Well, it’s a long story (so I’ll save the super-duper long version for the book … no, really!) but for now I’ll give you the long version.

I’ve been having problems with sore feet for the past couple years — blamed it on aging, wearing the wrong shoes, etc., etc.) — but then early this winter, I noticed my 2nd and 4th toes were swollen, red, and itching like hell around the toenails. I assured myself it probably had something to do with my regular pedicures at the salon, so I ditched those, but the swelling and itching got worse. Down deep, I knew what the problem was. It was the family curse.

You see, my maternal grandfather, in his late 40s/early 50s, was diagnosed with psoriasis, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the skin. He had one of the worst cases doctors had ever seen. A lot of psoriasis patients only get patches of psoriasis, and they can be covered by shirts or pants. Not my grandfather. He had it everywhere — not only on his trunk, but his hands, feet, scalp, and arms. You couldn’t not notice it, and believe me, everyone noticed it. By the time I was old enough to realize what was wrong with him, he’d become immune to the stares, the whispers, the withdrawn handshakes. Not I. I used to get angry when people did these things. When I was eight, I remember someone snidely offering that my grandfather had leprosy. I went ape on them, then ran into the house, crying. He suffered for over 20 years with this horrible, disfiguring disease, basically becoming a human pincushion for every skin and immune disorder specialist in New England. In his mid-70s, he finally died of septicemia, a result of infection getting into his body through the open lesions on his skin.

Then ten years ago, my mother was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, also an autoimmune disorder. Let me just say that this was one of the cruelest diagnoses for her to get because before she got sick, she was a total shoe-a-holic. Imelda was an amateur next to this woman. The rheumatoid attacked her feet, and today she has to order special shoes — not Jimmy Choos, but these ugly clodhoppers from medical supply companies. Years of taking all the new advanced drugs for rheumatoid haven’t alleviated the symptoms of the disease, never mind “cured” it. (Rheumatoid, along with psoriasis, are “incurable” according to medical specialists.) On top of this, she also has the psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

And that’s what I have, the psoriatic arthritis. Or I should say, “had.” I’m one of the rare folks who only had the arthritic symptoms, not the skin lesions (although I’ve been assured by the medical community it’s only a matter of time). What choices did I have to control the swelling and itching? A drug that would mean a blood test every six months to see if it was destroying my liver.

Something snapped. It was a long-time coming, a moment when I could see every health problem in my past rushing up to me, screaming out for attention. I remembered a childhood filled with hives and eczema, my teen years with my parents spending thousands of dollars on dermatologists to help control the seborrheic dermatitis in my hair and eyebrows, and on my fingers and lips. And even in adulthood, the strange rashes would come and go,  I got asthma attacks throughout my 30s, and then flattened by pain and lethargy in my early 40s.

Something had to change, and I wasn’t going to take drugs to fix it. I’ve seen what these drugs can do first-hand. Basically, nothing beneficial. Since I know my family has a history of autoimmune diseases, and I know that autoimmune disorders are relatively recent diseases (meaning they didn’t exist until the early 1800s or so — industrialization folks?), I suspected that my environment was triggering a predisposition in my genes. And dammit, I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I spent weeks doing research, focusing on diet. The medical community generally agrees that autoimmune disorders cannot be influenced by diet. However, there are some doctors who do believe diet has a huge affect on them, namely Joel Furhman, MD (who is now something of a hero to me). When I read Eat to Live, more lightbulbs went on in my head. I’ve always been a totally dairy girl — hey, I grew up in Vermont! And then I read that fruits/veggies from the nightshade family and citrus fruits can trigger some anti-immune responses. The hair on my arms stood up when I found that out — I’ve always broken out into terrible rashes eating tomatoes … eggplant makes my mouth itch … and citrus, well, I won’t tell you what a glass of orange juice does to my digestive system. It’s not pretty.

So I designed my own diet, but took it slow. First, I weaned myself off artificial sweeteners. That meant drinking my six morning coffees without Splenda. No problem. I substituted with agave nectar. Then came the day to unhook myself from caffeine. Again, I went slowly, weaning myself down to one cup of coffee a day, then finally switching to tea. Then I went cold. I did have some caffeine withdrawal symptoms, weirdly enough, weeks after I stopped the tea. But then I realized I’d become so caffeine sensitive that the occasional tablespoon of cacao chips I slipped into my morning smoothie were messing with my system, so out went the cacao.

