The Alchemy of Cooking

The transformation of the raw ingredients of our food into edible treats and savories really and truly is truly alchemy. I have no doubt that the first chefs transformed into the very first alchemists.

Thanks to a new course of drugs to keep me alive and keep the symptoms of Addison’s disease at bay I am wide awake night after night at 4 am. Not just AT 4 am but often until or still awake at…

Tonight I have a new symptom and it was the urge to keep moving. I quickly ran out of walking space in my living room. I then turned to the kitchen and grabbed a heavy pot, some cream, sugar and butter and stood for some time stirring these raw ingredients. Once the heat hits them they become dense and thick and after the boiling point they turn into caramel. Real caramel. My arm is almost sore from stirring. But I am finally able to settle down, if not to sleep but to write.

Here is the heavy sugary fudge that my grandmother made me as a child. It is Scottish in origin so beware its sweetness, as there is no sweet tooth in the world that can match that of the Scots.  

Scottish Table:

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usrecipes/scottishtablet/index.html

I love sleep.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?
Ernest Hemingway

Mr. Hemingway speaks the truth as usual in this quote. I love sleep. I love sleep in a way I never have before in my life. Sure the children are grown and I am allowed to sleep longer and lazier than ever. But the real essence of my sleep is not the rest, the respite, the dreaming but the fact that the sleep I sleep now is the sleep of a chronic illness. Sometimes I power sleep. For days. I have been known to sleep eighteen hours in a day.

I have a rare condition called Addison’s Disease, which means that a tiny gland called the adrenal gland doesn’t work. A small thing barely the size of a walnut, so say the medical journals. But this small thing impacts every part of my daily life, from sleep, ability to eat, and my general sense of well - being. How to explain to a doctor that I just don’t feel “right”. They look at me side ways. I tell them some days I cannot get out of bed and they say why? At first I thought I had chronic fatigue. But after I had an Addison’s Crisis and my kidneys failed, and then my heart decided to have cardiac arrest under the strain of nothing else working, I was then diagnosed with Addison’s Disease.

This small gland that exists in all of our bodies doesn’t work in mine, and thus on some days I sleep and sleep and sleep. Especially I if I had a day prior that forced some exertion. Sleep now is different than before, it is vivid and wrought with dreams, often violent and frightening dreams. Perhaps dreams that are trying to warn me to get up and take my medication.

I will write more about my illness no doubt, but right now I am going back to sleep.