Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

Not a lot, if truth be told. I’ve been too busy this week with other things to get near my studio. Much more of this and it will revert to its dumping ground status again.

Shoshi the Tattooed Lady

Last Friday I went for my radiotherapy planning appointment, which was a most interesting experience. Full details on my Breast Cancer Diary page.

I don’t know why it is, but every time I go in for any kind of procedure, I am reminded of some Sci-Fi episode. This time it was of a particularly scary episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, when the crew were abducted by aliens and experimented upon. This was the kind of table they were immobilised on.

When I went into the CT scanning room, this is what met my eyes (pictures downloaded subsequently from the Internet).

This is what the table looks like in use.

When I’ve had CT scans before, there’s always been some padding – not much, but luxurious compared with this all metal-contraption! They will use the same set-up when I have my radiotherapy. Same table, different machine. They did get me relatively comfortable in the end. After lots of measuring and manoevring and taking of photos and doing my breathing, they put tattoos on me.

Shoshi the Amazing Tattooed Lady

Actually, compared with this, it was all pretty unimpressive. Three tiny little dots. I can’t really see two of them, and I hope they will be able to distinguish them from my various moles and freckles. They do this to enable them to line up the radiotherapy machine correctly. I asked for a platypus but they said their artistic skills weren’t up to that.

Milestones

We hit a milestone on Friday – the six-week mark since my breast surgery. This meant that I could start lifting things again, and I am now less dependent on my hubby to help me. This had made a huge difference, and it’s liberating to feel so much more back to normal.

Dashing away with the smoothing iron…

I am ironing again! Oh joy, oh bliss! I know, people think I’m weird, enjoying doing ironing, and I know lots of people who don’t iron anything at all, but I’ve always done it, and have always enjoyed the result. There’s nothing like putting on a clean, crisp and well-ironed garment. It’s been frustrating not being able to do it for the past six weeks, and it offends me, seeing my hubby going around in creased shirts. Somehow, starting to do it again was like the beginning of a new era, and it felt good. Until, until……

I have had my steam generator iron for exactly 4 years. Nothing is built to last these days. Half way through the pile, it suddenly gave up the ghost. No steam, no heat. All the lights were working so it wasn’t a fuse or anything. Nobody will repair small electrical appliances any more. I rummaged in the flat and found Mum’s old iron – a really cheap bit of trash really, with a tiny tank, and if you filled it more than half-full (thimble-full) it leaked all over the place. I managed to iron a couple more shirts and then there was an almighty bang and all the downstairs power went off!!!

At this point, Shoshi got really STEAMED UP.

There are now two irons lined up, ready for the recycling centre.

My hubby drove me down to Curry’s and we bought a new one. This is something else that looks as if it’s come straight out of an episode of Star Trek.

It’s an impressive piece of kit with the added bonus that it self-cleans. The worst thing about my old one was that every 6 weeks or so the “descale” light would come on, and I would have to unscrew the metal plug in the bottom with the Allen key that came with the iron, and pour water in, which tended to go everywhere else except “in,” shake the whole thing around and tip it out, all about 4 or 5 times. It was heavy and unwieldy, and difficult to get all the water to drain away. I never saw any bits in it. We live in a soft water area so I don’t know why there should be any limescale at all, but the awkward and tedious task had to be done. The new iron also has a “descale” light which comes on, but when this happens you just let the iron cool down completely and make sure the tank is full, and it will clean itself! There’s a separate compartment in the tank for “dirty water” which you just tip out. Brilliant.

I literally steamed my way through the remaining ironing. This new iron is incredibly efficient and powerful.

Here is the result of my labours. A nice tidy airing cupboard full of neatly ironed and folded things for the next week. (Un-ironed shirts = workshop ones. I don’t bother to iron those!)

After registering the iron, I had an email from them in which they said that if I’d opted to be on their mailing list, I’d receive lots of useful information including… recipes! I know this iron is all-singing-all-dancing, but you can cook with it? Amazing. Isn’t modern technology wonderful? What do you fancy? Pancakes? They’d come out nice and flat, wouldn’t they.

A is for Apple

No… not that kind.

 

 

 

This kind.

Our first crop of 2021.

My hubby peels and chops them, and I cook them and freeze them. He likes them raw too, but I’m not so keen. They are absolutely delicious stewed – the best I’ve ever tasted, and we never tire of them. We vary them sometimes with the addition of blackberries that my hubby goes out and picks – there’s something really great about free food, isn’t there! This year I am proposing to make some juice with our apples too. I hope we get a bumper crop like last year. This little lot is now stewed and frozen. Our little apple tree is an absolute trooper.

Nutrition

I’ve now been taking my oestrogen-blocking medication for a couple of weeks. The type of breast cancer for which I am being treated is known as oestrogen receptor positive, which means that the cancer cells feed on oestrogen. In order to help prevent a recurrence, I have to take this medication for the next five years, and of course one of the effects of reducing oestrogen production in the body is the return of menopausal symptoms, which I thought I’d seen the back of years ago. I started getting night sweats (not something I had in the past) and mild hot flushes. I asked the oncologist if it would be OK to go back on the phyto-oestrogen supplements I’d been on before, and he didn’t recommend it, despite my producing links to variou articles and research papers which actually recommended them – I suppose I have to bow to his advice. However, he did say it would be fine to have them in my diet so I have been tanking up on soya in its various forms at every meal!