Then came the elimination of white sugar, white flour/wheat, dairy, and processed foods. This wasn’t so hard because by now, I was starting to feel a lot better. (This was maybe two weeks in.) My feet weren’t hurting, the swelling had gone down in my toes, and they didn’t itch as much. Plus, I’m not much of a junk food junkie, detest fast food, and dislike soda, sweetened or diet. At the same time, I started drinking smoothies for breakfast, filled with fruits and veggies like kale, spinach, mango, bananas, and hemp seed, and eating monstrously huge green salads, topped with beans or seasoned tofu and drizzled with delicious dressings I’d been developing in my kitchen. I’d replaced the morning coffee with dandelion tea topped with a splash of Rice Dream. (Seriously, I’m writing this thinking, “Di, are you mad? A year ago you would have laughed at these dreadful concoctions.” But when you feel like your back’s up to the wall, you can get used to anything.)

I used to be a vegetarian in my 20s. Over the last year, I’d been toying with going back to it, but figured it would be too difficult living with two rapacious carnivores. Finally, I made the decision to cut out meat, as well as eggs. Hell, I thought — I’m going to go whole hog here, pardon the pun, and go vegan! Upon which declaration at a family dinner, my younger brother David insisted that PETA had finally robbed me of my brain.

On top of this, I don’t drink alcohol.

So basically I’m a teetotaling gluten-free vegan(ish) eat who avoids citrus and plants from the nightshade family — tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes. I say “ish” because I’m not sure I could pass up a small taste of wild Alaskan salmon at some point. I joke with people that I’m on the Gorilla Diet because sometimes I feel like I’m eating what the zookeepers toss into the primate cage.

And I’m here to tell you over the last few months, I’ve been eating some of the best meals of my life, which I’m going to start sharing with you on this blog. I’ve been having a blast trying to make the most of the bounty before me — and it is a bounty! — and I hope you’ll stick around for the new Diana Cooks.

Oh yeah, the psoriatic arthritis. It’s gone. My feet look (and feel) completely normal. Back in February I went to Texas and showed my mother-in-law the last little bit of redness on my toe, and  here it is April, and there’s not red spot anywhere on my body, tootsies included. My skin glows. I’ve lost 16.5 18.5 lbs. since January, and continue to lose about 1/2 to 1 lb. per week. I eat three hearty meals a day and I’m never hungry. On top of all this, I FEEL AMAZING. For the first time in years, I feel like I can think clearly and focus on projects. I have tons of energy. I notice that I’m much more calm and mellow (I’m a redhead — I flare up easily!). My monthly bouts of PMS and cramps? Gone. Friends who haven’t seen me in awhile are looking at me and saying, “Wow, what did you do? You look great!” (That’s always motivating!) One of my doctors suggested that I start walking a mile a day. That was in January … now I’m walking/running 3 to 4 miles a day, and this week, I started at-home weight training. (I dumped the gym membership — my new motto is keep it simple.) And cheap. Our food budget has been slashed. Beans, brown rice, fresh vegetables, and fruit just don’t cost as much as processed food, meat, and dairy. And drumroll … my seven-year-old son now wants to be a vegetarian. I didn’t push him into it. He went there on his own. He’s finding his own way and we’re experimenting with a lot of different flavors and dishes, but I’m really excited about this. Even my meat-loving man has started asking me about stuff like agar-agar and date sugar.

Ok, so that’s the story. In a few days I’ll start posting recipes — maybe even some video!

I was reading CNN.com this a.m. when an article about five ways to keep Alzheimer’s at bay grabbed my attention. Here’s one line that made me rub my eyes:

“Small, who’s 57, says that as he gets older, he might also try eating more foods with curry in them.”

Hello? Did anyone copyedit this story? Curry isn’t an ingredient; it refers to a spicy sauced dish. I can only assume they mean “curry powder,” a blend of turmeric, cinnamon, cumin, and other spices, since I doubt they were talking about the “curry leaf,” a distinctive lemony herb common to southern Indian cuisine. Here, it would be helpful (and more accurate) to point out the exact spices and herbs used in the research study. My guess is that turmeric with its anti-inflammatory properties is the hero of the day.

My gosh, if I could add “curry” to my foods, I’d be dumping it on everything.

Lee Gomes at the Wall Street Journal has it right: American cookbook publishers should start listing weights next to ingredients, not just volume measurements. Publishers argue that American cooks typically don’t own kitchen scales, so why include these measures? To which I say “Balderdash!” Most serious home cooks do own electronic digital scales, and if they don’t, so what? Cooks who don’t want to ditch their measuring cups can rely on the more imprecise volume measurement, while those of us who revere our scales can follow the weight measurements.

One important point Gomes alludes to in his essay but doesn’t spell out is why ingredient weights deserve, well, more weight in the kitchen. It’s this: a cup (or a tablespoon or a “pinch”) isn’t always a cup, a tablespoon, or a “pinch.” It’s why your cereal box includes the message, “Sold by weight, not volume” or warns “Settling may occur.” A recipe tester’s measuring cup might be slightly bigger than the measuring cup you inherited from your Aunt Matilda. Or the cookbook author may have baked in his dry New Mexico kitchen and you’re baking his bread in your humid Houston home. Humidity can definitely affect volume measurements of ingredient like flour and sugar (as well it does weight, but still, weighing gives you a better chance at accuracy).

