Calling All Cooks

[WarpGirl]

A gentleman shouldn't brag about all the food he gets to enjoy when a young lady cannot.

[Kotik]

A gentleman shouldn't brag about all the food he gets to enjoy when a young lady cannot.

Except, I'm not a gentleman Me just plain ol' Kotik

[WarpGirl]

This must be why I'm stilll single.

[Distracted]

Sounds painful.

I know you're kidding, but cayenne isn't that kind of hot. Chili is, cayenne actually helps *settle* your stomach (much like powdered ginger...fresh ginger is the opposite to powdered in that aspect). Trust me, a dish high in cayenne will not have you suffering in the bathroom for hours like chili does.

What cayenne burn means is:

Being an inhabitant of Cajun country, I am quite familiar with cayenne pepper. Unfortunately, although I am of French ancestry I am also Scots/Irish, and that part of my heritage seems to dominate my tolerance for seasoning. When I eat crawfish I must wear gloves. Not because I'm that fastidious, mind you, but because if I don't then my hands turn beet red and sting like fire for hours. Cayenne and my skin just don't get along. I can eat it anyway and endure what it does to the inside of my mouth, but if there's too much red pepper in something it feels like the inside of my mouth is one big boo-boo after you've poured alcohol on it. Kinda takes away from the enjoyment of the food, at least for me. And we won't speak of what happens a few hours later. I envy those with more resilient mucus membranes.

[Snorpenbass]

Sounds painful.

I know you're kidding, but cayenne isn't that kind of hot. Chili is, cayenne actually helps *settle* your stomach (much like powdered ginger...fresh ginger is the opposite to powdered in that aspect). Trust me, a dish high in cayenne will not have you suffering in the bathroom for hours like chili does.

What cayenne burn means is:

Being an inhabitant of Cajun country, I am quite familiar with cayenne pepper. Unfortunately, although I am of French ancestry I am also Scots/Irish, and that part of my heritage seems to dominate my tolerance for seasoning. When I eat crawfish I must wear gloves. Not because I'm that fastidious, mind you, but because if I don't then my hands turn beet red and sting like fire for hours. Cayenne and my skin just don't get along. I can eat it anyway and endure what it does to the inside of my mouth, but if there's too much red pepper in something it feels like the inside of my mouth is one big boo-boo after you've poured alcohol on it. Kinda takes away from the enjoyment of the food, at least for me. And we won't speak of what happens a few hours later. I envy those with more resilient mucus membranes.

Och weeel, that does not sound like fun.

And just so those of you with food intolerances and allergies don't feel left out, I have mild nut allergies (walnuts and macadamias, mainly) and gout. The latter is the serious one. That's right, gout. The condition/disease everyone thinks you can only get from over-indulging various vices like alcohol and fatty foods.

Inherited on my mom's side on the family (grandpa had it too), got the first aches and pains in my late teens when I was actually eating and living fairly healthy. By the time I was in my early 20's, the pain sometimes got so bad I would be lying down screaming in agony while on heavy-duty painkillers. What exactly *is* gout, someone asks? Well, the medical term is "crystalline arthritis", and it's related to several other arthritis forms. Basically, my kidneys don't work hard enough to purge uric acid from my system. That acid builds up in the kidneys and turns into little teeny tiny crystals, which go out into the blood-stream and gather around...

...anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

...nerve endings. That's right. There they gather around, have themselves a shindig with barbecue and inflammation of the joint and sometimes tendons, and all in all have a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Long story short: I have to keep my sodium, sugar, alcohol and various mineral levels down, or it's ouch-time. Some people can develop gout due to extreme overindulgence of various unhealthy things, but usually it's actually a hereditary condition.

Thankfully, I don't drink in the first place, and it's actually fairly easy to avoid too much red meat (well done is safe, pink or red meat is a no-no), organ foods (any kind of liver or other variants) and too much fat, sugar and salt. All I have to do is do all my cooking from scratch as often as possible...

...oh, and eat diuretics for the rest of my natural life and drink about 2-3 liters of water a day.

But other than that and my pollen and fur and dust allergies and nut allergies and the flat feet and the scarred lungs from 3 (count'em,, three) pneumonia bouts, I'm fine!

...or, in short: I'm there for ya, dude.

[WarpGirl]

And I thought not being able to eat Onions, Oranges, Bananas, and Cantelope was bad!

[Kotik]

Good grief Snorpenbass You could just as well have said you're allergic to... erm... food.

[Distracted]

Gout's the pits. There are so many foods that raise uric acid levels. There are prescription meds that lower uric acid, though. I hope your doc has you on a good one, Snorpenbass.

[putaro]

Oh, you want sucky? I developed a BEER allergy (at least that's what my Japanese doctor told me. I suspect it's really a barley allergy).

[Kotik]

putaro, a beer allergy is really a bummer But are you sure it's only barley? If so, there are wheat beers which do not contain barley, Berliner Weiße or some bavarian brews like Schöfferhofer or Paulaner.

[putaro]

putaro, a beer allergy is really a bummer But are you sure it's only barley? If so, there are wheat beers which do not contain barley, Berliner Weiße or some bavarian brews like Schöfferhofer or Paulaner.

I like wheat beers. I suppose I could try Budweiser - I think they just use rice and corn (we need a yuck smiley).

Mostly I just deal with the aftereffects and don't drink that much. Maybe I'll switch to hard alcohol. Tequila poppers anyone?

[WarpGirl]

All I know is that if I drink one beer I'm extremely dehydrated the next day, but I can have four shots of hard stuff and barely get buzzed. That said I don't drink much either, although there was a lot of wine on vacation, my family is like that. But never got buzzed or even close to drunk. We have very high tolorence for booze and pills. I think that's why so many of my cousins, my grandfather, and an uncle are either addicts or recovering addicts. They can't tell when they go to far. Me, I error on the side of extreme caution. Unless I have a severe spasam problem no more than 2 drinks. 4 shots is equal to a Fentynal patch. But I still don't get woozie.

[WarpGirl]

Hi I've got a conversion tool for anyone who doesn't like carrots. Put carrots into a gratan dish, and pour Olive Oil and Balsmic Vinager over it. Then crank your oven up high, and let them get as dark as possible without truning them into charcol it's really really yummy. The Balsamic is tangy and sweet. It makes the carrots almost taste like sweet potatoes.

[putaro]

It makes the carrots almost taste like sweet potatoes.

Heh - I like carrots and hate sweet potatoes so that's not really an improvement from my point of view.

[WarpGirl]

The key word is almost it's very difficult to explain. They're carmelized but there is a lot of depth and richness. But because of the vinager they're also tangy. Just try it, you might have a different way to describe it.

My brother hates carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, basically anything red or orange. I don't understand that at all.