I ran out of my Allegra prescription and keep forgetting to call it in, which means that while the weather is doing crazy loop-de-loops where it's 65 one day and 88 the next, my ears are filled with fluid and every breath I take is accompanied by a squeaky, crackly noise caused by my eardrum bowing in and out. It's like someone stuffed Saran Wrap in my ear and it's slowly uncrinkling every time I draw or release a breath.
And if you've ever hung out with me in real life, you know that I have a virulent loathing for any kind of crinkly noise. Potato chip bags fill me with hatred. I nearly strangled a kid at diabetes camp last weekend because she had to fish around in her little plastic bag of peanuts for each individual nut. Spill them out into your hand, dammit. People who try to unwrap snacks slowly, with the net result of just making the noise stretch out over a longer period of time? In my mind, they're going to inhabit the same special hell that Shepherd Book threatened Mal with in Firefly.
So this noise in my ear? Utterly intolerable. It was this noise, even more than the actual loss of hearing, that made me go see the allergist in the first place.
So you'd think that its return would make me remember to call in my damn prescription refill so I could get my ears dried out, but no. Apparently not.
Showing posts with label hearing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hearing. Show all posts
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tubular
So yeah, got up at 5:45 yesterday so I could take Alex over to the Surgery Center to get tubes in his ears.
He was perfectly fine (if a bit befuddled) until we actually started heading back to the prep room, and then he started looking pitiful, as if he knew what was coming. He was clingy but mostly okay in the prep room, except when the nurse had the unmitigated gall to take his temperature and blood pressure. That was just brimming over with wrongosity.
Then they gave him a dose of something in a syringe to make him sleepy, and that was hysterical. I know exactly when it hit him, because we were sitting on the bed, reading Max's Bath for the forty-seventh time, and the anesthesiologist came in to go over his part and have me sign the release forms, and he looked at Alex and said "Hey, buddy!" and Alex busted up into giggles. And then he continued to giggle randomly while I signed release forms, and giggled randomly when I went back to reading the book... When Penny had her ear surgeries, the stuff made her drowsy and dopey, but Alex, I swear, was acting high.
("Well, I can see he's already had his medicine," the anesthesiologist said, looking amused. "He's acting a little..." "Yeah," I agreed, "he's reminding me of a guy I dated in college." Which startled the anesthesiologist into a snort.)
He started crying when the nurse took him away for the surgery, and then I sat in the corner and played solitaire on my phone for twenty minutes or so until the doctor came in to tell me that it was done and they were just waiting for Alex to wake up. His middle ear had apparently been full of gunk and goo, so the doctor had suctioned it out and then washed it with an antiseptic solution to reduce the chance of infection, and he increased the number of times per day he wanted us to put the post-op antibiotic drops in Alex's ears. Apparently the poor kid has the same problem I do, where his sinuses fill up his ears before they get to the nasal cavity, and then the ears never do drain completely.
The good news is that with the tubes aiding proper drainage, Alex should see an immediate improvement in his hearing, which means over the next month or so, his speech clarity and vocabulary (understood and spoken) should improve dramatically.
A few minutes later, they brought him to me. I'd known (and been warned again) that kids usually woke up from anesthesia with some disorientation and in bad moods. Penny had cried inconsolably for an hour or more after her surgeries. Alex... was violent. He was not sad, he was angry. He twisted and flailed, threw anything he could pick up, slapped and punched and kicked. And when he was coherent, he screamed for "Mama! Mama!" even when I was holding him.
Eventually, the nurses decided that he wasn't going to calm down as long as he was in the surgery center, and they let me take him home. He switched from angry to merely sad as soon as we started moving, and even stopped crying for a few minutes in the car. When we got home, he realized he was thirsty and sucked down the apple juice he'd scorned at the hospital and another cup of milk, then consented to eat a banana and a little yogurt for breakfast.
He was still randomly bursting into sobs, though, so as soon as he was done eating, I took him up to his crib and tucked him in. This seemed to agree with him -- I heard occasional sobby breaths for half an hour or so, and then it all evened out into sleep, and he slept straight through until 11:30. Despite the maid service coming and making a bunch of noise.
