Adventures in food

The Fish Market

The Fish Market, as the name implies, is actually a market where you can buy fish as well as a great restaurant. They have some fabulous looking lobster tails, salmon, crab legs, and I think even rainbow trout. I got some pretty good shots of all the great seafood they have for sale if you wanted to cook at home. If it was me buying fish for an at home fish fry, I would definitely be adding some of their clam chowder to my purchase. It’s that good. 

The Fish Market is on El Camino Real in Palo Alto, one of the busiest streets in Palo Alto. Last year when we first started coming to Stanford for appointments, we ate at some random lobstershack in Redwood city, and it was really good, but what I remember is, driving by all the restaurants on this street and thinking…. Oh wow… we are in trouble now. How are we ever going to have the time to eat at all those places? And they all had lines of people out the door, so we just knew they were serving excellent food. 

We chose the Fish Market this particular Monday night because we were both craving clam chowder. My personal preference is the New England clam chowder, in fact, it’s the only kind I’ll eat. It was pretty tasty – creamy and thick, with just the right amount of clam bits in it. Exactly the way it should taste – piping hot perfection. 

We started with the clam chowder, and followed that with an appetizer – the warm crab & artichoke dip. This is what I call a heavy appetizer, almost like a meal. Creamy and cheesy filled with artichoke and crab pieces, and it was served with crispy slices of French bread. There was nothing left on that plate, let’s just put it that way. 

In case you’re worried about my cholesterol, you know because of all the creamy, cheesiness I’ve mentioned here, that seems to be one problem I don’t have. Well, I mean, they haven’t tested my cholesterol, and I’m not suggesting they do just yet. One thing at a time.

For our main course I had Fish and Chips – Greenland cod Fish and Chips, and my partner in food had the Pacific Prawns and chips. I don’t know which one was better. The Greenland Cod was absolutely amazing. The fish just melted in my mouth, and the batter was light and crispy. The French fries were pretty tasty too, I just try not to overdo the French fries. Those Prawns though – wow. They were absolutely the best prawns I’ve ever tasted – they almost tasted almost like lobster tail, like buttery kisses on your tongue. We both took pictures of the food, but only after we started eating – oops. It was just so delicious, and we were hungry lol. And honestly, the pictures don’t do it justice. 

While we were sitting there enjoying our delicious dinner at the bar, there was a woman we could see having a heaping plate of crab legs. Isn’t it crazy how you can be eating your own delicious dinner and still want what someone else is eating. They did look pretty delicious though. Maybe next time….

So, of course we’ll be back here next week….where will we go next time?

The cancer update

The cancer update..… Well, after my meeting with Dr. Meyers it was clear that this wasn’t just a false alarm. Because that’s what I thought. I remember walking from the parking garage to the Doctor’s office (it’s a long walk) telling Chuck “we’re going to get in there and he’s going to tell us it was all a big misunderstanding. There is nothing wrong, the dermatologist’s nurse just misunderstood what the dr. said, etc.” But, no. The cancer was back, or hadn’t been all the way gone. So, he suggested chemotherapy again and then another bone marrow transplant. This time from a donor, preferably from a sibling. When I had my first bone marrow transplant, they harvested my own stem cells, then after they gave me some really heavy chemo, they gave me my stem cells back. And I remember thinking… won’t those stem cells be contaminated? I guess there is a reason why they do it that way first. It’s supposed to be a much easier process for the body to handle. But…. now I get to do it again, and it will be a longer process. First we have to kill any present cancer cells before we can even get to that.

I was scheduled to receive chemo (something called Romedepsin) by the end of that week, I think that was at the end of March. But then…I got a call from my local oncology nurse saying that they had gotten an email from someone in Stanford telling them not to give me chemo just yet, because I had been approved for a clinical trial – praise God! It was all a little confusing (and scary) for a day or two, because it seemed like nobody knew what was going on, but then everything got straightened out. They didn’t want me to have any chemo before I saw the clinical trial doctors because they wanted me to be clean, as in no treatments, when they first met with me so they could see exactly what they were dealing with. 

The next Monday we were back at Stanford to meet with the clinical trial doctors. I’ve personally never seen so many white lab coats in one room. There were, I think, 7 doctor types, and one photographer. Yes, you read that correctly. A photographer. When you have skin issues, they want to get photos of what’s going on and possible progress of the disease or treatment. Ugh….so yes, I got to pose in my underwear in my pasty skin mottled with red spots…Whatever. As long as they can fix this situation I guess it’s good to have before and after pictures for comparison and research.

to be continued…..