of followed her instructions by defrosting some of my homemade veggie broth along with some of the matzoh balls mom sent home with me after Passover.

With some balcony basil on top to make things more presentable:

I had a little more soup later on for dinner and then followed it with … ice cream!! (the cure for stomach ailments everywhere). I had about 1/4 cup cinnamon oatmeal cookie gelato, 1/4 cup Stonyfield raspberry white chocolate chunk frozen yogurt (but what are those dark chocolate chunks, you ask?? Ohhh, just a chopped half-square of unsweetened Baker’s chocolate because HEAB is a genius!), and some rhubarb-blueberry compote on the side:



And look what I found:



A chunk of oatmeal cookie, ahhhh!!!!!! It was worth the wait 😀

Unfortunately, the stomach situation tumbled precariously downhill from there. I went to bed at 9, fell asleep at 10, woke up at midnight, and never went back to sleep! I knew there was no use even trying, so I did some reading for class, some blog business, read for pleasure, drank ginger tea and ate dry bagel toast, watched early morning TV, and decided at 7:20 that there was no point in staying home again because it clearly wasn’t going to help me get any better. I toasted half of a freezer bagel (I knew there was a reason I had been saving all of these refined carbs in there!) and had some egg and black beans on one part and peanut butter on the other part:



Looove crispy egg (with CSA green onion stirred in):



I also packed a bunch of formerly frozen toasted bread for work and class in an attempt to give my body easy (though not entirely healthy) foods to digest. Over the morning and at lunch, I had a big hunk of toasted french bread with butter (unpictured) and half of another toasted bagel with peanut butter:



I also had one piece of this champagne cheddar cheese that Danilda brought down because it just sounded too yummy to say no, tummy issues aside:



And half of this piece of cracker barrel aged reserve cheddar left from Friday’s breakfast because cracker barrel aged reserve cheddar is my absolute favorite cheese of all time:



At some point, I called my doctor’s office to see if they had found coverage, and they had not. Awesome.

For an afternoon snack, I split this container of coconut (the man at the juice bar hacked it into pieces specifically for us, so it was soft and fresh and amazing) with Jessica:



Mmmm, coconut has such a mild and smooth flavor, and it made my belly happy 😀



In class, I had more matzoh ball soup …



… with the rest of Lillian’s Maria biscuits for dipping:



With my class dinner, I drank what I was expecting to be the best thing that had happened to my stomach since comfort:



I nearly jumped for joy when I saw this in the deli near school. I really wanted some ginger tea, but I couldn’t find any places with it. Kombucha seemed the perfect solution because it already has good stomach benefits, it’s fizzy, and this flavor had fresh pressed ginger juice as the only other ingredient, and ginger is obviously a miracle worker with stomach ailments:



I was in love from the first sip. It tasted like sushi ginger in juice form!!!! Some people may find that thought repelling, but I felt as though I had discovered the perfect marriage of taste and functionality. My stomach disagreed. Apparently, despite the benefits of kombucha for normal healthy stomachs and ginger’s miracle properties, kombucha’s high acid content is not exactly ideal for an already-irritated stomach. My stomach started to feel as though it was going to rip itself from my belly and sprint across the room. I held out as long as I could but I ended up having to leave class an hour before it was over.

I called my mom from outside to bring her up to date on the latest health info (what would I do without her?!) and then spent the next half hour walking in the downtown direction while I called my doctor’s office again (voicemail said only to call 911 or go to ER if assistance was needed), my insurance (said to call back during business hours or call 911 or go to ER), and the ER. The complications were as follows: (1) I would not be able to see a different doctor without a referral that was approved by my insurance, and neither my insurance nor other doctors’ offices were open at this hour and (2) an ER visit has a $0 copay … unless the patient is admitted and needs treatment, in which case the copay becomes $1000! Ummmmm …

I stopped into deli for emergency tummy settlling snacks because I was still kind of in excruciating pain and it was hard to think straight!



After I opened the ginger ale and took a sip, I immediately thought better of it because I realized that the fake sugars coupled with the fake ginger flavor would probably do my tummy more harm than good. I actually threw the bottle away (horror!) and opted for straight fizz instead:



I got through to the ER finally and was assured that I would not be “admitted” to the $1000 copay scenario without my awareness and consent, and the decision was made. I was off to good ol’ Methodist Hospital in the Slope for some seriously slow motion emergency service. By the time I was called in, I had eaten the entire bag of pita chips — ummmm, that is six servings!!! I was desperate, though — relief only seemed to come while I was eating, and I had to wait for five hours to be seen, 9:30 pm to 2:30 am. Good thing I was not dying.

