Welcome to Issue #28

Last week I took the opportunity to share some of my journey around navigating IBD. It was lovely to hear your reactions, so thank you to those of you who reached out!

Update

It's amazing to see how much my mindset has shifted in a week; reading last week's newsletter back I can feel the trepidation in my choice of language as I hoped my condition was going to improve, whilst being acutely aware the scary first infusion was mere days away.

I'm pleased to report that both went well.

Bowel habits returned to normal by Friday and I've slowly returned to a slightly less bland diet, (rather than the tiny portions of plain grilled chicken and rice five times a day). The speed at which everything settled makes me lean towards a virus flushing through my system, rather than a flare up, but we'll never know and I'm just pleased to be feeling well.

The first infusion of Vedolizumab took place Wednesday morning and although it was highly unlikely anything would go wrong, it didn't stop the nerves. The team at the hospital are fantastic. They were so reassuring and everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped. The whole process took just under three hours and I was back home in time for lunch. They did warn me that it's very common to feel tired for a few days after and yesterday I was exhausted, but otherwise the side effects so far have been imperceptible.

Any benefits are supposed to be felt between 6-12 weeks after starting the drug, so nothing to report on that front yet. I'll have my second infusion in a couple of weeks time and we'll go from there.

In terms of my mindset, I'm trying to actively hold on to (and feel grateful for) how I'm feeling today. It's so easy to slip into a spiral of 'this will never get better' when it all feels out of my control. Not only does that way of thinking slow down recovery by piling on further stress, it's simply more realistic to accept that sometimes I won't feel well, but equally know that those periods will pass and there'll be brighter days ahead.

Food

I hinted last week that I had my stag do the weekend before last. It didn't feel right to post descriptions, reviews, photos etc of a gluttonous weekend of eating and drinking when at the time I wasn't daring to risk eating anything with a hint of fibre, dairy or sugar. However there were some fantastic meals and it would be a shame not to share, so here's a whistle-stop tour of spending 24 hours eating in London.

Our first stop was at 'O ver St. James, one of the restaurants to make the 100 Best Pizzerias in the World list that I spoke about in Issue 23. I had the Parma pizza, with 24 months cured Parma ham, wild rocket and parmesan shavings. It was fantastic and I can't think of anything I would have changed. Service was brilliant too.

Dinner was at Burger and Beyond. To start we shared a large portion of fried chicken bites, vegan loaded nachos and tempura fish tacos. These were all good and I was impressed with the vegan cheese on the nachos being surprisingly tasty. The chicken went very well with the pickles and the fish tacos were nice once I picked out all the coriander!

I had the cheeseburger for a main with a side of bone marrow gravy fries, which were essentially poutine. The fries were decent but the burger was the real star. I think they must lightly grill the brioche buns because it somehow didn't fall apart despite being ridiculously juicy. The restaurant was very busy, quite noisy for my old-man ears and service was slow, although friendly.

Word of warning: I tried a bite of a friend's hot chicken burger after he complained how spicy it was. He wasn't wrong; it was insanely hot, my mouth was scorched-earth and it was really unpleasant!

And I wondered why I felt unwell the next day...

We stopped off for gelato at Bilmonte. It's up there with the highest rated ice cream parlours in London and it lived up to those reviews. I had two scoops of 'extra dark salted chocolate' alongside 'yoghurt and wild berries' and they give you a complimentary mini cone filled with melted belgian chocolate.

It was lovely, although eating ice cream at 10pm on a cold February evening was perhaps not the best idea.

Breakfast the next morning was at Duck and Waffle. Located on the 40th floor of one of London's tallest buildings, you're eating lovely food surrounded by 360 degree panoramic views of London's skyline. I've been lucky enough to eat here a few times before and it's been consistently excellent.

For breakfast I chose their version of eggs royale (salmon and poached eggs on a waffle with hollandaise sauce). It's one of my favourite breakfast dishes and of course they did it justice. My only complaint is that it was demolished within 10 minutes and I could have easily eaten a second.

It rounded off a lovely weekend away, expertly organised by my best man and was amazing to have some of my friends from all over the country make the time to come together and celebrate.

Sign Off

If you aren't already subscribed, click the button below for access to every back issue of Flavour of the Week. You can also pop your email in to get it sent straight to your inbox.

If you are already subscribed and have any feedback, you can get in touch by replying to this email and I hope to see you again for next week’s newsletter.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Adam