Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life by Sandra Beasley
My rating: 4/5 cats
this memoir is written by a woman with so many food allergies, it makes my head spin: all dairy, eggs, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamia nuts, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, mustard… and not just eating them – sitting at a table where cheese once touched, eating from “contaminated” plates, secret ingredients in spice blends or poorly-labeled drinks… it is horrible! i don’t know anyone with severe food allergies, but it sounds just awful, especially when it is not just one or two, but a million different threats.
being allergic to cucumber makes no sense to me. i’m not knocking anyone’s allergies here, i am just trying to wrap my head around an allergy to something that is essentially a green water-log. it seems so innocent! it saddens me, because i love food so much – almost all of it, and i would hate it if my body told me “no.”
i usually try, if i am eating alone with a vegetarian, to either order meatless, or at least try not to order anything gratuitously meaty, like cowface, but after reading this book, i am hesitant to eat any food near any person, not as a courtesy, but because it is possible that my food could kill someone else. i could breathe near someone and cause them to seize. i could make out with someone after eating some delicious cheese and kill them.
they would die happy.
but let’s see – what did i eat yesterday?
a rainbow-sherbet-flavored jello yogurt cup.
peanut-butter toast
barry’s tea with milk
artichoke and pepperoni pizza
and she couldn’t have eaten any of it. or made out with me. in fact, if i had eaten what i did and then used the phone, and if she had used the same phone hours later, i could have caused her to have a severe allergic reaction.
how can i continue to eat in these circumstances? who could? i feel for her, i really do.
because she sounds so rad – she isn’t whiny about her condition – she isn’t one of these people who wants to ban peanuts from restaurants or schools or the planet – she is uncomfortable with some measures she sees as overreactions. she seems like a cool lady, who takes care of her ownself, and is living with her allergies, not using them for attention.
i hate that she has had so many severe reactions at so many pivotal moments in her life: the weddings of friends, vacations, dinner parties, i hate how many times food has tried to kill her.
but i love that she keeps trying – cooking classes, children’s birthday parties, travel. she is willing to give food one more try, despite being told as a child that she was “not designed to survive,” despite all of the dangers and past failures: halloween, college, airplanes, grammar school cupcakes…
i will never be able to take her on an AIFAF, but i applaud her, from afar, in a bubble where i am eating fondue. eat those french fries and mushrooms, my dear, show the food who’s boss…
