Thanksgiving 2011

 Thanksgiving Dinner with my parents and husband:

 Butternut Squash and Quinoa Au Gratin

 Waldorf Salad

 Mashed potato casserole with cheddar, bacon and cream cheese.

 Stuffing (Pepperidge Farm)

 Pumpkin, Apple and Cherry

Yummy food. Great company. Thankful for a lot today. Too full to say more. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

A Diagnosis for Hops

First things first, we finally (only a month to the day after he had his first really bad day) found out Hops' diagnosis. He went in for his upper GI check on November 4th and we thought they would go in, stretch it out and he would be all set. Turns out, the doctor couldn't stretch his throat out. It was so swollen and so tight from the swelling that there wasn't much he could do in there. They woke Hops up, brought me in to sit with him while he woke up and then had us wait for the doctor. I find this pretty funny - while Hops was waking up from the anestesia, I could tell he really wanted to say something. He mumbled a few things first then he finally came out with, "They gave me the same stuff that killed Michael!" Haha. Yes, dear. The nurse got a good laugh out of that one.

Once he was up and awake, we met with the doctor who told us the news that he wasn't able to do much while he was in there. He showed us the pictures they took while Hops was under. There were mulitple swollen rings around the bottom of his esophagus. The doc told us he thought they were due to an allergy but we would have to wait for the diagnosis to be sure. We waited 10 business days to finally get the diagnosis. That really frustrated me. No one at the Raleigh Endoscopy offices seemed to want to help us when I would call. I explained that my husband "can't eat solid foods" and that got him a prescription for Prevacid. 8 days later, I finally got a hold of his nurse who apparently is the only one who is able to give us his diagnosis, which I find ridiculous. Turns out, his problem is an allergy to something in the air or in food. He has Eosynicphillic Esophagitis. They gave him another prescription - this one for an inhaler called Flovent. The nurse then told me she would call the allergist and they would call to set up an appointment. Well, guess what? Thursday and Friday went by without getting a call. I guess I'll be calling them on Monday to set up that appointment.

Can you tell how frustrated I am with doctors offices right now? My husband has been eating soft foods for over a month. We're coming up on Thanksgiving. Is he going to be able to eat turkey? I have no idea. I'm super frustrated with how long it's taken to get this all figured out, though. Not only does Hops have to go to the allergist now to see what he is allergic to but then, of course, he has to go see the doctor who did his procedure after he finds out his allergies for a "follow-up." Frustrated!

I'm hoping the Flovent will at least alleviate some of the swelling so he will be able to eat a normal Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday!

New Favorite Pizza Place in Raleigh: Frank's Pizza

This is exciting news, people. We found pizza in Raleigh, North Carolina that reminds us of pizza we had up north! We did some googling of pizza places on Friday evening. We decided to check out Yelp to see what they had to say.

We haven't had Lilly's pizza but I heard some bad reviews about service at their restaurant. We have eaten at Mellow Mushroom. It's good pizza but it is not New York style pizza. We hadn't heard of Moonlight or Frank's, so we decided to go to Frank's. It's closer to us than Moonlight and it has an Italian guy's name for the restaurant name. Good reasons, right? Also, check out those reviews. Better reviews than even the #1 place on the list.

My favorite things about the reviews were that the servers were friendly and helpful, the pizza and every other item on the menu was delicious and (this just made me laugh) every reviewer mentioned the sketchy 'hood. We decided a neighborhood can't scare us off from good pizza made by good people.

We headed down New Bern to the 2000 block. We didn't see any signs for the restaurant but we figured it was in the strip mall that we passed before hitting the stop light. We made a U-turn and headed back up to the shopping center. By shopping center, I mean pawn shop, musical instrument (aka: subwoofers) shop and a lot of empty stores. We found Franks and headed in, bracing ourselves for an interesting experience. Interesting experience? Come on! It was awesome! Totally the type of pizza place we like. Old school pizza shop with an old Italian dude making pizza behind the counter. We walked in and were greeted pleasantly by one of the servers. She showed us to a menu since we were getting take-out and left us alone until we were ready to order. We ordered a large pepperoni pizza and a mushroom calzone. It took about 15 minutes for our food to come out. This was around 3:30pm on a Saturday. Their business was steady but not busy at that time of day.

We chatted with the staff who checked us out - an older woman who was sweet as could be - and the same waitress who took our order. Finally, we headed home with our food. I'll admit, we snuck a peek in the car. It looked perfect. The calzone was bigger than my head. Proof.

Husband thought it would be funny to take a picture of his wife sneaking a bite of the calzone after I was officially done eating dinner for the day. Objects in camerapicture are as large as they appear. Size. Of. Head. Or larger.

Verdict: The overall look and smell of the pizza was superb. The sauce was the best I have had, perhaps ever. It is very much like Don P. The calzone was huge, amazing and so delicious. A perfect blend of cheeses, dough, spinach and mushrooms. The pizza was greasy (blotting was necessary) and flexible but not flimsy. A perfect slice.

Good job, Frank's. After 6 years in Raleigh, you have officially earned our business. We may just eat at your restaurant some day! That's big talk from these two homebodies.