Question Your Doctor

This is a personal post, but with an important point. I’ve always had really bad problems with bronchitis. I’ve been sick for a week, and have reached the point where I have actually strained some of the muscles between my ribs – pretty crazy, huh?

This is a warning to people to be careful about putting too much trust in their doctors/medical practitioners. I tried to make an appointment with my regular doctor and ended up only being able to get in with a nurse practitioner. (This is not a slight against nurse practitioners – although this one seemed a bit nuts.) I am allergic to almost every antibiotic with the exception of (to my knowledge) cephalexin.

So when I was given a strep test, we discussed possible antibiotics I could take in case the test came out positive. She started to prescribe me Zithromax a.k.a. Z-pack. It’s in the same family as erythromycin, which has given me hives in the past. I argued that I probably couldn’t take it due to my allergy, and that I knew I could take cephalexin. She insisted that cephalexin was in the same family as erythromycin. And who was I to question? But in the back of my head, I felt sure she was wrong. Luckily I didn’t test positive for strep.

Today I returned to the doctor because of my muscle strain. My doctor decided I had been sick too long and that I had probably had bronchitis and needed to take an antibiotic. I believe going off of what the NP had prescribed she also gave me Z-pak. I just accepted that she knew what she doing. But when I got home I decided to double-check to see what family of drugs the Z-pak was in, and I was right that it was similar to what I was allergic to.

This is why you usually get asked what medicines you are allergic to two or three times every time you go to the doctor. Also be careful to know what you are allergic to, and in the case of antibiotics, which drugs are in the same family.

Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor a lot of questions. I realize it may seem to question their authority, but this is your health and they should respect that. We recently lost a close family friend to cancer because the doctor did not read the test results correctly, when it was completely evident from them that something was wrong. Our friend had felt there was something wrong, but blindly trusted the doctor who everyone in our community respected as a good doctor. We are all human, and we all make mistakes. If you feel something is off, get a second opinion.

The world is a poorer place for the loss of our friend. He knew everyone, and would help anyone. He could do anything he put his mind to – building a koi pond, putting an addition on to his house completely on his own. And he would help others with their construction and house remodeling projects. He rose to a senior analyst position in the Army despite only having an eighth grade education. He loved to tell stories and had a hearty laugh to go with them. He was truly a great man. RIP Dub. We’ll miss you.

From the Archives: Chorizo

Since around 2001, I’ve been reading the food pages of newspapers, etc. quite regularly. Over time there have been a number of great articles. So I am going to try and start a weekly feature highlighting great old articles, especially now that a number of publications have opened up the firewall on their archives.

This article on chorizo came at a perfect time. I was living in London about five blocks from Borough Market and the awesome Spanish importer Brindisa. Every weekend they would grill up chorizo sandwiches on ciabatta with rocket and olive oil. They made the whole market smell like paprika and smoky meat. They also had some for sale that I would use to make scrambled eggs or fried rice. This article delineates between the fantastic Spanish stuff and everything else.

Truly Spanish Chorizo in America At Last

Kobe beef

There was what I would called an expose on Gourmet about wagyu raised in Japan. It’s rather shocking…

“‘The steers have been lying in their own manure,’ he continued. ‘The farmers are proud of their cattle, and the first thing they do is grab a bit of straw and rub the manure off. That could be seen as be-ing massaged. Wagyu can also get a lot of joint swelling. I can imagine that the farmers would be massaging joints so they could get the animals off to market.’”

It seems a bit alarmist and sensational. I spoke to a chef who had visited a farm in Japan in 2002, and he told me that it was completely different from what he saw. I don’t know if his was the exception to what sounds like cruel treatment or that the place the chef in the article visited was one of a few bad ones.

Review: The Butcher Shop; Boston, MA

I was going through my camera and realized that I left these pictures and needed to do a little review. The Butcher Shop is one of three restaurants in the No 9 Group. It specializes in meat, a lot of charcuterie and cheaper cuts. We started off the meal with a densely crumbed and moist Irish soda bread spread with butter with fleur de sel and this amazing unfiltered honey from Vermont, which was cloudy but had a really rich flavor.

The house charcuterie wine that evening was a fruity, fizzy wine – a lot like the cheapest stuff they serve at 2Amys. And of course with that wine we ordered the house selection of charcuterie.

Flight of the Conchords Critter Babies

I had a friend in college who used to draw a bear and bunny. I started creating a whole series from that look. Once a week I go into my coworker’s office and draw a new animal for him. These are my favorite:

Two of the characters are a result of an episode of the Flight of the Conchords, the Rhymnoceros and the Hip Hop opatomus from this video. I also decided to create an elephant named Ella-phat. I have some other critters up.