Sleeping With the Enemy

It's probably no surprise that I inhabit the internet quite a bit. In addition to all of the things one has access to and the informational goldmines out there, I find the interaction between people to be inspiring. "Iron sharpens iron." A recent conversation with a mom of a boy with burgeoning sensitivities brought back a flood of memories of what it was like for us when all this food stuff was new with us. When we paused on the brink of the abyss, not knowing how desperate things could and would become. We talked about how some children self-limit their foods out of fear. Out of a sense of losing control and desperately grabbing for the last edge of solid ground.

Developing food sensitivities is a horrible, out-of-control feeling. Control is definitely at the root of food issues and for a very good reason. There's a fundamental betrayal in all of this. Almost nothing, if not absolutely nothing, comes closer to the core of our psyche than what we eat. We can live without physical intimacy, but we can't live without eating. Food is one of the defining aspects of a culture and it is part of defining who we are individually as well. One of the basic "getting to know you" questions people ask is, "What do you like to eat?" When we can't trust our food supply or our food intake, we are betrayed...by whatever/whomever...on the most basic and earthbound level we can reach. If we don't have safe food, what do we have? If we can't trust our food to nourish us, what can we trust?

We know that we can't trust other people to tell us if something is safe. Some people can be trusted, but not most. Tool Guy can't travel for any length of time without getting zapped. Despite all the precautions. Despite lengthy questioning of the food preparers. Despite doing all of the "right things." This sort of thing pierces to a molecular level. Literally. And it becomes scary to think that we can't trust our eyes or that we can't develop a reliable strategy to protect ourselves.

I remember what it felt like when we were losing foods. Things that were safe last week weren't safe this week. One time the Hobbits would eat something and it would be yummy. The next time they ate the very same food, even food from that same batch that was fine the last time they ate from it, they reacted. And it was usually favorite foods. This shatters any sense of comfort anyone has about food. You scramble to find the common thread...some clue...some predictor of what is going to explode in your face next time. It feels safer to not eat at all, which is, of course, impossible. Sleeping with the enemy.

And the more severe the reaction, the deeper the anxiety. This can be hard for some people to understand, even other people with food sensitivities, if they aren't high reactors. As much as I loved the flip tone of Against the Grain by Jax Lowell--I adore wisecracking, tongue-in-cheek, wink-wink-nudge-nudge writing--I can't bring myself to recommend it. Someone who suggests, when at a party and faced with dicey food choices, scraping the caviar off of the cracker with one's teeth and tossing the cracker rather than appear de trop or affected doesn't live in the same world I do. She isn't sleeping with the enemy. Not someone who mail orders food as if it were takeout from the corner Chinese restaurant. The more sensitive the canary, the less concerned about perceptions and the more concerned about sheer survival.

It's scary for the Hobbit, the child, the person to whom it is happening. One day corn was okay for him and then it wasn't. One day tomatoes were okay for him and now they aren't. What's going to turn on him today? What's the common thread? Vegetables? I can see why he's not wanting to eat vegetables. Losing food in a very painful way makes us hyper-defensive.

The Hobbits themselves never reacted by self-limiting foods, but probably because our worst reactions weren't physically painful...just soul-scalding rages--which made me want to do the limiting foods...I'm the gun shy one in our house. But food sensitivities do that. Everyone wants to be able to put food in their mouths without feeling like it will explode in there.

This is why I developed the style of eating we have. Some folks are surprised to find that we don't eat a wide variety of different foods, but, honestly, when I look at indigenous peoples' diets, I don't see as wide a variety as is advocated by Western import-dependent cuisine. We eat plain. Meat, a few vegetables, a few kinds of grains, some fruits and that's about it. And it is the same stuff. Over. And over. And over. And I let the Hobbits pick what they want. At every meal. I have a collection of things that I can make up at a moment's notice and each of them can choose from that list for each meal. My MIL quipped once that it's like living at a diner. But given the severe limits imposed on us, I want them to feel like they have some degree of control over what they eat. Of giving them as much control over what they eat as the limits of their reactions permit.

