Barbeque Sauce

There is a thing. When life gets hard from injury or illness people bring meals. It’s not just in the bad times either. It can be exciting - like a new baby. However, no matter how happy it is, you still have no energy and are quite possibly crying all the time; so meals are appropriate in these situations as well. I have participated in this making-of-the-meals ceremony many times. I was even a little cocky about my ability to bring delicious food. Lately you have heard me talk about my friend Liz.  That’s because I love her and she is in most of my life. And, in my life, I get up to all sorts of things as you all know… Anyway I got a text with this picture late on Thursday night.

 

 

Her oldest daughter had severely broken her leg and was possibly going to have surgery. This is very sad news; I saw, stretching out in front of them, difficult nights sleeping and long processes just to get a shower. Now since Liz is one of “those" friends - the kind of friend who you can count on, I wanted to be the same for her and wanted to make a meal. Now as recently as six months ago, this would have been no problem: a trip to the supermarket, some scrounging of Campbell’s canned soup from the pantry and viola: a cheesy-comfort-food rice and chicken casserole would have been produced proudly on her doorstep. A very humble "It was no trouble"  would be my answer as they drooled and showered me with praise over my delicious food. Also, I would have made extra so I wouldn't have to cook again for multiple nights. However, about six months ago Al and I discovered several foods that make our stupid bodies worse. Gluten for him and chicken and cheese for me. As a side note here, what the heck is the problem with chicken and cheese? I mean why not protein and dairy products? Don't get me wrong, I’m not complaining that I can still drink milk but it seems odd that I can have milk but not a milk product, right?!  It seems like my body might be lying, like when a kid tells you they are allergic to broccoli and you think something is amiss but you are babysitting and accusing them of lying would be a bad idea. And why chicken and not beef which has always had more inflammatory properties “according to the research”. Anyway this is where it all goes wrong – the research. Recently I have acquired Netflix. (Quite the novelty in this country) and I have started watching documentaries - like, a lot. I am in research mode for my thesis and after watching one documentary, Netflix tells me I would also like “this one” and they are right; I do like that one too and so on. So I am learning heaps!  What I have learned so far is: The governments are completely corrupt; they are trying to kill us; in order to kill us they are poisoning our food, water and cleaning products. Also they want all the money; which is why they are trying to kill us. So this time, when I went to make a meal, I could not think of an easy meal that I could also make for us (they have dietary restrictions as well) that did not also contain poison. I stood in front of the fridge and pantry mentally searching for a go-to recipe. Nothing - just blank space in my head. Then I looked at our messy kitchen and decided I couldn’t clean it in order to cook in it because that would poison us , them and the planet.

 In the end I made barbeque sauce. Yep I mixed together some spices, ketchup and tomato sauce and stuck it in a Tupperware (BPA free Tupperware of course which apparently is not my entire plastics drawer - to my horror. Apparently I just assumed that once everyone knew BPA was dangerous they stopped putting it in plastic – according to the documentaries, NO!). Now this may not have been odd had I put the barbeque sauce in a little jar with a cute checkered cloth lid; but I put it in a Tupperware which then had a tumultuous journey to their house. So it had splashed up the sides and looked a mess.

        As I got in the car I thought to myself how far I had fallen. And I didn’t even manage to make safe food; there is enough sugar in the barbeque sauce to cover their requirements for a year. But I could not come empty handed. I presented her with my ghetto bbq sauce which she accepted gratefully, although, slightly confused. Then she prepared sandwiches for everyone for lunch and a delicious-nutritious-bone-broth-based beef stew for dinner. That had no allergens. So in case this blog is hard to follow: My friend had a difficult week – I made her barbeque sauce – sat at her house all day while she and her husband made me delicious coffee and nutritious food. Thanks a lot Netflix, now, with all the knowledge you have given me, I am a delinquent friend.