What is the longest you have had to wait in the ER?

After spending Saturday night tossing and turning in tummy agony, I finally fell asleep for a couple of hours and woke up feeling somewhat refreshed on Sunday morning. After a giant stomach-calming mug of peppermint tea, I toasted half of a freezer bagel and had some with peanut butter and some with Olga‘s apricot jam:

I love this jam!

Enormous apricot alert:

As sad as I was to miss all of my friends’ festivities on Saturday, my paper productivity made it worth it. I felt so much more capable of finishing it after I got all the research out of the way. Sunday’s task was simply to write and write and write and write and write.

When I needed a break, I went to the freezer and found some rhubarb-blueberry compote that my mom must have sent home with me after a MA visit at some point in the last four years. I melted it in a saucepan with a little bit of water, 8 watermelon ice cubes, and 2 chopped dates (the additions were necessary to eliminate the freezer taste) and had a few spoonfuls straight out of the pot:

My mom’s rhubarb compote was always one of the hallmarks of spring/summer growing up, so I was glad to have little taste of it.

I went back to writing writing writing until I got hungry … or at least I think I was hungry! My stomach had started to feel angry again, like I was about to spend the rest of the day with my head hanging over a bowl, yet nothing was happening. I toasted half of an everything bagel from the freezer, globbed on some of Diana‘s hummus, and topped it with cucumbers:

Mmmmm, I haven’t had a bagel with hummus and cucumbers in forever. This hit the [somewhat uncomfortable] spot:

On the side, I had my CSA salad of the week:

And, for dessert, a ramekin of yogurt with more rhubarb-blueberry compote:

After lunch, I arranged myself in bed with my laptop and my paper research since sitting upright was growing increasing painful for my belly. When I needed a break a couple hours later, I decided homemade bubble tea was in order, courtesy of Elisabeth‘s colorful tapioca balls:

Aren’t they the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen?

I also snagged a little spoonful of date bliss:

And it was back to the paper! Ayyyy this paper. It was only supposed to be 8-10 pages, but I was not even 1/3 of the way through, and it was already up to 6! I started to panic and took a lunch-prep break. I didn’t have time this weekend to get to the store for milk so that I could make yogurt, so I decided to revisit my flax pudding instead. I used Mr. Coffee to grind 1/4 cup of whole flax seeds and then mixed them with 2 cups of jasmine iced tea, 1 chopped date, and cinnamon. I brought the whole mix to a boil and then moved it to the fridge to cool and set. When it was fully chilled, I blended in my last 1/2 cup of yogurt. It was still a bit loose for my liking, so I also added 1/4 cup extra thick rolled oats to help thicken things up:

I divided the pudding into my three little tupperwares and topped each with blueberries, CSA blackberries, chopped CSA plum, and hemp seeds:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is nothing more photogenic than fruit!

I went back to the paper for some more self-torture (going to grad school was a voluntary decision, right??) and then broke for dinner around 6: the other half of that Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake bulked up with about 1/2 cup extra black beans:

Seriously, sooooo good! Hands down the best frozen meal I have ever eaten.

Dessert was about 1/4 cup of cinnamon oatmeal raisin cookie gelato (still sooooooo worth the purchase) with some more fruit compote.

This was a brilliant combo! The blueberries and cinnamon were a match made in heaven.

I went back to work on the paper after dessert, and my stomach started to feel worse, a frustrating development since I had been hoping to start feeling better all day long. I started to panic that maybe I had become lactose intolerant overnight. Nooooooooooo!!!! I calmed myself with an authentic Sicilian marzipan strawberry (??) from Wife and Ted:

I paaaaaaaaainfully struggled through the rest of my paper (I hope the prof doesn’t mind that my 8-10 page paper is actually 15 pages???!!!) and then gleefully (if not entirely comfortably) celebrated with an UliMana chia moon drop chocolate:

This raw chocolate delight was a lovely way to conclude the homework portion of my summer sessions, mmmmmmmmm:

(I’ll be turning in the paper and having my last class (for two weeks) tonight, woooooooooooooooooooooooot :-P)

Despite the emotional high of finishing my paper, I felt absolutely miserable physically and, once again, threw myself into bed at 8:45 pm. I was in such agony all night!! I kid you not — I did not fall asleep until 4:47 am. Thank goodness I had the foresight to reset my alarm from 5am to 6am when it became clear that a morning gym session was not in the cards. When my alarm went off at 6, I thought I felt better and got out of bed to get ready for work. The nausea immediately came rushing back, and I had to call in sick and go back to bed. Ughh, I hate having to take sick days — I’m always worried that I’m getting worked up over nothing, but I just felt SO uncomfortable and knew I would be useless trying to be help families while I was so exhausted and pained!

