Adventures in Food – The Melt

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Do they call it The Melt because the food melts in your mouth? Or because of all the melty cheese and juicy sauce? I mean these hamburgers are off the hook. Juicy – check. Loaded – check. Flavor – check. 

This time at The Melt, I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries (I LOVE sweet potato fries). The hubs had a hamburger with French fries and a chocolate milk shake, with a side of Patty Melt for that extra shot of protein. 

I’m not gonna lie – every time we come to Stanford for my appointments we treat ourselves to some deliciousness at one of the great eateries in Palo Alto. The restaurant possibilities are endless in this neck of the woods. From asian cuisine to Italian to traditional American fare, there is literally something for everyone. For two people who love to eat like we do, it’s kind of like a little slice of heaven. 

While I was in the hospital last summer for my first bone marrow transplant, my poor husband was on his own out there trying out restaurants. One day he came to the hospital (he was there for me EVERY DAY) all excited about this hamburger joint in the mall right across from the hospital. The best hamburgers he’d ever had he said. I was thinking: Oh really? Do you think they’re better than the sad little burger the hospital serves? Do you? I’m like 100% sure they were better than the Stanford Medical Center attempt at a gourmet burger. When I got out, and as soon as I could eat restaurant food, the first place I wanted to go was The Melt. My very favorite thing to eat is a really good burger. And this place did not disappoint. So super juicy, and meaty, with the perfect pickles, lettuce, sauce dripping down my fingers to my wrist and onto the tray. YUUUMMMMYYY!!!

Well, this spring  I found out I get to come back to Stanford (see Cancer Update), and also back to The Melt. This time I ordered the Spicy Mission Chicken Sandwich. It had avocado, sliced jalapeños, pickled onions, pepper jack cheese, and some spicy ketchup. MMMmmmmm…. So delicious 🙂 and of course my personal favorite – sweet potato fries. Chuck had a MeltBurger combo (fries and a shake) and a Patty Melt. Everything had plenty of cheese on it – and the fries were from real potatoes of course and they were dusted with salt and parsley. 

Overall we gave this place 4 stars, as you can see we finished our sandwiches… and we finished those fries too. When it’s this good you don’t leave anything behind. 

We’ll be back in Palo Alto next week, where will we go next?

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The Cancer update

I want to keep everyone up to date on my cancer treatment, and my progress, but I don’t want to only talk about my cancer. I want this to be mainly about the awesome food in and around Palo Alto. 

For the last year of so I’ve been a patient at Stanford for my lymphoma. I have a nasty strain called angioimunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. I went through the usual treatment – something called CHOP (chemo), followed by a bone marrow transplant. I was really lucky, the chemo hardly made me feel sick; and even the bone marrow transplant didn’t seem like it was that bad. I mean – you go to the doctor ALL the time, and there are a lot of shots involved. But I had no bad reactions. EXCEPT for the time I got pneumonia. That was a little scary – for my family especially. Sorry family. I will be more careful from now on. 

In February I had my 6 month post transplant appointment. Everything looked really great, my blood work results looked awesome. BUT….. I told the dr. I had been having a rash since the middle of January. It would flare up in the afternoons, and every morning it was gone. So strange. He didn’t know what to make of it, but had me schedule an appointment with the dermatologist at Stanford and a PET scan.  

Two weeks later I was in the dermatologist office, with a whole team of people examining my skin. She was immediately suspicious that the cancer was hanging out in my skin. I didn’t believe her, and I was completely unworried when we left. She took several biopsies from my skin, and I thought that was just to be safe. Less than one week later, they called me with the news…. My cancer was back. I said some not so nice words to the nurse who called and the next day we were back in Stanford listening to Dr. Meyer’s confirmation of the news. He had a plan – more chemo or possibly a clinical trial and eventually another bone marrow transplant. 

to be continued….

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