Ever since I was diagnosed with celiac, everyone has been telling me how great it is that I’m going gluten-free. They bring me gluten-free muffins and send me links to new recipes for cornbread and piecrust. They’re waiting for me to embrace my new reality, and I want to be grateful, really I do. But try as I might, I still haven’t discovered the upside of giving up gluten. Maybe I’ll get there, but right now I’m working on making it through my errands without having a mini-breakdown.
For example, today I really felt like making angel food cake with chocolate frosting. It’s a favorite of mine. But angel food cake is all about fluffy, airy stretchiness and, as we all know, if you want a cake like that, you need gluten. So when I walked down the aisle with the angel food cake mixes (okay, I don’t bake this from scratch – shoot me), I had to put on my dark glasses so all the other shoppers wouldn’t think I was going through a bad divorce. Yesterday was similar, except yesterday I was fantasizing about chicken pot pie with a buttermilk biscuit crust. Different aisle, same sunglasses.
Angel food cake.
You think I’m exaggerating, and I wish I were. I’m not proud of my obsessive focus on food, or my inability to recognize – no matter how often I’m told – how fortunate I am to be eating the same diet as Gwyneth Paltrow. I’ve been working on a little list of reasons I should be grateful I’m gluten-free, a list I can pull out every time I start to feel pissed off about never, ever again taking bite of sourdough bread without feeling guilty.
In case you ever start feeling sad about having celiac disease, I will share my list with you. I’ll give you a sneak peek right now, of just the first reason. Tomorrow and the next day, I’ll tell you the rest. Then you, too, will be able to look on the bright side of gluten-free. In a world without angel food cake, you need a nice list every now and again.
How lucky am I to have celiac? Let me count the ways…
- I’ve been diagnosed! A lot of people with celiac go to doctor after doctor trying to figure out why they feel so lousy, only to be misdiagnosed or told it’s all in their head. So, and this is what my doctor says, how wonderful that I know for sure I have celiac. But here’s the thing: I got my diagnosis out of the blue, when I felt just fine. What would you rather do: feel fine and eat whatever you want, or feel fine and order “grilled chicken, no sauce,” when you go out for Thai food? I know it’s wrong, but in this case I would definitely go for blissful, glutinous ignorance.
Tune in tomorrow for more reasons to be glad you’ve got celiac. Woo hoo. Really.
Today’s Treat: Black Salt Caramel Bar, by Vosges. It is ridiculously expensive, so expensive I am too ashamed to tell you how much it costs. I hide the bar in my desk and my daughters find it. Then we have a little fight about how to divide it up. Then I go back to the store the next day and buy another one. It’s better than Oxycontin (not that I would know). www.vosgeschocolate.com, but I buy them at Whole Foods and New Leaf in Santa Cruz. BTW – Vosges sells gluten-free truffles, too. And yet they don’t identify my favorite candy bar as “gluten-free.” Which makes me wonder…. But not enough to do anything about it.
Black Salt Caramel Bar, hiding with the flashcards.
Bye-bye for now,
Enid
glutenfreebitches.com 
It’s true, The Black Salt Carmel Bar is so much better than the Oxycontin and I’ve never tried that particular choclate bar.
I love how it is so easy to rationalize hiding a candy bar from your kids especially when you are newly gluten free. Newbies tend to wear the “you touch that candy bar and you’re dead meat” look on their faces and the kids resolve not to come within 10 feet of the candy bar and even flinch when you lean in to kiss them goodnight.
Great website!