Soya is not only a rich source of protein and calcium (the latter being essential for bone health) but also contains isoflavones which are phyto-oestrogens, or plant-based oestrogen-like substances. Contrary to popular belief, eating soya does not make men grow breasts and start singing soprano! These substances mimic oestrogen in many ways, and can be very beneficial for combating the symptoms of the menopause. When I was going through this, I did not want to go on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) which apart from increasing one’s risk of breast cancer, struck me as a very artificial intervention into a natural process. It took longer for the phyto-oestrogen supplements I was taking (soy isoflavones with black cohosh, and extract of sage) to take effect, but once they did, they were highly effective and I remained symptom free. I continued to take them for several years and then gradually decreased the dose to make sure the symptoms did not return, and then stopped them altogether. A very natural, easy and risk-free way of dealing with the unpleasant symptoms that so many women have to endure.

Following my oncologist’s advice to avoid phyto-oestrogens in supplement form, I am now buying two blocks of tofu per week, cutting them into cubes and marinating and roasting them according to several different easy recipes. They go in a box in the fridge and I am eating 5 or 6 of them with each meal. I am also cooking up batches of soya beans in the pressure cooker and freezing them in portions as I do with my other legumes, and adding a tablespoon of the cooked beans to my meals, including stirring them into my breakfast oatmeal/chia! They have a neutral flavour so I hardly notice they are there.

The Japanese and other South-East Asians have a diet very high in soya in all its forms – edamame (immature green soya beans), soya beans, tempeh, tofu, soy sauce etc.) and have a very low incidence of breast cancer compared with women in the West. However, if Japanese women move to the West and adopt a Western diet, their risk increases to the same level as native Westerners. They also suffer few, if any, sympoms of the menopause. When I was going through it, I read that they do not actually have a word in their language for “hot flush” because they simply don’t have them! There is some research which indicates that women with certain bacteria in their gut microbiome are better able to take advantage of isoflavones in the diet, and this factor is prevalent in Asian women.

I know that soy isoflavones were very beneficial for my menopausal symptoms, and as I have now been recommended not to take them in supplement form, I am adding larger quantities to my diet than previously. I also consume large quantities of plain, unsweetened yoghurt made from soya milk, and make custard and other sauces with soya milk as well; I prefer almond milk in tea and coffee, though. Up until I had my recent breast surgery, I was making my own soya milk, but stopped in order to save work during my convalescence, but I am about to start making it again. Making my own, as opposed to buying it, has a great advantage over the mere difference in cost; you end up with okara, the soya pulp which remains after you squeeze out the soya milk. This bland, neutral-flavoured white paste is very rich in protein, and very useful for thickening casseroles and making non-meat balls amongst other things. Like all other soya products, it is very good at absorbing any flavours you care to add to it, so it is very versatile.

Recipe of the week

(Actually recipe suggestions – it’s up to you!)

Marinated and coated tofu snack

I have tried making my own tofu from scratch, first making the soya milk from the beans. However, this proved to be a highly labour-intensive and time-consuming process and I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle so I buy it now. A bit of trial and error will reveal which processes are worth doing yourself, and which simply aren’t worth bothering with, and this was one of them. Also, the tofu I made didn’t come out nearly firm enough and was so fragile that I had a job handling it without it breaking up.

It is easy to add flavour to tofu. It is not essential to marinate it but you can for added flavour – any mixture of non-dairy milk, maybe some cider vinegar or wine vinegar or soy sauce and some herbs or spices. To add flavour by coating without marinating, you simply dip the tofu cubes in flour (I use wholemeal), then in some non-dairy milk to which you might add some flavour such as cider vinegar, and/or a little hot sauce or harissa paste, then dip them in crumbs or finely chopped nuts or small seeds such as sesame. You can also add roasted and ground spices such as cumin and coriander to the dipping selection. One recipe I have uses fresh rosemary and lemon zest; this came out a little short on flavour in my opinion, and I’m going to try it again with more of both, and perhaps add some nutritional yeast for a cheesy flavour. Any flavour that takes your fancy, really.

Not frying with oil, I had a disaster the first time I did this, trying to dry-saute them – they just stuck to the pan! I now put them on a non-stick sheet in a roasting tin and bake them for about half an hour at about 200 deg. C. They don’t come out crispy, but deliciously chewy with a consistency somewhat reminiscent of chicken. The longer you bake them, the chewier they get.Thy make an excellent snack, or to add to salads or soups. Highy nutritious and delicious, versatile and healthy, and may help reduce the symptoms of the menopause as well as reducing the risk of breast cancer (or in my case, its recurrence).

It’s a good idea to press the tofu before cooking it, for a firmer texture, but this isn’t strictly necessary. It is more fragile to handle without. I’ve got a little plastic tofu press which I bought on Ebay some time ago. It’s just a box into which the standard-sized block of purchased tofu will fit; you wrap the tofu in a piece of muslin, put it in the press and put the lid on. You then add weight to the lid (I use the stack of weights from my old-fashioned kitchen scales) and put the whole thing over a dish to catch the drips, and leave it for a minimum of half an hour for the excess liquid to be pressed out. The longer you leave it, the firmer it will become.

Kitties

More fun with the suds.

My poor hubby… he got one in the eye this time!

They had just come in from the garden and were very hungry and vocal. Immediately after supper, Ruby was sick again! So much for the expensive new bowls. Oh well, we can but try.

Soon after that, of course, she was starving hungry again and very vocal. My hubby shut her in the flat with seconds, while Lily also became vocal outside saying “It’s not fair! She’s had two helpings!” Ruby ended up having biccies in the middle of the night, too. When she’s hungry, there’s never any doubt about it.

Sometimes the little horrors look as if butter wouldn’t melt, though. This photo was taken with great difficulty, all sideways, on my legs under my table, and I couldn’t really see what I was getting. This was the third or fourth attempt, I think, when finally I hadn’t cut one of them in half.

And finally…

Spotted on our way back from my covid swab last Thursday… Would you take driving lessons from the worst driving school in the West?

Utter drivel! No wonder there are so many rubbish drivers on the roads these days.

Another on the theme of tattooed ladies: