My friend Stacy of JurgenNation.com just reposted an entry about her experience with panic attacks.   Although I cannot hold a candle to what she experiences, I had a story to relate in a comment that became too long for a comment, so I just decided to write about it.

I didn’t even know at the time that what I was experiencing had a name; I had had quite a few moments in high school where I would suddenly get extremely hyped, very nervous, shaky, and unable to control my senses, but it would go away eventually and I’d shake it off.

That was, until senior year, last period of the day, band rehearsal, and I suddenly felt very nauseous, very ill, and excused myself to the bathroom.   It went downhill from there.  Every sensation I would feel would seem to double back on me and cause yet another, stronger one to take its place.   My panics are always health-related — I’m sure I’m going to die.  Heart attack, usually.   I thought it a pretty crappy place to die, surrounded by 1960s era tiled walls and the all-familiar smell of school bathrooms, that beautiful funk of industrial cleanser and teenagers who can’t aim for beans.

A dear close friend, bless him, came and found me in the men’s room and drove me home and stayed with me as I got worse and worse.   Eventually my parents arrived home and called 911.  I felt so silly but I couldn’t get up off the floor by then, heart pounding, sweating buckets, mind spinning, speech slurring.  I remember the technicians tending to me and lifting my big hulk off the floor and out the door and into the idling ambulance.

A 95mph ride 30 miles north to the hospital amid rocking IV bags and tubes and my heart still trying to escape and run amok in the fields surrounding us.   I remember suddenly having to pee so badly I ended up convincing a dubious responder that getting a bottle to do it on the ride, right now, was imperative.   At the time it seemed so incredibly ironic — here I was, dying (or so I thought), and suddenly my body insisted on taking a leak.   Someone was laughing at me, I swear.

The bustle of an E.R.   EKG.   Little strips of paper with my heartbeats captured for posterity.   Docs poking and frowning and shaking their heads over bushed eyebrows and clipboard wielded like swords.    Flabbergasted sighs.   “There’s nothing wrong with him!” as if I was a fruitloop.  By then I was calmer, the monster was leaving.   I kept telling my mother, “I know it was real, it happened!  I swear.   It was awful.”  She believed me, bewildered though she was.

I was worn down.  Tired.   All I wanted to do was sleep, to forget for awhile that I had endured it.   “Panic attack,” came the final thought from the doctor shortly before I was released back to normal society.    He said it with the demeanor of someone holding a dirty gym sock, as if it was all in my head.   Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, jackass, but would you like to trade?

Research on my own later — hrm, maybe this isn’t so uncommon.   Signs that pointed to what I had been doing wrong — too much caffeine, too little sleep, too much stress, heavy class load (9 classes, 7:30 am till 3:30pm with hours of practice afterwards).    I had simply pushed myself beyond and the whole of me gave up and said, “Fine!   Screw you.”

I still get them.   They’re not as frequent nor as awful because now I know and I can usually talk myself out or at least keep busy with something, anything, until the sensation passes.    I am my own best therapist when nothing else will listen.   I always fear that they’ll escalate again into something terrible, but so far, the beast has stayed at bay.   I have a feeling that he’ll always be there, waiting for the opportunity to snatch again, but for now, he is tamed.    And I am calm.

Although our attempts to make it an annual event have not yet come to fruition, the other weekend we got together for the 2nd annual (but not really) meeting of the gourmet chef minds of myself and my friend Lea and tossed together a meal of epic proportions and flavors.    While we usually don’t dump that much money for a single evening of a meal, sometimes you have to splurge for the Good Stuff™.

Herein lies the evidence of the night.   I’m afraid to say that I didn’t get nearly enough photos of the productions of the evening, but there’s a few for you to ‘feast’ your eyes upon.   Click each to make it larger and more lifelike.   Sorry, we have yet to perfect the scratch-’n'-sniff interface, so you’ll have to imagine for now.

We decided upon a combination of Italian and Greek, probably a mix of cultures not done often, but we really both like those cuisines and we have good skill in cooking them, meaning that we’d be able to pull off a nice meal without banging our heads with a saucepan most of the night.

I won’t go through the wines we had, that was covered in my post, Three Wines Meet Liver at Party.

