My Fat Dad
Page 25
While my dad was not great at being around, when he was around he could make me laugh harder than anyone else that I had ever met, and he was really, really smart. He knew how to make a room come to life with his charm and humor and was the most awesome Scrabble player I’d ever met. He knew almost every word in the dictionary, and when I was studying for my SATs and would call him—“I bet you don’t know the meaning of this one”—he always did. I knew there was so much I did not know about my father, so many unanswered questions about his childhood, his relatives. I wanted to know why he was so private, what made him need to keep up such a protective wall that never allowed him to be comfortable with feelings, but mostly I wanted my son to know him, as I had never met my dad’s father, who died of cancer before I was born.
The nutritionist at the vitamin counter was extremely knowledgeable on the subject—advising me to send my dad books about macrobiotics, juicing, vitamin therapy, the Gerson Diet, coffee enemas, raw foods, acupuncture, food combining, apple cider vinegar, and the power of positive thinking. I was feeling calmer, knowing there were so many ways to possibly heal yourself from cancer. The vitamin man said, “Sometimes cancer is not a death sentence but a wake-up call. While there is a lot we can’t control, there is much we can control—the first being what we feed our body.” He explained that when a person eats anything processed, he is not only eating dead food, where the enzymes have been destroyed, but also adding preservatives and toxins, which are very destructive to the body. “This may not be significant for a normal, healthy person, but for the cancer patient, eliminating anything with preservatives is a matter of life or death! The liver needs to detoxify, destroy, and metabolize all foreign substances from the body.” He proceeded to draw a little diagram of the cells with swords. “When you have cancer, the bad calls are trying to destroy you. You must fight back with diet and a spiritual practice.”
I was ready to help my dad fight.
Before I sent the books and notes to my father, I highlighted the pages I thought were the most enlightening and Xeroxed a bunch of recipes. The store was a local hangout for healers, holistic practitioners, and health junkies like me. Every day, I went there for both a power smoothie and some good conversations with other moms. While we usually spoke about things like should we or should we not vaccinate, should we give our kids cow’s milk or soy milk, what was the best snack to tote in our Maclaren stroller, today I asked all the nursing moms in the cafe upstairs if they had any experience with cancer. Everyone seemed to have a story or a remedy. I received recipes for a miso mushroom broth guaranteed to rev up the immune system, a ginger tea to help with nausea from chemotherapy, a raw potato puree for suppressing the growth of cancer cells, and a carrot juice recipe to shrink tumors. I also grabbed a brochure on the power of noni juice to alkalize the body.
I was so excited to send my dad the books and recipes and even more excited when he called me the next day after he received the express package. Even though my dad was not a self-help kind of guy, something in those books and papers resonated within him. While days before he had felt defeated, believing that his diagnosis was a death sentence, now he seemed pretty upbeat. In addition to seeing his regular family doctor, who had sent him to the local oncologist at the Stamford Hospital, he began researching other doctors—even aggressively pursuing an oncologist at Sloan Kettering who he said wouldn’t initially return his phone calls. He’d begun pitching high-profile doctors and creating a treatment plan with the same strategy he used when he was pitching new business and designing a marketing campaign for a product.
“Getting in to see one of these top doctors is like getting into a four-star restaurant on Saturday night without reservations. You can’t believe how many favors I had to pull to meet with the different doctors who will be a part of my healing team.”
My dad was now on a quest to beat cancer and survive. Instead of obsessing about his disease, he focused his energies on researching his survival. My dad had lived on white rice, liquid diets, and low-carb, high-protein, high-fat, and low-fat regimens. Now he was determined to tackle his illness with the same pure conviction and focus with which he approached every new diet or ad campaign. It was no longer about cancer; it became about trying new foods—goji berries, mushrooms, wheatgrass, blue-green algae, and fermented foods—that would put his body at ease and help combat disease. If there was one thing that excited my dad, it was trying new foods. As a lifetime yo-yo dieter, he was always looking for that miracle plan, that miracle food, that miracle spice, that miracle recipe, but this time he truly needed a miracle—and taste and calories were secondary to nutritional benefits.
My dad went through months of chemotherapy and radiation in order to shrink the mass enough so that he could have surgery to remove the tumor. He also experimented with all kinds of new food preparations. He sautéed, steamed, pureed, broiled, and juiced. He was open to all my ideas and recipes. He often called me. “Should I broil the mushrooms or toss them in a soup? Do I juice the vegetables or steam them? Do I really need to give up all desserts?”
