9:10am
I am following the instructions on the new Ninja blender as to how to make a green smoothie. I am not on a health kick, nor am I particularly fond of the ingredient combination in the recipe, I just love the colour green. Such is my love for green that I have woken up desperate to drink it. Unfortunately, this one turns out not green at all, as I don’t have any kale/spinach to add to the apple, pineapple, lime and mint I have already bunged into the blender. Minuscule amounts of lime and mint do not make a vibrant green, is the lesson I have learned today. I shall have to settle for the lemon curd yellow that the Ninja has painted me. It’s not especially tasty. The quest for delicious green continues.
9:40am
Making myself some biscoff toast to cheer myself up after the smoothie failure. The absence of green has depressed me, and the only cure for this melancholy is sugary, sugary biscuit spread. Feeling better now.
10am
Depressed again. Benji has made a smoothie that is VASTLY superior to mine. His is gorgeous, vibrant purple, filled with good stuff, and stands imposingly tall in a Theakston pint glass. ‘Legendary ales’ reads the slogan on the glass, and I can already tell this is a legendary smoothie. I tell him what was in mine and he snorts at me. ‘Doesn’t sound great, mate’, is his assessment. He gives me the dregs of it- I have to have it last because we can’t risk me giving him a bug. We have to be very careful around germs, as chemo has stripped him of any immunity he’d otherwise have. A temperature could mean a trip to hospital. Charlie had to leave this morning because she had a cough :((.
Anyway, back to the smoothie. Even the shitty end bit is delicious. It is everything mine wasn’t, thick and filling and smooth and brilliant. I should never have tried to compete with the smoothie king.
1:10pm
Dad is making roast dinner soup. This is turning out to be a day of strange blended liquids. Roast dinner soup is something mum coined back when we were little and is code for ‘grab all the leftovers from days ago and put it in a blender with a tin of tomatoes’. It is Benji’s least favourite meal, so he has the fajita leftovers. I get the grater out and start on the cheese for the top, and within seconds Henry is here. He peers at me through the wood of a chair, making that face he always does when he wants food. He has big, sad eyes and knows how to use them, so I deliberately drop cheddar on the floor to appease him. Dad prefaces the meal with ‘This isn’t very good’ and plops the soup on the table. It’s not as bad as I feared, and tastes mainly of tomato. Benji informs me that he plays a game with me when I’m busy on my laptop, which involves him extending his middle finger at me until I look up. I had no idea this game was a thing. His record is apparently 5 minutes. I will be spending the rest of the afternoon trying to beat this.
2:05pm
I’ve started making kimchi to procrastinate applying for a job. I have no prior knowledge of how to do this, but that has never stopped me before in my procrastination, and I don’t intend to let it stop me now. I salt the cabbage heavily, rinse it, then dry it. This beats writing a cover letter. Mind you, I think some methods of torture are preferable to writing a cover letter. I google if people on chemo can eat kimchi - and can’t see anything to suggest not. Benji can’t eat anything unpasteurised or live (think yoghurt) and I’m still not sure what the fermentation means for his immune system. I continue with the kimchi regardless.
6:50pm
I am terrorising Benjamin with gochujang-y cauliflower and halloumi. His enthusiastic responses to my dinner plans include:
‘oh fuck. i was thinking more salmon pasta’
‘does that mean just vegetables’
I don’t hold out much hope for success. Also, I have just boiled the cauliflower instead of blanching it - I have very bad brain scramblies today.
8:40pm
Dinner was a success! The gochujang sauce was so spicy Benji could taste everything, and what’s more, he didn’t complain about the lack of meat. Thank god I’ve made progress since this morning. The recipe came from the cookbook ‘Life Kitchen’ - I highly recommend it for anyone suffering tastebud problems, as the stuff in there is very heavily seasoned. Benji slapped his big belly to signal he was full. Victory.
Find Emily on instagram @em1lyread.