Currently, I manage grants at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I am passionate about food (especially sweets), fundraising for non-profits, and being active.

Expect to see a post from me every other Friday about my baking endeavors, food interests, and reports on the latest dessert trends.

Bodum Knife Block

Today’s gadget is simple and subtle, but it might just find a permanent home atop your counter. A modernized version of an average wooden knife block, the Bistro Knife Block made by Bodum is stylish and very practical.

The outside casing of the Bistro is made of hard plastic and inside are thin plastic sticks packed tightly together, resembling the bristles of a broom. The design allows you to place any size knife, anywhere, within the “block” itself. You can store your paring, chopping and chef’s knife all right next to each other.

It takes up only a small amount of space in the kitchen and it can hold a numerous amount of knives. My roommate got the Bistro Knife Block as a Christmas gift and its lived on our counter since.

Your knives will stay safe as well as clean and sharp, a much better option then storing them in a drawer. And you can remove the inside bristles from the shell to make sure you’re keeping it crumb-free. This gadget comes in several different colors including red, grey, lime green and orange, so it can suit any style!

chef cartoon by shakerman

Knives are an essential part to any cook’s kitchen, and an easy way to store them makes a huge difference in preparing your favorite meals. Available from bodum.com for $49.95 this helpful gadget is an awesome investment.

This is my first actual baking post in a while. If you recall my last few posts have been either purely informational or rather simple and straight forward, I haven’t had a whole lot of time on my hands. However this week as I finally got settled back into my weekly Boston schedule I managed to set aside an afternoon devoted to baking decadence. Since I haven’t baked in a while I had a hard time deciding what to make, I had stacks of recipes I wanted to try but couldn’t figure out which one to choose. Did I want something chocolate or something caramel? Did I want cookies or cakes? Did I want something crumbly or something gooey? I couldn’t decide on just one thing, I wanted everything and that was when I came across these bars.

These bars have just a little bit of everything so I’ve decided to call them everything bars. You can also change the recipe to include just about anything you want. I stuck to some pretty familiar and classic flavoring combinations like chocolate, toffee, coconuts and almonds but realistically you could throw some dried fruit on there, peanut butter chips or even different kinds of nuts and it would be equally delicious. This is the perfect dessert for when you are craving just a little bit of everything. My friend mentioned when eating them that it was kind of like a seven layer bar, but without the fuss. It has the same idea and taste but it is a lot less complex to make. The bottom of the bar is very simple, crumbly and slightly sweet, almost like a shortbread, just a very simple flavor which is the perfect base to build on for the mass of flavors and textures that sit on top. What ties everything together is the layer of sweetened condensed milk that sits in between the bar and the topping, giving a sweet and gooey break between the simple base and the crazy toppings.

Essentially I’d say that these bars are huge hit, they were warm and delicious and best of all they make a huge batch that chill really, I might even say they were better after spending the night in the fridge.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 ½ cups chips of semi sweet chocolate chops

¼ cup of white chocolate chips

¾ cup of sweetened coconut flakes

2 heath bars (broken into bite size pieces)

½ cup of slivered almonds

1 ½ cups of all purpose flour

1/3 cup of granulated sugar

¾ cup of softened unsalted butter

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and butter a 13×9 inch pan. In a bowl mix together the flour and sugar. Cut the butter into small pieces and mix it into the flour combination by hand until it is crumbly. Press into the greased pan, spreading it out evenly. Bake for 10 -12 minutes until it is lightly browned. While the base is baking combine the chocolates, coconut, heath bar and almonds in a bowl and mix well. When the base has cooked remove from the oven and pour the can of sweetened condensed milk overtop, making sure to reach all the corners. Spread the chocolate mixture over top and press down firmly into the sweetened condensed milk. Return the bars to the over and bake for another 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely before cutting. Cut bars into around 30 pieces and enjoy!

A photo of me from July 2007, just before my diagnosis.