So, long story short — you’ll get the best result from a recipe when you know the precise weights the recipe developer/cookbook used. (And always be wary of recipes that specify a “pinch,” especially when it comes to cayenne pepper — one cook’s pinch is another cook’s pain in the ass!!)

It’s not often I shop our local Wal-Mart. Truth be told, I’m a Target girl. But last week my son and I braved the cluttered aisles of our local Wal-Mart to look for video games for the PS/2 my brother Matt has lent to him while he’s in Iraq. Afterwards I meandered over to the housewares department, where I was pleasantly surprised to find some enamel cast iron cookware nestled among cheap aluminum saucepans and rice cookers. Not only enamel cast iron, but well made enamel cast iron.

I own a ton (almost literally!) of enamel cast iron cookware, everything from a Le Creuset wooden-handled 1-qt. saucepan with a pouring lip to a 7-qt. Lodge French oven big enough to contain a small turkey — and heavy enough to break a toe should it drop. I don’t really need more cast iron cookware but … well, I kept thinking about that pretty, dark green Tramontina oven. About how my 5.5-qt. red Le Creuset French oven’s finish got burned off during an unfortunate encounter with caramelized onions and high heat and wouldn’t it be nice to have a pan to replace it. Not replace it, exactly, but to stand in for it when I couldn’t be bothered with the extensive cleanup the damaged red oven requires. And how pleasant a boeuf bourguignon or Irish lamb stew would look in the oven, simmering enticingly in that forest green vessel.

Oh hell, who am I kidding? I was back over there in a shot, hoping, praying that throngs of obsessive home cooks hadn’t discovered the 15-lb. treasure lurking on Wal-Mart’s shelves. Whew! My pot was still there, along with a smaller 3.5-qt. version. (I am not, I repeat not buying another pan.) When I got home, I quietly removed the red Le Creuset oven from its dining room perch and brought it to my overflow storage area in the basement, and replaced it with the green Tramontina oven.

Haven’t yet given this new acquisition a test drive … I’m going to replace the plastic knob with something more oven-proof, since it looks like it’ll only tolerate up to 350 degrees F — plus it’s still too hot here to think about braises, stews, and batches of no-knead bread. Give me another couple months. Full report TK.

My brother Matt is back this week from Iraq. Yesterday we had a little surprise in the yard, a garter snake! Since this is a food blog, Matt is eating the critter. Seriously, no snakes were harmed in the writing (or photographing) of this blog post … the snake was set free in the woods once all the children in the neighborhood got a look.

Now that Matt has left for Spain, I’ll get back to my blogging and cooking.

I’m obsessed with The Vegan Lunchbox, a blog run by a mom who lovingly photographs the creative veg-only meals she creates for her son. Well, she published a book and I bought it a few weeks ago. I’m not vegan and I can’t even call myself a proper vegetarian anymore. But The Oyster occasionally cries about eating creatures, so I like to have tasty options available for him so that if he ever *does* decide to go vegetarian/vegan, I won’t be at a total loss.

At any rate, I turned to the desserts first (naturally). Being an eggs/butter/cream kind of girl, it has always baffled me how vegans turn out cakes, muffins, and cookies. And when I saw the recipe for vegan Twinkies, I knew I had to give them a go.

I don’t have a Twinkie pan, so I baked the cakes in a muffin tin. The batter smelled kind of funny (you curdle soy milk with cider vinegar … that, plus a bit of almond extract), but once they came out of the oven they looked (and smelled) just like Hostess Cupcakes.

Next up was the frosting filling, a blend of soy margarine (ick), trans-fat free Crisco (double ick), powdered sugar, and malt powder, which I didn’t have, so I substituted with a couple tablespoons of vegan marshmallow fluff. Filled the cooled cupcakes using a pastry bag and tip, and then dug in.

The verdict? The Oyster liked the cupcakes until he reached the frosting in the middle. “Yuck! That frosting is gross!!!” Okay, so I’ve ruined my kid for life by baking him cakes made with El Rey and Callebaut chocolates and frosted with pure buttercream. He’s never had a Twinkie or Hostess cupcake. Me? Oh man, they tasted just like what mom used to put in my lunchbox. They were awesome. I scarfed two of them and felt supremely virtuous. And greedy. They freeze well and I don’t have to share.

