Honeymooning

Mr. Tooth and I have been married for over a year. It has been a glorious and wonderful year-and-change! We finally, FINALLY, went on our honeymoon this past December. To Napa!

My grandparent's took me to Napa for a long weekend when I was 9 years old. Perhaps I realized then that I had a decent sense of smell. I remember it being really fun to name the different things I smelled in each new glass of wine - Strawberries! Cherries! Chocolate! Leather! Dirt! Cat Pee! I was an honest child. Some wine really does have a feline odor... Doesn't mean it isn't delicious though, right?

I hadn't been back to the Napa Valley since that brief visit with the Grands and Mr. Tooth had never been so we decided to trek up there for a week of wine tasting in the red and gold vineyards and some serious snuggling beside an en-suite fireplace. Best. Plan. Ever.

The highlightiest highlight: We had lunch at Bouchon. My love of sunchokes was reaffirmed. I had an earthy, velvety puree to start. Followed by some  raw oysters and a hearts of palm salad with persimmons, almonds and vanilla foam. I may have passed out momentarily from excitement.

We had a dinner at Ad-Hoc. We had a dinner at Auberge de Soleil. We had lunch at a taco truck in Yountville. We had another lunch at Busters BBQ in Calistoga. The sauce was so spicy. So Spicy. We had more oysters at the Oxbow Market. We ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. I could die happy. The wine was pretty good too.

Keshkek vs Harissa

The Atlantic recently published a story about national cuisines that piqued my interest. I am familiar with the great Dulce De Leche Debacle in Argentina and Uruguay because I wrote a paper about it for a food history class I took at UCLA a few years back. But I hadn't given much thought to other common regional foods that might cause conflict. Cultural and Ethnic identity is certainly bound up in the foods we eat, but here in the US we don't see flag burning or diplomatic relations cut off because someone claims that, oh I don't know, Barbecue is original to Texas and not to North Carolina. It's a crazy world out there.

The Life of Umami Tooth - Hashimoto's

 I want to start writing about my everyday life more, even if it doesn't specifically pertain to food or eating, so I thought I would start with this...

About four years ago I was out to dinner at Casa Bianca Pizza Pie in Eagle Rock with Mr. Tooth and my dear friend Bex when I realized I felt funny. Bad Funny. Now, this is not a story about food poisoning. I love Casa Bianca's pizza and it loves me (Order the sausage and olive pizza and an antipasto salad, trust me.) This is a story about my thyroid and it's many wonderful abilities and it's many upsetting deficits. But back to the pizza for a moment...

Here I was, enjoying my favorite sausage pizza, my then-boyfriend-now-husband was chatting merrily with Bex, when I found myself glazing over. I had blurry tunnel vision and my ears were ringing. I wasn't hungry anymore and I was doing all that I could to keep myself upright in my chair as a wave of fatigue swept over me. When I stop eating and talking something is wrong. I usually do both of those things really, really well. Apparently I didn't look too good and my dining companions insisted that I see a doctor as soon as possible. I admitted that I had been feeling unusually foggy and that all of my limbs had been tingling strangely for the past few weeks. I wish I hadn't checked Web MD when I got home. Terrifying stuff.

The next Monday I went in to my wonderful GP who ordered a blood test. Turns out I have Hypothyroidism caused by Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. I was promptly prescribed 50 mcg of Levothyroxine. And so began my journey.

Here is what I have learned:

• A lot of people have thyroid disfunction. It is incredibly common. Especially in women. Ask your family and friends and there is a high likelyhood of at least one other person who has issues with her thyroid. It's really nice to get some new perspectives.
• The symptoms of thyroid disfunction look a lot like other diseases so only a blood test can really tell you what is going on. Insist on getting a test for TSH, Free T3, Free T4 and Thyroid Antibodies.
• Not everyone will have the same combination of symptoms. For instance, I never gained a crazy amount of weight, but I did lose some hair, my skin is dry and I do get terrible brain fog and fatigue when I am not dosed sufficiently.
• Listen to your body. You are your own best advocate in terms of treatment. I am lucky that my GP and Endocrinologist trust me to tell them when I need an increase or decrease in medication based on my symptoms.
• Use a name-brand drug. I learned this the hard way. After three years on a generic my TSH all of a sudden rapidly increased and I got very sick. Levothyroxine is dosed in MICRO grams and generic drug manufacturers can have up to a 5% difference in potency in their product. Chances are good that I got a generic prescription for a few months that was "off."

After four years of treatment with blood tests about five times a year I am now taking 100 mcg of name-brand levothyroxine. I feel great most of the time and I try to listen carefully when my body says something is wrong. I take my medication every day and will have to for the rest of my life. It's a small price to pay for feeling happy and focused.

Plans For The New Year

So, I started running. And then I ran a 5K with my pal Brian. And now... I am signing up to run a half-marathon. Mr. Tooth is on his health kick too, having taken up rock climbing again. All this activity has lead me to think about health food. We eat a relatively balanced diet around here but like most Americans we indulge in fast food sometimes (I mean, In n Out, how can you resist!?). The last few months have been a blur with work and family and I feel like I've been cooking and eating on auto pilot. My plan for 2013 is to really check in and take note of what I am eating and how it makes me feel.