My Urban Pantry

This weekend marks a high and busy point in the last month or so. We were happy to have one of my oldest friends in town. Deanna is here with her husband Mike and three kids to visit the land of the magical mouse and for the Shuttle launch which is now twice delayed and may go ‘off’ tonight.
They came for a visit last night and we drove down to Brian’s parents to borrow the pontoon boat. I love getting out on the water. I don’t know if it’s a throwback to my childhood or the cool air on the water or the mild somewhat nauseating fear of alligators but I love actually going out in the boat.
We got a little bit of a late start and by the time we were on the water of Fell’s Cove and East Lake Tohopekaliga (Toho) the sun was just beginning to set. I commented that the boat seemed to be poking along mainly out of hunger but we didn’t put much thought into that since I am a fast driver and really was hungry.
We had a nice catching up style dinner at Crabby Bills which is a crab shack on the shores of Lake Toho smack dab in good old style Florida Saint Cloud (think Mullets, Confederate Flags and pickups). Fried Shrimp, Grilled Shrimp, Shrimp Scampi, Barbequed Shrimp… and a bit of Frog Legs and Gator tail for the more adventurous. Brian had the chicken.
Then we headed back in the pitch black night on the now simply sputtering boat. Twenty feet out of the channel the boat dies.
Mike has had a bit of experience with this in the past and is able to shove a pin on the engine from the throttle and we cruise across the water with relative ease. Reaching the other shore and finding a small white post in the dark presented a new challenge and we poked along the shoreline waving a maglite at the reeds until we breathed a sigh with relief at the reflective glow peering out of the dark.
Gliding through the channel Brian picked out gators in the dark as they smoothly retreated from our spluttering engine and finally we bumped into the dock and were home.

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Well, it happened. We got the call at 4:22 am on February 1st. It is a morning of infamy for me at least. One of the liver coordinator’s called from Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida and told us that they probably had a liver for Brian. They also said we didn’t have to leave home until 7 am so we got up and started getting organized, packed and cleaned up around the house since we would be leaving for an unspecified number of days. The liver had a couple of problems but nothing that would render it unusable so we said that we would take it. A six to six and a half hour surgery followed and Brian has a new (if not slightly used) liver to replace the one that was slowly killing him. He did really well during the surgery, not even needing blood and staying strong.
They quietly wheeled him away around 9 pm and at 5am I sat and whispered, ‘you did well’ while he lay there with tubes snaking their way from his body as they managed the functions that up until now had been the every day.
His recovery was both markedly remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. He remained hospitalized until the 17th. He had some fairly profound rejection which was controlled through medication and generally regained strength very quickly. He got 68 staples in his belly and he didn’t eat anything but saline water for 7 days because the combination of anesthesia and morphine virtually stops your gastrointestinal system in it’s tracks and they don’t allow food until everything begins moving again. I was fairly floored to find that once he was able to eat they offered him everything from fried catfish to fried chicken with a healthy (@?!) smattering of mashed potatoes and gravy or macaroni and cheese in between.
This was a defining moment of understanding that we live in the deep south. This is comfort to some. It was shocking to me. Food, like tears, prayer or exercise is comfort. Something we use to soothe and remind us of the past, for release. The hospital is a place that is filled with waiting, angst, grief, joy and healing. We were bathed in prayer the entire 17 days we were there and have been every day since. Our family, coworkers and friends around the world asking God to give healing and sustenance. Prayer at least, is fat free.
Brian is healing. His body is recovering from the stress of his sickness and from the surgery itself. I am healing too and hoping that we don’t eat hospital food again soon for many years.

If I lived in Seattle or San Francisco there might be enough fresh and varied produce that I could be a vegetarian or at least eat a little better. But, as it stands, I live in Orlando and although you might think we could be a land of plenty there are only plenty of oranges and grapefruits and the occasional head of hydroponic lettuce. I have searched high and low to find locally grown and organic produce at some kind of affordable price. This weekend I finally found one of my personal grails – a fruit & veg shop.

Normally we do our grocery shopping at a combination of Walmart (for value), Publix (because I hate shopping at Walmart with entire branches of family trees and four carts per person) and Whole Foods (which is also known as Whole Paycheck where they have everything you want but where the prices are sometimes a crime). But this week at Weight Watchers (that’s a story for another day) I heard about a Fruit and Veg stand called Clemons. On Saturday afternoon we checked it out. It was like the heavens opened up and unleashed produce. The variety is good and the prices are great! They had almost everything I was looking for, from tomatillos to onions to beets to radishes. The prices cannot be beat in Orlando. The only thing missing was a good selection of chillies but I am hoping that perhaps they are just out of season. Everything wasn’t locally grown but it did play into the equation.

We went on a bit of a Christmas jaunt last night to visit Celebration, Florida. It is the little town that could. Disney built it ten or twenty years ago in an attempt to create an iconic town that had walkable amenities. It isn’t so much that as the real life Truman Show. It has a perfect little main street with perfect little cobblestones and candy shops interspersed with sidewalk cafes and of course, a Starbucks. The familiar county fair scent of funnel cakes and chocolate dipped rice krispy treats beckoning us and the open doors of the ice cream shop with their air conditioned rush of cool air and a big puff of vanilla and caramelized sugar entice you inside for a waffle cone to share with someone you love.

At 6, 7, 8 and 9 pm on the hour they have you screw your eyes shut and wish upon a star for the impossible dream – snow. By the way, it was 82 degrees yesterday.

But, by the magic vested in Disney they had soap bubbles pumped from the streetlights along Market Street and they faux sneauxed on the hour for ten minutes giving children, and me, great joy.

That’s really what Christmas is about. The joy that we get in our middle from knowing that he God of the Universe came to Earth to experience life and death. He knows where we are at because, in a manner of speaking, he’s been there. Glad tidings of great joy. Remember that joy in the small things even if they are as ephemeral as a soap bubble.

Cook free or die

Anthony Bourdain