I've been clicking through Wild Flowers from Castle Country for a couple of days now. I'm captivated by it.
I'm also deathly allergic to Buckwheat. Which is why I'm stuck on this page. I'm not sure if this is the same species of buckwheat they use in food, but it's interesting to see what buckwheat looks like.
Most people think buckwheat is a flour--because of the wheat part of the word--but I've always known it is, in fact, a flower, the hulls of which are used often in cooking. I've known it because ingesting it sends me straight to the ER where I end up on IV Benedryl, sometimes adrenelin, and nebulizer treatments to keep me breathing.
It's the only anaphalactic allergy I have, and I've had it since I was born. My brother too. Sleep overs at our friends' houses, with pancakes greeting us in the morning, usually resulted in my mom meeting us at the Emergency room, or calls from our friends' parents saying, "I'm not sure what's wrong with Jeneane, but..." or "Frank seems to be having trouble breathing, I don't understand..."
It's an odd allergy to have. In upstate New York, where they know how to make pizza, buckwheat is sometimes used on the bottom of the dough to keep it from sticking to the pizza pans. Only someone allergic to buckwheat would know this. Whenever we'd call for a pizza, I would have to ask, "do you use buckwheat on the bottom of your pizzas?" More than once I was greeted with a dial tone, the pizza tosser sure it was a prank call. Like, "Do you have prince albert in a can?"
Usually I'd lie when asked by my mom, "Well do they?" I'd say, "Yep," rather than admit I'd been hung up on.
sigh.
Today buckwheat is big on the health food circuit. It's is what Japanese soba noodles are made from; it's in those little pillows that go round your neck for driving; It's in some breads. It's everywhere.
And I'm still watching out for it. My brother too.
So if we have a blogger lunch sometime, no tricks. 'Kay?
Off to pack...
