Tag Archives: diet

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

9 Apr

Before I get going on my latest rant, let me just say that it is very likely that this post will directly contradict my last post. I’m noticing that my thoughts on being gluten-free are not very consistent and are directly related to how desperate I’m feeling.

There is a new gluten-free girl in town. I’m not going to mention her by name because I know she means well. And I don’t fault her for trying. It’s just that most of what she makes is not that good. Not even by gluten-free standards. And the thing is, I’ve had decent, even good gluten-free, so I know it can be done. But this post isn’t about her. It’s about me. It’s about how I never learn.

This woman, let’s call her Glinda, makes bread and pizza and pie, oh my! She makes muffins and cookies and scones. She even makes donuts. She was featured in an article in our local paper. I’d heard it all before, but still I got excited. It didn’t even dawn on me in that moment that it might be bad. It was in the paper. It was in black and white. And I was in denial as usual.

glinda

I took a friend who eats gluten every day without even noticing what she’s doing or how lucky she is, to try Glinda’s goods.  The case was full of gluten-free items. I had never had so many choices in one place. It felt good to linger over the possibilities. Would I have pizza or a sandwich? If I have a sandwich, what kind will it be? And the dessert choices, well if I were someone who gets giddy, I would have. We decided on a tuna sandwich and a cupcake to share. It looked promising as it arrived at our table. The bread was big, like a baguette and was all  brown and crunchy looking. It looked like a real sandwich. I picked it up but before I took a bite my fantasy and the bread began to fall apart. I tried to put it back together and took a bite. It was bad. Just like gluten-free bread always is. My friend tried to make the best of it. She said it wasn’t that bad. I’ve noticed my husband does this too and I have a theory, gluten-free doesn’t taste that bad when you know you aren’t condemned to eat it for the rest of your life. It just a theory.

The cupcake was meant to be a hostess cupcake, complete the with loopy white frosting design on the top and white filling in the middle. It wasn’t horrible; a little on the dense side. But the thing is, I never really liked hostess cupcakes in the first place. So the question I am now asking myself is why do I need a gluten-free version of something I don’t even miss?hostess

Two days later I went back to the same bakery. I bought an oatmeal cookie, a coconut cookie and a chocolate glazed donut, each one worse than the last. Why did I do this, you ask. I did it because I could.

 

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Sushi, What’s the Point?

6 Mar

I used to love sushi. Not the raw fish sushi.  The kind that comes in a roll  covered in rice and avocado and macadamia nuts and tempura anything and sweet sauce.

Last night we ordered in from our favorite Japanese restaurant. At this point I would like to remind you (and myself) that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. “I’d like a nutty shrimp” I said to the man on the other end of the phone, my voice full of regret. “But instead of tempura shrimp I will just have ebi (steamed shrimp) and a yummy yam, but instead of the tempura yam, just steamed yam, oh, and can I have those made with brown rice?”

Thirty minutes later I was dipping rolls of sticky brown rice into my wheat-free tamari and wasabi mixture, coveting the eel soaked in a sweet gluteny sauce that my husband was enjoying.  My shrimp was chewy. Have you ever noticed that shrimp on its own as no flavor whatsoever? The yam was yummy, naturally sweet. And who doesn’t love a yam wrapped in brown rice?

This morning I woke up feeling nauseous. Maybe I was unintentionally glutened.  Or maybe it was intentional.  Either way it wasn’t worth it. I’m thinking of giving up on food all together.  Can’t I just take a pill for that? I would happily go for weekly intravenous meals.

When I’m feeling blue, I sometimes call a friend, or buy a lot of shoes, or search the internet. It was too early to call anyone and my bank account is on empty so I googled.  I searched gluten-free sushi just to see what somebody else had to say on the subject.

I found one blogger extolling the virtues of sushi when dinning with friends, “… I didn’t need to do as much research upfront and I knew there would be SOMETHING I could eat (even if it was just steamed edamam). ” http://aglutenfreeguide.com/eating-sushi-is-a-gluten-free-dream.html . This made me realize I have been setting the bar a little too high. If I only had her glass-half-full attitude why I could go to any restaurant knowing that at the very least I could have a plate of lettuce.

And then this from Gluten Free: The Celiac Site

“Every celiac should develop a taste for Sushi. Consider one blogger’s  suggestion:  “Once I was diagnosed with Celiac, sushi restaurants became a haven for my gluten free dining. It’s so much easier to ask someone if they want to go for sushi than look for other gluten free friendly dining establishments. I can just grab my bottle or packets of gluten free soy sauce and head to the restaurant.”

