Greg Christian - Food and Forgiveness. How a Chicago Chef Came Around

Food and Forgiveness:

How a Chicago Chef

Came Around

Food and Forgiveness:

How a Chicago Chef

Came Around

GREG CHRISTIAN

FOOD AND FORGIVENESS:

HOW A CHICAGO CHEF

CAME AROUND

Copyright 2009

by Greg Christian

cover design by Lucy Swerdfeger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Published by

White Eagle Press

Chicago, Illinois

ISBN:

978-0-9824706-1-9 $ 19.95*

*Ten percent of the royalties from this book

are donated to the ORGANIC SCHOOL PROJECT.

www.gregchristianconsulting.com

Printed in the United States of America

To my parents

~Norm and Kathryn~

without whom I would not be here,

were it not for the miracle of life.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

As You Like It, Act 2, scene 1, 1217

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Emergency!

LISTEN TO ME ! Your daughter could die!

For the third time, I reeled back in panic and uncertainty as the ER staff followed the doctors lead and glared at me with contempt.

Yes, I had been drinking. Only a few short minutes before I had been at home chugging Heineken and shouting with my buddies as we watched a Bears game.

Dont you even know the medications your daughter takes? demanded the brittle doctor as she continued to berate me. Of course I didnt know. That was my wifes job. Edita took care of all that stuff. My job was to bring home the money, thank you very much.

Im not sure, was all I could say in response to the attack. I know shes allergic to milk and nuts and peanuts.

I need to know everything shes allergic to!

Doctor, my wife isnt answering her portable phone, I replied.

I cant talk to you anymore, she jeered as she stormed away. She had a short hair cut, was about five feet five inches tall, and must have been in her early fifties. And she held her left hand in her pocket, strutting around like a puffed up little Napoleon.

Britha, my daughter, was scarcely six years old, and her unchecked asthma was threatening to incite a heart attack. At least I knew that much. If that damned nebulizer at home had worked, I wouldnt even be here at the hospital.

For the first three years of her life, Britha was symptom-free of allergies. Then the asthma attacks began to manifest, and we found ourselves consulting allergist after allergist, looking for answers and cures. And we were slow to realize the magnitude of the problem. A visitors perfume might cause a delayed outburst of Brithas asthma, or the stray cat fur left on the sofa from a friends jacket might do the same.

Identifying the triggers for a persons asthma attacks is essential, and with Britha it seemed as if almost everything in her environment was a trigger. Besides perfumes and animal fur, at least eighty percent of her food created conditions that brought out her asthmatic response. Dust was another large contributor, and when we realized how extensive a problem it was, we went and got plastic for all of the mattresses and pillows. We also put duct-tape on the zippers of all of our pillows.

My wife Editas family was Filipino, so our two daughters were always watched by extended family. At first we trusted both of our families to prepare food for Britha, and we would check out their intended menu ahead of time. Yet despite our best efforts, it always seemed that something additional was added, or that they forgot to tell us about one of the items that they planned to include, and Britha would come down with an attack. Finally, in frustration, we would prepare Brithas food before we took her for sitting, but then, God bless him, my wifes father, Rafael, would sneak a treat to Britha that she was not supposed to have. We would ask my mother not to wear perfume, but she often forgot. People just didnt get it, how serious Brithas asthma was.

One time, my wifes sister and sister-in-law, both nurses, agreed to watch Britha, and although we reviewed everything with them and they said they understood, they ended up giving her potato chips, totally setting the kid off. Go figure. All these people, especially our family, were totally out to lunch!

We also lugged our nebulizer, a gift from Carl Berman, a dear friend who gave me my start in the catering business. Carl owned a medical supply business and generously gave us a nebulizer to assist Britha in her breathing and to ward off any imminent attacks, because we didnt have health insurance since I was self-employed. The device was ten inches by ten inches by eight inches, and we bought the recommended medicines to go with it. The first two would attempt to dissipate an attack, and the third was a steroid to prevent the need to go to the hospital. Yet people had trouble learning how to use the nebulizer, and it became more trouble than it was worth, so rather than rely on it, we opted instead never to leave her out of our sight. What remained frightening was that the attacks could manifest immediately or happen a couple of hours later. A quick trigger might be from a tuft of cat fur or a peanut, whereas dust could bring delayed reactions. There was a lot of cleaning of clothes and sheets, not to mention of Britha herself.

As I stood in the emergency room, watching my youngest daughter gasping for air and the attendants doing their best to help her, one of Brithas earlier and scariest episodes came flooding over my consciousness. It was the time when Edita and I almost lost her, during a family trip to Toronto.

We went up to Canada a lot, because my wife had a lot of family there, and one time we decided to go by train, which takes about twelve hours. By then we had graduated to a handheld, battery-operated nebulizer, and Edita always had everything organized and ready for Britha, like the wipes to clean the hands and stuff like that. Along with some of the things I had packed for us for lunch were some cookies from Alberts caf that did a lot of my wholesale baking. We had finished our salmon but, as soon as Britha had eaten one of the cookies, she went right into vapor lock, her trachea constricting as she labored to breathe. I didnt realize it then, but there were ground pecans in the cookie dough, and thats what caused her reaction.

There was no help to be found on the train and stopping the train was out of the question. All my wife could do was to hold Britha tightly to her, mustering all the love and prayers that she could to rescue our daughter, in the way that a mother and daughter can become almost one being. And during those crucial twenty minutes, it must have been only through the grace of God that Edita was able to save Britha.

Mr. Christian, announced one of emergency room nurses, shaking me from my memory. We do not have the necessary resources here to help your daughter. A special trauma team has been dispatched from the university hospital at Loyola, and they will be here in a few minutes.

The team arrived shortly thereafter and, without even speaking to the attending physician, they took Brithas charts and secured her in their transport, relaying all of the information and their observations to the doctors at university hospital. Before I knew it, they were wheeling Britha out the door, having told me that I would have to follow them, that I couldnt ride in their ambulance.

I went over to Britha and told her that she would be going for a short ride and that I would be following her. Racing after them in my little, Chicago-style, white Mitsubishi Mirage, a flood of images and worries cascaded across my mind. I felt like a heel for what had happened and completely helpless. I also knew that I had broken my promise to Edita. The endless bullshit loop raced through my mind Your daughter might die. Im in deep, serious trouble. Your daughter could have a heart attack. We cant help her. I told my wife I wasnt gonna have the guys over for the game, but I did it anyway.