How do you know when a sick day is in order?

Initially, Saturday looked like it was going to be a brilliant day with perfect weather, hot yoga, two baby showers for two dear old coworkers, Gina’s block party, Tara’s BBQ … until I realized I was way over my head with my final paper and had no choice but to completely clear my schedule.

I was up at 7 for an early start, but I had to take a mid-morning break to go pick up the CSA because produce waits for no one!

This week, Kate and I each got romaine, arugula, six ears of corn, 3 eggs, broccoli, green onions, baby turnips …

… green and white cucumbers, baby bok choy…

… baby plums, cherries, and blackberries:

I decided to process the produce salad-style, so I washed and combined the romaine, arugula, and some balcony arugula and set it out to dry. In a separate bowl, I combined three ears of raw corn kernels (again, this has to be the sweetest corn I have ever tasted!), the chopped baby turnips (they taste like radishes!), some chopped green and white cucumbers, 3 chopped green onions, roasted broccoli (with herb-infused olive oil, balsamic, salt, and coriander), braised bok choy and turnip greens, and some edamame I found in the freezer:

I’m obviously doing my part to support corn and soybeans, the two most impoverished crops in the country 😛

I landed that salad mix on top of the greens (romaine and arugula) to have for lunch all week long. I love fresh food! (Does anyone not?)

I bookended my CSA trip with two mini breakfast cookies to keep me motivated. Friday night, I had mixed 3/4 cup quick oats with two melted watermelon ice cubes and a tbsp peanut butter. I divided the “batter” into two balls and flattened the balls into two cookies. I had cookie #1 as I was working on my paper pre-CSA:

I frosted the cookie (because frosting is always critical) with a mix of date bliss and yogurt and topped it with a sprinkle of ginger:

Post-CSA, I had cookie #2 the same way, but frozen (frosting and all) and over plain yogurt with a pile of blueberries on top:

From the side:

Bloobs (obv not from the CSA):

After this brunch of sorts, I wrapped up the latest installment of “Sarah’s Twice-Baked Cakes” (thanks for the name, Julie!) and headed over to Prospect Park to drop it with Tara for her BBQ. I was so tempted to stay, but I said, No, Sarah, there is too much work to be done!! Instead, I headed over to Hanco’s for three hours of distraction-free coconut bubble tea. I know I have all the tools to make it at home, but sometimes a little peace-and-quiet is worth the $5! (Except for that one girl who was talking SO loud to her friend for at least an hour and driving me insane because I really didn’t need to know every detail about how she taught her dog to cross the street and how she couldn’t tell the difference between people from Long Island and people from Staten Island and how she could tell the difference between people from different parts of the midwest because she is from MN, and on and on and on.)

Once I had gotten all I could out of Hanco’s and was teetering on the precarious ledge of buying another bubble tea, I decided to cut my losses and head home. On the way, I stopped in at Union Market for samples (Iberico and gouda cheeses, marinated mushrooms, gardiniera veggie mix, sun-dried tomatoes, cippolini onions, and frosted cupcake pieces) and actually got suckered into buying something – GASP2009!!

The purchase probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was anxious about my paper and avoiding going back to work on it, but I think the purchase also had a lot do to with the fact that I couldn’t imagine anything I would rather eat at that moment than cinnamon gelato with oatmeal cookie pieces:

I dug right in in search of oatmeal cookie pieces, but it seems the cookie pieces were blended in along with the cinnamon:

I kept digging just to make sure. Oh wait, what’s that little dark spot? My heart starting racing with anticipation …

Hmph, just a raisin.