Appetizer Course

Italian Rye Squares – This is a tried-and-true item that I’ve made many times before.  Grated parmesean cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, kalamata olive oil juice, and Italian seasonings are all mixed together to form a paste.   This is then spread on rye bread squares, topped with your choice of mozzarella or provolone, and then put under a broiler until blissfully melted and warm.    They’re wonderful bite-sized pieces of happiness when done.

Spanikopita Finger Bites – A Lea dish if I ever saw one, which takes the basic spanikopita idea but instead of making it as a dish meal, instead wraps the filling in triangular strips of fillo dough which are brushed with butter and then baked.   The result is a wonderfully rich and flaky outside with a happy, creamy-filled surprise in the middle.

Soup Course

Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée – Straight from my Saveur Cooks Authentic French cookbook, this traditional French onion soup is the king of my soupy creation as it is almost impossible to fuck up and always turns out to be this wonderfully sweet and cheesy, fulfilling dish.   If the only french onion soup you’ve tried is from the reconstituted packet, you’re missing out on one of the finer items in life.

Salad Course

Greek Salad – Nobody makes a wonderful Greek salad like Lea, what with the crunchy lettuce, beautiful tomatoes (she even found cherries, if you can imagine in this freaking wasteland), and the feta — oh god, the feta.   If I die because I ate too much feta in my life, I won’t regret it one single bit.

Italian Pasta Salad – My wife’s creation, actually; I can’t take the credit for this one as she did all the work.    Salami, mortadella, provolone, olives, capers, shallots, peas, and pasta, along with a fresh fennel/parsley/basil dressing and you have a light and very approachable salad but lots of flavor to behold.

Main Course

Homemade Gyros – Unlike the meatloafy versions that you normally see, this one actually turned out very much like the “real thing”, spices and all, based on this recipe we found online.   After running a pound of lamb and 2 pounds of ground beef through a hand meat grinder, we combined this with onion and spices and moulded it around the spikes on our Baby George (don’t laugh) rotisserie.    An hour later, we had a juicy, succulent loaf of joy that I cross-sliced into strips and we consumed mightily, complete with lettuce, Greek yoghurt,  and homemade tzatziki sauce.    Amazing.    Spent the rest of the night burping it up, too.

Dessert Course

Just when we thought that our stomachs simply couldn’t hold any more and if we tried stuffing more in, we’d end up in little bits sprayed around the room, we defied all logic and made — DESSERT!

Brown Sugar Bananas – Slightly-fried banana halves doused in a caramelly sauce and sprinkled with pecans — a beautifully happy dish that’s easy to whip up.   The only detractor from the beauty of it was the fact that, while chopping the nuts and having copious amounts of wine, I managed to slice the end of my thumb off and spent the rest of the night with a wad of padding in my hand and my arm above my head to try to staunch the bleeding.    Fortunately, the dessert was saved from needless bloodshed.

Cremé Brulée – A “classic” that I had always wanted to make, it came out wonderfully well.     Of course, anything made out of heavy whipping cream, eggs, and sugar, baked slowly in an oven, and then sprinkled with yet MORE sugar and torched to a candied crisp with a propane torch just can’t be wrong.   50,000 calories each and worth every bite.

Other Pictures

Holy hell that’s a lot of food, looking back on it!   But what a night spent with good food, great friends, memorable wine, and a maimed hand.   Here’s to next year’s gathering of the spoons!

The world outside is harsh and cold; winds blow and snow drifts.   People venture forth gently into the chill night to gather at each other’s houses for warmth, friendship, and to take their minds off the daily hum-drum of life.

I am the Scrooge this year; the “bah” in your”humbug” and the dissenter from the happyness of the season.    The hassle outweighs the benefits this year, BUT — read me not wrong, for my heart is not entirely full of dark.

For those I call friends and even to those I do not, I wish you these:  Introspection.   Pause.   Remembrance.    Reflection.   Regret.   Absolution.  Resolve.   Repair.

And hope.

The heart that beats within my cynical chest is still warm, and there is much of me that wishes the best of possible futures for others.    Enjoy your holiday & solstice season and remember that however icy and windswept your reality might be, at least I am cheering for a change.

My best, from mine to yours.

P.S. – I really need a tripod to take high-ISO photos like this one.   I managed to take it by leaning the camera against the doorframe, but golly was it difficult.