It has been awhile since I’ve posted anything substantial here. Guess it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of food writing and recipe development over the last couple months, so time to dip the toes (fingers?) back into food blogging. What I’m cooking/baking for fun:

1. If it’s winter, it must be soup season. My routine: on Sunday night I pull out the pressure cooker and make a batch of vegetable stock (easy as sin: I go through the vegetable bins and throw in anything that isn’t yet moldy and take the bits and bobs I’ve been saving all week in the freezer. Fill the pot halfway with water, add some smashed garlic, half an onion, and some peppercorns, and cook in full pressure for 30 minutes. Strain. Vegetable stock.) Then I cook a potato in the stock, throw in a head of chopped broccoli, cook until tender but still bright green, and then blitz in the blender. Season with salt and pepper. I like the soup a little chunky. Then all week I eat it for lunch with a good amount of cheese mixed in. Today it’s leftover buffalo milk mozzarella. Oh, so good — and pretty healthy, too! I’ve also been making lentil soup and French onion soup.
2. Breads — I’m pretty much on maintenance with bread, making our weekly loaves. My MIL was here from Texas a few weeks ago, and she was reminiscing about salt-risen bread. I ran to my Bernard Clayton and James Beard and started researching. Intriguing! Details TK. Likewise, I’m also fascinated with the “greatest bread ever” that Mark Bittman wrote about in the NYT a couple weeks ago. Just haven’t found the time to work on it.
3. Thanksgiving. I’m not a Thanksgiving food fan. I’m a Valentine’s Day girl: chocolate and champagne. Or even July 4 … at least there’s a chance of lobster and drawn butter. Turkey? Eh. Not my favorite meat. We got a smallish (10#) free-range organic turkey, which I didn’t have time to brine. The breast meat was dry, but flavorful. The only thing I really enjoyed was the mashed potatoes (made with loads of butter and hot cream) and cranberry sauce (homemade, of course!)

That’s all for now. I just got a few more recipe development assignments for January, but I hope to be back with some new stuff w/ photos.

I love sorrel. We have a patch of it in our herb garden and it’s the first spring green to come up every year. By late spring the leaves are too tough and bitter. But the first leaves are perfect for a spring soup — light, lemony, yum!

This soup I made by sauteeing some shallots in oil. Then I simmered some chopped potatoes in chicken broth till soft. I pureed the potatoes, broth and shallots along with a handful of sorrel. (If you cook sorrel, it gets muddy colored — I like the fresh green look of this soup.) You can put the soup through a sieve/chiniois or not. Your choice.

I topped my soup with some stale bread fried in garlic oil.

After days and days of rain, I was thrilled to look out of the kitchen window yesterday to see sunshine and this, a beautiful 6″ high morel, growing under a dying elm tree in our backyard. (Honestly, it looked like someone had dropped a dildo on our lawn, but my inner mycologist got more excited about the thought of a wild mushroom quiche!)

I was worried the morel would be mushy after all the rain, but it was perfect. A swish around some heavily salted warm water got the resident bugs and dirt out. Then since I really wasn’t in the mood for mushrooms, I dehydrated the morel for next week’s menu.

DH is laughing at me because I keep poking around under all of our trees for more mushrooms. If there’s one, there’s gotta be more ….

Remember I mentioned something about fruitcakes back in October? This picture was taken then, after I’d procured all the ingredients for my Jamaican black cake, which I’d read about in Laurie Colwin’s memoirs (can’t remember which volume, but it’s the last essay).

I ended up using a modified recipe posted by some kind soul at King Arthur’s Baking Circle. (If you can’t tell, that’s where I purchased most of the candied fruit — except for the cherries, they don’t add additional food coloring.) On the far right is the five-gallon glass apothecary jar I used for the rum and Kosher wine marinade.

I ran all the fruits through my food processor to chop them up into tiny bits — currants, lemon peel, orange peel, citron, prunes, cherries, and raisins. Quite a bit of fruit! Then the fruit got thrown in with the 750 mls of wine and two 375 ml bottles of dark rum. The concoction sat on a shelf in my office for several months. Whenever I was feeling down, I’d stick my head in there and breathe deep. Mmmmm. Heavenly!

Baking day. Oh, what a project. First off, the recipe makes an INSANE amount of batter, enough to make 15 or 16 mini loaves in my case. The KitchenAid was useless in this case — everything had to be mixed by hand in the largest bowl I had, which happened to be a Mason Cash bowl which takes up an awful lot of room but saves my ass when it needs saving, and even then the batter was up to rim. And very difficult to stir, what with the 12 cups of flour, fresh bread crumbs, brown sugar, and more. (Shall I post the recipe or is fruitcake something you’re not interested in?)

But oy, how tasty. I frosted them with a sickly sweet almond fondant and promptly ate half a cake on an empty stomach. I actually got a bit heady, as the fruits really soaked up that alcohol quite nicely.

I’ll post a picture of the finished product later.