When he woke up, he was cheerful and bouncy and happy. He watched Sesame Street and looked at books and went outside to "draw" on the driveway with chalk, and seemed to take great delight in talking and demanding that I tell him the names for things.
So hopefully his speech will improve, and the ear infections will go away (or at least appear on a normal, once or twice a year schedule instead of every three weeks). Yay, tubes!
He was perfectly fine (if a bit befuddled) until we actually started heading back to the prep room, and then he started looking pitiful, as if he knew what was coming. He was clingy but mostly okay in the prep room, except when the nurse had the unmitigated gall to take his temperature and blood pressure. That was just brimming over with wrongosity.
Then they gave him a dose of something in a syringe to make him sleepy, and that was hysterical. I know exactly when it hit him, because we were sitting on the bed, reading Max's Bath for the forty-seventh time, and the anesthesiologist came in to go over his part and have me sign the release forms, and he looked at Alex and said "Hey, buddy!" and Alex busted up into giggles. And then he continued to giggle randomly while I signed release forms, and giggled randomly when I went back to reading the book... When Penny had her ear surgeries, the stuff made her drowsy and dopey, but Alex, I swear, was acting high.
("Well, I can see he's already had his medicine," the anesthesiologist said, looking amused. "He's acting a little..." "Yeah," I agreed, "he's reminding me of a guy I dated in college." Which startled the anesthesiologist into a snort.)
He started crying when the nurse took him away for the surgery, and then I sat in the corner and played solitaire on my phone for twenty minutes or so until the doctor came in to tell me that it was done and they were just waiting for Alex to wake up. His middle ear had apparently been full of gunk and goo, so the doctor had suctioned it out and then washed it with an antiseptic solution to reduce the chance of infection, and he increased the number of times per day he wanted us to put the post-op antibiotic drops in Alex's ears. Apparently the poor kid has the same problem I do, where his sinuses fill up his ears before they get to the nasal cavity, and then the ears never do drain completely.
The good news is that with the tubes aiding proper drainage, Alex should see an immediate improvement in his hearing, which means over the next month or so, his speech clarity and vocabulary (understood and spoken) should improve dramatically.
A few minutes later, they brought him to me. I'd known (and been warned again) that kids usually woke up from anesthesia with some disorientation and in bad moods. Penny had cried inconsolably for an hour or more after her surgeries. Alex... was violent. He was not sad, he was angry. He twisted and flailed, threw anything he could pick up, slapped and punched and kicked. And when he was coherent, he screamed for "Mama! Mama!" even when I was holding him.
Eventually, the nurses decided that he wasn't going to calm down as long as he was in the surgery center, and they let me take him home. He switched from angry to merely sad as soon as we started moving, and even stopped crying for a few minutes in the car. When we got home, he realized he was thirsty and sucked down the apple juice he'd scorned at the hospital and another cup of milk, then consented to eat a banana and a little yogurt for breakfast.
He was still randomly bursting into sobs, though, so as soon as he was done eating, I took him up to his crib and tucked him in. This seemed to agree with him -- I heard occasional sobby breaths for half an hour or so, and then it all evened out into sleep, and he slept straight through until 11:30. Despite the maid service coming and making a bunch of noise.
When he woke up, he was cheerful and bouncy and happy. He watched Sesame Street and looked at books and went outside to "draw" on the driveway with chalk, and seemed to take great delight in talking and demanding that I tell him the names for things.
So hopefully his speech will improve, and the ear infections will go away (or at least appear on a normal, once or twice a year schedule instead of every three weeks). Yay, tubes!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Glub.
A last-minute delivery kept me at work until almost 5:30 last night. So much for fitting a swim into the time between work and dinner.
But I've got book club on Wednesday, which is going to make a swim difficult to fit in, and so this was looking like another 1-swim week, and I was feeling excessively grumpy about that, so I packed up and went to the Y after the kids were in bed. It was actually kind of nice -- there weren't many people there, and since I didn't have to get home in time to cook dinner, I wasn't watching the clock, just counting my laps. (I'm up to 8 laps, 16 lengths -- that's half a mile! It's pretty slow, but at this point, my goal is movement, not speed.)
I finally saw the ENT yesterday about my deaf ear. He peered into my ears and mouth, and threaded a scope up through my nose to look at my eustacian tube from the inside (and that's pretty much as comfortable as it sounds like) and told me that it looks like my sinuses are so swollen that they're blocking the eustacian tube entirely. Which means that in addition to retaining water, my inner ear can't pressurize properly, which means my eardrum isn't functioning the way it's supposed to, which means I can't hear. Whee.
He suspects the swelling is due to allergies, so he wrote me three prescriptions (a mild steroid to reduce the swelling, and an oral antihistamine and a nasal decongestant -- or maybe I've got those backwards -- to deal with the immediate symptoms and hopefully get my hearing back. (He said there's a 20-25% chance the meds won't do the trick, in which case I'll be getting a tube. Yay.)
And now I'm scheduled for not one, not two, but three appointments next week for allergy testing. (Correction - two are for testing, the third is the follow-up appointment to discuss the results and set up a course of treatment.) You know, 'cause I wasn't having to take enough time off from work already.
But I've got book club on Wednesday, which is going to make a swim difficult to fit in, and so this was looking like another 1-swim week, and I was feeling excessively grumpy about that, so I packed up and went to the Y after the kids were in bed. It was actually kind of nice -- there weren't many people there, and since I didn't have to get home in time to cook dinner, I wasn't watching the clock, just counting my laps. (I'm up to 8 laps, 16 lengths -- that's half a mile! It's pretty slow, but at this point, my goal is movement, not speed.)
I finally saw the ENT yesterday about my deaf ear. He peered into my ears and mouth, and threaded a scope up through my nose to look at my eustacian tube from the inside (and that's pretty much as comfortable as it sounds like) and told me that it looks like my sinuses are so swollen that they're blocking the eustacian tube entirely. Which means that in addition to retaining water, my inner ear can't pressurize properly, which means my eardrum isn't functioning the way it's supposed to, which means I can't hear. Whee.
He suspects the swelling is due to allergies, so he wrote me three prescriptions (a mild steroid to reduce the swelling, and an oral antihistamine and a nasal decongestant -- or maybe I've got those backwards -- to deal with the immediate symptoms and hopefully get my hearing back. (He said there's a 20-25% chance the meds won't do the trick, in which case I'll be getting a tube. Yay.)
And now I'm scheduled for not one, not two, but three appointments next week for allergy testing. (Correction - two are for testing, the third is the follow-up appointment to discuss the results and set up a course of treatment.) You know, 'cause I wasn't having to take enough time off from work already.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Funny Little World
I called the ENT yesterday to make an appointment about getting my ear unstuffed. The earliest appointment I could get? Three weeks from now. Whaddafu?
So if you were, like, an ENT looking for a place to settle down and establish a thriving practice, Williamsburg just might be the place for you. Apparently, we have a shortage.
Fourth of July tomorrow, so no post. We'll be going down to my parents' for BLTs. Which reminds me, I need to call and find out what I should be bringing.
I'm looking forward to it immensely. BLTs are one of the few reasons to tolerate summer, as far as I'm concerned, and my family gets very serious about these sandwiches. We only do it once a year, but when the time comes, we do it right. Mom buys tomatoes big enough so that one slice will cover (and I do mean cover) the bread, and she cuts slices thick enough to shame steaks. Dad fries up nearly a pound of bacon per person, and they toast up most of two loaves of bread. A head or two of lettuce and a couple of bottles of Durkee's complete the ensemble. (I think I was in college before I learned that most people just put mayo or mustard on their BLTs.)
To make it the quintessential summer meal, we'd have a dozen or so cobs of sweet corn, and a big ol' watermelon for dessert. My mouth is watering, just thinking about it.
We may eat more on BLT day than we do at Thanksgiving, to be perfectly honest. But let's face it: turkey and mashed potatoes taste the same year-round. Tomatoes and corn are indisputably and indescribably better in the summer.
Yesterday, I came downstairs in the morning to find that Penny had -- for reasons unknown -- wrapped a satin and rhinestone toy dog collar around her Batman action figure and left him on my purse.
I don't know what she was thinking when she did it. What I thought was, Huhn. Well, it's not all that surprising that Bruce would be a little kinky. Or that he'd be the Sub.
