CHEESESLAVE

Don’t you want to pinch those cheeks and bite that button nose?!

She’s proud of herself because she walked today without holding on. Two steps in the morning and four steps in the afternoon.

Woo hoo!

It’s funny — when you’re single, sitting at home on a Saturday night is the worst thing you can imagine. And then you become a mom. And you’re always doing doing doing for everyone else. And the idea of having some time to yourself is so fabulous, you don’t care what night it is.

Seth announced that he had to go out to a business thing and I got so excited that I was going to get to stay home, put my feet up, and do my own thing. I don’t even have to cook dinner! I can eat cheese and some almond bread if I get hungry.

So I got Kate down (so easy, she goes down every night and every nap with no crying, no fussing) then I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and watered my seedlings. Then I poured a glass of wine, dimmed the lights, and am now happily watching Oprah and House Hunters and Martha Stewart and Iron Chef America.

I’m also making “Potato Cheese”, a fermented potato dish (for Kate — we can’t eat potatoes on GAPS). I don’t like the name. Hopefully the recipe comes out better than the name.

I really like to try to serve fermented foods to Kate at at least one meal a day. Ideally, it would be every meal… but once a day is great. If I do more than that, all the better. She really loves sauerkraut and kefir and fermented yams and homemade lacto-fermented ketchup and dill pickles. Today she had some dill pickle relish in her tunafish for lunch, and this evening she had fermented yams with liver and ground beef stew for dinner.

Anyway, I got the Potato Cheese recipe from Nourishing Traditions. Well, it’s in Nourishing Traditions, but it was originally published in 1833, in a book called The American Frugal Housewife.

You cook 4 pounds of potatoes (I baked mine), then peel them, then throw them in the food processor with 2 cups of kefir or piima milk (I’m using kefir). Let that sit out at room temperature in a bowl (covered with a dish towel) for 2 days. Then you strain it the same way you do when you strain the whey when making cheese. When done, transfer to an airtight container and put it in the fridge.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Chicken livers cooked in duck fat and butter, leftover Avgolemono soup, fermented yams with raw butter, egg omelet with avocado and a tiny bit of lacto-fermented salsa, cod liver oil, butter oil, Lugol’s iodine, and her Biokult probiotic.

Click on the photo to read more.

Throwing all the toys out of her playpen.

We had our phone consultation to go over our test results with Dr. Flechas yesterday. He said that Seth and I are both iodine deficient and we should both take 50 mg of Iodoral per day — for a year. He said in one year, we’ll do the tests again and see where we are.

He said the Iodoral will help us excrete the heavy metals from our system — and he said that in a year’s time, all our heavy metal numbers should go down to zero.

He asked me if I knew how I could have gotten so much arsenic. I have no idea! He said I should look into that. Seth doesn’t have high arsenic — so it must have been something I ate or consumed before I met Seth. It’s not something that is affecting us now (i.e., not in our drinking water), otherwise Seth would have high arsenic too. But he doesn’t.

Seth has high aluminum. Not anywhere near as high as my arsenic levels (this explains the tingling in my hands). After that call, he agreed to throw away his mainstream deodorant and start using my “hippie” deodorant from Terressentials.

We are both high in uranium. Dr. Flechas said it would be a good idea to have our water tested. We have been drinking distilled water only for months now, but I am curious to know what is in the water supply. I asked Dr. Flechas if we can absorb water through the bath or shower, and he said he didn’t know.

Dr. Flechas also told us to take something called ATP Cofactors, because it helps the Iodoral “stick” better. And I asked him about giving Lugol’s to Kate. He said absolutely — 1 drop per day. He said this is really important because iodine has a lot to do with intelligence in children (iodine deficiency is associated with mental retardation and cretinism) and by age 2, her IQ will be set. So we started giving her the Lugol’s yesterday.

I forgot to ask him if it is safe to breastfeed with this much arsenic in my system if I’m taking the Iodoral and excreting it. I know it gets dumped in the breast milk. I will email the lab and ask the assistant to ask him.

I have a feeling though that I won’t be able to breastfeed for a while. It takes a while to get all of this junk out of your system. And, as wonderful as it is for Kate to drink breast milk, I don’t like the idea of her getting a bunch of arsenic. Thank goodness we have the homemade raw milk formula.

This is what Kate does when I’m not watching…

This is what happens when I leave her alone for five minutes. I’m just a few feet away, doing laundry or picking up toys off the floor. Within those five minutes, every book on her bookshelf is on the floor and she’s happily flipping through the pages, talking to herself.

It’s going to be a busy day. Heck, it’s been a busy day already.

Kate and I got up at 6:30. She had her bottle, I had my Dandy Blend, and then I got dressed and made breakfast while she watched Muzzy. We got to the farmer’s market a little after it opened (around 8:45) and we ate scrambled eggs and sausage and banana while we walked. I had to carry her in the Bjorn — she will not ride in the wagon anymore without trying to stand up. She’s so close to walking; she hates having to sit down.

I got 2 dozen fresh oysters, 4 dozen eggs, a rump roast, 2 pounds of ground beef, 3 huge bunches of carrots, fennel, a pound of fava beans, some spring onions, some mesclun, some yams (for Kate), a quart of raw honey, fresh organic peaches and apricots, olive goat cheese, 2 gallons of milk, a duck, and some chicken feet. It was a challenge to fit it all in the wagon.

I can’t wait to try that olive goat cheese. I got it from Healthy Family Farms — where I get my chickens and ducks. I think we’ll have some for lunch, along with the leftover chicken liver mousse. And some fresh peaches and cream.

For dinner, we’ll have the oysters (they’re very small, which is why I got 2 dozen — called luna, and they’re like Kumamoto oysters). I think we’ll go Sicilian tonight — oysters on the half shell, chilled fennel soup, fava beans with bacon or Italian sausage, and a salad of blood oranges and kalamata olives on a bed of arugula.

I wish Seth could have cream — I could make gelato. But instead I will make granita — a traditional Sicilian dessert and perfect when it is hot outside (which it is). I think I’ll try making mint granita. I have mint growing outside. Of course, I’ll make it with honey instead of sugar.

I need to make kombucha today, and kefir soda pop. And I’m going to make more sauerkraut, and Kate’s fermented yams. There’s chicken stock that needs to be strained. And there are diapers in the wash that need to go out on the line. I also really need to stake my tomatoes and prune and move some of the herbs out of the vegetable garden.

Speaking of that, right after I posted yesterday about the container gardening, I looked on Craig’s List and immediately found a guy who will build me custom planters — whatever size I need. He charges about $7/linear foot. Not bad! And best of all, it’s reclaimed (recycled) wood.

I’m going to do it! Now I just have to research how to make them self-watering.