When Your Regular Rotation Dish Wakes You Up at 3AM

Do you blame the chicken, or the cook?

This is why cooking stresses me out, the constant fear of getting sick (or making other people sick) because I have NO CONFIDENCE.

I made my one-and-only regular rotation dish last night (second time in a month!). I used a meat thermometer to combat my Fear of Fowl (TM) and cooked the darn dish for fifteen minutes longer than the recipe called for because that's what I did last time and because I don't trust my oven, but, honestly, that's the oven's fault.

Tasted great. I may have had two servings while watching the latest episode of The Blacklist and then catching a freebie version of Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 (don't judge) and wondering if men can actually love a woman like Edward loves Bella Swan.

Everything's fine until 3AM when I awaken to a noisy tummy and the need to, you know, go, and I start calculating when I had dinner (7PM) and wondering if botulism can kick in that fast and then wondering if it could be the dinner I had out the night before (filet mignon, something I will never, ever attempt to cook). How do people or the CDC ever pinpoint what, exactly, made them sick when food poisoning is indeed the culprit?


Anyhow, it's 3AM, and I go. It's OK. It's normal. (TMI?) I did have a late-day coffee, but that usually just means a pee trip in the middle of the night, not poo. And most people don't need to poo in the loo at 2 in the morning because, apparently, the "intelligent neurons in our gut that control colon contractions, which push out waste, are also influenced by your body’s circadian rhythm." 

And it's true: I rarely need to do #2 in the middle of the night, but last night I did, and, of course, I start thinking it's because of what I cooked.

My stomach calmed down (hello, GasX!) and I went back to sleep. 

When I got up this AM, however, I wondered about my normally very regular morning constitutional and whether it would happen or if last night's Witching Hour Dump would count for it.

Do you really want to know?

Of course you do.

I went again this morning, but ALL WAS NORMAL.

And I feel fine.

As for the early morning bathroom trek, I blame it on the onions, a food that is known for making me, well, you know.

So the bad news: I now have a Regular Rotation Meal that I can only cook for myself (LOL—as if there's someone else to cook for!) because I'm fearful now. Now—ha. I mean more so than usual.

Questions for you:

• Do I eat the leftovers, which I had been planning on doing? (Probably.)
• What foods/dishes wake you up at 3AM?
• Have you ever had food poisoning? What was the culprit? HOW DO YOU KNOW?
• Multiple choice: Am I crazy? 1) Yes. 2) No. 3) Yes, but that's OK because the whole world is and at least you're trying to be entertaining.

There's only one acceptable answer to that last question, BTW.