The Gimpy Allergic To Everything Chef - An Intro

If you are looking for recipes with anal retentive measurements and exact methods, stop now.

If you have a bit of a sense of humor and like to wing it a bit, proceed and enjoy.

This is me. I swear!

I have recently started cooking a little bit as I'm able again, and have had to laugh at how ridiculous it's become! I am the laziest, most non-recipe following, short-cutting-est chef ever. I'd like to blame it all on being disabled and chronically ill, but my artsy-fartsy improvisational side has never been good with recipes, even back in the healthier days.

Can you call that being a chef? Probably not! But I make a mess of Pinterest recipes, am allergic to everything, and usually am cooking with a heart rate in the 130-175 range while seated in my wheelchair. It's quite entertaining. So I started taking some pics and will be blogging about it.


For reference, here is what I am currently allergic to and causes mild-moderate anaphylaxis or extreme GI distress, so I change up recipes to avoid these things, sometimes with success:

• NO gluten products, oats, and grains in general, such as quinoa (and now brown rice is hurting me! Jerk!). I've been gluten free (GF) since 2004.
• Nuts. Most of them. To scared to try the rest again.
• Shrimp (even the smell now causes my face to swell up and droop, flush, and throat to itchy/swell - it's awesome! I look like Sloth from the Goonies)
• Pinapple
• Lemons & Limes
  

  

  Sloth love Chunk.

• Coconut
• Corn
• Carrots
• Melons
• Milk in liquid form, but I can eat the hell out of some cheese
• Sugar intolerant, triggers my POTS/Dysautonomia like a mofo
• Jallepinios
• Something in GF muffin mix, not sure what yet
• Pork (NO MORE BACON - AHHHHHHH!)
• Juicing - I have tried all kinds of juicing, and every time I break out in hives on top of the fun throat itching/swelling
• Fancy snob lettuce. Iceberg is ok. I think. 
• Fake sugars, like aspartame - which is horrible anyways, so no big loss
• MSG, other preservatives, modified corn/food starches - all that crap makes my stomach feel like I am being stabbed and gutted like William Wallace at the end of Braveheart.  
• Random stuff, as I'm suspected of having a Mast Cell issue, which release histamine at the wrong time and cause random Anaphylaxis - which is loads of fun!

That's all I can think of for now with the allergies. On to the gimpy side of things. 

If you have not done so, you can read about Dysautonomia here, and I also have a bunch of other chronic junk that comes with it.

I use a reclining wheelchair most of the time as a result, have a power (purple!) wheelchair on order, and my feet need to be up, or my heart rate skyrockets and I start to pass out. Or mumble incoherently due to no blood being in my brain. Using sharp objects like knives can be a bit tricky when you are shaking and greying out! 

I have to do short bursts of activity and then recover - so cooking takes some interesting prep and accomodation to get around this, and some days (most days) I just can't do it. For this reason, I LOVE freezer bag crock pot recipes, easy quick stuff, and using my new electric chopper thingy that cuts down on, well, cutting.

this is on my list to Santa!

So in my recipe roundup's, you may find some foul language, you will not see a spotless kitchen in the background, and pretty pictures with perfectly plated food. You will see my modified recipes that I found online and attempted to make while trying not to die. 

I hope you enjoy my gimpy cooking adventures! 
---Claire   

(Enjoy one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies of all time involving a knife)