Friday, February 14, 2014

Bad Communication

It's February 14, Saint Valentine's Day.  The perfect day to talk about Chocolate and Bad Communication.

I meant to have a slightly different title but my blog posts, lately, have been publishing themselves without me telling them to publish.  So, I promise I will talk about Bad Communication.

But first a little peek into celebrating Valentine's Day when you have recently had an impacted wisdom tooth pulled (and are still debating the wisdom of same) and can't eat seeds, nuts, or anything that could get lodged into where the tooth used to be.

On tonight's menu:

The Chocolate Lab wine I blogged about earlier. Yes, I'm off antibiotics.  For now, anyway.

Salmon.  It's Valentine's Day, it's soft, it won't stick in my teeth and it's pinkish red.  Spouse will serve it with a home made maple and mustard seasoning.

White asparagus.  I've never eaten it before and it is a first for my spouse, too.  But a local supermarket had a really good price on it.  I am generally not into light-deprived produce, but am looking for tender food tonight.

What is white asparagus?  Well, asparagus grows as a perennial, sprouting every spring from perennial roots.  The asparagus is the shoots before they grow too old and start to leaf out.  White asparagus is green asparagus that has been covered so that light can not hit the spears. Without the light, the spears turn white - and are supposedly more tender.

 My spouse looked up how to prepare it.  It can be prepared much the same way as green asparagus, but with one exception - it has a tough skin.  First, the entire spear must be peeled.

Then, after it was steamed, it had to be peeled some more.

So, something tells me this will be the first, and last, time I eat white asparagus.

Filet beans and winter squash.

And, for dessert, chocolate mousse. This is a recipe my spouse has used for many years.  He rarely makes desserts, so this one has to be easy.

SPOUSE'S EASY CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
Take 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips, melt in microwave.
Beat 3 egg whites until they are midway between soft peak and hard peak.  (we use the refrigerated egg whites, which are pasteurized, as we do not have our own chickens. )
Take 1/3 cup cup rum or Firefly banana liquor.  If rum, add 1/4 cup sugar and mix with the rum until the sugar dissolves.
Next, add the alcohol mixture to the chocolate, mix till smooth, and wait until the mixture has cooled a little.
Finally, fold in the egg whites.

Pour into dessert cups and chill, at least 4 hours.
Makes 4 servings

Now, I promised to blog about Bad Communication, and if you tend towards queasiness, you may want to skip to the end.

One of the possible complications of the particular type of wisdom tooth extraction I had is exposure of the sinuses - in other words there's a hole where the tooth used to be, and if the tooth was up in the sinus cavity (as mine was), you have a hole in your sinus cavity that, hopefully, at least has a membrane between it and said cavity.  If the membrane was punctured, you have what is called a "communication".  As in "your nose communicating with your mouth".  My oral surgeon isn't sure right now if the membrane was punctured but he didn't like what he saw today.  He will know for sure in a couple of weeks as healing continues.  This is not a communication you want.

This is a great thing if you are a kid and want to gross out your friends by drinking water and having it pour out your nose, but other than that, it isn't good at all.  There are surgical options if the hole doesn't close on its own and there are also hundreds of horror stories on the internet about people and their experiences with this condition.  I'll spare you.  I'll also spare me.

Right now, I am uncomfortable and I feel on and off like I am on a plane that is descending (that ear pain you get) and my right nostril hurts, but there is no water pouring out of my nose.  Not yet, anyway.  I make snorting sounds and I get interesting sensations sometimes when I drink water.

(For the queasy, you may start reading the post again.)

As a good friend helpfully pointed out the other day, she always knew I had a hole in my head.

I wish all my readers a happy Valentine's Day, or at least, not a bad one.

Tomorrow, instead of Sustainable Saturday, I will celebrate Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  If you love flowers, stop by.

1 comment:

  1. Well! One thing NOT TO DO: talk about gross physical conditions. Haha. Despite your gentle warnings about when not to read and when to begin again--I couldn't resist. I sympathize. Let's hope your symptoms improve. As for white asparagus, I ate it several months ago. It tasted slightly bitter. I prefer the green version, but I enjoyed the change. Sort of like eating an olive for the first time--the taste grows on you. (Not literally) That would be even grosser.

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