I never heard the phrase ‘Be Your Own Advocate’ until I was sitting in an oncologist’s office lamenting the fact that I had almost walked away from a life-saving breast surgery.

On March 31st 2007, I was in the shower, getting ready to go out to celebrate my best friend’s birthday, when I found a lump in my breast. I would like to be able to tell you that I was doing my monthly self breast exam, but I wasn’t. I was 27 years old and had never done one before. I found the lump completely by accident. It made me a little nervous, but I put it in the same category as heart burn, and certainly didn’t take it seriously.

About a week later, I mentioned it to my mom in passing, and she suggested I get it checked out. My mom is the last person to ever tell anyone to see a doctor, so I took the advice to heart and booked an appt with my PCP. My doctor felt my lump and told me it was most likely nothing – a benign fibroadenoma, common in women my age. I left the office feeling relieved.

I got a letter in the mail a couple of weeks later containing an appt for a breast ultrasound. This surprised me as it wasn’t mentioned at my appt with my PCP. So, I put it on my calendar and felt a little less relieved. When I had the ultrasound, the technicians were rude to me. They couldn’t find my lump, and it was obvious that they thought I was a hypochondriac. They continuously told me to lay still while I tried to point out the lump to them. One of them was rolling her eyes and sighing a lot and I left the ultrasound feeling like an idiot. Why did a 27-year old with no family history of breast cancer need a breast ultrasound? I was mad that I had even gone to the appt.

A few weeks after that, having forgotten about the unpleasant ultrasound, I got another letter in the mail containing an appt with a breast surgeon. Again I thought this was strange, so I called the office. They said that although my ultrasound looked normal, it was standard procedure to meet with a surgeon. So, I decided to keep the appt. By the time I saw the surgeon it was mid-May. She told me that the lump was likely a benign fibroadenoma and that we had 3 options. The first option would be to do nothing and I could come back in a year to see if there were changes. The second option would be to have a needle biopsy. The third option would be to remove the lump. It was up to me.

I thought long and hard about this. I didn’t feel comfortable having this hanging over my head and didn’t want to go back each year to check the lump. The thought of a needle biopsy freaked me out as well. Surgery looked like the best option, especially since this surgeon told me she would also be willing to remove a small piece of extra breast tissue that I had always had right under my armpit. I thought of it as a 2 for 1 special and so I decided on surgery. Since it was May, and surgery would prevent me from lying in the sun at the beach all summer, I scheduled the surgery for Sept. 6.

The surgery went fine and afterward the surgeon told me she would call with the results of the biopsy in a week or so. I barely thought of it again until the phone rang at 3:15 pm on Friday Sept 14, 2007. It was my surgeon and I will never forget her words. ‘The lump that we removed from your breast was cancer.’

That day obviously changed my life. From there I changed doctors and went to Mass General Hospital for additional surgeries, chemo and radiation. I received excellent care there. It was in my radiation oncologist’s office about a month after my diagnosis that I was asking him if he too would have given me the option of doing nothing about my cancer that I was given before. He told me certainly not, but also that I had to be my own advocate with my doctors and that this would be a very important part of my care from here on out. It was great advice.

From this experience I have learned to always trust my instincts. I have learned to demand the very best in my health care. I learned that I can’t leave my care completely in my doctors’ hands and that I need to be involved in the decisions about my treatment. If I don’t understand something my doctor says, I always ask. It was a long journey, but I am definitely now my own advocate.

The biggest change a diagnosis of breast cancer brings is the loss of feeling in control of your life, your body, your future.

All of a sudden we are casting about for ways to feel in control once again. Our fear, our anger, our confusion only compound our feelings of being out of control now that our body has let us down. We are being challenged to find the  coping mechanisms that will get us through the anxiety of diagnostic tests to determine the size, location and possible spread of our breast cancer. We need the presence of mind to get through decisions about how we will forever view our breasts…mastectomy with or without reconstruction or lumpectomy with or without a form of reconstruction, done during the lumpectomy or after, to insure we will have a matched set.