Wow, you make it sound so fun! But wait, there’s a catch…

“Sushi is gluten free, but (as always) there are cross contamination issues. This same blogger continues: “Unfortunately eating sushi gluten free is not completely care-free and there are still things you need to be wary of in order to eat safely. Ask for your fish to be cut with clean utensils on a clean surface. The rising popularity of tempura rolls has increased the chances for cross-contamination here. Tell your server no crab unless they can assure you it’s real, most fake crab meat used in sushi rolls is made with wheat. Most roe (fish eggs) used to top sushi has wheat as an ingredient. Also, ask for no sauce, albacore sashimi usually comes with a forbidden sauce and many white fish are sprinkled with a gluten containing culprit. Eel (unagi) comes soaked in a sweet sauce that is a definite no-no. Double-check the wasabi, ginger and rice to make sure that there are no suspect ingredients.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then more joyous news:

  • Even the sesame seeds that sometimes coat sushi rolls may be mixed with a wheat product. (WTF!)
  • And the sticky rice is sometimes soaked in vinegar containing gluten.  (now that’s just mean)

First, can we just all agree that gluten-free and carefree should not be used in the same paragraph?

Second, I am never going to utter these words in a restaurant, “please make sure my fish is cut with clean utensils on a clean surface” . It’s just not going to happen.

Third, I’ll just have a large sake.

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The Daily Bitch… I Love a Messy Counter

22 Feb

So, as I’ve mentioned, for Valentine’s Day my husband gave me a year’s worth of gluten-free treats from the GFree Pantry.   And my mother-in-law gave me a two-pound box of See’s Candies.  To be specific, she sent me a box of Bordeaux, half milk chocolate and half dark chocolate.  Bordeaux is my favorite candy in the world.  Absolute favorite.  And no, my mother-in-law is not taking applications for additional daughters.

Why am I telling you this?  Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?   All See’s Candies are gluten-free.  Every single glorious bite, but especially (and most importantly) Bordeaux.  Yum.

Legally speaking, the See’s candy is officially for the “family”, but everyone knows that whenever chocolate enters the house, no matter what it says on the card, it is really for “me”.  For the past five days, therefore, I have been expending a lot of energy hiding the Bordeaux from the girls.  It has been all over the house — I can’t tell you more because the girls read this blog and it could limit my options later.

But tonight they found the box.  I know that because, when I came downstairs, the kitchen counter was covered with those little rice-shaped chocolate sprinkles that cover a See’s Bordeaux.  They were everywhere.  This was not surprising.  I know — from eating many, many Bordeaux myself — that it is impossible to eat a Bordeaux without sending a little snowstorm of chocolate jimmies down all around you.

My girls will happily tell you that I am a bit obsessive about clean counters, and I will agree — up to a point. I don’t fold laundry, and I don’t really unload the dishwasher, but I do believe in a nice, crumb-free counter top.  (Don’t even get me going on the glutinous crumbs issue.)  But when I came into the kitchen just now and saw all those chocolate sprinkles on the butcher block, all I felt was happy.  Happy for the girls, because I knew what they were eating right then.  And happy for me, because I knew what I was going to be eating in just one second.

My box of Pirate’s Booty and gluten-free graham crackers hasn’t arrived yet, but right now I’m eating a Bordeaux.

Bye bye for now,

Enid

Today’s Treat:  Can you guess?  I had one for breakfast, with my tea.  I had one for lunch, with whatever else I was eating (I don’t remember).  I possibly had a few around 4:00.  And now I’m having more.  If you don’t live in California and therefore don’t have a Sees Candy store nearby, you can order Bordeaux (dark or milk chocolate) by the box, online.  http://www.sees.com.  

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The Daily Bitch…It’s Not the Gluten, Dummy

21 Feb

I’m not a real doctor, but I am a real bitch and I feel more than qualified to take on the subject of gluten and weight.

And, I am so tired of gluten-free weight loss stories!

  • Do people who go on a “gluten-free” diet for weight loss check every label, grill every waiter, and try desperately to find a delicious substitution for their favorite chocolate cake? Do they cry in the middle of the supermarket isle? I think not. I think they cut out bread, pasta and cake, for a couple of weeks and call it gluten-free. And guess what-they lose weight. Big surprise! It’s not the gluten, dummy,  it’s the no carbs, it’s the fewer calories.

