Archive by Author

But to be nice for just a minute… First things first.

30 Jan

When I told the kids I had to go gluten-free, one of their first questions was, “What about the pancakes??”

We’re big into breakfast around here, and when we have something besides eggs it is usually pancakes.  Baba’s cottage cheese pancakes.  Baba is my mother.  Her pancakes are amazing, very high in protein (you’ll see), and just basically perfect in every way.  Light like a crepe, but toothsome, and a bit sour (again like a crepe, or like a very smooth sourdough pancake).

So, within 48 hours of getting the dreaded diagnosis, there I was, mixing up a test batch of pancakes with my new g-f flour mix, hoping against hope that they would taste at least okay.

And here’s the good part:  they taste just the same as when I made them with wheat flour. 

Moment of surpassing joy.   Let’s all pause and enjoy it, because since I’ve gone gluten-free those moments don’t happen too often, at least not in reference to food.

Baba's Cottage Cheese Pancakes, after two Margaritas! Did I mention they're good for dinner, too??

So, even though you aren’t going to see a lot of recipes on this blog, in this case I’m going to make an exception.  I hope you enjoy them!

Baba’s Cottage Cheese Pancakes 

8 extra large eggs

2 cups (16 oz) small curd cottage cheese  (one medium container)

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 Tablespoons oil (I use melted coconut oil, but canola works fine too)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup  gluten-free flour (see my favorite concoction, below)

To Do:  Add all ingredients to the large bowl of your food processor.  Blend well (until you don’t see any more curds).  Melt butter on the griddle and cook as any other pancake recipe.  Finished pancakes should be about 3 inches in diameter.

Serves 4.

My friend Terry, who is a gluten-free chef, came running to my rescue right after my diagnosis.   I’ll talk more about her later.  But for now, here is her gluten-free flour mix:

Terry’s Gluten-Free Flour Mix

½ cup rice flour (white or brown – I use white)

¼ cup tapioca flour

¼ cup corn starch

 

Mix it up – and do a good job, because this stuff won’t work if it isn’t blended.  Then put it in a jar. Presto – you’re a gluten-free baker!

Today’s Treat:  I went out to lunch in Los Gatos today with my friend Allison, and because she is so wonderful she asked the waiter if they had any gluten-free desserts. And they did!  So my treat today was pomegranate panna cotta on an almond meringue crust.  Delish!  Go have some yourself (and share the ridiculously priced but fabulous Steak Cobb Salad with a friend.)  www.steamers-restaurant.com.

Bye-bye for now,

Enid

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The Daily Bitch… Goodbye to all that.

27 Jan

Here are two things I’ve been meaning to do: 

Learn to make a perfect, killer, fluffy, rich chocolate cake, and become the kind of woman who is always pulling a loaf of gorgeously rustic, crusty-yet-tender homemade bread out of her oven.

I was waiting to learn both of those skills until I had a little bit more time, until my children were in college, until I found the right friend, or book, or teacher.  Sometimes I would fantasize about learning to bake these things, and I would see myself  (a thinner, wiser, more beautiful and evolved version of me, wearing a cute apron) standing in my kitchen admiring the perfect cake or bread I had just produced.

Yep. Look at that beautiful, crusty bread.

I have aunts and cousins and friends who bake cake and bread frequently and well. Just as I have friends and relations who run marathons, keep immaculate homes, and curl their eyelashes.  I would like to be a tidy, wide-eyed long distance runner too, but what I really focused on during my fantasies was the cake and the bread.  Tall, fluffy, toothsome cakes and breads.  Yum.

But now it’s too late. 

While I was busy in my dream state, planning all those delicacies, cutting out all those recipes, creating files for them, reading New York Times articles about the new, fool-proof bread-making method, so easy that even a child could make it, my body was busy screwing me over.  Silently.  I was trying to decide whether I wanted to begin with a francese or a sourdough, and wondering if Cousin Wendy would give me some of her twenty-year-old starter, while unbeknownst to me the cilia in my intestines were lying down and playing dead.

I guess that’s what they mean by Carpe Diem.  All the time I was supposed to be seizing, all I was doing was dreaming.  Now I am a celiac person (I really don’t like that whole “patient” thing), and my reality is gluten-free.

At least there are cocktails.

