Last weekend was not nearly so glorious as today, but nevertheless I took Little M to the local Fall Festival and then to the “pumpkin patch” where we picked up two nice sized pumpkins and four mums for planting in the pots around the house. Last night (finally!) I planted the mums, hung the jack-o-lantern flag, and set out the pumpkins along with a scarecrow girl on a stick.

I’ve already gotten most of my interior decorations up, just a little tweaking to do here and there. Once I’ve done that, I just need to get the wreath up and some fall fabric on the pillows for the front porch, then I can turn my attention to…food.

An email exchange I had with my brother this week has me desperate to get in the kitchen and get busy. His description of the mashed potato volcanoes he made had my stomach at attention, but when I got to this:

            “Yesterday while just tinkering around the yard, I decided to make some homemade potato soup.  Used 10 pounds of red potatoes, so it was a small batch.  Did I mention I love real food? We took some ciabatta rolls and hollowed them out to use for bowls. Topped with cheese, chives and fresh crumbled bacon… mmmm…”

I LOVE potato soup so naturally I’m reading his email and mentally inventorying my pantry at the same time, wondering if I have everything I need to make potato soup. Which led me to think that I haven’t roasted a pork shoulder for carnitas in while, and if I picked up some more apples (or pears) I could make Granny’s dumplings as well. And while I’m thinking of it, where is that Lentil Soup recipe I wanted to try, and oh wait, I forgot about this one…Brazilian Feijoada – gotta try that.

Next thing you know, a menu plan for the week and a (very long) grocery list was born. All of the labor intensive or slow cooking items I can do over the weekend and serve throughout the week interspersed with easier to prepare fare. Menu the for week, not necessarily to be served in this order:

Saturday – Burgers on the grill (its going to be a great day for grilling), dumplings

Sunday – Ham and Potato Soup, homemade bread

Monday – Shrimp and Fettuccine Alfredo

Tuesday – Carnitas

Wednesday – Italian Chicken

Thursday – Brazilian Feijoada

Friday – Roast (Beef)

Saturday – Meatloaf (Mexican Style)

(The Lentil Soup isn’t officially on the menu, but I still hope to make it to pack in my lunch for the coming workweek.)

Can’t wait to hit the grocery store and get cooking!

That’s when it happened. 

Suddenly I was young again and back in my grandmother’s kitchen in North Carolina. Granny, as I always called her, was an incredible cook and one of her specialties was dumplings. Usually she made her dumplings with apples, but occasionally she did them with pears. As a child and young adult I was never fond of pears, but my Granny convinced me to love them through her dumplings. They were sublime. It was impossible to dislike pears after tasting her dumplings. In fact, I eventually I grew to love the pear dumplings more than the apple ones because she made them less often, and thereby they became a rare treat.

As I drove along and thought about Granny and remembered how she made those dumplings – peeling and coring the fruit, stuffing the core with sugar and cinnamon, wrapping the fruit in pastry and nestling them six to a pan to bake until they were tender and golden – made me think for the millionth time how much I loved her and now miss her. 

Granny passed way in the spring of 1998, but after all this time, there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t think of her in some way. Often it’s a fleeting thought or memory. Sometimes it’s a wish that my daughter Little M could have known her, or that I could sit at her table and talk (and eat) with her again. Usually the memories are sweet with a gentle tug at the heart, but sometimes – like yesterday, they come when I most vulnerable to them and rake across my soul like a thousand razorblades leaving me raw and exposed.

I spent the better part of the morning yesterday pondering why the pear tree and the memory of those dumplings cut me to the core. I realized that it wasn’t the tree or the dumplings that caused the pain, it’s in missing what my Granny put into those dumplings – all the warmth and unconditional love that defined her character and our relationship – that is gone forever and can never be replaced.

The surgeon said I needed major, life-altering surgery, but my gastroenterologist disagreed. He believed it to be too drastic for someone as healthy as me (healthy being a relative term when you are talking about Crohn’s Disease).

So, after much discussion and emotional turmoil, I decided to see a specialist – one of the top gastroenterologists in the country specializing in Crohn’s Disease. I wanted fresh eyes and A LOT of experience looking at my situation to give me some insight on what to do next.

The specialist didn’t think surgery was appropriate, as my therapeutic options had not yet been exhausted. I was elated. But, he did send me to yet another surgeon for a second surgical opinion. Disappointingly, but no real surprise, the second surgeon echoed the opinion of the one I saw in March.

All of these consultations spanned a period from March to August, so that is five months, four doctors, two completely opposing opinions, and no real answers to show for it.

Its times like these when you really, REALLY understand what “be your own advocate” means, and it has led me to realize that there comes a point in our lives when we have to stop listening to all the noise that comes at us from all directions and figure out what’s best for ourselves.

The truth is I don’t want the surgery. Not now, not ever if I can avoid it. It’s not because I’m afraid, or even naive, it’s because I don’t believe it’s the right path for me.  

What does all this mean? Where do I go from here?

For me it means embarking on a Healthiness Project. I’m taking all the things that I’d been haphazardly trying to achieve over the last year or so and melding them together into what I now realize will be my most important project – a much healthier me.