If our breast cancer is such that we can choose to have a lumpectomy; what method do we choose for radiation? External beam with its  standard 36 treatments or Mammosite accomplished in two treatments a day for one week? What are the pros and cons of each? Am I a candidate for Mammosite? Does my hospital offer it?  Does my insurance cover it? What kind of a physical outcome can I expect from each of these procedures?

In addition to the treatment decisions that breast cancer brings there are the financial, the employment, and the personal decisions to be made, especially if there are young children to be considered.

Once breast cancer surgery is over and treatment begun, we are challenged to cope with pain and feeling ill from treatments in ways that most of us have never encountered before. Fatigue is our constant companion. Many of us lose our hair and have to learn to wear a wig so it doesn’t look like we are wearing a wig.

We cope with the middle of the night “What Ifs” when it seems that everyone is asleep but us; when our minds run tapes on a continuous feed loop covering the same content over and over until we get too exhausted to think and fall asleep.

Somehow we do it all; we get through and treatment is over. Now we need to find ways to live  our lives having experienced the physical and emotional changes that breast cancer brought to our lives.

For those of us who had estrogen fed tumors, there’s the continued challenge of coping with years of the physical changes brought about by hormonal therapy: weight gain, hot flashes, mood swings, bone pain, sleep disturbances and, for some, hair thinning.

Most of us make the adjustment to the new us. Given the coping mechanisms we had to develop in order to get through active breast cancer treatment it is not surprising that we do. Many of us get on with our lives with a new sense of purpose. We reinvent ourselves focusing on strengths and talents we have always had but may not have focused on developing. We are different; not bad different, just different. We cherish time and guard how we spend it. We still work at looking our best, but we spend more time on doing things that make us feel our best.

We are no longer naive about our health. Sometimes the sense of vigilance that comes from living with a schedule of routine follow up visits to surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists and the usual blood work and other tests leaves us yearning for the “Un Days”; the days when no one is examining us or asking the same questions asked so many times before . We hold our breath until we hear those words, “Your Fine.”

We learn to manage our fears because if we don’t there will be no quality of life,  just a constant state of apprehension and that is not living. One day we realize that the things that used t upset us to the point of ruining our day or robbing us of a night’s sleep before our breast cancer don’t pack the same punch anymore. We’ve learned who is there for us and who isn’t. We know what matters to us and will always matter to us.

We coped and continue to cope with the changes that breast cancer brought into our lives with the support of other survivors, friends and family and for many, a faith in a power greater than ourselves. We are confident in our ability to care for ourselves proven by all we survived.

Do we regain that sense of being in control of our lives after breast cancer? I can only answer for myself. I have come to accept that I control how I care for myself both physically and emotionally. Beyond that I can only control how I react and cope with what happens to me, when it happens to me. That will have to be enough. Breast cancer has taught me that.

For more information about navigating breast cancer please visit my website…www,noboobsaboutit.com

When I lived in the North End, pasta was king. In the summertime, the Italian family who owned my building made massive amounts of tomato sauce which they would jar and use throughout the rest of the year. They set up shop in the courtyard a few floors below my window and the sweet smell of simmering tomatoes filled the apartment. It was magical.

Although you’re probably not planning on making quite as much sauce, you can still have the delectable homemade flavors, just in a smaller portion. The Roma Tomato Milling Machine is perfect for counter-top use.

There’s no need to peel the tomatoes or remove the seeds. Just rinse your fresh, ripe tomatoes and plop them into your mill. Once you start turning the handle the skin and seeds are separated from the puree, leaving you with the perfect sauce blend.

Next, just put the guts into a pan, add some spices, extra virgin olive oil and whatever else you think will give it a good kick, and let your sauce simmer to perfection.

