On a recent road trip my sweetie offered up a riddle to me and my best gal-friend, Jacqui. Wanna give it a shot? Here it is:

A man and his son were in a serious accident. The man and his son were rushed to two separate hospitals. As the boy was delivered into the operating room, the surgeon said, "I can't perform this surgery; this is my son." How is this possible?

Here, I'll let you think on it for a sec over a pretty picture.

Before I give you the answer, I have to mention, this riddle was maybe the dozenth that we'd heard that car trip, and Jacqui and I had kinda been killin' it. Maybe it was our assume-nothing medical training (we're in our 3rd year of naturopathic medical school), or maybe we're just a couple of smarty-pants, but we'd immediately gotten the correct answers to most of the riddles that day.

Our immediate response to this one (because we're so progressive and open-minded) was: the son had two dads. Not a bad answer. But the published answer was: the surgeon was the boy's mother.

Of course, the irony of sitting with two female medical students who hadn't considered the possibility that the surgeon could be a woman was not lost on my sweetie. Before he gave us the answer he urged us to try again, and watched in disbelief as we fumbled for an explanation as delightful as the great gay- or multiple-dads scenario.

So maybe despite being women who are studying to be doctors, we still aren't as open-minded and progressive as I thought. I just hope that actions do speak louder than words.

After almost two years of medical education, my cooking and eating has become increasingly informed by nuances of pathophysiology, nutrition research and herbalism. I'm not a master of the wonderful information that's been hurled my direction, but thankfully some of it makes its way into the food. I try to spare you the details, because I understand that not everyone is as into physiology and nutrition as I am, but if you are, holler at me and I'll have a jolly time converting dry medical lingo into something that actually makes sense.

This past couple weeks have been all about sugar, blood sugar and type II diabetes for me. A silent in-class vow to myself to keep the sugar spikes less spikey (and hopefully spare my pancreas some trouble and decrease my risk for diabetes) prompted this week's treat: low glycemic fruit salad! After all, ambrosia--food of the gods in ancient Greek mythology--was thought to impart immortality. Kinda fitting, I'd say.

With the assistance of this chart, a list of blood sugar-regulating herbs that I've been slowly assembling, and some lessons from our nutrition course this term, I've devised a little ambrosia that is easy on the ol' pancreatic beta cells. The fruit was chosen for its low glycemic load, and the toppings for their ability to help the body manage the sugars in the fruit.* The end result is pretty close to how I imagine Greek gods would have it: pure delicious food for the soul.

I also especially wanted to highlight fresh strawberries and blueberries because they are just about to hit the farmers markets here in Portland and I wanted you to have an excuse to buy them right away. Maybe bring this little number to a barbeque or picnic?

Refreshed Ambrosia Fruit Salad (GF)

Finely chop the apple, pear and strawberries and add them to a mixing bowl with the blueberries. In a smaller bowl, prepare the dressing by combining the yogurt, almond butter and coconut. Top the fruit with the dressing and fold the pile of deliciousness together gently until incorporated. Scoop the salad into your prettiest, travel-hardy serving dish and top with a little mound of freshly ground cinnamon, a few sprinkles of hibiscus flowers and a handful of almonds (soaked and dehydrated are so great).

* Hibiscus is an exception. It has its own special powers, but they are not directly related to blood sugar management.

Friends, I've shared my love for egg tacos before, but they've really developed into something that deserves another post. Even before taking a turn for the amazing, egg tacos were (and remain) not only delicious but also quick and tidy--how long does it take to fry an egg? And how long does it take to clean up the cast iron after? The answers are 3 and 0 minutes, respectively. It's brilliant to have dinner started, eaten, and cleaned up in under 8 minutes. I know it's not ideal to cook and eat quickly; our physiology instructor made sure we understood the cephalic phase of digestion (digestion really begins in your brain as you think about what you want to eat, prepare it, take in the aromas and lovely sights of your food). However, naturopathic school is a guaranteed four years of irony, and sometimes a girl's gotta prioritize studying over food gawking, dear cephalic phase. So my beloved egg tacos, quick, tidy, protein-filled and gluten free have become the statistical mode in my kitchen.

