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Meniscus Surgery Recovery Update Day 5

Today marks the 5th day since the meniscus and tibia cartilage trimming and I am finally turning the corner. The shower prohibition ended this morning so in addition to feeling a little better (more on that in a minute) I am also clean. Showers are so taken for granted and under-appreciated for the luxury (both as a pleasure and as a major indulgence in terms of the resources they use) that they really are. I saved a lot of water this week with my washcloth baths and the one hair washing I did at the kitchen sink. It dawned on me, during this at the sink shampooing, that when I was growing up people used to often wash their hair at the kitchen sink. I don't think people do this anymore. I wonder why?

For the most part I've spent the day lying down with my leg up with the calf well wrapped. The wrap makes a huge difference in cutting down on the pain. The rest and elevation seems to have worked its magic. Suddenly this afternoon, for the first time since even before the surgery, I found that I was able to walk without a limp. This was pretty exciting since the whole point of doing all this was to have a functional knee again. Although I'm still not up to spending a lot of time on my feet, I finally feel like I'm headed in the right direction. My plan is to keep doing what I'm doing, with more walking added in as I can tolerate it. I'm still tired- like really wiped out tired- from the systemic impact of being put to sleep and having power tools used inside a major joint. Although the holes they make are really little this stuff takes its toll. Hopefully the recovery process will start to speed up over the next couple of days. I have to teach Tuesday night and it will be little tough doing it if I don't feel a lot better than I do now.

Jim is making dinner again, another soup, this time with potatoes from the Brookfield Farm. This weekend is the last winter share pick-up. We'll have to go tomorrow or we'll be out of luck. It won't be long until the Foodbank Farm opens for the season and we'll start seeing all those greens again.

The dogs continue to get along. Patches is a joy and a nuisance- smart, sweet, and fun, but also good at finding trouble and finding it fast. She's so big and so agile that she can overcome almost any barrier. Put up a gate and she just leaps over it. If she wants something on a counter, say a stick of butter, she can just help herself. Just now while Jim was cooking she got one of my sweaters, luckily an old one, and chewed part of the collar off. Once I'm back on my feet there's going to be some serious dog proofing around here. Good thing she's crate trained or we'd really be in trouble.

Vegetable Purées and the Unconscious Mind

Saturday morning I woke up from a vivid dream about making vegetable purées; I am not making this up.

It was fortuitous because we were going to get our share at the Brookfield Farm in Amherst, MA, that very day and we still had lots of roots down in the basement from our last pick up in December. I'd completely forgotten about purées until the dream. This just goes to show that the unconscious mind is greatly underappreciated.

This afternoon, in the process of thinking about what I might do with all the root vegetables, and not forgetting about Saturday's nudge from my unconscious mind, I got out our copy of Faye Levy's Fresh From France to look up some recipes for purées I thought I remembered seeing in there.

Although we in the US tend to think of purées as food for babies and invalids, in France, according to Levy, "they are loved not only at simple restaurants but at the most sumptuous of tables...The silky-smooth texture of purées enables us to somehow perceive the taste of the vegetable even more intensely. Depending on how they're seasoned or served, purées can take on a character all their own or dramatically alter an otherwise straightforward dish."

Reading the recipes, the mystery of how the magic of puréeing "enables us to somehow perceive the taste of the vegetable even more intensely," is quickly cleared up- it's the butter and the cream that does it. I'm pretty sure of this.

I don't eat a lot of butter and cream these days, hardly any in fact. Sometimes a little goes a long way though, as in the case of the following carrot purée, which is not quite so heavy on the butter and cream as some of the others in the book.

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Creamy Carrot Purée
Purée de carottes
Makes 6 servings

Beautiful color and concentrated carrot flavor make this purée one of the most popular, It adds liveliness to any plate, and makes a delicious accompaniment for sautéed or roasted poulty or for poached or baed fish, alone or in combination with other purées.

2 pounds of carrots
1 tablespoon of butter
1/4 to 1/3 cup of heavy cream, or 2-3 tablespoons of milk, at room temperature
salt and pepper
a pinch of sugar (optional)

Peel carrots and cut in 1/2 inch slices. In a medium sized saucepan, cover carrots with water, add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil, Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook about 35 minutes, or until very tender when pierced with a sharp knife. Drain throughly in a large strainer. Purée in a food processor until very smooth.
In a medium saucepan, melt butter over low heat, add purée and heat throughly. Gradually stir in cream and cook until all is absorbed. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and sugar. Serve hot.

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Adding the sugar to this seems unnescessary, especially when it's made with really good carrots. I might try substituting silken tofu or oat milk for the cream, and olive or canola oil for the butter,

I'm sure that Anthony Bourdain  (who I enjoy in spite of and sometimes because of his idiosyncracies) would not approve of this variation. Once upon a time (before breast cancer) I wouldn't have approved of it either. He'd probably do the same if he were in my shoes.