Squash bugs and progressive Oral Allergy Syndrome

No, I’m not proposing a link between the two. Except in my mind this morning.

I just finished braiding four dozen yellow onions, so they can be hung in the kitchen for Jan to use in his cooking (I’ll post about that later). Then I took a stroll through the garden to see what’s what today, which is my very favoritest thing about gardening. The tomatoes are coming along, and I keep looking for signs of red creeping into the green fruits. And I’m particularly excited about the pattypan squash that our neighbor, Rick, gave us. So I squat down and take a peek:

Ack! Squash bugs (I’ve taken the liberty of circling both the bugs and the squash for you, so you can tell them apart). Grrr. They already took down my zucchini, which I had to pull out prematurely. They will NOT get my pattypan. I’m too squeamish to pick the bugs and smoosh them (and I’ve heard they stink terribly), but I looked under every leaf and found the eggs. I tried flicking them off, but they were stuck too well. So I tore off the part of the leaves that had eggs stuck to them and threw them in the garbage. Not the compost. Diseased and infested garden waste should not be cycled back into your precious compost, to be evenly distributed throughout your lovely garden.

Anyway, I’ll try to corral Jan into catching the bugs when he gets home. I think he’ll do it for the sake of the pattypans.

As I’m walking back to the house, crisis heroically averted, my hands and forearms start itching insanely. (sigh) Every year I come up allergic to something new. I feel like I’m under siege. A few years ago, after moving to McKinney (or perhaps just before?), eating fresh avocados started making my lips and mouth itch. We loooove avocados. This is tragedy territory. A few months later, cantaloupes. Then cucumbers, watermelon, apples, bananas. It doesn’t matter if they’re grown organically or conventionally. That’s the first thing many people think of, is the pesticide residues on fruit. Nope. It turns out it’s something called progressive Oral Allergy Syndrome. Jan researched it after dinner one night, when yet another fruit had made it’s way onto my itch list. “There has got to be a club for people like you”, he said, making his way to the computer and googling “allergy avocado cantaloupe”. Indeed.

OAS is apparently related to Hay Fever. I’m allergic to Ragweed (among other things), and the antibodies to the weed apparently cross-react with the proteins in a particular group of fruits. For someone who loves whole foods, it’s tragic, like I said. A small consolation is that heating these foods denatures the reactive protein(s), and I can then eat them. That’s OK with avocado, but it means that the only way I get melons is as a juice (Hot watermelon, anyone? Ick.). Fortunately, my husband is adept at making aguas frescas (family favorites are watermelon, horchata, and jamaica).

It’s very easy to tell when a new item makes my list. If at any point during a meal you hear me making a sound in the back of my throat that sounds like pig grunting (my mother calls me Felix, as in Unger), count yourself among the lucky few to witness an oral allergy progressing.