Apple trees and honey bees

This is our new Golden Delicious apple tree, purchased at minimum cost from Asda.

Blossoms are already emerging and it's currently getting a reasonable amount of sunshine. I've found a slot on the lawn for it and dug it in well. We'll get a picket fence for it - but there will be no more football on the lawn.

Now I have to find a space for a second apple tree, which will be a Downton Pippin or some equally rare yellow apple. Apparently they cross-pollinate. The neighbour has a thriving apple tree so I hope they will help each other along. Must also ensure no one goes round swotting honey bees.

The aim is to cultivate the other, rare kinds of yellow apple. You need Golden Delicious to pollinate them, it seems - so we are starting here. And this way we will find if an apple tree can grow in our garden.

RAS

Mango

I dug out the last list the dietician gave me - a mere five years ago. It was meant to be more subtly graded than the earlier ones - but resulted in supposedly safe zero salicylate items such as cauliflower, papaya and golden delicious apple being ranked as "low" with items such as mango, pineapple juice, tomato, hazelnuts, peanut butter and horseradish.

I tried pineapple juice a few years ago but gave up rapidly because of the effects.

Somebody gave us a mango so I tried that today. There wasn't much substance to it. it was mainly stone. It had a tangy but insubstantial taste and an unpleasant after-taste. I definitely prefer papaya. I used to like mango juice but I think it would be a bad idea. Also pure mango juice is hard to come by.

Now to see if there are any after-effects.

I went to fetch the list off the kitchen noticeboard to write this - and found it had already come off and was starting to drift around the kitchen. Time I scanned it in - although, regrettably, in spite of the care that went into compiling it I still prefer the original lists which had a greater range of "negligible" items.

RAS

Soup update

Thanks to everyone who supplied tips for making soup.

I've had:
thick soup
thin soup
salty soup
saltless soup
fish soup
vegetable soup

Sadly the cold weather seems to have gone and I have no more appetite for soup. It's a shame because it proved to a good hunger killer.

Best soups:
an onion type soup made with leek and shallot. It made my breath bad for days but was quite tasty.
vegetable soup into which I popped a piece of frozen white fish. Not only was it tasty but it was also incredibly filling.

I liked the idea of putting a bit of pasta or rice into soup. It gave it a nice minestrone feel. But, as I suggest above, the time-honoured problem of how much salt to put in remains - especially when I tried to get others to eat it. It was always too much or too little.

Most of my soup ended up with quite a lot of soy sauce. As always, it was a challenge to make it tasty - especially when I tried to make it out of cabbage and potato.

RAS

Soup?

It's a freezing day in the British mid-winter and I've been outside in the freeze for most of the morning. What I could really, really do with is a mug of warm soup. Of course instant soup is out of the question - it's always laden with pepper.

Does anyone have any ideas for making a quick soup? Leek and potato seems the obvious combination. Perhaps we should make it in the autumn and freeze it.

This little problem pushed me quite a long way from instant food to preparing most meals from basic ingredients. But preparing months in advance, traditional style, now that's another big leap.

RAS

Sunshine!

I've been meaning for a while to pull together some thoughts about sunshine- arising from the success of my summer holiday in 2010.

We went somewhere a great deal sunnier than usual - that is not in Great Britain (which is currently sunny - but is without exception overcast and wet during the "summer" holiday season). The upshot was the disappearance of the Splodge. Remember the Splodge? It ended up covering my chest with the shape of a mirror imaged Australia - and seems to have been caused by penicillin and the penicillin-like mould in Stilton cheese.

And during that summer holiday it disappeared - "burnt" off by the rays of the sun in spite of my using copious quantities of as hyposensitive sun cream I could find. At the time it felt like hot sun and plenty of fresh salt water made the difference - but maybe there's a simpler explanation.

I was talking to somebody about this - and they said: "Maybe you need to move to somewhere sunny". - like Australia?

Since then there's been plenty of evidence suggesting the benefits of vitamin D - which comes from sunlight. Only this week some European experts called for everyone to get  a daily ration of sunlight:
http://www.englemed.co.uk/12/12jan121_vitamin_d.php

Here's another one, also from sunny Spain last year:
http://www.englemed.co.uk/11/11may191_asthma_sunlight.php

There is a lot more. I've read other reports suggesting that vitamin D may help reduce inflammation.

It all adds up. So I'm doing my best to get my 15 minutes daily exposure to the sun. Not sure we're moving to Spain yet!

RAS

Reflections and reactions after Christmas

I seem to be ultra-sensitive to salicylates again - and it's all my own fault. Just a little bit too much self-indulgence over Christmas.

For instance tonight I was picking the purple chocolates out of tin of Cadbury's Roses. These have a nut, surrounded by sweet toffee in a chocolate shell. No I did not eat the nut - it was easy to eat the chocolate and the toffee, remove the nut from my mouth and throw it away and nobody else in my family likes nut chocolates - so nobody would complain.

It didn't work - it was clearly too much exposure as my throat rapidly swelled up. It's been the same for days. Every small breach creates a reaction. On New Year's Eve I was at a party and was offered some mini spring rolls on the grounds they probably contained beansprouts and carrots. I wish. They contained some nasty mushed vegetable goo. On Sunday my other half pointed out I had sprouted a rash on the left side of my face. I also had jaw-ache on the left hand side. I took a montelukast last night and another one tonight.

So what does this say? I had three glasses of wine over Christmas - two on Christmas Day and one on Boxing Day - in spite of resolving not to. Reviewing the experience of previous years, it seems as though the effects of wine are long-lasting. I used up whatever tolerance I have - even with the aid of montelukast.

I wonder whether I can resist in Christmas 2012?

RAS

Swollen tongue syndrome

Last night my tongue suddenly swelled. This hasn't happened for quite a long time. At first I thought I had an ulcer - then I realised my tongue was getting somewhat unwieldy. The prime suspect is a chocolate biscuit I picked up. It turned out to have an orange icing filling. The second suspect is quite a large glass of whiskey a friend gave me. Whisky should be okay - although I note one of my lists merely states it is low, rather than zero. I also suspect a lot depends how it is distilled. Anyway the chocolate biscuit tasted disgusting - I used to like the taste of orange. I can't think why now. So I didn't finish it.

I took a montelukast and the problem faded away. Odd.

No whisky for me to bring in the New Year. Happy New Year!

RAS

Christmases I have known

The countdown is under way to Christmas and I've decided to stock up the whisky for the day. Sadly I've had all the viruses I need during the autumn and am unlikely to have that excuse for enjoying a glass or two of wine on Christmas Day.

When elderly relatives are present, it's really not right to go round looking for cold and flu viruses. They need to be banished from the Christmas table - the worst thing is when somebody ends up in hospital with flu straight after the festivities.

I've been perusing my postings for the last few Christmases and it turns out that drinking wine never worked out. Here is a selection:

This was the reality of the first Christmas Day on a restricted diet, tough turkey! And that's with massive appreciation to everyone who tried so hard:
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2007/01/12th-night.html

These were my reflective thoughts on Christmas Eve at the end of the first year:
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2006/12/happy-christmas.html

12 months later things were getting easier:
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2007/12/happy-christmas.html

By 2009 I was learning to create tolerance before Christmas - by rigorous abstention - combine it with a virus and enjoy some wine:
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-report.html

...but it wasn't wholly successful.
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2010/01/gout-and-marzipan.html

And last year I reported, briefly, that my indulgence in wine created a holiday that was "quite difficult".
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2011/01/trying-tomato.html

So maybe I'll be sticking to whisky - but I'm sure the turkey will be tasty. And if anyone wants tips on how to make the most of Christmas dinner, here's how to do a salicylate free poultry roast:
http://allergy-diary.blogspot.com/2009/03/roast-chicken.html

RAS

Viruses, teeth and everything

It started with a bit of beef stuck in my back teeth. When problems persisted, more food got stuck and a dull ache spread from the tooth I just assumed I'd pushed my fragile dental system too far.

Then there was a slight ache in the chest and a thickness in the throat. Looking back I've been through this many times recently - yet it's always hard to be sure what's happening. They say a dental infection can spread, causing pneumonia and heart disease (I'm not a hypochondriac - just reporting what I've picked up).

I used plenty of salt water and dental floss to fight what I thought was a dental infection - while the virus slowly climbed my throat and throttled the tooth

By the beginning of this week I was back where I was less than two months ago. Overwhelmed by a virus. On Sunday I stayed in bed. On Monday night I barely slept for a hacking cough.

The thing is: once you know it's a virus you know what to do. On Tuesday I was due to attend a function - so I attended and indulged myself. Wine, mushroom starter, everything - well, everything except the beef.

Several posters recently have mentioned wine being high in salicylates and I keep saying what I always say: it's a great way to kick-start the immune system. I've still got a bit of virus - but not much. I've suffered no ill-effects from my indulgence. My tooth is barely sore - just a little bit, almost certainly from the effects of too much flossing. And as well as getting an immune system shot, my body's probably had a chance to pick up nutrients it may be deprived of routinely.

Only problem now is that it's going to be tougher to pick up a virus on December 24th - in time to make Christmas dinner palatable.

RAS

Maple syrup

Does anybody know if maple syrup is ok?

RAS