There's rice.... and then there's Rice.

Here's a bit of trivia :
What do rice and wine have in common? They both taste better with age.
Welcome to the world of rice... there's a bit more to rice than just white stuff you bung in the rice cooker and voila, carbs for the meal. As I sit here writing, there's some wild weather happening outside, rain, gusty winds, hail... its been going on n off all day. Now in the middle of all this, my darling grandma got me to take her to the Indian grocery for... rice. She has bags of the stuff at home. But no, she has visitors soon, and only the best rice will do. The premium brand basmati rice currently being sold is no good because...its too fresh!!
You have to be Persian to get this, the significance of the Rice, or Polo. Its what makes or breaks a meal. A decent platter of rice should have rice grains that are long, drenched in butter and oil, cooked but not sticky. Heaven forbid 2 unfortunate grains of rice stick together....the hostess will spend the rest of the meal appologising for the mishap. By the same token, I've heard family talk about a dinner party long afterwards because of the length and perfection of the rice.
Years of living near my grandma (The Expert Ricecooker extraordinaire) hasn't helped me much in perfecting this essential skill of Persianhood. I blame that partly on a certain genetic tendency I inherited - if I don't see the point of doing something, I simply won't even try. White rice is a simple starch which after being eaten, turns to sugar. It has very little nutritional value. Now add huge amounts of oil to this and its basically like eating cake or donuts...for lunch and dinner, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I kid you not. Brown rice and parboiled rice are a different story, they contain a lot of fibre and Vitamin B among other things. They don't taste the same, but its the story of white bread again.
Having said all that, in the interest of serving people what they like, I do cook rice once in a while, but at home, poor rice-raised hubby has to put up with a whole bunch of experimental meals with different grains and carbs. There's a whole world of unpopular grains out there that people mostly discover when they have health problems, but which have been the staple of humans for thousand of years. There's corn, millet, quinoa, buckwheat (its not related to wheat), chickpea flour etc. It really comes down to habits, because taste is an acquired thing, and some of these other grains taste a lot better than rice if prepared well. The quest for alternatives and recipes continues...

Hmmm, salad or cake?

I know y'all will absolutely hate me for this post, but I honestly put this out with good intent.
Okay, so I have a daughter who is addicted to salad, and can live on it. I also have a son who could live on cake and lollies and would be right at home in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.
How does one raise two entirely different taste buds? I'm sure many parents would identify with this.
I'm big on health, if u haven't already noticed, i read labels all the time. I censor everything that comes in the door. Basically, i try to make sure that if i don't want the kids to eat it, its simply NOT available at home. Generally, you won't find much in this house made of white flour, preservative and food coloring.
Personally, I absolutely LOVE fruits and green veges, and crave them, and gag on overly sweet things. Hubby on the other hand craves the sweets and has a very glum look on his face when presented with the 'must eat veges'. So what's the effect on the kiddos? Genetically, I believe they've received different tendencies towards foods. That really can't be helped. But as for training, I think exposure and conditioning have had some impact. They both eat what we eat at meal times, they both love all fruits and enjoy them, and they both eat most vegetables. So the bottom line is - even if your kids are born with 'chocolate genes', what we DO (not say) and eat plays a big part, and limiting choices can be quite helpful.

DIY toothpaste

This is taking DIY to a new extreme but bear with me. What do you do with a kid who still loves the taste of toothpaste and would happily snack on it, can't quite rinse and spit after brushing, and knowing that phosphates and fluoride in toothpaste can be quite harmful when ingested? And said child has been known to squirt out most of a tube in one 'experiment' or take it into the bathtub, (mummy, the toothpaste has bubbles coming out, doesn't work anymore:(
Make your own!
Active ingredient is baking soda and a little salt. Add enough glycerin to make a paste, and then flavouring of choice. I used spearmint essential oil the first time and strawberry essence the next. A combination would probably be best. Experiment!

The allergy story continues...

For as long as i can remember, allergies have been a part of life, not so much for me but for those around me. I can still hear the sound of Dad blowing his trumpet/nose ten times a day, due to years of severe hayfever type allergies, the raw food diet he went on etc. Then Vahid with his eczema, and when Danny made his grand entrance, allergy was a word that took on a whole new meaning. Below is yet another serious case of hives, after possibly eating something at my grandmas that had a pumpkin seed on it.
The search for solutions has seen us take him to specialists for skin-prick tests, whichgenerally don't do much except tell what you are really sensitive to, then a course of homeopathy when he was 2, which helped a lot to reduce sypmtoms, and now once again, i'm on the trail looking for help. I don't believe in antihistamines for ongoing use, because they simply suppress the allergy and can lead to asthma. We've recently had talks by a Baha'i chiropractor on holistic healing and spirituality issues, and some of what he said made so much sense that i decided to go see him. Dr Reza Samvat is a neurological chiropractor who specializes in sleep issues and just about everything else you can imagine, and his take on Danny's allergies was that there are two aspects to it, one is to do with retained reflexes, and the other with phenolics. Phrases that i had never really heard about, but the way he explained it made sense. Basically retained reflexes affects 95% of people in some form or another, so its worth doing a search on if you have any chronic health problems. Phenolics are naturally occuring substances in a large number of foods that trigger allergies in some people, and one way to overcome it is through desentising the brain by exposing it to small doses, like a vaccine. Also known as homeopathy.
Over the last few days i've been asking lots of questions of my good friend Google, and learning A LOT. It still sounds a bit out there and complicated to me, but i think there might be some solutions here.
Meantime, its a bit of a challenge to feed a family with various food allergies, such as dairy, wheat, seeds, food colouring and sugar. Not fun for a candy-lovin 5 year old.

A harsh reminder

Last night was a harsh reminder of how fragile life can be, and how thankful I should be for the 'ordinary'. Right after dinner, Danny started having a few red spots on his face, nothing unusual for this allergy-prone kid. After 10 mins, more spots on his neck, and his ears went bright red and were extremely irritable. Hmm, maybe some antihistamine should fix that, I only give it when he's really miserable. One dose, and redness is getting to his mouth, swelling developing around the eyes, inside joints...okay maybe i didn't give enough medecine, here's another dose, now go to bed and get some rest, you'll be fine Danny.
15mins later, he comes back this time his face doesn't look good at all, he can't kep still for all the itching, i'm starting to panic. One last dose of Zyrtec, and this time i'm keeping a very close eye on him, checking his tongue for swelling (none obvious), can u breath, yes mommy.
Finally, about 45 mins since the first sign, there's Vahid, me and my friend Sukriti who happened to be over, getting very worried and decided it was time for the hospital. But wait, he has an Epipen, shouldn't i be using that now? After a frantic search in a very panicky state of mind, i finally found it in the fridge, where its supposed to be anyway.
By now Danny is not his usual bouncy self and has slowed down a bit, still getting worse.
Quick, get this adrenalin into him. How? never done this before.... Easier than i thought, Epipen is as easy to use as a needle gets. Press blunt plastic end into thigh, hear click sound, needle has magically popped out, delivered its life-saving carge, and out in 10secs.
Releif.... Lets go to hospital just in case.
Within a few minutes, swelling subsides, redness dimishes. Life saved.
Whew!
Now to figure out what on earth CAUSED it!!! He IS allergic to quite a few things, but i've been super careful the last 5 years, i THINK i know everything he's allergic to, but apparently not.
I still can't figure it out. So for the second time in his life, it takes a life-threatening event to get a decent referral to an allergist to get tested.
And to think that the night before, Vahid and I were have a big fret session about how slow his reading is compared to his peers, how shy he is at school, the really 'important' stuff u know...