Ok, so they're convenient, but a jar of fabulous plum chutney gifted by a friend took them from delicious to eating these will never get old. Yeah, chutney. Do you eat chutney often? It's a little rare in my food scene, so I wasn't sure how to use it at first; it hung out with tempeh, and starred in a salad dressing or two, before finding it's true calling as a flavoring in the egg taco. Not only does chutney increase the tasty factor, but it elevates the egg taco to truly American status--and I mean something pretty specific when I call a food "American".

What is American food? Instead of the term conjuring up images of hotdogs, hamburgers and potato salads, I posit that American food really boasts a more complex definition. It's food that is made of ingredients that are themselves already a processed food (for example, chutney and corn tortillas) and are likely to come from more than one cultural tradition (again, chutney and corn tortillas). American food is what happens when international shipping is undertaken on a currency-backed whim, and when ingredients from disparate cultural traditions hang out at the same grocery store. Suddenly, bacon-wrapped sriracha! Green tea mochi ice cream balls! Quinoa skillet bread! It's marginally more pride-worthy than hot dogs and hamburgers.

So here's my little American meal: corn tortillas from Central America; chutney from India with a stopover in Great Britain; parmesan from Italy; and fried eggs, from...who knows where the fried egg comes from? All topped with something colorful or fresh for the old cephalic phase.

I served them to my sweetheart the other night and we downed a half dozen in 20 minutes. Also very American of us.

If you know me, or if you've spent any time poking around SweetAllium, you know that being a student is a huge part of my life right now. I have the opportunity to reflect on this daily, during my bike commute to school. Maybe it's because my medical college is perched just perfectly so on a hill--a hill with a grade and contour that consistently forces me to question my motives for climbing it. It's perfectly summittable, but it demands my attention and redetermination every day.

Of course, the hill isn't just a hill, it's a metaphor for this whole project of becoming a doctor. This is a slog, I say to myself every day. Is it worth it? How much longer can I keep this up?

When I was twenty-one, my mom and I spent a summer bike touring from Paris, over the Pyrenees and across northern Spain to a small town called Santiago de Compostela. Our route followed the Camino de Santiago, a centuries-old pilgrimage route, traditionally completed on foot. There exists a whole infrastructure and culture around the pilgrimage; townsfolk along the way are genuinely pleased to witness the travelers' efforts, and fellow pilgrims offer encouragement and support as much as they can.

"Animo! Animo!" would shout the Italian pilgrims. Give it life, little bicyclist, give life to your effort. The French onlookers would shout, "Courage!", rhyming with the English word "garage" and lending the sentiment: Give it heart. Here's a little bit of mine. Give it heart!

The pilgrimage didn't feel like a slog, except for the day that we struggled toward the highest pass over the Pyrenees. We pushed our bikes up the paths on foot, even then gasping for air. The slopes were steep enough that we could hear rainfall from clouds that were meters downhill from us. I suspect (or hope) this is where we are in our medical program right now. Throwing our life and our hearts into the effort.

Courage, little pilgrim.

My cohort is in the middle of a four-part class series called Pathology. It's exciting and interesting if you're into pictures of malformed tissues and details of aberrant cytokine patterns.

We have such packed schedules that I often try to eat lunch during Pathology lecture. Every time, though, I'm rudely reminded that the projected images can be disturbing. They're gross--sometimes stomach-wrenching gross--until I remember that these are people's bodies, and then, actually, it's heart-wrenching and sad.

I bring it up because this is an important, and I think affirming, distinction. It is the difference between thinking of disease states as being:

• pathology--the body doing something wrong, versus

• adaptive physiology--the body doing the best it can considering its setbacks and resources.

So when we see a slide of something gross like lung hepatization or aortic atherosclerosis, we're really just viewing the aftermath of the body's heart-wrenching struggle to make do. And heart-wrenching isn't more pleasant than stomach-wrenching, but at least I can eat.