To support his immune system, he also followed a strict elimination cleanse of no dairy, meat, alcohol, coffee, or sugar, and added gallons of vegetable juices, fish, and lots of healing broths. He also added several vitamin supplements, a tincture made out of a mushroom extract, and ten crushed apricot kernels per meal, and began doing Reiki. “Every time I perform Reiki on myself, I really feel the heat penetrating my body. I use the energy practice on myself when I am lying on medical tables, getting blood drawn, or getting chemotherapy. I also use it when I’m craving a Subway sandwich or Big Mac. Whenever I pass one of those drive-thrus, I stare them down—It’s you or me. I choose me, and keep driving.”
This anti-cancer regimen definitely took a lot of work, and the foods were a stretch from the Jewish food my dad grew up on or even the extreme diets he had subjected himself to on his endless quest to lose weight. As he made the anti-cancer soup with shitake, portabella, and maitake mushrooms, he remembered how his mother, my Bubbe Mary, cooked for him when he was in a coma, and how she said it was the smells from her kitchen that brought him back to life. Bubbe was gone, but he remembered her mushroom barley soup, and how the thick broth revived him. “Soup is good food,” she always said. He agreed—turning it into a famous tag line for Campbell’s home-style brand. Like his mom, he was now learning to cook with purpose.
Researching and learning about alternative therapies and cooking his own healing remedies gave him a new purpose and zest for living. In fact, he never lost his appetite during his chemo treatments, or felt sick or nauseous, which his doctors said was highly unusual. Rather than surrendering to the disease or putting himself only in the hands of Western doctors, he developed his own routine that empowered him and brought him strength. His days mostly revolved around cooking, shopping, acupuncture, and his weekly chemotherapy treatments. He said he kept waiting for some awful side effect, but he had none.
He did, however, have to get a buzz cut since he was losing a lot of hair. When he arrived at his chemo, he always was in good spirits, dressed in bright colors and equipped with a Woody Allen movie that he would watch during the treatment. My dad said it always bummed him out when he entered the waiting room and saw everyone wearing sweatpants and baseball hats. And when my sister bought him an LA Lakers’ hat, he said putting that on and covering his head would make him feel like he was giving in. He would wait until he was well and had a clean bill of health to wear it. He didn’t mind his crew cut and found a sense of peace in his routine. My dad had a big support team that consisted of not only me, my sister, and his girlfriend Violetta; but even my mother, who had been angry at him for years, got on board, sending him a special mattress made out of magnets to pull the toxins out of his body and finding him the strongest grade of medicinal mushrooms, which she located in LA, where she was now living to be closer to my sister.
When the results came back that the mass in
my father’s lung had shrunk enough to be operable, my whole family made a plan to have a big dinner the night before the surgery. My dad insisted he would abandon the healthy eating for one night, and no one was allowed to say the C word. No one questioned his decisions. My uncle Melvin flew in from Chicago. April flew in from Los Angeles. My dad booked a hotel room at the Plaza Athénée on East Sixty-Fourth Street, which was walking distance from both the restaurant Il Vagabondo, where we were going to dine, and Sloan Kettering Hospital, where the operation was going to take place. And I, who lived across town from the restaurant, just needed a taxi.
The dinner was a celebration of sauce, cheese, and the wonders of deep-fried food. During dinner, there was no talk about my dad’s surgery the next day, no talk about what would happen next, just lots of food and several desserts. When the tartufo, the rum cake, and the spumoni ice cream appeared, my sister kicked me. “Not a word!” she pleaded. I kept quiet, making my dad happy by trying every dessert that went around the table. Like his mother, he believed there was a certain unspoken love in being surrounded by lots of big portions of food and mouths too busy to talk. Violetta did not even mention that this was not real Italian food.
At the hospital the next day, my dad made jokes before going into surgery, about carving a turkey and about his mobster roommate. “I think he is part of some famous crime family. Who knows what he has stashed under that green hospital gown.” But before he was wheeled away, he squeezed my hands. “You know you have been a good daughter, right?” Lying there on that gurney covered with the lightweight white blanket was the most vulnerable I had ever seen my dad. But before I had the chance to say anything back, the nurse wheeled him away through the flapping doors, and then, just like that, he was gone.
It would be hours before we would know the results of the surgery. My father requested that instead of waiting in the cafeteria, where they had awful food, that April, Violetta, and I could make a quick run to Andre’s Hungarian Bakery on Second Avenue for apple strudel. He said having a strudel waiting for him would bring him mazel—luck in Hebrew.
Whether it was the strudel with the flaky crust waiting for him, the gallons of carrot juice, or the hundreds of bowls of the mushroom miso broth, my dad came through the surgery like a champ.
During those months when he hovered between life and death, we had a connection. It was not like something in a Hallmark commercial, but we were able to bond over the excitement of talking about food and sharing healthy recipes—my two favorite things. While my dad was still the funny guy and I was still the emotional girl, we both could agree that when you cook a pot of mushroom soup just the right way, miracles can happen.