The Roma Tomato Milling Machine made by Weston is available online from tomatomilling.com for $49.00. And, to make this gadget even better, this awesome milling machine can produce jams and jellies from fresh fruit!

This gadget is a gardener’s delight.

Now you have to keep in mind that I am a vegetarian, and so is my best friend whom I traveled with. When her family found out they would be hosting two vegetarians they went into panic mode. I think her cousin was actually convinced that we would starve to death and tried to compensate the lack of meat by severely over feeding us. One of the things that she always had on hand, that we basically ate every single day for breakfast was Labneh and Za’atar. We ate them very simply, spread over a flat pita – and they were absolutely delicious. Labneh is a very thick yogurt spread, almost like Greek yogurt but a little less yogurt tasting, if that makes sense, a little creamier too I would say but still tart. Labneh can be served with most middle-eastern dishes, as its flavor lends nicely to a variety of foods. Like I said though, our favorite way to eat it was with Za’atar, which is a spice blend that is used on essentially everything in the Middle East to just add a punch of flavor.

Za'atar

We didn’t eat a lot of big entrée type meals, we mostly had little bits and pieces, which is definitely how I prefer to eat – that way you get a little taste of everything. Some of my favorite small bites I will detail below

Stuffed Grape leaves are little bite sized appetizers that are quite delicious. They can be stuffed with a variety of things, from meats to vegetables, but we mostly had them stuffed with rice, olive oil and lemon juice to play off the bitterness of the leaves themselves and give a full flavor to the rice.

Babaganoush is almost as common as hummus in Middle Eastern cuisine. It is an eggplant spread that is often plated with pomegranate seeds. It is served along side hummus, pita and olives as an appetizer type dish.

Babaganoush

Fattoush was the salad we had with most meals and by far one of my favorite dishes that we ate. It is essentially a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers etc. in it but they are cut up into larger chunks. What makes this salad so good though is the “croutons” they use, which are little flat squares of fried pita bread, the perfect crunch to the salad. They also traditionally use sumac in the dressing to give the salad a sour tinge that makes it unforgettable.

And of course, no dining experience would be complete without dessert. Although at heart I am a chocolate girl I did enjoy a lot of the pastries that they served (mostly because they had cheese in them, another love affair of mine). My favorite one that we had is called Kenfe, which is a circular bread hollowed out and filled with sweet cheese and topped with sesame seeds and is absolutely delicious.

Knefe

These are just some of the highlights of my food adventure in Dubai and I hope that this will inspire you to have a food adventure of your own. You don’t need to travel somewhere far to try new things, all you need is a kitchen!

Here are some tips if you’re weighing the decision to share your cancer diagnosis at work.

Start with a clear picture of your treatment. Before you go to your employer, talk with your doctor about what to expect. Ask whether you’ll need time off to recover from chemotherapy or surgery. It’s also a good idea to ask how other people typically feel during and after your types of treatment. Let your doctors and nurses know what your job involves and ask what type of work schedule they might recommend. This also makes them aware of another important aspect of your life that is being affected by your cancer care.

Make a list of work-related changes you think you might need while you’re in treatment. For example, if you’re worried you’ll feel tired or ill after chemotherapy, note that you may need to change your work schedule or take certain days off.

If you’re worried about approaching your boss with such requests, keep in mind that federal laws protect cancer patients from discrimination. For example, employers are legally required to help you do your job during or after cancer treatment by providing reasonable accommodations, such as an adjusted work schedule or time off for doctor’s appointments.

You may also want to talk to your human resources department about work accommodations you may need during treatment.

As you make your plans, be sure to enlist the help of others. Think about how friends or family may help. And take time to talk with a professional, such as a social worker, who can help you address the challenges of managing work and cancer care.

Decide who to tell. While you aren’t required to tell your employer or coworkers about your diagnosis, you may get questions if you miss a lot of work or your productivity lags.