Exotic cooking is fun and exciting and I do like trying new things. Mostly, though, for day-to-day cooking, I like things that are comfort foods. Foods I can throw together without giving much thought to. Foods like chicken salad. Just the ticket for sultry July days. This is one of those recipes that I throw together as a bit of this and a handful of that. See? Not much thought to it. Comfort food. Yeah.

Chicken Salad

1-1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
3-4 chicken breasts
1 tsp. seasoned salt
3-4 handfuls of Tinkyada pasta
pickles, chopped (opt)

Make mayonnaise. Since I like my chicken salad to be tangy, when I make the mayo for this, I double the vinegar and leave off any maple syrup or sweetener. Sprinkle seasoned salt over chicken breasts and grill out for 10-15 minutes each side or until done. Boil up pasta. I like to follow the package directions and boil my water first, then drop the pasta in the pot and cover without disturbing for 20 minutes before draining. They're right. It makes perfect pasta every time. When the breasts are cooled, chop into small, bite-sized chunks and mix with remaining ingredients. Delicious served hot or cold.

So as we walk this pocked-marked road toward healing, we're picking our way through the land mines...making our food choices carefully. That uneasy dance of sleeping with the enemy.

Is It Hot Enough For You?

Summer has arrived without much of a nod at Spring. We jumped from woolen sweaters to sweating in a week's time. My garden jumped from suspended animation to rabbiting upwards in a very short time. Whew! I was beginning to worry for a while there.

Despite the heat, the business of eating must go on. There's baking to get done, bone broth to be made, and other very warm occupations that need to be finessed to cooler parts of the day. And mowing the lawn, as well.

I'm actually enjoying mowing the lawn this year, though I won't be doing it as often...much to my neighbor's chagrin. Gas prices and carbon footprints dictate that Mistress Mary needs to be a little less nice about how the garden grows, thank you. Besides, I'm finding that benign neglect can have some pleasing returns. Last year, I scaled back in order to let the grass have a chance to re-seed itself. And clover started creeping in. This year, as I forage through the first swaths of mowing, I see new patches of clover reaching out to the rest of the yard. Clover means good stuff for the soil and good stuff for the bees, of which I'm mindful as I mow. You've seen that 1970's bumper sticker that says, "I brake for butterflies," right? Yeah, well, I'm getting one for my lawnmower: "I brake for bees."

Mowing takes on a meditative quality for me. It must be the drone of the motor and the repetitive motions of the job. Rolling it out, I felt like I was greeting an old friend who had been away for a while. In truth, the mower spent a goodly part of the winter at the shop, being lovingly tuned, cleaned, and refurbished for Spring. When I pulled the cable, it spoke to me in a completely new voice and scythed through the waves of grass with butter-smooth power. Wow. The grass being as tall as it was, I was making frequent trips to the compost pile to dump them. Where I got a chance to fight with the black bear for supremacy. Guess what? Picture me dusting my hands off, 'cause I'm king of that hill.

It's been sweltering for the past few days--we had a tornado watch in effect, in fact, and had our first grid black out of the season--so I selected early morning to start on the lawn. I traced familiar steps over the now-memorized roots and rocks, glistening with condensation...the cool damp of the ground competing with the deepening heat of the day. The Hobbits furtively dash from tree to tree, pursuing some "secret mission" that brings them out of the house when I mow, dripping coconut milk from the vanishing popsicles in their sticky hands. The popsicles are our quintessential signal that summer has begun. That and getting sprayed with the hose. Both are so cold that it has to be really hot in order to enjoy them. Well, Breatharian, it's been really hot.

Being the sort of weather that induces one to wish to limit kitchen time, a quick and cool source of protein is always a welcome addition to menu. I'm happy dancin' that beans seem to be back on the menu now, though it is early days yet...too early to call it a success. So I'm looking for ways to stealth more of them into different dishes to maximize exposure. Seeds being back on the menu, hummus seems like the answer to it all.

