Life, Interrupted
Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.
For many of us, the holiday season triggers memories of food and family. That’s certainly the case for me. I can always tell when my mother, an artist who grew up in Switzerland, starts to feel nostalgic for home. It is the smell of the crispy apple tarts, the ginger cookies, and the creamy muesli full of nuts and fresh berries. The scent alone delivers a rush of childhood memories for me.
Food has always been an important part of my family. But since I was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago, food has taken on an especially central — and complicated — role in my life. My incredible doctors have been in charge of deciding which chemotherapy treatments and medications I will take. Their role has always been clear. But for my mother, who has always been in action to take care of me but often feels powerless against my mysterious disease, the prescription she draws upon is often a remedy from the kitchen.
My mother comes from a small village on the Lac de Neuchâtel where there is one bakery, one butcher and one grocery store. Even after decades in New York, she prefers home cooking to ordering in. So when I fell ill at the age of 22 and had to move back home with my parents, my mother tailored and amended the vaunted Swiss recipes from her childhood to make them as nutritious and immune system-boosting as possible. It wasn’t infrequent that a red lentil soup or zucchini stuffed with risotto was the highlight of a day otherwise spent in bed staring at my childhood bookshelves and pondering my future.
But my relationship with food has been complicated since my cancer diagnosis. Chemotherapy can wipe out the biggest appetite. It can render delectable food not only inedible, but downright unviewable, unsmellable, unthinkable. After my first hospitalization, a six-week stay in isolation, I quickly learned to be careful about which foods I chose to eat when I was in the depths of sickness. Some of my all-time favorites, like my mother’s rice pudding (extra cinnamon, with cardamon and grated almonds, plus my mom’s T.L.C.), no longer represented comfort food but triggered memories of nausea, the beeping of the I.V. machine and the fluorescent lights of the hospital room. Like other dishes, it has become a food casualty of chemo.
Having cancer changed the way I ate and thought about food. My symptoms dictated my eating habits. The sores in my mouth and the bouts of nausea, for instance, stole the pleasure of eating and made it an ordeal. At some points in my treatment, eating wasn’t even an option. During my bone marrow transplant last April, my only food came in the form of yellow-green liquid hanging from an I.V. pouch. It was the first time I considered how the physicality of eating — the cutting with a knife or slurping with a spoon or chewing of tender meat — was a big part of what I enjoyed about food. In the transplant unit, I remember wanting, more than anything, to bite into a stick of celery. I dreamt about the “crunch.”
Now, more than a year and a half since my first chemotherapy treatment, I’ve come up with a plan to preserve the memory and delight of my mother’s favorite recipes. I only eat the very best of her cooking when I am in-between chemotherapy treatments. I try to make sure not to mix nausea and my favorite foods — because I have found that it confuses not only the taste buds, but also the emotion and memory of eating itself.
As I continue to cope with the effects of cancer and treatment, I am determined to preserve one of my favorite things in life — my mother’s cooking and the many childhood memories that go with it. As a result, I have to refuse her cooking once in a while, saving her food for only my best days. I hope there are a lot of those ahead.
Birchermuesli
The original “muesli” was invented by Dr. Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner (1867-1939), a Swiss physician who fed his patients a small portion of this dish before each meal in his health clinic near Zürich. Derided by his colleagues for his belief in the importance of fresh food for health, he is now considered the guru of the raw food movement. The original recipe has been adapted by muesli lovers all over the world, who have swapped in seasonally available and ripe fruit where appropriate. For individuals with dietary restrictions, oats can be replaced with spelt flakes, millet flakes or other grains. In Switzerland, muesli is simply called “bircher,” after its inventor, and many Swiss eat bircher every day for breakfast or as a light meal. Muesli, a word from the Swiss German dialect which means “little purée,” and mostly known today in its commercialized version, is very different from this homemade recipe. Use whatever fresh ripe fruit you like and is seasonally available to you.
