Yippee! A sandwich! I don’t eat sandwiches much anymore since deli meats are on the banned foods list. But yesterday I had leftover roast chicken (not too leftover, that’s also banned) and some day-old bread (fresh yeasted breads aren’t allowed, either). I’m following a migraine trigger-free diet on the advice of my neurologist. Or rather, I’m attempting to follow one (I did sneak a teeny bit of dijon onto that sandwich, and with it, a teeny, teeny bit of sulfites). I’m doing a hybrid of the National Headache Foundation’s “low tyramine diet” and the guidelines from David Buchholz’ book Heal Your Headache. Both are authorities in the migraine field, yet their dietary recommendations are slightly different. Buchholz’ is a little more restrictive, so I lean towards the NHF version.
As a lover of all things edible I find the diet heartbreaking. Buchholz points out that there are more things that you are allowed to eat than not allowed to eat. This is technically true, but beside the point. Here are some foods from the no-no list: aged cheeses, wine, cured or smoked meats and fish, nuts, fresh yeasted breads, vinegar (except clear distilled), lemons, onions. How do you cook without onions? Or bacon? Clear distilled vinegar? Isn’t that the kind you use to clean out the coffee maker? My maple-glazed pork tenderloin yearns for apple cider vinegar, not a household cleaning product. The butterhead sings out for champagne vinegar! And oh – lovely nuts. Goodbye almond butter on my toast. Goodbye pine nuts on sauteed spinach with browned butter. Goodbye endive with toasted walnuts and gorgonzola (oh, lovely gorgonzola).
Somehow, after several months, I am adapting to my restricted ingredients list. Fortunately I live in the Pacific Northwest, where we are blessed with an abundance of delectable foods year round. This softens the blow. For many reasons – ecological, economic, culinary, health – I try to eat foods that are local and seasonal. And I believe in eating “real food” as espoused by Nina Planck and Michael Pollan. This blog is a chronicle of the meals I make as I attempt to eat within boundaries: those imposed on me by the headache diet, and those that result from my preference for local and seasonal real foods.
So back to my sandwich. Roast chicken, arugula from the garden, a few leaves of basil from the starts I deadheaded earlier in the day, tomato and the cheaty bit, dijon mustard. Okay, the tomato was a cheaty bit, too. It wasn’t local or seasonal. But it also did not have salmonella, since it was “on the vine” and from BC. Thanks, BC, for not poisoning me. (Seriously, though, this whole tomato-salmonella things is one perfect example of why I’d rather buy food grown by someone I’ve met.) Here’s my sarny:
