hospitality, part 2

So y'all responded very well to the last post, so I wanted to continue on the successful theme. Plus I haven't tried any new recipes recently so I have nothing new to report on that front (but I did spent two hours yesterday flipping through my aunt's old cooking magazines and ripping out new recipes!).

Something to ponder and consider: how often do you offer people food around you? Something extra you have in your lunch, why not share it... Or also, you're snacking, a coworker comes by, you offer them some of your nuts, strawberries...?

This happens to me ALL THE TIME. The more I thought about it, the more I could remember it happening. Also, being raised in the gracious South, I feel rude when I continue to refuse the generously offered foods.

It was just rather funny in a terrible way on my last rotation--different people have different attitudes towards food. I was working with a female physician with her own children, and I've noticed that these women usually 'adopt' me and just can't help taking care of young people. She also ate a very healthy diet, which meant that the daily offerings were nuts, apples, oranges, strawberries...hmmmm. Luckily, the nuts were mixed nuts, so I casually picked out the peanuts and avoids the walnuts and almonds (I'm not allergic to walnuts, but my mom is so I never ate them and thus don't like them). I did end up eating about half an apple one day and just went about with the cramping abdominal pain all afternoon. Somehow I got out of the orange. It's easy enough when she would get distracted by other things. The commonality of strawberry allergies got me out of that one. I can claim certain allergies without getting the weird look--strawberries and eggs usually. As her offerings of food were on a near daily basis, I couldn't keep refusing, so I pushed through. The educational opportunities were worth it, for the most part.

As a side note, it was with her that I recently ate pizza without my prophylactic medicines. I will flat out say that delivery pizza is one of the hardest things for me to resist and it's difficult to explain why I can't eat it--what twentysomething doesn't like pizza (and beer)? I ate it, dashed home and took a full dose of H2 blockers (antacids) and one Benadryl (so 25mg, a half dose from the full allergic reaction dose of 50mg) and went off to take a test. It was a difficult situation but I did find that I didn't acutely react to the yeast! It was a rough few days afterwards of just not feeling right, but it was pretty good for me. Plus the dessert pizza was TOTALLY worth it--I'm searching out a good yeast-free recipe. :)

The other side of the food offerings spectrum is the men--they're more likely to allow me to chose my own food and then not let me pay for it. Some of them get snarky about the constant salad choices, and I have one physician who thinks that I don't eat anything of substance (which can be totally true depending on the day!). In fact, he's writing me a letter of recommendation and I'm mildly concerned that the food allergies are going to sneak into that...can you imagine?! I went to a dinner lecture he gave the other night and one of the first things he said to me was to inquire if there was food I could eat. (There was--and I had very cooperative friends to assess if the spring rolls were actually vegetarian or not...you have to have good friends to get through meals!)

It wasn't something I had really thought about until recently, but in certain circles, we nurture those around us in a very primitive way--by feeding them. Someone comes to your house, you offer them hospitality and in older days, it would have been very rude to reject such hospitality. There were also rules that went along with hospitality and the guest/host relationship. Things have obviously changed in the twenty first century, but it is a very interesting conundrum for those of us with special needs--and this isn't just a food thing, but anyone who needs accommodation. I think about it in terms of food, but I know that's not the only consideration--it's just my consideration.