In keeping with my new-found passion for sprouting everything sproutable, the chickpeas are no exception. Soak overnight and rinse 2-3 times a day for 2-3 days or until the beans display a "tail." I run mine through the pressure cooker for a scant 2-3 minutes after pressure is attained.

Sprouted Hummus

2 t minced garlic
15 oz sprouted and cooked garbanzo beans
3 T lemon juice
2 T tahini
1 t salt
1/2 t paprika
3 T coconut milk

Process beans in food processor until smooth. Add all other ingredients until thoroughly blended, adding additional water and/or coconut milk until mixture reaches desired consistency.

After a purging thunderstorm swept in and scrubbed away the sticky heat, we all breathed a sigh of relief. I walk through the yard to look at the latest blooms of clover pushing up from the tight carpet of leaves beneath. The first of the bees bob on the now cool breeze.

He makes all things new... _Rev.21:5

Now Is the Spring of My Discontent...

We've past Easter and the First Day of Spring. It's definitely in the air. All over the Internet, too. Every search engine homepage has "March Madness" plastered across it and even articles on coping techniques. It kinda piqued my curiosity. I have my visions of what March Madness means. It means that I'm bored with most conversations on most of my email lists and I do mass deletes. I'm sure that there are treasure troves of information that will be forever lost to me and my life will never be the same for being bereft of those gems, but I dare say I shall survive. Can't sit still for doing much on the computer these days. It means that Bug and I hover over my seedling trays, chasing the patches of sunlight through the house over the course of the day, brewing up batches of chamomile tea for watering them, and doing endless head counts to update the census on how many sprouts have surfaced to date. So far, the Siberian tomatoes are living up to their reputation as early doers. It augers well. It means that I'm pressing the Hobbits outside to soak up the tentative sunshine, riding their scooters through the narrowing patches of snow that are shrinking from the yard. It means that we're drawing to the close of the lesson books we've chosen this year and putting the finishing touches on our test prep plans for April. Starting to make educational goals for next year. And this year, it means the milestone co-op order that is the largest we've ever handled to date. Yup. Changing the world one meal at a time.

With dim realization, it finally burst through upon me that the March Madness in Internet question is the playoffs. Duh. I admit to being absolutely sports-impaired. I even had to Google up to see what specific sport was encompassed by this flurry of playoffs. Basketball, it seems. Double duh. To compound my transgression, not only am I intransigent in my ignorance of sports, but I married someone who is similarly handicapped. It was no small asset in my eyes that Tool Guy is even further impaired in his interest in sports than myself. Let's see...non-smoker...loves to window shop...doesn't do sports. You may kiss the bride!

No, my March Madness is a restlessness. A discontent with the usual schedule of events. I look at my regular to-do list and can't rally anything like enthusiasm. Not even a remote sense of duty or responsibility to get it done. Good thing we're at the end of our canned curriculum, 'cause I'm the one who wants to play hooky. I wish I could even say that I'm distracted by the prospect of bursting out of doors and digging into the spring chores that will be waiting for me when the ground has thawed and dried sufficiently. Not even that. It's something that I can't yet define, but it's putting up its pale, thin shoots just as surely as the tiny specks of green that dot my seed trays. Dog is doing something similar...wandering the house aimlessly, having difficulty settling down into any activity for more than a few minutes. He's bored with his usual cadre of books and I'm giving him pointers on how to stretch his comfort zone into picking books that he might have overlooked before that still connect with his interests. Only Bug and Princess are still spinning through life like oblivious whirling dervishes, seemingly uneffected by all of this. I'm beginning to understand the reasoning for spring tonics like dandelion root, yellow dock, and nettles. They are just the ticket for invigorating and washing away the detritus of winter.

