by Therese de Grace
Riding the Crimson Wave, it is like a scheduled monthly audience with the devil followed by amnesia from one month to the next.  Your jeans have shrunk, you begin to believe that a moo-moo is the fashion choice of the century, you are horny as hell but god for bid your partner touch you, all followed by the fact that you would eat the tail off a pig as long as it was deep fried and covered in chocolate.  My unsuspecting partner has no idea that once a month she is dangerously close to the end of her life.  Her sweet suggestion of us taking an after dinner stroll for example becomes distorted in the Menses machine that I have become and I hear “take a walk fatty,” and the crazy in unleashed.  The mere suggestion that my tantrum could possibly be related to Aunt Flo’s visit is grounds for divorce.

The scary phenomenon is that statistically 80% of us ladies suffer from PMS, pair that with the fact that we sync up and it is amazing we don’t have more triple homicides or midnight B and E’s at Dairy Queen. 

In my kitchen we are all female except for Edgar, he has the patience of a saint and should be given the Purple Heart for tolerating our new level of crazy particularly now that we have all synced up. As if our periods aren’t bad enough, the thought that we oddly all start to get them at the same time is a sick Fuck You  from Mother Nature!

I would find it completely acceptable during our quarantine if he came to work in fatigues, with an elephant tranquilizer gun strapped to his back and a turbo size can of

Bitch-Be-Gone repellent because no one’s  getting fed and theirs only one man left standing.  

During this three day Hormone-Pooloza you will find one lady chef systematically shoving truffle cake into her face, the other on the verge of tears banging food items to be chopped onto her work station because one of us hateful bastards is using her favourite cutting board and I decide that my employees are a bunch of loose lip fascist and I am moving to the forest to eat berries and get away from these soul suckers.  The insane part is that we rarely acknowledge that this is in fact our reminder of woman hood, we laugh about it when we are out of the bubble, yet amnesia sets in upon repeat of this process every month just to put our young colleague into a state of bewilderment and terror.  Our diets during this time are manic, ghetto fabulous and a constant meal that begins in the morning and ends when we are put into our straight jackets at night.  I created the receipe below as a quick an easy way to get my salty sweet fix without succumbing to Easy Cheese and Smarties.  If your hunger or anger doesn’t subside after a couple of these suckers I suggest you call the local authorities for your safety and the safety of others. 

White or Dark Chocolate Clusters 

You will need the following ingredients:
2 cups of white or dark couveture chocolate (preferably organic)
1/3 cup of raisins
¼ cup of  of dried cranberries
¼ cup of sliced almonds
¼ cups of salted sunflower seeds
¼ of a cup of salted peanuts
¼ cup of flax seeds 

Method: Melt chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave until completely melted and runny.  Remove from heat and combine all the remaining ingredients.  Drop spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet and allow to harden for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. 

These clusters will keep for up to two weeks in a airtight container. Line the bottom of your container with wax paper and lay a sheet of wax paper in between each layer of clusters. 

Chef’s tip:  This is a wheat free recipe but feel free to add muesli or granola to this mix for a richer snack.