1 cup rolled oats, soaked overnight or for several hours
1 1/2 cups whole, almond, soy or other milk, or orange or apple juice
1/4 cup dried fruit, such as raisins or diced dates
1/4 to 1/2 cup hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds, finely chopped
1 large apple, grated
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup plain yogurt, plus additional to taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or more
Finely grated zest of organic lemon, to taste (optional)
1/4 cup fresh grapes, halved
1/2 cup raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or chopped strawberries, plus a few additional berries to garnish
1/2 orange or peach, chopped
1 apricot or kiwi, chopped
Brown sugar or stevia, to taste (optional)
1 tablespoon flaxseed oil (optional)
1. Soak the oats in milk overnight or for a few hours. In the morning, add the dried fruit, nuts, apple, banana, yogurt, lemon juice and zest, if using, and mix to combine. Add the grapes, berries, the remaining fresh fruit, brown sugar and flaxseed oil, if using, and gently fold the fresh fruit into the mixture. Garnish with a few fresh berries and serve.
Bircher, a raw food recipe, makes a great breakfast or snack, and will keep refrigerated for up to two days, and a day-old bircher is even better.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Croûte Aux Champignons (Mushrooms on Toasts)
These mushrooms on toasts are delicious and work with any mix of mushrooms, but if you can find a mix of wild mushrooms, it makes the toasts particularly wonderful. Try serving them with a simple green salad or the “Carrot and Celery Root Salad,” below.
4 to 5 slices country or whole wheat bread, preferably day-old, or more slices from a baguette
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
1/2 medium onion or 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1 pound mixed mushrooms, sliced
1 cup white wine or stock
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup heavy cream (optional)
Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
1/4 cup grated cheese, optional (see below)
1. In a large skillet set over medium high heat, melt the butter until foaming or warm the oil until shimmering. Add the onion or shallot, and cook, stirring, until transparent, about 4 minutes. Add the mushrooms, and cook until the mushrooms have released their liquid and the pan is dry, about 3 minutes. Add the wine or stock and cook until the liquid reduces by half, about 5 to 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the cream and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.
2. While the mushrooms cook, lightly toast the bread in the toaster. Spoon the mushrooms on toasted bread. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.
Optional: Heat the oven to 400 degrees with the rack positioned in the middle. Place the mushroom toasts on a shallow baking sheet and sprinkle with the grated cheese. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and lightly browned. Garnish with more black pepper to taste, and serve immediately.
Variation: Replace mushrooms with spinach. Or use half spinach and half mushrooms, adding the spinach once mushrooms has softened. Cook until the spinach has wilted before adding wine or stock. Proceed with the rest of the recipe as written above.
Yield: 4 servings
Carrot and Celery Root Salad
This crunchy and delicious salad makes for a great accompaniment to “Mushrooms on Toast.”
1 1/2 cups finely grated carrot (from about 8 ounces of carrots)
1 1/2 cups finely grated celery root (from about 8 ounces of celery root)
Fine sea salt, to taste
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
3 tablespoons olive or toasted sesame oil
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Place the carrot and celery root in a large bowl and toss to combine. In a small bowl, add the salt to the vinegar and let sit for 1 minute for the salt to dissolve. Add the mustard and whisk to combine. Add the oil and black pepper, and whisk to combine. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss to combine. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready.
Variation: Add 1 tablespoon grated hazelnuts or almonds, or 1 tablespoon or more of plain yogurt mixed with 1 teaspoon chopped chives.
Yield: 4 servings
Lentil Soup With Tomato
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
1 dried bay leaf
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon ground coriander, plus additional to taste (see below)
1 teaspoon ground cumin or ginger
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
1 pinch sugar
1 pinch ground cloves
1 (7-ounce) can peeled tomatoes, chopped (or 2 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped)
Fine sea salt, to taste
1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional)
1. Place the lentils in a medium pot set over medium-high heat, add 3 cups water and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer. Cook until the lentils are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. In a large pot set over medium heat, add the butter or oil, coriander, cumin, curry, cayenne, sugar and cloves, and warm the mixture until the spices are fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, with their juices, and 1/2 cup water, and bring everything to a boil. Add the reserved lentils and their liquid, reduce the heat to low, and simmer about 5 minutes. Add salt to taste and purée the soup, in batches, in a blender, until smooth. If you prefer, you can thin the soup out with more water. If you like, mix the sour cream with parsley, and add ground coriander to taste. Serve the soup with a dollop of the herbed sour cream.
Yield: 4 servings
Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears weekly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.
Well: Life, Interrupted: My Mother's Cooking
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