When I was younger, I used to be highly allergic to legumes, namely peas. Actually, I was allergic to just about everything, but back to the peas - it was bad enough that I could take a single pea, stick it on the back of my tongue, swallow it and I would still have a reaction. Of course, once my 'friends' got word of this, they would try to slip peas into my food in hopes of seeing me suffer.

Fortunately, I have managed to outgrow all of my allergies and haven't had any sort of reaction for about 10 years…until last night, that is. Dana, Dave and were amidst a food tour of the West Village and stopped off to get some falafel. For whatever reason, I started to have a pretty serious reaction to the chickpeas; my lips began to swell up and my throat started to constrict. Dana got very nervous (much more-so than me) and went into full disaster control mode, insisting that we get to a drug store and buy some Benadryl immediately to keep me from going into anaphylactic shock. I guess med school made trying to kill me a little less funny.