Why I'm doing this

I realised that this blog will take some time to get rolling, and I'm going to need to do something to keep everyone interested until the suggestions start rolling in. So I decided that I should write a bit more about the motivations behind this project.  And forgive me as it may get a bit long winded.
I turned 30 last week (Thursday to be exact) and last night was the party for it, thankfully I was not hungover this morning.  Now when talking with a friend of mine I found out that he thought that what I was searching for was going to be my last proper meal ever.  This is not the case,  this search is for the "last meal" that will go through my colon. I'll have the surgery, they'll take out the colon, and in return I'll have bag on the outside of my body doing most of what the colon was supposed to. It'll take some time, but in theory within a few months after the surgery I will be able to properly eat a meal. There will be a period where I will be going through a liquid only diet, a bland diet, a low fibre/low impact diet and in time I'll go back to solid foods and proper meals. I'll still have a bag attached to my stomach for when my body is done with said meal (there is no real delicate way to put it).

So if the change to what I can eat is only temporary, then why am I doing this?

 For me Ulcerative Colitis has been a disease of "whens" not "ifs".  I've been on two drugs almost the entire time, Salofalk and Prednisone. We have tried other courses of action. Last year I was on a drug called Imuran, which put me in the hospital as the drug caused me to develop Pancreatitis.  A  couple of months ago I was on Remicade, the first dose of this drug gave me Serum Sickness, when we tried it again I went in anaphylaxis. With the failure of both medications it leaves me with Prednisone.  And Prednisone is not a pretty drug.
 Let's say I attempt to stay on Prednisone and I manage to keep the disease under control and my colon lasts another 10-15 years, I will develop diabetes and osteoporosis from the long term use of Prednisone. During this period the risk of me developing colon cancer shoots up dramatically, and my colon would get removed due to cancer. If I stay the course I'm on now, and continue with my medication regime.  My medical life become a series of "whens".  "When will I develop diabetes?". "When will I develop osteoporosis?".  "When will I develop cancer?".  And after all of that I will still each the inevitable "When will they remove my colon?".  Ultimately this is my choice in the end.

There is a difference between knowing something is going to happen and being ready for it, and quite simply I'm not ready for it.  Which is why this blog and my search for this "Last Meal" exists, it's a form of therapy to help get me to that point.

 When I was a kid I wanted to be a chef. And in the end I got there, I worked in restaurants, I graduated from culinary school. But I realised it wasn't the being a chef that I was in love with it was food and cooking. In fact working in a kitchen made me miserable. Except for the first restaurant that I got a job at.

I remember being in high school and working as a dishwasher in a small restaurant. And at the end of the night I had to sweep and mop the kitchen.  But at the end of the night there was a specific smell, it was a mix of all of the herbs and spices that the Chef used that would accumulate on the floor, and in sweeping them up they would mix together and fill the air. That would have been 13-14 years ago. A couple of years ago I went into small grocery store and I can't explain it but as I was walking through the store there was the exact same smell in the air, and I was flooded with memories. The wait staff that was there, specific CDs that the chef would play when it got busy. The restaurant doesn't exist anymore, and that makes me a little sad, as they were like family and not only did it mark a period in my life, but it helped me define who I am today. There are dishes and sauces that I learned there that I still make from time to time, and when I do that it's the same rush of memories and feelings.
What I'm trying to say is that with food there are memories, the two are forever linked.  This blog is as much about the emotions and stories that are tied with food, as it is about the food itself. So I don't just want to know what I should have, but I want to know why I should have it.  And it doesn't necessarily need to be realistic.  If you were on road trip and you stopped at a diner in Kentucky and ordered a burger, and that the burger was the greatest burger you had ever eaten. I want to know where it was, I want to know what made that burger awesome, but most of all I want to know the story that lead you to that burger, and why you think I should go track that burger down.

Write me, tell me what I should eat and why.
And if any of you know Belle & Sebastian, I sent them a request through their website, tell them to check their mail.
Thanks
Jason
TheLastSupperProject@gmail.com