French Word of the Day: essence (es- sawn-suh)- essence

I had a fabulous 25th birthday.  I felt extremely spoiled by the end of it.  There was lots of merriment and food, just as every quarter century celebration should have.

One thing I’ve developed courtesy of some of my medication is lactose intolerance.  I didn’t even know medicine could cause that until I got sick every time I ate a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.  (Don’t judge.  You know you’ve done it.) It became a problem when I lived in Paris because those French people are practically made entirely of dairy products, but I’ve been doing decently okay here.

I used to still be able to tolerate butter, but I haven’t been able to after this last round of medicines.  As you might imagine, this has limited my options at restaurants.  They like to sneak it in, so I always have to ask.  I’ve had the following conversation 3 times in the last 5 days:

Me: Does this have dairy in it?

Server: It has eggs.

Me: Eggs aren’t dairy.

Server: Are you sure?

I must have missed the memo somewhere, because a large number of people are convinced that eggs come from milk.

My new butter intolerance has led to a bigger problem: I cannot eat the frosting on cake.  Frosting is an essential part of cake, ergo I am missing the essence of cake.  And guys, essence is important.  And you know what’s more important than essence?  Cake.

But luckily, my friends were on top of the situation.  My friend, Mike, researched dairy-free cakes, went out and bought a bunch of vegan butter and made me a beautiful, vegan red velvet cake.

Thank God for those vegans.  What would lactose intolerant people do without them?  I’ll tell you: not eat cake.