The doctors tell me I have Hashimoto’s disease and that I can no longer eat the cheese and bread that I hold so dear, and it hurts so much that my heart snaps right in two, when they tell me my life will be irrevocably changed by this.
But, three months after the diagnosis, it feels like the fog is finally lifting. I no longer mourn the loss of the life I once lived. Pathways once paved into my brain by way of pattern, step and repeat, have altogether come undone.
I no longer buy the bread or want the cheese or need the butter. I am finding new foods, new recipes and reasons to eat. In the process, I feel like I am finding myself. The me who has long since held an appetite for food from beyond the middle aisles of the grocery store. And, now, here I am.
Simmering farm fresh figs into a homemade jam.
Steeping dried rosehips and sipping seolleongtang (bone broth).
I’ve always thought fondly of food. Always thought it to be beautiful, a tantalizing art form. I’ve always desired to know what it means to be satisfied with a meal. To and eat and drink and not need or want more because the plate is so rich and full that how could you possibly now need a bag of chips to curb your craving?
I am not saying that bread is bad. Because, by God, it is not. But it is bad for my body, and coming to accept that has been a good thing. A quite terribly good thing. Because I am finding purple potatoes and sunflower sprouts.
I am finding crushed garlic and basil.
I am finding sliced lemons and water boiled long in cast iron.
And I rather like this new life that I am peeling from beneath the layers of Earth’s offering.
Hashimoto’s is here to stay, forever in the deepest recesses of my cells. And, though, I wish I could will the strain and the pain away, I’ll take the new life that it is inadvertently bringing me to. This slow pause, this new practice of paying attention to what is on my plate, my palate.
My blood is chemical,
burning with ache
and need and want
for food, not to be
filled but to be
found.
An Unofficial Recipe for Rosemary Fig & Wine Jam
1 pint of fresh figs, stemmed and cut
1/4 cup sugar (or more, if desired)
2T of fresh lemon juice (or more if desired)
3/4 water
a splash of red wine (I eyeballed about 1/4 cup of Apothic Dark Red)
chopped rosemary ( a few needles, or you can add one sprig to remove later)
Add figs and sugar to pot. Leave for fifteen minutes so the sugar can draw water from the figs. Add the water, lemon juice, wine, and rosemary. Heat to boil, then simmer 12-20 minutes or until the figs thicken. Refrigerate.
Love you so much. Proud of you. And I need to make this fig jam!!
This is beautiful, Rachel. I am so looking forward to future essays and future recipes 🤍