Bah, the inside joke.

For those of you who know me personally, you'll find this funny... for everyone else, ignore this and assume I'm hilarious.  

So my son, GW, really enjoys a game we call "BAH!" where he attempts to play hide and seek but fails to stay hidden because he would rather jump out and yell "BAH!" than wait to be found.  Last night, just as HB was arriving home from work, he was met at the front door by GW who was wildly yelling "BAH" as a combination greeting and game request.

Sweeping the child up into his arms and tossing him over a shoulder, HB walks into the kitchen where I am busily cooking and says, "He must get that from your side of the family."

To which I reply, "Yes, he bah's well, doesn't he?"

Lent Recipe #5: Salmon with Shrimp, Mushroom and Brandy Cream Sauce

• With some very special friends in town this weekend, HB did the cooking tonight and I am so so excited to share his recipe.  Originally this recipe was meant for veal cutlets, but it's a Friday during Lent and I am absolutely, ridiculously in love with salmon so he swapped the cutlets for fillets.  We served the fish along side a green salad and oh my goodness (!!) I want him to cook this every night!
• 
  
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 red onion, halved, thinly sliced
• 8 ounces mushrooms, stemmed, caps thinly sliced
• 6 tablespoons brandy (get the best you can, the buttery quality of good brandy makes a big difference)
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 cup whipping cream

• 6 ounce salmon fillets 

• 24 cooked shrimp, peeled, chopped

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Once frothy, add the onion and sauté for 4 minutes until it becomes translucent. Add mushrooms and sauté for 3 minutes until beginning to brown. Remove skillet from heat and add brandy. With the utmost care that you don't burn down your house or loose your eye brows, carefully ignite the brandy. When the flames subside, return the skillet to heat. Simmer the mixture until the brandy is almost evaporated - should take roughly 1 minute.  Add beef and chicken stock and let it boil for 5 minutes before adding the cream as well.  Let the sauce boil it coats spoon, about 14 minutes.  Toss the chopped shrimp into the sauce to heat through, then remove the skillet from heat.

In a separate skillet, heat 2 Tbsp oil and 2 Tbsp butter until frothy.  Sprinkle salt and pepper onto the salmon fillets and place in the pan.  Cook the fish for roughly 2-4 minutes per side until the salmon has a nice sear and flakes.  Remove from skillet.  

Divide the salmon onto plates and top with shrimp, mushrooms and brandy cream sauce.  ENJOY!

To my partner in crime

Do you know what the worst part of being a diabetic is?  Standing like a marooned, blubbering idiot watching your husband drive away.

Wait... that has nothing to do with diabetes... oh well, I'll write about it anyway.  

After two weeks of "vacation" in Vermont, HB left today to drive back to Virginia and get back to the working grind of our daily reality back home.  It was wonderful to have him up here - to share this new aspect of my life with him and to hold his hand through the last few weeks of medical appointments.  Admittedly I'm beginning to mentally check out of my classes for my own reasons and I am glad that school ends in just under two weeks, but watching him go today made me very sad.  I'm going to miss him with professional precision from now until then, from that second his car disappeared around the bend and down the hill to the moment I anxiously open the front door back home in August...

Your nose is blue.

I know many don't understand why or how our relationship works, but for whatever reason it does and for that I'm eternally grateful.  Especially over the last few months, I've found myself awe struck by the immense luck I've had in not only finding a partner I want to work at marriage with, but an honest to God best friend that makes my world better.  Between the care he's helped provide medically, the support he's offered emotionally and the encouragement he's given freely, I feel like any number of the hurdles I individually face in life are less high and more attainable than they ever were on my own...

I can't tell you exactly what it is or how he does it that makes my everyday life, even with diabetes, everything I could have hoped for.  Perhaps some HB-centric inversion of Maya Angelou's poem "Phenomenal Woman" would be appropriate here, but I've never been known for a mastery of rhyme schemes or appropriate use of couplets.  All I can say is that it is in the little things, like:

*  when he's standing over my shoulder watching the processing line go around on my BG meter, waiting with me to see how my sugars are doing.  And when the tight-number finally appears on the screen, I love how he cheers for me as if his favorite football team just won the super bowl. 

* how he measures out pancake batter on Sunday mornings to ensure that each pancake is the same equivalent size so that I can easily calculate what number of carbs I'm eating.  Of course he rolls his eyes at me when I ask him to tell me how many carbs are in the maple syrup he gushingly poured over his pancakes, but still... :)

* when he talks with me in riddles and puns, making a game out of the English language.  Just this morning he turned that horrid song "who let the dogs out?" into a sing-along about dairy cows for GW and made us all laugh with his "moo, moo, moo" interpretation.   

Sure, sure I know this is a post off topic (and sappy), but sometimes I just have to say exactly what is on my mind and HB deserves the shout out.  Many spouses of diabetics struggle with the impact disease has on their relationship - either as a result of their own apathy for it or, more commonly, with the diabetic's apathy for it.  Fortunately this isn't the case in our house and I am very grateful for his continued support, increasing love and invaluable friendship.  Diseased or not, I feel like a million bucks around him and nothing can beat that. 

That said, I miss you and love you very much HB.  See you not soon enough.