This is a good time of the year for sprouts of all kinds...the kind we mean to plant and the kind we mean to just eat. I've resumed sprouting fresh greens, feeling the craving for the crunch and crisp of new little leaves bursting with flavor and freshness. I'm also branching out into some new kinds of sprouting...grains. Janie Quinn, in her book Essential Eating, strongly encourages sprouting grains before using them. Her reasoning is that starches draw heavily on the pancreas' resources, probably more heavily than most bodies are capable of matching. But when grains are sprouted, most bodies recognize the grain, not as a starch but as a vegetable, making it much more readily digestible. Okay, I'm always up for a new project.

Sprouting grains does some very nice things to it. In the case of rice, it gives it a sweeter taste...sort of malted, if you will. It also makes it much easier to grind. I've found that rice is a very hard grain and some mills have trouble delivering anything better than a very grainy flour. When the rice is sprouted, the flour is much finer and softer. Sprouting rice for flour is very easy. It just takes some forward thinking and planning to use it on a regular basis and keep up with the typical demand of the average Hobbit appetite.

Grain Sprouts

2 cups rice or other grain
Appropriate sized sprouter lid or cheesecloth with rubber band
Wide mouth quart jar or larger

Add rice to jar and fill with water. Allow to soak overnight or 8 hours. Cover with sprouter lid or secure cheesecloth over the opening and drain, rinse until water is clear, then drain again. Leave jar inverted at an angle to allow water to completely drain. Rinse and drain 2-3 times a day. I find rice takes longer to sprout than some of the seeds I've sprouted in the past, but it will happen....usually in 4-6 days. It is only necessary to sprout until the tail is about 1/8" inch long or one third of the length of the grain. After the sprout has reached the appropriate length, drain thoroughly and spread out on a baking sheet. Dehydrate at 100* or so degrees for about 12-24 hours or until completely dry. They can then be cooked as whole grains or ground into flour.

I'm still experimenting on the baking with sprouted flour thing. Gluten free baking is twitchy and this seems to be no exception. My very first loaf of sprouted bread never made it to the cutting board. Apparently it is going to take more baking time than with unsprouted flour. When I pulled the loaf out of the oven and flipped it out of the pan, the lovely crust collapsed on the still mushy center. Ah, the joys of "cooking dangerously." Hopefully, the next loaf will see me much more contented.

To sprout or not to sprout...there is no question.

These Seeds of Change

Despite the fact that we got eight inches of snow last week, it is starting to feel like spring. Maybe it's because the sun is rising higher in the sky each day and setting later and later. There's just some internal clock that is telling me that it is almost time. Or maybe it's because I got my Seed Savers order in the mail and I'm itchy to get started on my starts. Yeah. That could be it.

In my opinion, the New Year is misplaced on our calendars. The dead of winter is not the time that we start thinking about starting over and new beginnings. I feel ever so much more motivated to begin new things, take on new projects, new goals, new aspirations when fledgling leaves are unfurling and the first spikes of grass are pushing up than when everything is still insulated under layers of snow and ice. Bright sunny days do more to infuse me with enthusiasm to accomplish. Under gray January skies, I just want to heat up another rice bag, crawl with it under the numerous voluminous blankets and read another Victorian murder mystery. With a bowl of Sin On a Spoon in my lap.

As the days grow longer and the sunshine feels brighter, I have no difficulty finding the enthusiasm to put new goals and tasks into motion. Forget January 1st resolutions of getting in shape and working out. March is the time I've started doing some fitness training and toning up. It's not hard at all. I keep reminding myself how useful it will be when it is time to hit the garden and the yard. No sore muscles then! Summer time is my Boston Marathon.

I'm pawing through my seed collection. A few packages with seeds from last year and some new one to try for this year. I used to wonder at people who were constantly changing what they planted from year to year when they were so happy with what they'd harvested the previous year. I'm beginning to understand the addiction: so many seeds...so little space. And a comparatively short growing season. I'm hedging my bets this year. Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, referred to a type of tomato called Siberian, which is reputed to produce proliferately in, as you guessed, Siberia. My kind of 'mater! There will be a "what I did with my summer vacation" report on how Glastnost is producing.