  • Some people who have celiac disease gain weight once they give up gluten. Yup. That’s right. No, that’s wrong and so unfair.  It’s the dirty little secret about celiac disease. No one wants to talk about it.  Once that digestive system starts working again, those little cilia start standing upright again and doing their job. You start absorbing nutrients again, You start absorbing more fat.  Maybe your cholesterol goes up maybe you gain ten pounds.
  • Am I bitter? Possibly. Yes.
  • Chapter 15 of Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s book, The G Free Diet; A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, is entitled G-Free and Slim as Can Be.  I would like to slap her.  Also, she’s a republican.

  • Am I bitter?  Possibly. Yes.
  • On the up side, I could eat donuts, cookies, bread and pasta and lose those ten pounds in a jiffy. It’s called the gluten diet.
  • On the down side, there’s the whole destroying my small intestine thing.
  • Oh well.

Today’s Treat: Ask Enid.

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The Daily Treat….Valentine’s Day

14 Feb

Roses and chocolate and pink champagne are gluten-free!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 from the GFBs

Today’s Taste Test Challange: These pink champagne cupcakes look yummy, but so did that hempseed coconut cake. If someone wants to test them for us we would be oh so happy!

http://www.theculinarylife.com/2009/gluten-free-champagne-cupcakes/

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I’m taking the day off from bitching.

14 Feb

Romance in a box.  Over the past 20 plus years, my husband and I have shared many lovely Valentine’s Days.  There was red wine.  There was chocolate (there was a lot of chocolate).  There was some lingerie.  There have been vases full of red roses. But this year takes the cake (pun intended).  What did he give me to celebrate our love today?  A year full of gluten-free treats.

That’s right.  Over the past few months, he’s been right there at my side, as I snivel and scowl through the supermarket, and our favorite Thai restaurant (“chicken satay with no sauce, please”), and Christmas (no persimmon pudding, no french toast, no Yorkshire pudding, yuck).  He even offered to go gluten-free with me, which I completed rejected.   I mean, really, it’s bad enough that I have to give up hamburgers; should he have to do it, too?

Basically, he has been a champ.  And now, on this day of love and romance, he comes through with the box of Pirate’s Booty, Glutino Pretzels, and Macrobars.  Plus — as he gleefully informed me when he got home from work tonight —this Valentine’s gift is deductible as a business expense!  Ahh… the romance of it.

It’s not too late.  If you are reading this blog as a way to support your Celiac Loved One, you can still go online and join the Gluten Free Tasting Club.  Or…possibly less emotionally complicated, you can buy it for yourself.  Here’s the link:  http://www.gfreepantry.com.  And here’s what they say:

GFreePantry makes gluten free dieting simple. Stop scouring the aisles for certified gluten free snacks. Subscribe to the gluten free tasting club and discover new tasty gluten free snacks each month. Discover your next favorite snack, learn a new recipe, share your own gluten free recipes with the GFree world.

I’ll keep you posted on what comes in the box, and whether  it tastes like… the box.

Bye bye for now,

Enid

Daily Treat:  Dinner out with my thoughtful hubby, where I will eat something gluten-free and (hopefully) good.  I know there will be a gluten-free choice on the prix-fixe menu because I called the restaurant in advance and asked.  Now, is that brutal or what?  Now I have to call ahead before I go on our romantic dinner.

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The Daily Bitch…Gluten Invades the Bedroom.

11 Feb

Last night I had a dream about cheese.  And when I say dream, what I really mean is “nightmare.”  There I was in my kitchen (as I often am), rooting around the cheese drawer (as I often do), and I discovered that my go-to cheese, Fromager d’Affinois, had gluten in it.  It said it right there on the label, in teeny tiny letters that I could barely read.  In fact, in my dream I had to go get my glasses because the print was so small that no normal person could ever hope to read it.

Of course, I had a complete breakdown right there in front of the fridge.  For the past three months – as I have been getting used to all the deprivation associated with celiac – I have had to console myself with something, and what has that something been?  Cheese.  Now my consolation was gone.  All my efforts to be gluten-free were for nought.  Three months of no bread, no cake, no bourbon, and now this?  Betrayed by brie?

It was a very bad dream.

Ahh... cheese. So gluten-free and yet so naughty.

