Allergies and sensitivities...

[fajrdrako]

This morning I went to the Farmer's Market which has been operating since spring at Lansdowne Park. I've been wanting to go since they opened, but the broken ankle made it difficult and I didn't get around to it until today. Even today, I was made aware that a short walk on a beautiful Sunday morning, which would have been simple a year ago, was problematic now. I was also a little surprised how shivery-cold it was: and there was frost on the ground.

But I enjoyed it immensely. I expected something like the Byward Market, only smaller. But it isn't. It's more interesting than that; there was a man playing a hurdy-gurdy for a charity, and people selling handmade wooden things, and people selling elegant pastries and baked goods, and people selling maple syrup, and a food court in a tent, where I had squash and pear soup for breakfast. There are lots of organic food and unusual meats like elk and bison and ostrich. I bought elk burgers and mushroom burgers and lamb (free range, local, organic) for stew. And piles of vegetables, including multicoloured carrots - why did that charm me so much? I'm making lamb stew for supper.

As I've probably said, I'm experimenting with a rotation diet to try to get more energy by keeping allergies (and candidiasis symptoms) at bay. So this sort of thing has been on my mind lately.

And New Zealand spinach, which is new to me.

I'm experimenting with a rotation diet in an attempt to fight allergies (and encroaching candidiasis) and to get more energy. I know allergies are everwhere, but I was somewhat saddened to see a booth at the Farmer's Market selling "epi-pals", a colourful pouch for kinds to wear to keep their epi-pen to hand. Used to be that you could only find that kind of thing a specialist stores.

About an hour after seeing this, I overhead a conversation on Bank street, between a little girl aged maybe six, and her mother.

Kid: He can't eat cheese.
Mother: He can't eat ice cream, either.
Kid: Why not?
Mother: Because he has allergies.

I guess it's the way of the world. I wonder what proportion of the world has to worry about reactions to what they eat.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

New Zealand spinach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragonia) can, it seems, be grown in the Ottawa area. Who knew? I'd never seen it before. Apparently, according to the vendor, you can cook it and eat the stems (like normal spinach) or pick off the leaves and eat it raw as a salad.

It looks quite different - it has long stems with leaves branching off, like a cross between spinach and ivy.

If you can come over on Tuesday, I can cook it for you. If not - well, someday.

I didn't buy the ostrich meat but I was tempted.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

This is a fair reply to the complaint, I suppose. Imported seed stock, though...

I do prefer my spinach in salad form. Raw. When you taste it in that condition, you understand where Popeye's taste buds were coming from.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like spinach in many forms, including spinach soup. The budgies like it, too.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I too had not heard of NZ spinach ... or "tetragonia."

I too would like to try it sometime ... though I will probably try it on my own first.

Like dewline, I too prefer my spinach in the raw ... whether in a salad or in a sandwich.