The air is buzzing with discussion about what we're going to plant this year, what soil amendments we tried last year or plan on trying this year, what deer deterents are in place, and the best methods and places to compost. Sources of locally composted manure are secrets almost as guarded as where the best haunts for mushrooms can be found. Hey, some things are sacred, you know?

Gardeners can be as avid proselytizers as...say...foodie folk. We're always luring in the unsuspecting with suggestions that they "start small" and "read Square Foot Gardening...it's soooo easy." They're so charmingly innocent and have no suspicion of the inner gardening monster that lurks inside, waiting for the opportunity to come out and take over the world.

Yes, gentle Breatharian, I was one of those who "started small." Just a simple 5x5 square foot garden. Unh, huh. In a short three seasons, the garden has grown to a 290 square foot garden. With a greenhouse cover over it. The next door neighbor took one look at it and acerbically dubbed it the "Taj Mahal." Ya think?

The gardening seeds aren't the only seeds of change on my mind. Seeds of all stripe are also back on the menu for the Hobbits, which fires up another motivation...the one that sends me into the kitchen for some more "cooking dangerously." As I thumbed through The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook, I remember the feeling I had when I first opened it--the one that Alice must have had, tumbling down the rabbit hole. Little did I know. I came across this recipe after we'd gone gluten free and at the very beginnings of everything free. It feels like being visited by an old friend...like the return of spring.

Chili Seeds inspired by Marjorie Hurt-Jones

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 T olive oil
1 T chili powder
1/8 t garlic powder
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1 T Real Salt
Enough water to cover seeds

In a glass bowl, measure out seeds, salt, and add enough water to cover. Stir to thoroughly dissolve salt. Let soak 8 hours or overnight. Drain seeds completely. Mix with oil and spices. Spread out on baking sheets at a very shallow depth. Dehydrate at 100-115* for 12-24 hours or until completely dry and crispy.

Soaking neutralizes the anti-nutrients that are in seeds, making them more nutritious and more digestible--a very important feature for those with digestive difficulties. While Tool Guy and Dog are enthralled with the crunchy zest of this recipe, Bug and Princess prefer their seeds prepared this way, only plain. It's such an easy recipe that it's no trouble to accommodate all of the palates.

Meanwhile, I'm watching the sun and counting the days until Gardening Begins. It isn't hard to get to the point of becoming a gardening monster. Les Brown said it best, "Everything is a cinch when you do it inch by inch."

Slowly They Turned...Step by Step...Inch by Inch...

Marriage is comprised of compromises, great and small. Anyone married to someone else for almost twenty five years has had at least a brush or two with the necessity of compromise. I have to confess to one of the most challenging marital compromises of all: The Three Stooges. Okay, show of hands. Who gets The Stooges? Un, huh. Just as I thought. Not a woman raised her hand. It's definitely a guy thing. More specifically, it's a Tool Guy thing. Fortunately, he doesn't inflict it on me very often. More frequently than his passion for The Stooges, he's conscientiously curbing his passion for jazz music when I'm around. Yah, I know, I have no taste, but I just don't groove music that doesn't have words...what can I say? It's just that since The Stooges is a guy thing (are a guy thing?), then all members with some semblance of testosterone running around their little bodies seem to share an absolute appreciation for the mystique that is The Stooges. See the power of role-modeling? Fortunately, this kind of imprinting hasn't led to the reproduction of any stooges in our house, much to the advantage of Tool Guy's prospective longevity...he does have a spectacular life insurance policy and a girl can only withstand just so much temptation. And so, I want gluten free Brownie points for my liberal, tolerant, and inclusive attitude that accommodates the occasional Stooge-fest. I flee to my sanctuary, closing the door on the grinding repetition of "Slowly they turned...step by step...inch by inch..." and turn up Chris Rice's "That's What a Heart is Beating For." With my headphones on. Natch.

