I Can’t Cook

Sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it?

I suppose it is – I’m told that every stroke is serious, but I consider myself incredibly lucky and am able to count it as a wake up call. I hadn’t noticed anything – none of the big effects that are often associated with stroke.

Instead of a drooping face, slurred speech or a lack of control of my limbs… I got a sore wrist and started bumping into walls. It didn’t take much urging from my daughter to call a friend to take me to hospital.

Two weeks, two hospitals and one surgery later I was home and (for the first time I can remember) doing absolutely nothing. Existential crisis on steroids, thankyouverymuch. Had a “mid-life crisis”? This was like that on repeat.

Anywho, I recovered. One hand slightly slower than the other and a nice scar on my neck I often (jokingly) claim was from a knife fight. Seriously, it looks like it could have been. The timeline is a little fuzzy, but after many visits to a dietician, the hyper-focus kicked in and a book was born.

Well, kindof. It actually involved significant amounts of mess, three broken blenders, much swearing and a lot of help from family and friends.

Was it a serious cook-book? Yes, but not exactly mainstream serious. The writing style is similar to this blog post, I guess, and there are no quantities in any recipe in the book. It’s MOSTLY healthy, but recipe names are definitely tongue-in-cheek. I think the one I called “Sludge” put the lady who interviewed me for ABC radio right off, but the humburgers are actually really good.

I think I sold maybe a dozen copies? But then, I didn’t market it or really try much – I did give away quite a few though.

But I think my favourite thing about the book? My dietitian wrote an introduction for it 🙂

(I still have a few copies if anyone wants one, and my daughter is nagging me to do another, so who knows…?)