As a personal chef, I write a lot of menus. And because I specialize in cooking for people with food restrictions, I often find myself writing menus composed of items for which there are no recipes. It is not usually a problem; after all, whenever I do use a recipe I find that I am really just using it as a guide, filtering the instructions through my own creative lens as well as some years of practical know-how. So it is not much of a stretch to imagine writing a menu and fi

In the Fall of 2007, I became very ill with an unknown illness. I'd had fleeting symptoms all through the preceding summer, until one week in early October it all got worse: Insomnia, flu-like feelings, headaches, abdominal and rib pain, gastrointestinal problems, body pain including pain in my hands so severe that made it hard to drive or grip a knife; pain and stiffness in my neck, constant throat infection and swollen glands, night sweats, rashes, muscle twitches, leg ache