• • •
Twelve years have passed since my dad received a clean bill of health. Just before Thanksgiving, he had another health scare—a minor heart attack. He called me as I was preparing turkey for my family. “Guess what, I’m not eating turkey this year,” he said. “I just found a new book with the vegan diet that President Clinton is following. Are you vegan?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “I eat a variety of food, fruits and veggies, some grass-fed meat, and wild fish.” He was no longer listening, too excited to share his new diet adventure. . . .
Healing Mushroom Miso Soup
Yield: 8 servings
1 (2–3 inch) piece fresh organic gingerroot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1⁄2 organic onion, chopped
1 tablespoon ghee
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup sliced mixed raw mushrooms—shiitake, portabella, maitake
64 ounces of vegetable broth
1 cup organic dried shiitake mushrooms
1⁄2 pound tofu, diced
1⁄4 cup organic miso paste (There are many types of miso to choose from. I like sweet white miso—this is a paste, not a powder—and you can add a little more if you like a strong miso flavor.)
1 head roasted garlic cloves, peeled and mashed
2 organic carrots, chopped
1 teaspoon of salt (preferably a truffle salt or good-quality Himalayan salt) or more to taste
In a stockpot, sauté the ginger and onion in the ghee over medium heat until the onion just begins to sweat. Add the raw garlic and raw mushrooms and cook until browned. Then add the broth to the pot and bring to a slow boil. Add the dried mushrooms, carrots, and tofu and then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the shiitakes are fully reconstituted.
While the pot of mushrooms is simmering, ladle about 6 ounces of the broth into a separate bowl and add the miso paste to it, whisking until the paste is dissolved. Next, add the mashed roasted garlic to this mixture. Once thoroughly combined, add the garlic-miso mixture back into the pot. Add salt to taste, stir well, and enjoy all the healing properties of this magic broth.
Note: Miso is a traditional Japanese fermented soy or rice paste. Its healing power is often compared to chicken soup, especially when paired with immune boosters like garlic, ginger, onion, and shiitake mushrooms.
Mushroom Latkes
Yield: 4 latkes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onions
10 ounces mushrooms of choice, chopped
1⁄4 cup red or yellow peppers
2 eggs, beaten (plus additional, as needed, for thinning)
1⁄2 cup chopped pecans
Salt and pepper, to taste
1⁄2 cup whole wheat flour (plus additional, as needed, for thickening)
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and stir until soft. Add a little more oil and add the mushrooms and peppers. After about 10 minutes transfer to a plate and set aside. In a large bowl combine the beaten eggs, the pecans, and a touch of salt and pepper. Add in the cooled mushrooms and the flour. Stir together. Add the remaining oil to a clean skillet and allow it to warm but not smoke. Ladle in about a quarter of the batter. Allow to brown on the edges before flipping. Cook a few minutes on each side. Continue with the rest of the batter.
Note: If the pancakes seem a little runny, add a touch more flour; if they seem a little dense, you can add a little more egg.
Beet Chips
Yield: 4 servings
2 beets, peeled and sliced thin
Olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 375 degress. Toss the sliced beets in a bowl with olive oil and salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake until soft and crispy, about 20 minutes.
Note: You can also do this with sweet potatoes, kale, or eggplant. For kale, the cooking time is about 10 minutes.
Me and my dad.
Family portrait in Chicago: Dad, Papa, Beauty, Mom, and me.
I loved spending time with Beauty as much as she loved spending time with me.
I was always happiest in the kitchen.
Me and Mom in April’s bedroom in Chicago . . . It still looks like my dad’s office.
Me and April playing in the kitchen.
Mom and Dad on a Greek cruise . . . Dad always liked to be the life of the party.
Walking through Greenwich Village with Mom and Dad.
April and Dad, pre-Duke.
This is me and Dad right before he went to Duke.
Dad with Bubbe Mary after he successfully lost weight at Duke.
Dad and me on my wedding day.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Beauty’s Salmon Patties
At the insistence of my daughter, who was born three years after my dad’s cancer scare, I am adding one more recipe, for Beauty’s famous salmon patties. This was the first recipe my grandmother taught me to cook, and it was the first recipe she taught my son Dylan and my daughter Sofia to cook. It was also the dish I served at her shiva in Los Angeles, where my mom had put together the most wonderful gathering in celebration of my grandmother’s life.
When the traditional Jewish ritual was over, I made sure everyone left with a recipe card for Beauty’s salmon patties. That way a little bit of Beauty and the traditions that were so important to her would continue to live on.
Beauty
You will be the light in my heart that is always there.