Rather than not telling anyone, you might want to tell just a few people, such as your boss or coworkers you trust. Or you might decide to tell everyone, depending on your work environment. The most important factor in this decision is your comfort, so do what you feel is best for you.

Use this as an opportunity to educate. Whether you’re talking to your boss or your coworkers, think of your conversation as a chance to help others understand what you’ll be going through. People often have a lot of misconceptions about cancer. They may assume it’s going to be terrible and you’ll never be able to work during treatment, but that’s not necessarily the case.

While every situation is different and there’s no crystal ball, many people continue to work successfully through treatment. You could also use this as a chance to let others know where and when you might need help in your work during treatment.

Keep a record. Employers are usually very supportive of employees going through cancer treatment, but this isn’t true 100 percent of the time. It’s a good idea to keep track of discussions you have with your boss or human resources office. Hang on to copies of work reviews, emails or letters about your performance, or requests for accommodations. This documentation will be helpful if you need to take action to uphold your rights in the workplace.

If you’d like to learn more about your rights as an employee, you can contact the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Depending on where you live, you may also have state laws that apply to your situation.

If you’re a Dana-Farber patient, you can speak with one of our licensed social workers to help you think through your situation, learn more about your rights, and what options to consider as you move forward. Everyone is different and the process of responding to a cancer diagnosis is very personal, so meeting with a social worker who is familiar with your cancer may be a good starting point.

Nancy Borstelmann, LICSW, MPH, is a licensed clinical social worker who serves as Dana-Farber’s director of patient and family support and education.

Courtesy of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

I began with my kitchen. I enjoy baking and cook daily. My traditional oven with the front door opening and low broiler unit was not going to be practical once I had weight restrictions on my arms from the surgery. I bought a counter top oven that is a regular oven, convection oven and broiler. This unit eliminates the need to bend and lift. I still use the burner units of my stove, but the oven is now a much needed storage space for pots.

I purchased a jar opener, which eliminated the need to use my hands with hard to open containers. I made sure the appliances, dishes, cooking utensils and foodstuffs that I used regularly were counter top or on the lowest shelves above the counter tops and within easy reach.

My office needed to be rearranged, making frequently used supplies and equipment within easy reach, similar to the kitchen. My computer notebook that I used for demonstrations at meetings became another office computer and I purchased a small, lightweight computer notebook that I transport in a carrier with wheels.

The bedroom, bath and living room did not need any adaptations, but the closets needed rearranging to allow for easy access to most frequently used items.

After the apartment was made accessible for the new me, I turned my attention to what I anticipated my personal needs would be. Knowing that I would be spending two nights in the hospital following surgery, I decided to call the hospital registry and hire private duty caregivers to be with me. The first night, I had a registered nurse; the second night a certified caregiver (nursing attendant). It was the best money I have every spent! If you have a family member who can stay with you, that’s great. Not everyone does. It was  comforting to know there was someone there with me. I was on an IV, and needed the bedpan every hour or so. Waiting for a floor nurse or attendant to be available would have been very uncomfortable.

Prior to surgery, I purchased two camisoles that I would wear for 12 days following surgery. The camisoles had pockets for the drains carrying fluid from the incision sites on my left and right sides.

The day of my surgery, I wore sweat pants and a zip front sweatshirt with a hood, which I also wore home. It was an easy outfit to get in and out of, especially over bandages and I didn’t have to lift my arms.

For the first two weeks after my surgery, the hospital arranged for a visiting nurse service to look in on me several times to check my bandages and the amount of fluid draining from my incisions.  They were on call for emergencies and when one of the drains stopped functioning they sent a nurse. It really was a comfort to have this service available.

Most importantly, having the company and care of a loved one and the visits of friends and family, from time to time, really helped me to recuperate. Having my kitchen and office easy to use made all the difference.

Recently, I came across a site that provides insight into all the aspects of planning for having and recovering from a mastectomy covering the medical, physical and emotional as well as the practical tips for making the process easier. I will share this information in my next post.