food handling safety
I’ve had many adventures over the past month I’ve wanted to share but between the Holiday bustle, travel and a migraine that just wouldn’t quit, I just never seemed to find the time to sit down and share my delicious world with the rest of the world.
My most recent experience, however, demanded sharing. That’s because unlike the many wildly indulgent experiences I either invent or am invited to share, (my goal is to live life like Auntie Mame), my latest adventure results in a cautionary tale.
Life of Reiley, Eat Something Sexy’s parent company, has a black book full of wonderful people who work with us throughout the year on various projects. Many of them, (including our Cordon Bleu interns, my genius team at Ink Public Relations, our book designer and even the co-author on my next book, The Love Diet, live in Los Angeles). As a thank you for their support the whole year through, I like to celebrate with a Christmas lunch in our test kitchen and classroom – a creative and cooking space in which most of Life of Reiley’s magic happens.
The lunch’s theme was going to be recipes Chef Juan-Carlos Cruz and I were testing for The Love Diet. After 3 hours of cooking, the stage was set and the guests began to arrive. The menu included my limoncello cocktail; chocolate-kissed white bean chili; Chrysta Wilson’s corn bundt; anchovy toasts with a side of whole wheat pasta; crab salad; blueberry egg bread french toast and chocolate mint cookies.
The party was lovely, a modern day salon of sorts during which the wine flowed freely. But of course, all good things come to an end and as I began cleaning up 7 hours after the festivities began, I realized that I was hungry again.
There was a small scrap of crab salad left on the table. “Just a light snack,” I thought. “This will be perfect.” And I ate.
And that was the last time I ate for many days.
If you haven’t figured it out already, I did an incredibly thoughtless and foolish thing. You don’t eat crab – especially crab that has been mixed with cream cheese – that has been sitting on the table for 7 hours, kids! … Unless you’re looking for a full body cleanse. And even then, there are kinder, gentler ways to fully clean your system out of any speck of food that ever may have shared rent with your digestive system.
I will save you the details but I will try to impress upon you the severity of seafood poisoning by saying that it wasn’t until 4 days later that I was able to eat anything more than crackers and ginger ale, (with the occasional sip of coconut water mixed in to try to save my potassium levels).
And if you think that its worth the risk if its only a few bites?… No, no. No, no. It couldn’t have been more than two tablespoons of crab on my fork that fateful night. But 2 tbsp is enough to cause a 3 day horizontal dance with the dark side.
Merry Christmas to all and to all safe food handling.
I will keep this in mind as I enjoy my first CA dungeness crab season.