So if you were, like, an ENT looking for a place to settle down and establish a thriving practice, Williamsburg just might be the place for you. Apparently, we have a shortage.
Fourth of July tomorrow, so no post. We'll be going down to my parents' for BLTs. Which reminds me, I need to call and find out what I should be bringing.
I'm looking forward to it immensely. BLTs are one of the few reasons to tolerate summer, as far as I'm concerned, and my family gets very serious about these sandwiches. We only do it once a year, but when the time comes, we do it right. Mom buys tomatoes big enough so that one slice will cover (and I do mean cover) the bread, and she cuts slices thick enough to shame steaks. Dad fries up nearly a pound of bacon per person, and they toast up most of two loaves of bread. A head or two of lettuce and a couple of bottles of Durkee's complete the ensemble. (I think I was in college before I learned that most people just put mayo or mustard on their BLTs.)
To make it the quintessential summer meal, we'd have a dozen or so cobs of sweet corn, and a big ol' watermelon for dessert. My mouth is watering, just thinking about it.
We may eat more on BLT day than we do at Thanksgiving, to be perfectly honest. But let's face it: turkey and mashed potatoes taste the same year-round. Tomatoes and corn are indisputably and indescribably better in the summer.
Yesterday, I came downstairs in the morning to find that Penny had -- for reasons unknown -- wrapped a satin and rhinestone toy dog collar around her Batman action figure and left him on my purse.
I don't know what she was thinking when she did it. What I thought was, Huhn. Well, it's not all that surprising that Bruce would be a little kinky. Or that he'd be the Sub.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Summer Bash
It was a good, if somewhat tiring, weekend.
Saturday was the Summer Bash. A lot of the people we invited couldn't make it, and it turned out to probably be just as well, because we barely fit everyone in the house as it was.
The kids (Penny, Jess, and Ray) played in the pool and then made a small wreck of the green room -- but they more or less confined themselves to the green room, Penny's room, and the deck, leaving the grownups free to sit and chat without being interrupted every three words, which was really nice.
Alex was on his very best behavior -- he napped for the first hour or more of the party, then woke up happy and cute and sociable; he didn't get overloaded and cranky until fairly close to his usual bedtime anyway, and then went to bed with relatively little fuss. Just about all that could be asked of a six-month-old!
Of course I have pictures!
More pics over at flickr, of course.
We spent Sunday recovering and doing the usual chores. Karen came over after dinner, so we got to chat with her some more before she headed back home.
Of course, Penny started leaking goop from her eyes that evening, so she's going to the doctor today to make sure it isn't pinkeye and/or get a prescription to deal with it. ...Assuming she isn't on a field trip. I'll have to call and check up on that.
It's a short work week, of course, with the 4th on Friday. And half my office is taking Thursday and/or Monday off to extend the holiday to a 4-day weekend, so things are pretty quiet.
Despite being halfway through my run of antibiotics, I've still got fluid in my left ear and can't hear anything on that side. If it doesn't clear up soon, I may make an appointment with an ENT specialist. Though someone suggested that my persistent cough might be caused by (or at least worsened by) the smoke in the air from the peat fire in North Carolina -- if that's the case, then I'm probably stuck with both the cough and the lack of hearing for the next month. Whee.
At any rate, I've decided I don't want to wait for the ear to clear up to go back to swimming; I really missed it last week. So I'm going back tonight, and sometime this week I'll find some time to go looking for earplugs to protect my ears once I'm done with the antibiotics.
At least, that's the plan. If Penny's doctor holds us up too late, I might just go straight home afterwards, and I can't really go swimming with her in tow.
Guess it's going to be a play-it-by-ear afternoon...
Saturday was the Summer Bash. A lot of the people we invited couldn't make it, and it turned out to probably be just as well, because we barely fit everyone in the house as it was.
The kids (Penny, Jess, and Ray) played in the pool and then made a small wreck of the green room -- but they more or less confined themselves to the green room, Penny's room, and the deck, leaving the grownups free to sit and chat without being interrupted every three words, which was really nice.
Alex was on his very best behavior -- he napped for the first hour or more of the party, then woke up happy and cute and sociable; he didn't get overloaded and cranky until fairly close to his usual bedtime anyway, and then went to bed with relatively little fuss. Just about all that could be asked of a six-month-old!
Of course I have pictures!
More pics over at flickr, of course.
We spent Sunday recovering and doing the usual chores. Karen came over after dinner, so we got to chat with her some more before she headed back home.
Of course, Penny started leaking goop from her eyes that evening, so she's going to the doctor today to make sure it isn't pinkeye and/or get a prescription to deal with it. ...Assuming she isn't on a field trip. I'll have to call and check up on that.
It's a short work week, of course, with the 4th on Friday. And half my office is taking Thursday and/or Monday off to extend the holiday to a 4-day weekend, so things are pretty quiet.
Despite being halfway through my run of antibiotics, I've still got fluid in my left ear and can't hear anything on that side. If it doesn't clear up soon, I may make an appointment with an ENT specialist. Though someone suggested that my persistent cough might be caused by (or at least worsened by) the smoke in the air from the peat fire in North Carolina -- if that's the case, then I'm probably stuck with both the cough and the lack of hearing for the next month. Whee.
At any rate, I've decided I don't want to wait for the ear to clear up to go back to swimming; I really missed it last week. So I'm going back tonight, and sometime this week I'll find some time to go looking for earplugs to protect my ears once I'm done with the antibiotics.
At least, that's the plan. If Penny's doctor holds us up too late, I might just go straight home afterwards, and I can't really go swimming with her in tow.
Guess it's going to be a play-it-by-ear afternoon...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Something Fishy
The other night, as Matt and I were just settling down to sleep, he said, "Do you hear that?"
I lifted my head from the pillow a bit and heard... nothing out of the ordinary. "No," I said, and relaxed back into the cool fluff.
"It sounds like someone's playing a radio."
I strained to catch even a hint of bass rhythm wafting through the air. "I don't hear anything."
Matt sat up. Oh, for petesake, I thought. It's obviously not the kids, and what are you going to do about it if it's the neighbors?
He got out of bed, and headed for the bedroom door. He paused as he went by my nightstand, and stopped. "I think it's your alarm."
I still couldn't hear anything. I sighed and turned over to face him, the nightstand, and the radio alarm clock. "No, I haven't had the alarm set since-" With my face three inches from the clock, I heard it. Faintly. Barely. The radio.
Someone (likely Penny) had turned on the radio, turned the volume almost entirely all the way down, and then wandered off. I turned the volume back to something normal and then turned off the radio.
How long had it been like that? Would I have ever noticed?
We all know my hearing sucks, but seriously, I felt like a LOLCat: "LISNIN: UR DOIN IT RONG."
There was condensation on the cars this morning. Penny stopped at the first window she came do -- my front passenger window -- and drew a large oval with her finger. Inside one end of the oval, she drew a circle, and filled it in. At the other end, just outside the oval, she drew two more, smaller ovals.
"Look, Mommy! I drew you a picture!"
Having seen this picture before, I knew what to say. "What a beautiful whale, sweetie! Thank you!"
Today is brief anecdote day because Alex woke up last night at 2:15, and then after Matt put him back to bed, he laid there and talked to himself for a while, so I couldn't get to sleep because I was braced for him to get fussy. That lasted until probably about 3 or so. And then he was up this morning at 5:15.
Today is not a day to split my morning coffee half-decaf, is what I'm saying.
I made salmon for dinner last night.
And I mean real salmon, not canned stuff. I actually bought a 12oz salmon fillet and cooked it.
I don't eat fish. I've never been big into seafood. Fishsticks, which hardly count, and canned tuna or salmon, but not real fish, much. I used to love shrimp when I was little, but somewhere around middle school or so I developed an aversion to their kind of poppy texture that I'm only just beginning to get around now.
But about 90% of my friends are going to Weight Watchers or on some other diet right now. (No, really. K.T., Kevin, Elizabeth, Dave, Karen, Sam, John, my parents, most of the women and a couple of the men at work...) And even though I'm not really ready to join them, it's making me think about how to not-diet in a healthier way, if that makes any sense. And I've been hearing for years how fish is one of those really super foods -- nutritionally dense, low in bad fats and high in good ones, etc. One of the things that everyone should eat at least once a week.
And then I was watching one of my cooking shows (I don't even remember which one) and they had a slab of tuna that they just barely seared and served still rare and it actually looked really good. Maybe it's time to try fish again, I thought. I decided I would try real, fresh fish -- the last time I tried it, I went with a pre-seasoned, frozen thing, and Matt liked it but it had this nasty, back-of-the-throat freezer burn taste to me. And I'd try salmon and tuna, which my palate has at least a nodding acquaintance with, via the canned stuff. (I know, I know, it's like comparing fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes with ketchup, but there's a similarity.)
So this week was the first experiment, and it was salmon. I found a recipe that sounded both tasty and simple (a glaze, and then broil the fish) and I cut my fillet into three pieces and charged onward. The smoke alarm went off because the bits of glaze that pooled away from the fish burnt and smoked, but what was on the fish did what glazes are supposed to do.
I took the fish out of the oven when the timer went off and regarded it dubiously. "...or until it flakes with a fork," said the recipe. I did this once before, with another kind of fish, and never did figure out what "flakes with a fork" meant. I tentatively prodded at one piece with the spoon I was using for the couscous, and three big flakes fell off. Well, that answered that.
I brushed the last of the glaze over the salmon, and put couscous on the plates, and served it.
Penny was extremely reluctant to try the fish until Matt pointed out that it was pink, which is her favorite color. She wound up eating about half her piece -- maybe about 2 ounces of salmon, altogether, but at least she didn't take one bite and then stop completely. Mostly, I suspect, she was just full from the couscous.
Holy crap, I made a fish dish, and liked it! Matt was enthusiastic, and Penny didn't hate it... I'm going to make this again!
Here's the recipe:
Line a baking pan with foil, coat it with nonstick spray, and on it put:
12oz salmon, cut into 4-6oz servings, skin-side down (Next time, I might go with a bigger piece.)
In a bowl, mix:
2 Tbsp maple syrup (I used the real thing, but I don't know if that's important.)
2 Tbsp soy sauce (the original recipe called for low-sodium, but I like salt.)
Brush about half of it over the fish, being sure to coat all visible flesh.
Broil for 7 minutes, then take it out and brush about half the remaining glaze over the fish.
Broil another 6-8 minutes ("or until it flakes easily with a fork"), and brush on the last of the glaze.
Serve with rice or couscous.
Speaking of Penny trying new things... At John and Sam's for Mother's Day dinner, John grilled up a bunch of fresh asparagus. I had a couple of stalks, I don't know if Matt had any (we were swapping out because of Alex), but Penny ate like... four or five of them. She preferred it to the chicken or any of the other vegetables I gave her.
It never would have occurred to me to try her on asparagus -- it's such a strong flavor, and it's traditionally one of those foods kids hate -- but she scarfed it right down.
Mind you, if I buy a bundle next week and serve it, she won't touch it.
I lifted my head from the pillow a bit and heard... nothing out of the ordinary. "No," I said, and relaxed back into the cool fluff.
"It sounds like someone's playing a radio."
I strained to catch even a hint of bass rhythm wafting through the air. "I don't hear anything."
Matt sat up. Oh, for petesake, I thought. It's obviously not the kids, and what are you going to do about it if it's the neighbors?
He got out of bed, and headed for the bedroom door. He paused as he went by my nightstand, and stopped. "I think it's your alarm."
I still couldn't hear anything. I sighed and turned over to face him, the nightstand, and the radio alarm clock. "No, I haven't had the alarm set since-" With my face three inches from the clock, I heard it. Faintly. Barely. The radio.
Someone (likely Penny) had turned on the radio, turned the volume almost entirely all the way down, and then wandered off. I turned the volume back to something normal and then turned off the radio.
How long had it been like that? Would I have ever noticed?
We all know my hearing sucks, but seriously, I felt like a LOLCat: "LISNIN: UR DOIN IT RONG."
There was condensation on the cars this morning. Penny stopped at the first window she came do -- my front passenger window -- and drew a large oval with her finger. Inside one end of the oval, she drew a circle, and filled it in. At the other end, just outside the oval, she drew two more, smaller ovals.