Even if I was missing a cookie crunch, though, I could definitely taste the cookie influence in the gelato … and it was delicious! Before I accidentally ate the whole pint, I made the wise decision to engage in a little linner action. At this point, I had been dillydallying for far too long and decided I needed to make something quick and easy that wouldn’t trick me into spending four hours cooking:

I’ve been saving this meal in the freezer for months and months and months and months and was so excited to finally have a chance to break into it because it had all my favorite ingredients:

If only they could have thrown a little avocado in there, I might have just died on the spot! Of course, I could have gotten an avocado at Union Market instead of the gelato, but hindsight is 20/20 … and I stand by my declaration of the gelato’s deliciousness.

Anyway, this was a microwave meal, and I don’t have a microwave. I unwrapped the package and dumped the block of mayan harvest bake ice into a baking dish:

Twenty minutes later, I had a meal! I had half of the bake over my CSA/balcony greens:

And it was everything I had imagined! Just look at that giant hunk of sweet plantain:

My tummy had started to feel slightly iffy earlier in the day and I didn’t want to push things, so I stuck with just half of the meal before moving onto cake and ice cream 😛

Yeah I thought I got rid of all my cake the other day, too … but apparently I missed this little container of chocolate cake pieces. Oh well, guess I should eat it 😀 I topped the cake with a mix of yogurt and a couple tbsp of the gelato and let it soak and re-firm in the freezer while I did some more work. I finished the research portion of my paper around 8 and decided to be done for the day! I moved out to the balcony with my book, my cake and ice cream, and a dollop of peanut butter and prepared to relax:

Sadly, my tum kept feeling worse and worse and seemed frozen in a larger state of expansion than normal. I finished my dessert (the reasonable thing to do when faced with intense stomach discomfort) and threw myself into bed, planning to wake up fresh as a daisy on Sunday morning! To be continued …

What have you cleared recently?

As usual around here, last week was full of coworker-sponsored snacks, and it all culminated in a full-blown feast on Friday 😀

On Monday, Jessica and Rosalie supplemented my lunch with salad and a piece of chicken quesadilla, respectively:

One of these days, I promise I will accidentally-on-purpose forget to pack a lunch just so that I can buy a whole quesadilla for myself.

Rosey was way beyond generous and brought in the rest of the best tres leches cake ever … plus she let me “lick the pan” which was full of condensed milk and at least another slice of cake!

Tuesday and Wednesday included a Maria biscuit from Lillian, buttered toast from Nydia, and three bites of donation overflow donuts from the advocacy kitchen:

(Side note: I thought I lost my work ID and key card last week. Surprise, surprise … they were found in the advocacy kitchen.)

On Thursday, Belkis brought in cassave, a traditional Dominican bread made completely of yucca:

I had some plain, and it was very dry and crackerish … but once I took Belkis’ “traditional Dominican” suggestion to try it with avocado and Myrna’s “traditional Dominican” suggestion to try it with peanut butter, I could definitely see the appeal:

Rosey and Maria shared their tostones, and Lillian and Nydia shared their maduros:

(Avocados and plantains in the same day??? How did I get so lucky?! :-P)

Jennifer showed that she’s a healthy snacker with her banana, and Jose modeled Lillian’s latest health food store purchase: all natural and organic macaroons.

The only ingredients in these macaroons were unsweetened coconut, honey, and egg whites … and they were beyond delicious:

I had three!

Finally, Friday morning was our big department breakfast in honor of Maria’s rapidly progressing pregnancy. You’ve already seen the recycled muffins that I contributed, and I also brought in my very own homemade authentic Dominican (there’s a lot of Dominican authenticity going on in this post!) chicken and cheese empanadas:

OK, maybe I did not make the empanadas myself, but they are still authentic, Dominican, and homemade … by Mildred and Myrna! I rescued them from Heather’s baby shower in the beginning of April and have been storing them in my freezer ever since. For the breakfast, I let them thaw in the fridge overnight and then put them in the work oven at 375 for 20 minutes so they got crispy. Everyone agreed that these four-month-old empanadas tasted as though they were fresh out of the fryer 🙂 The freezer is an amazing contraption.

