On Food Allergies: A sneak peek at a memoir, a chance to win the book.

"...[Food] allergies can be a mere footnote to life -- not the title of the story."

Me and Sandra Beasley at Mother Fool's cool Coffeehouse.

That's what Sandra Beasley wrote in her message to me when she signed my copy of her memoir, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. We'd only just met last Saturday night, but she must have recognized something familiar in my eyes: the angst expression of a mother who's child suffers from food allergies.

Mention birthday party, pot luck, or small-town diner, and my heart skips a beat, in a panic sort of way. Parties, tables of mixed dishes, and a one-griddle restaurant mean one-on-one time with the hostess or the cook. On occasion, I've been known to interrogate a waiter or two, shooting off question after question about menu items and ingredients. I'm still learning the art of being a proactive mother with an air of collaboration. I can learn a lot from Sandra Beasley's calm, "let's work together on this" kind of attitude. I already have.

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl mixes memoir with science and the history of food allergies. I saw myself in passages where she describes her mother ("My mother, the lab scientist. . . . My mother, the detective."), and I so appreciated seeing life with food allergies from the perspective of the person dealing with them directly. When I heard that Sandra would be in Madison, Wisconsin to read at Mother Fool's Coffeehouse, I knew I'd go. It didn't matter the distance, the babysitter fees, nor that nasty rain storm.

My husband and mother-in-law came along, and we met up with (fellow blog author) Victoria. Before Sandra took to reading, she sat down with us, and we shared experiences. Sandra said that she's beginning to meet with camps to help them find ways to meet the needs for kids with food allergies in a way that moves beyond just playing it safe and focuses more on those kids feeling completely a part of...well, everything. I love that. I want my son to go to camp, and he doesn't want me to tag along.

Later, on stage, Sandra read from her memoir and even gave us a sneak peek into her poetry. I was reminded that 1) I will be reading her book again and again, and 2) writing about life experiences helps us see them in a new light, understand them better, and move through the discomfort that sometimes surrounds those experiences.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction in her book:

Don't kill the birthday girl. Leftover omelet clings to the edge of a breakfast plate. Butter greases the stir-fry. Walnuts go commando in an otherwise tame brownie. There's a reason they're call allergy "attacks"; you never know where a food can be lurking.

But those with food allergies aren't victims. We're people who - for better or for worse - experience the world in a slightly different way. This is not a story of how we die. These are the stories of how we live.

I love this book, so much that I'm giving away a signed copy (not my copy, mind you. I barely let my husband hold my copy long enough to read it...). Just drop your name in the comments below and I'll choose a winner on Monday, December 12th. So easy. This book is one you'll want to have on your shelf -- if you're a writer, a person with food allergies, that person's parent or partner, or if you're a cook.

And, we're all cooks, right?

Topfenkolatsche: My perfect metaphor

Canterbury Booksellers broke me in—cheese danish and a cappuccino, random books of poetry with pretty covers and narrow spines, and my journals dotting, dashing in a downtown rain. This was my idea of a literary lifestyle. I was hardly 16.

I wanted to tear books from the shelves and roll in them. I said this out loud, “I want to tear books from the shelves and roll in them!” I thought the ink would seep in leaving the coffee and sugar to fuel me. “I'm going to be famous one day.”

For years into early adulthood the order stayed the same--cheese danish and a cappuccino, poetry books and pens. Write. Write. Write.

And so it seemed, I should begin in cheese danishes with a recipe for Topfenkolatsche—traditional cream cheese (Topfen) danish. And like writing, the only way to begin is to begin. 

I practically planned the day around mixing the pastry dough (1 ½ hours to rise); creaming the cheese, butter, eggs, lemon zest; rolling the pastries; anointing them with lather; folding them into neat packets to rise again (45 more minutes); and baking (30 minutes at 400 degrees). 

The process was systematic and ritualistic. I followed the recipe to the letter.

Then they burned 15 minutes into the 30 minute bake time and I demanded we order a pizza.

I thought this, though--that failing at my first made-from-scratch cheese danish is just like finding that first rejection in the mail slot. That rewriting and reworking a recipe is the same thing--it comes from the desire to make something good and finding out you need more practice, more poetry books, and a lower oven temp. It comes from taking what you can from the masters then tossing it out and starting from scratch.

I recently received my first acceptance from an online literary magazine. To celebrate, I'm going to buy some puff pastry dough and make a not-so-traditional cream cheese danish.

Your turn: Tell us what food means "literary" to you. Or what were you so excited to cook, but ended up needing to remodel? There are no mistakes in cooking or writing, only new tastes to be explored.