"Look, Mommy! I drew you a picture!"
Having seen this picture before, I knew what to say. "What a beautiful whale, sweetie! Thank you!"
Today is brief anecdote day because Alex woke up last night at 2:15, and then after Matt put him back to bed, he laid there and talked to himself for a while, so I couldn't get to sleep because I was braced for him to get fussy. That lasted until probably about 3 or so. And then he was up this morning at 5:15.
Today is not a day to split my morning coffee half-decaf, is what I'm saying.
I made salmon for dinner last night.
And I mean real salmon, not canned stuff. I actually bought a 12oz salmon fillet and cooked it.
I don't eat fish. I've never been big into seafood. Fishsticks, which hardly count, and canned tuna or salmon, but not real fish, much. I used to love shrimp when I was little, but somewhere around middle school or so I developed an aversion to their kind of poppy texture that I'm only just beginning to get around now.
But about 90% of my friends are going to Weight Watchers or on some other diet right now. (No, really. K.T., Kevin, Elizabeth, Dave, Karen, Sam, John, my parents, most of the women and a couple of the men at work...) And even though I'm not really ready to join them, it's making me think about how to not-diet in a healthier way, if that makes any sense. And I've been hearing for years how fish is one of those really super foods -- nutritionally dense, low in bad fats and high in good ones, etc. One of the things that everyone should eat at least once a week.
And then I was watching one of my cooking shows (I don't even remember which one) and they had a slab of tuna that they just barely seared and served still rare and it actually looked really good. Maybe it's time to try fish again, I thought. I decided I would try real, fresh fish -- the last time I tried it, I went with a pre-seasoned, frozen thing, and Matt liked it but it had this nasty, back-of-the-throat freezer burn taste to me. And I'd try salmon and tuna, which my palate has at least a nodding acquaintance with, via the canned stuff. (I know, I know, it's like comparing fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes with ketchup, but there's a similarity.)
So this week was the first experiment, and it was salmon. I found a recipe that sounded both tasty and simple (a glaze, and then broil the fish) and I cut my fillet into three pieces and charged onward. The smoke alarm went off because the bits of glaze that pooled away from the fish burnt and smoked, but what was on the fish did what glazes are supposed to do.
I took the fish out of the oven when the timer went off and regarded it dubiously. "...or until it flakes with a fork," said the recipe. I did this once before, with another kind of fish, and never did figure out what "flakes with a fork" meant. I tentatively prodded at one piece with the spoon I was using for the couscous, and three big flakes fell off. Well, that answered that.
I brushed the last of the glaze over the salmon, and put couscous on the plates, and served it.
Penny was extremely reluctant to try the fish until Matt pointed out that it was pink, which is her favorite color. She wound up eating about half her piece -- maybe about 2 ounces of salmon, altogether, but at least she didn't take one bite and then stop completely. Mostly, I suspect, she was just full from the couscous.
Holy crap, I made a fish dish, and liked it! Matt was enthusiastic, and Penny didn't hate it... I'm going to make this again!
Here's the recipe:
Line a baking pan with foil, coat it with nonstick spray, and on it put:
12oz salmon, cut into 4-6oz servings, skin-side down (Next time, I might go with a bigger piece.)
In a bowl, mix:
2 Tbsp maple syrup (I used the real thing, but I don't know if that's important.)
2 Tbsp soy sauce (the original recipe called for low-sodium, but I like salt.)
Brush about half of it over the fish, being sure to coat all visible flesh.
Broil for 7 minutes, then take it out and brush about half the remaining glaze over the fish.
Broil another 6-8 minutes ("or until it flakes easily with a fork"), and brush on the last of the glaze.
Serve with rice or couscous.
Speaking of Penny trying new things... At John and Sam's for Mother's Day dinner, John grilled up a bunch of fresh asparagus. I had a couple of stalks, I don't know if Matt had any (we were swapping out because of Alex), but Penny ate like... four or five of them. She preferred it to the chicken or any of the other vegetables I gave her.
It never would have occurred to me to try her on asparagus -- it's such a strong flavor, and it's traditionally one of those foods kids hate -- but she scarfed it right down.
Mind you, if I buy a bundle next week and serve it, she won't touch it.
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