CHEMOTHERAPY-DAY ONE

I started chemotherapy to shrink the tumor at the junction of my stomach and esophagus. I was glad that Phil and Kim were there with me while I was connected to the various IV fluids. One of the drugs they gave me required me to be very well hydrated, so I started by taking in lots of fluids from the IV which goes via a needle into the port in my chest. I also drank about a gallon of water. I had to pee. When I dragged my tubes and IV pole across the small room, Phil got caught up in the tubing and accidentally pulled the needle out of my chest. Gitty, my fantastic nurse, was furious with Phil and shot him mean looks for the next hour. Luckily, she replaced the needle and the new set up worked better than the original. She and Phil made up. Not much later, we were trying to take a photo of all the water I was drinking and we knocked all the water over everything in the room. Thankfully Gitty wasn't there. It was a long day, but it was kind of fun. I'm on three different drugs to kill the cancer cells and two others that will help with the side effects. One of the drugs has to be pumped into me 24 hours a day, which requires me to wear a fanny pack with a pump that goes to my port (more on this in a later post). Afterwards, Phil and I watched American Idol and ate my new favorite ice cream, from Three Twins.

PRUNE

Georgia, Phil and I met at Prune before heading over to a party to celebrate the release of Meek's Cutoff. We started with anchovies with celery, broccoli rabe with mushrooms.
Whole Branzino with herbs.
Shad Roe, I'd never had this before. I like the texture.
For dessert we had Maple Walnut ice cream with maple syrup and chocolate pot de creme.

B&H DAIRY

B&H Dairy always a few different soups, my favorite is borscht. It comes with soft, buttered challah bread. I also like the egg salad.

M'AM

M'am, featuring former members of Das Damen, Guv'ner and Love Child rocked a packed house at Mercury Lounge last night. They were followed by one of my new favorites, Apex Manor. It was great to see a ton of old friends. Myrna's spinach quiche was for breakfast. I served it to myself on this cool plate from Kiosk.

PORTACATH

It sounds like the name of one of my favorite recording artists, but it's a plastic "port" and a tube that was put in a little below the collar bone that goes up to my jugular vein and then down into my heart. It will allow the doctors to inject medicine (chemotherapy) as directly as possible to my blood stream and avoid having to have tons of injections by needle. Before the procedure I had to fast and was given an IV, I experienced a vasovagel, I fainted. I nodded out in the chair, became dizzy, disoriented and sweaty. Kim was there with me. They stabilized me with fluids and we were ready to start the portacath insertion. Zach, the doctor asked if I wanted to hear music, so we listened to his friend's Israeli Blue Grass group Holler! Everything went fine except Zach accidently pricked his finger with one of the suture needles. This meant I had to have some blood drawn to have checked for disease, I fainted again. It was a sleaty, cold night in New York. Kim hailed us a cab back downtown to my apartment where she made me an avocado-coconut shake (from Samantha's recipe) using my new Waring commercial blender. We watched American Idol.

VEGETABLE STOCK

Thanks to those that have sent recipes for healthy soups and shakes. I tried a version of this one yesterday. Parsnips, carrots, potatoes, celery root, onions, tomato, garlic and a little rosemary cut up with some olive oil.

Roasted in the oven until things get golden.
Dumped all the vegetables in a pot of water, boiled and then simmered for two hours. (The hallway in my apartment building smelled good)
Strained out the vegetables and left with a rich broth.

SCANS AND BAGELS

I had some tests done this week to get more specific information about the tumor. One was an Endoscopic Ultrasound. It was fun. They knock you out and put a camera with an ultrasound device on the end of it down your throat. The other one wasn't fun. You drink a gross shake (see above) and then they shoot your veins with something that is radioactive, you sit for an hour, and then you go in the tube. Test results from both showed nothing worse than what I already knew, which was good news. Since Myrna, Goldie and Ellen were in town, I got some friends together to meet them. At Mindy's we had a classic bagel buffet: bagels from Murray's, baked salmon, lox and whitefish from Russ and Daughters.

JOE'S SHANGHAI

Tony and I went to Joe's Shanghai for soup dumplings. The best part is sucking the "soup" out of the dumpling, so that's what I did. We also did some cancer prep work. Kelly suggested David Foster Wallace's book of essays: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, so I got that to kill time in waiting rooms. I also got some pajama bottoms at Save, Tony thinks they need to be hemmed so I look really good lying around.

CANCER

I have cancer. There is a tumor the size of a mini-doughnut where my esophagus and stomach meet. This makes it hard to Eat, the same to be Dave and need Love even more. I'm going to be OK. I have excellent doctors treating me. Please don't send me inspirational stories, alternative medicines or ask me to wear a bracelet. Call me, visit me, email me, comment. I'll update here with progress.

Since the eating won't be that interesting for a while, here are some of my favorite food sites to check out:

http://newyork.seriouseats.com

http://eater.com/

http://markbittman.com/

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/

http://www.laweekly.com/columns/ask-mr-gold-27401/

http://www.addanegg.com/

Chiefs taking out Toomer.

RECETTE

Mac's in town to play some shows. For dinner we went to Recette in the West Village. The place is jammed with people but it's exciting. The food is great, it's mostly small tasters, so you order a bunch of stuff. I had salt cod fritters, snapper crudo stuffed with prawn (this seems to be their signature dish), and scallops in coconut broth.

For dessert we had "smores": toasted marshmallow* and graham cracker ice cream.
*In elementary school my friend Greg was asked to tell the class the definition of mellow. He said "mellow, like a marshmallow." The class cracked up and he got sent to the office.

POTATO LEEK SOUP

It was a rainy day in New York and my DVR was filled with old episodes of America's Test Kitchen, which got me in the mood for cooking. Ann suggested ATK's potato-leek soup with the addition of fennel, parsley and fennel-infused olive oil.

GOOD NAMES

Margaret Hamburg is the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Francine Prose is a writer and Literature Professor.

Kathy Goodwind is a kite designer.

Ryan Longwell is a place kicker for the Minnesota Vikings.

Jennifer Nawada runs a landscaping company featured on This Old House.

CARROT FENNEL SOUP

Driving around LA, I end up listening to KCRW all the time. On a show called Good Food, there was a woman on who told us how to make carrot fennel soup. At the Silver Lake Farmer's Market, I got all the ingredients, plus some pretty good tomatoes and and an avocado.