Today’s Treat:  Lillet blanc on the rocks, with a tangerine twist.  Dark chocolate-covered almonds for dessert.  www.lillet.com (I buy it at Whole Foods); http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/954 (almonds available online, at Whole Foods near you, or at Trader Joes).

Bye-bye for now,

Enid

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Daily Bitch…. You’re Telling Me!

25 Jan

 How I found out…

It came in the mail.  I thought it was a doctor’s bill (God knows between me, my husband, and the three kids we rack up the medical expenses).  Instead it was a test result.  One line.  “You test positive for celiac disease.”

And I said — to myself since I was the only one in the kitchen — “What in the hell is celiac?”  Then, since we’re living in the Information Age, I went directly to Google and looked it up.

It was that obnoxious doctor who ordered the test, the one who never looked me in the eye, just kept tapping on the keyboard and sent me to the lab for ten tubes of blood tests.  There was no reason for him to order some assessment for some disease I’d never heard of, wasn’t symptomatic for, and didn’t (don’t!) want to have.

I needed a celiac diagnosis like a car crash.  A car crash that happens on a Wednesday, then keeps happening every time you sit down to a meal for as long as you live.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating.  But just a little bit.  Celiac means giving up gluten, by which I mean wheat, by which I mean cake and bread and muffins and flakey piecrust.  You know… everything fluffy and crispy and stretchy and delicious that you can ever imagine.

Humankind reveres gluten.

From the Bible to the ancient world to Shakespeare, to Marie Antoinette, it’s all they talk about.

Bread and circuses.   That’s what the Romans said the masses love.  I love that.  Sourdough bread and a lady in a spangly dress balancing on the back of a horse.  Yay!

Bread and wine.  Yum.  Francese with fresh olive oil and a glass of pinot noir.  Have I anchored a hundred dinners just that way? Yes I have.

Let them eat cake.  Let ME eat cake.

You get the idea.  The truth is, the first thing I did after my diagnosis was finally confirmed (biopsy, genetic testing, the whole enchilada) was go out and buy myself a “farewell cake”.  I’m posting a picture of it here.  Boy was it good.   Everyone sang “Happy Gluten to You”, then I ate a big piece.  I’ll tell you another day what happened next.

The Best Chocolate Cake in the World. Loaded with gluten, but Oh Baby!! http://www.butterybakery.com

Here are some things I love to do:

1.  Go to the market and buy delicious things. Scrumptious ingredients to bring home and bake.  Delicious cookies and crackers and toffee almonds and cranberry almond loaf and everything else I might see, and want, on the grocery shelves.  It’s like going to a jewelry store.  I adore the market!  I go every day.  I like to do it that way because – really? – how do you know what you’ll want to eat for dinner until you get there and see what looks good?

Now I go to the market in dark glasses because sometimes I start to cry in the bakery section.

2.  Go out to eat.  I love to see what someone else — a chef — thought of making.  I love the whole menu.  I love the surprise!

I can't understand all the words, but I still want to try every dish.

I like to pick what I eat, then taste everyone else’s food, too.  We are big sharers in my family; when we eat out, there is a veritable dance of forks in the middle of the table as we bob and weave, spearing bites of buttermilk fried chicken and pumpkin ravioli off each others’ plates.

I do not like to pick the one gluten-free thing out of 12 – and let’s be honest, most of the time it’s a grilled fish – and just order that.  With no sauce and no sharing.

Not that I don’t like fish — I do.  I just want to choose the fish, instead of settling for it.

Almost done, now!

Sarah and I may do our fair share of complaining on this site, but we do – sometimes – like to look on the bright side.  So, every time I post I am going to let you, our faithful readers, know about at least one thing I ate recently that was both (1) delicious and (2) gluten-free.  Because, even though that class of foods is very, very small… it does exist!

So, here’s my first daily offering.  I hope you like it!

Today’s Treat:  Chocolate macaroons with Orange Dulce tea. I’m so happy that, even when you put milk and sugar in it (and I always do), tea is always gluten-free.  http://www.macaronstore.com/Chocolate-Macaron-12-Pack.html; http://www.mightyleaf.com/product/orange-dulce-black-tea-pouches/.

Bye-bye for now (isn’t that what the bitchy popular girls say?),

Enid

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Newer Entries →

%d bloggers like this: