Living with Functional Neurological Disorder: A Day of Baking

Thursday dawned bright and sunny, and there was no forest fire smoke in the air. I skinned the peaches I needed for the galette I was making, but when I opened the package of puff pastry I bought, it smelled off and was tough around the edges. Shame on Nester’s for selling it.

I abandoned my plans to start my day with baking the galette and instead went out to do two hours of watering, and what a surprise awaited me! I have five inverted two-litre plastic pop bottles that have drip attachments bundled around a flowering Cherry tree. I fill them with water every two days and yesterday was a day for filling all the watering bottles scattered around the garden beds.

As I began to fill one of the bottles, I noticed something semi-large in it and I thought it was Fir cones, and I wanted to remove them so that they would not impede the drip valve. But they weren’t cones. They were two mice. One appeared to be an adult, and the other was a baby, so I scooped them up and released them. I felt terrible that I had blasted them with water.

I finished watering at 8:30, and then we headed into the village to get new pastry (from a different store), and on the way Her Highness and I went for our morning walk. Once back home, I looked forward to baking: first a garlic tart, then a galette.

Once I got started, I remembered baking isn’t always a joy. I discovered my balsamic vinegar was dead, and only after I’d gotten into the car and gone a few blocks did I remember I had a new one in storage in my hall cupboard—and not in my pantry. I get tense baking, I can’t help it, and I forget each time I decide to bake something.

I had to blind bake the pastry (covered and weighted) and then bake it some more after coating it in egg wash. Then I had to let it cool. Making the dough and prepping the pastry before for putting in all the ingredients in, took forever. Once cool, I added the cheese, spinach and egg/cream/crème fraichemixture, and then the pièce de resistance: the garlic, dripping with the maple syrup/balsamic vinegar, rosemary and thyme. Then the whole thing is baked a third time. Yum!

I was glad to be able to rest for a bit while the baked crust cooled. Any activity, even one as low energy as baking, wears me out. It took ages to cool though, so I got to work on the pastry for the galette. What I love about galettes is how easy they are to make.

I blanched the peaches, peeled and sliced them, mixed them in sugar, corn starch and vanilla, rolled out the dough, poured the peach mixture into the centre, folded the edges of the dough to contain the peaches, and into the oven it went.

It turned out okay, thank goodness. Because I’d intended to make the galette first, the sliced peaches had been oozing their juice in a bowl all day. They were not firm and dry as they should have been going into the oven, they were slightly shrunken and limp. But hey, they’re peaches and peaches always taste great no matter how they are prepared and served.

It was a full day. I like the menu and three dishes are done and I’m pleased with them all. Today, I’ve a complex salad to make and a side dish of shrimp and dill. Plus, I must clean the house and set the table. Entertaining is a demanding thing to do when one is single!

I’ve worked to make my life stressless, but I accept the stress of cooking and baking because there’s always a counterbalance: people like my cooking and say so. I work hard in the kitchen to honour my friends. I also like writing cards instead of using email to thank people.

I was sitting alone at Silva Bay having fish tacos when Bonnie asked if she and Sue could join me at my table. It was clear to me that they were a couple, but it wasn’t until one of them said something out loud about being a couple, that I outed myself.

And when I did, Bonnie said, “We know. That’s why we asked to sit with you.” That’s how we became friends. Being with them was instantly comfortable. Life here just keeps getting better and better.

Tonight: The dinner. I expect to have fun.

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When I had my bone density test, the technician began with a series of questions. The first one was: “You can hear, but you’re speech impaired, right?”

I nodded. Then she had me lie on a table for the scan, and she told me not to move. And what I thought about was moving me. I was quite verklempt, because her question suggested that my impairment is on my chart. And that thrills and moves me because when she asked her first question, she put me at ease. I feel safe with her. It was the first time that has happened and now I want that all the time I have a medical procedure. That felt so, so good!

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I love my iPhone, but I very rarely get calls, and I try not to make calls. I make a lot of phone calls over the internet with the Telus referral service. I type, and the referral operator speaks for me to whomever I am calling. What I use my phone a lot for, is typing notes and then showing my note to the clerk or receptionist. It’s the shining diamond of the communication devices for me. It beats all the other devices CAYA gave me.

So, ten years in and I’m feeling pretty well set.

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Friday morning began at 4:10. I was up doing a ton of prep work on salad ingredients. It meant steaming a pound of asparagus for four minutes, plunging it all into ice water and then drying it. I also had to brown walnuts in a skillet, let them cool and then chop them into bits, do the same with bacon, shave parmesan off my giant piece of fresh cheese, and chop herbs from my garden. (I love having fresh herbs at hand!)

Then I packaged everything so that there’s be no drying out of the ingredients, and I put them aside. I’m assembling the salad just before we eat and right after I make the last dish, another dish for which I did my prep work in the morning, shrimp dill swimming in dill-infused butter.

We’ll walk with our friends this morning, do some yard work, clean the house up, and do some spot watering. Tonight, we party!