But then I woke up and, even though it was only five a.m., I went right downstairs and Googled “cheese gluten free”.  I was pretty sure cheese is okay, but I just had to know.  Oh, I just love the Internet.  By 5:05 I knew I was home free.  With the exception of some blue cheeses, cheese is definitely gluten-free.  There’s a great website called CeliacCentral that answers questions like this.  You can see the post on cheese right here: http://www.celiaccentral.org/ask-the-dietitian/is-brie-cheese-gluten-free/pg–1/.

If you’ve been reading this blog at all, you’ve probably noticed how much Sarah and I think about those two pillars of gluten-free gastronomy: chocolate and liquor.  But cheese plays a pretty major role, too.   It is salty.  It has great mouth feel — smooth and soft, or hard and crumbly, or even a bit grainy (like a great parmesan).  It is oozing with umami, that great taste best defined as “savoriness”.  It lends a certain, I don’t know, heft to your meal, and when you’ve given up on farro, and whole wheat bread, and basically everything good, you need a bit of umami to get you through the day. (If you’re not in the mood for chocolate, that is.)

Don’t get me wrong. Given the choice, I would love to smear my brie, my camembert, my soft blue cheese on a crusty baguette, but in a pinch I’m perfectly happy to eat it on a slice of apple.  Or a (gasp) gluten-free cracker.  Or my finger.  Anything, really.

It’s nice to know I’m not going to have to give up Humboldt Fog anytime soon.  

Bye Bye for now,

Enid

Daily Treat:  Scrumptious cheese plate with Honeycrisp apple slices and Mary’s Gone Crackers.  If you don’t love your local cheese shop, try Murray’s Cheese online, at www.murrayscheese.com.  You can find Mary’s Gone Crackers gluten-free crackers at your local market or online. I like the original flavor, but they are all (surprisingly) good.  www.marysgonecrackers.com.

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The Daily Bitch…I Was Born This Way

9 Feb

Lady Gaga

The other day I happened upon a conversation between a gluten-free woman, her husband, and a young shopkeeper.  I had literally just finished a meeting with Enid about launching this blog, so it was very serendipitous. This gluten-freer was in the middle of explaining how annoying it is for people who can’t have gluten to be put in the same boat with people who won’t have gluten.  I don’t know how they got on the subject. I can only assume that the gluten-freer, like so many marginalized and slightly bitter people, wanted to be heard, validated, and perhaps *pitied just a little bit. I imagine she worked it into the conversation as smoothly as butter on a nice warm piece of bread (the kind with gluten).

I listened for a few minutes and considered walking out of the store. But then I asked myself  what would a gluten-free bitch do-would she walk away? I think not.  I think she would belly up to the bar, make some new gluten-free friends, spread the news about her blog  and make sure that shopkeeper never asked a customer how they were doing ever again.  So that’s what I did.  Also, I saw a really cute dress I wanted to try on.

And yes! It is so annoying to hear about people like Gwyneth Paltrow who choose to be gluten-free.  They give the rest of us a bad name. Like in a restaurant for instance, asking about every ingredient, explaining what gluten is, seeing the glazed or annoyed look in the waitresses eyes.  You don’t really want to have to say, “I’m not doing this  because I want to look like Gwyneth Paltrow, it’s just that if I eat even one crumb of gluten my immune system will go all crazy on my small intestine and start destroying my cilia [cut to horrified waitress].

Also, I do not:

  • have a personal chef (which would possibly make up for the whole celiac thing)
  • already have years of veganism under my belt
  • spend 4 hours a day doing Pilates
  • have a ton of money to spend on whatever I want to make up for the fact that I can’t eat bread (I’m not saying she does this I’m just saying she could if she wanted to)

So what is my point?   I didn’t choose this “lifestyle”   I WAS BORN THIS WAY

So what are my other points?

  1. I hate to cook
  2. I like eating animals and things that come from animals
  3. I’m not good at Pilates
  4. I have a shopping problem

Todays Treat: A new dress  (retail therapy, it’s more expensive than psychotherapy but just as fun.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Pity and especially self-pity has gotten a bad rap. Sometimes a girl (or a guy) just has to wallow for a while.  Look for my Pity Party Planner, coming to  a blog near you soon!

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The Daily Bitch…. Celiac. It’s a Good Thing. Six Reasons for Gluten-Free Rejoicing.

1 Feb

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…

  1. 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

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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

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