Taking a break from seriousness today — cos I needed it. My brother called from an airport in Thailand last night at around 11. The problem is that my back had been hurting all day so I took a muscle relaxer before I went to bed, and it wasn’t until I woke up this morning and saw my cell phone on the nightstand that I was sure he’d actually called.
I may have told him that mom has Dutch Elm disease. I really don’t remember much about the conversation.
Anyway. My afternoon project was to do something with the jalapenos growing in the garden. I’ve pickled them before, but I didn’t care for the recipe much, so I decided to try a different one.
Pickled jalapenos are milder and just a touch sweeter than the fresh ones. Also, this time I decided to slice them beforehand, so what I’m essentially making is nacho slices like the ones you get in jars at the grocery.
So, we start with mustard seeds, allspice, cloves, garlic, peppercorns, kosher salt, bay leaves, and brown sugar. We add apple cider vinegar and bring it to a boil.
While that’s working, I wash and slice the jalapenos.
Then I slice them.
And once the vinegar mixture is boiling, we pour it over the jalapenos.
Into the fridge for 24 hours, then we strain them and pack them away with some of the reserved picking liquid for the cold winter months … er, weeks. Or possibly days. It’s hard to tell down here in Texas.
Hope your Saturday was calm 
Tags: apple, art, blog, brother, ice, khowaga, love, me, rain, SHE, texas, thailand, winter, work
I love your food posts. Hope your mom is doing well. These days they have gotten very good at rehabilitating function after stroke – quite amazing. (My knowledge is based on my ancient mom having had a stroke 5 years ago with good recovery, close family friend being a semi-retired physical therapist, and having listened to radio interviews with the author of My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey.)
As for muscle relaxers, I have problems with pharmaceutical ones (they make me depressed), so with my dodgy spine I found some years ago that an herbal remedy, hops, was quite effective. I would take a few drops of hops extract and a glass of hoppy beer like IPA.
LOL…sounds like you are a lightweight when it comes to meds, just like me
When I need benedryl, I have to take a child’s dose if I need to function. Vicodin and T3 are out of the question unless Steve is home to be the responsible adult. If your muscle relaxer is a tablet instead of a capsule, you might want to try 1/2 a dose next time.
I cannot handle even banana peppers, so jalepenos are out of the question, my acid reflux would have a field day.
I hope your mom is doing well too. I assume that what she had was more of a TIA than a full blown stroke, since she did not know she had had it. My grandmother had many of those, that she fully recovered from.
Yes, it was a TIA — I knew I knew the term from House, but couldn’t remember it exactly. The doctor seems positive, and mom herself is in a better place than she was on Thursday. The issue now is that the medication that they gave her to control the vision problems (which appears to be the damaged section of the brain short-circuiting) is an anti-seizure med that’s making her both drowsy and nauseated. It IS controlling the vision problems, though, so we’re hoping there’s a plan B.
What I have lying about is Klonopin, which I only use when I need to turn off my brain and sleep, and on long airplane flights (in which case the point is to turn my brain off and try to sleep, which I’m getting better at doing in an upright position). It did what it was supposed to–I just wasn’t expecting Lee to call after I’d gone to bed!
depending on the anti-seizure med, those side effects could go away as her body gets used to it. My husband has been on Dilantin, tegretol, and depakote that I can remember. There might have been one more, but I have trouble remembering 15 years of HIS med history, plus 8 years of Cody’s med history, plus MY med history. If the symptoms do not go away in another week or so, she needs to talk to her doctor about reducing or changing her meds.
even without knowing her medical history, I can tell you that I think her chances of making a full recovery are good. My grandmother was able to live independently for a year or so after her first TIA…of course my uncle and cousins lived 10 minutes away, and visited often…and my grandmother was probably a good 20 years older than your mom is