Jessica was also feeling inspired for this breakfast, so she brought it all the necessary supplies for chocolate-covered strawberry and mango skewers and enlisted my help:

We only had a few close calls with burning chocolate before we got it down to a science and created our sunshine platter of sophistication:

Once we got everything set up in the conference room, we invited Maria in … and she pretended to be surprised:

Here’s the full spread with mangu, eggs, fried cheese, ham, and homemade farina from Myrna; babybel and cracker barrel cheddar (the best kind ever) cheeses from Lillian; “my” empanadas and muffins; bagels and assorted cream cheeses from Jennifer; Jessica’s chocolate sunshine skewers; and assorted juices:

I gathered a bit of [almost] everything for myself: farina (sooo good — Myrna made it with cinnamon, sugar, and milk), a cheese empanada with cheddar on top, a bite of egg/fried cheese/ham, mangu, Beryl’s corn muffin (a late arrival to the table but worth the wait — they were spiced with nutmeg and had me returning to the conference room table for more all afternoon), and a dark chocolate skewer:

(I don’t think I need to mention that I had two more bowls of farina, two more skewers, and about 4 more muffins!)

One of the cream cheeses was cheesecake-flavored, so I had to test out a dollop with a bite of mango:

It was yummy enough to make me scared of what would happen if I ever bought this for myself!

At the end of breakfast, the environmental boys were only too happy to help us out with the leftovers which made me very happy because it meant that less food would be calling me all afternoon from the infamous conference room table. Erik and Roberto posed with their fruit and muffins for a somewhat unfortunate photo:

I gave them a chance to redeem themselves, and it was only partly successful:

I feel so lucky that my job involves people who love to make food and people who love to eat food. Can you imagine a more rewarding work environment? (I’m sure the rewarding factor has nothing to do with the fact that we all save the world on a daily basis …) 😛

What part of your life requires/involves the highest level of group effort?

Wednesday was another bakery donation delivery day at work. When I got home with my collection of overflow baked goods and saw that I couldn’t squeeze one more smushed muffin into the freezer, I knew that a big freezer clean-out adventure was in order. I combined the day’s goods with the backlog in the freezer and divided everything into four bowls:

I had muffins (blueberry, cranberry, zucchini, carrot, chocolate, corn, and cinnamon):

Cakes (donation sponge cake and Maria’s tres leches cake):

Donation peanut butter cookies:

And frostings! (a combination of actual cream cheese, cream cheese frosting, buttercream frosting, and lemon icing):

Frosting seemed the easiest way to start, so I immersion-blended the collection into this creamy perfection:

I stuck the frosting in the fridge and set to work on the muffins.

I immersion blended the giant bowl of muffins with two eggs, baking powder, and water until it reached the consistency of thick muffin batter. I pressed about half of the batter into this parchment lined brownie pan:

The brownie pan went into the oven at 375 for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, I spooned the rest of the batter into 12 mini muffin cups (unpictured — I dropped them off with the self-proclaimed “sober hippies” who sleep on the street by the Broadway-Lafayette entrance to the F train) and 8 regular muffin cups. I made a little well in the center of each regular muffin and dropped in a bit of apricot jam:



Now, this was not just any apricot jam! This was authentic Russian apricot jam from Olga:

Much to my surprise, the jam had whole apricots in it!

I made sure that an apricot piece found its way into the center of each muffin because we can’t have any baked goods feeling left out!

I set the muffins to the side and moved onto the bowl of cake. I used an electric blender to whip the cake crumbs with two eggs, baking powder, yogurt, and water until I got a cake batter consistency:

Next, I spooned just enough cake batter onto each muffin to cover up the jam:

The muffins went into the oven (still at 375) for 30-40 minutes, as did a parchment-lined brownie pan full of cake batter:

When the oven finished its work, I had a recycled-cake cake and a recycled-muffin cake:

I slathered the muffin cake with a thick layer of the cream cheese frosting and topped it with the cake cake:



I covered the top of the cake with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting …

… so that all the peanut butter cookie crumbs would stick!

I had to, errrr, trim off the ends so that things would be even (and so that I could taste-test, of course):

Ahhhhh, this was soooooo good … but I had to stop myself from eating it all, so I quickly offered it up to Tara for use at her BBQ on Saturday, and she accepted and saved me from disaster!

As for the muffins, I brought them to my department breakfast/baby shower part 2 for Maria on Friday morning (more on that later) before I had taste-tested them, so I didn’t know what to expect.

These muffins actually tasted decent, believe it or not. The apricot chunk in the middle was an excellent touch!



As Nydia said, “Hmmm, these are surprisingly good!” Up next … the full breakfast recap 😀

What is your favorite thing to recycle?