But things are turning around, step by step and inch by inch. It's been a very slow process and continues to be so. We've just passed our anniversary for the Everything Free diagnosis. Five years, dear Breatharian, and six years of gluten-freeness! I have to indulge a wry smile when I think of the conversation I had with my stunned father, poring over the thick diagnostic booklet and boggling over all of the foods to have to pull. I faithfully parroted the laboratory's doctrinal statement: "Hey, Dad, I know it's grim, but it's only for four months. Six, tops! We can do it for six months!" Oh, the naivete. So yeah, it's taken just a touch longer than I had imagined in my most far-flung dreams, but we're getting there. These days, I don't think in terms of "how much longer will it be?" though sometimes Dog asks...like I have a crystal ball, you know? I can't fault him, though, since I'm his primary teacher and question answerer. I suppose it is easy to take the impression that all the answers are right at hand and simply need to be Googled up upon demand. But this is a question I can't even estimate an answer to, I've been wrong so many times. Back when we first started, I was thinking in terms of months and for a very long time I hoped that this would be the month--then this would be the year--that it would all be over. These days, my goals are much more modest. I'd like one or two new foods back in per year. And it's happening, step by step and inch by inch.

The newest successful food are seeds. So we're livin' it up! Sesame seed oil in our stir fries, handfuls of sunflower seeds to munch, and since nuts are still off the menu, desperation...oops!...inspiration struck and I decided to try my hand at making pumpkin seed butter. Have food processor, will cook dangerously--and Breatharian, you know when I'm around sharp implements, it's dangerous! The subsequent pumpkin seed butter wasn't as smooth commercial alternative butters, but the next time I do this, I think I'll be using my steel burr grain mill instead of my food processor. As the Glutenator says, "E³!" (Experiment, experiment, experiment!)

Pumpkin Seed Butter

2 cups pumpkin seed
1 cup or sufficient to make smooth of rice bran or other oil
1/2 tsp. salt or to taste
1 T maple syrup or to taste

Dump it all in the food processor and blend it to death until it is as smooth as you'd like it. The Hobbits found it tasty to have on Edward & Son's plain rice snaps.

Everyone is inching forward these days. I look at Dog and I can't even see the little one who used to line up cars endlessly or run through the house, flapping his hands in front of him. These days he's working on his own graphic novel for a character he calls Wind Rider and is developing an appreciation for Sherlock Holmes. Bug is working his way through a rough social patch, but his speech has very little of the halting monotone of mispronunciations he used to struggle with. And his reading is coming together. Henry and Mudge have become his very favorite people and he's finally found a passion in books. I felt my heart soar when he snagged Princess up and held her a quite willing hostage while he read his way through the entire book, with only three intermissions to get a prompt for a tough word. He's finding his place in a family of passionate readers! And Princess, who has had the benefit of being Everything Free since birth and before, just cruises through life enjoying the usual passions and enduring the usual bumps of an almost five year old.

Is this what normal looks like? Well, maybe not, but I can see it from here.

Humble Pie and Sin On a Spoon

Shh...

I'm laying low these days. There's a stomach virus making the local circuit and I don't want it to know that I exist. I'm sorry, but after two months of pneumonia and a month recovery time, I figure I've done my duty by the sickness fairies this year. One more bug this winter and I'll be ready to open an artery, you know?

I was agreeing with a foodie friend--who happens to be down with that little stomach bug thing--that it just isn't fair. Isn't eating right supposed to give us iron-clad immunities? Aren't we supposed to be able to sail through life, smugly consoling the unwashed masses who guzzle high fructose corn syrup and munch on extruded cereals sweetened by high fructose corn syrup and subsequently catch every little thing that comes down the pike? (By the way, did you know that a study of these cereals fed to rats found that the rats eating cereal died before the other two groups...one of which was only fed the boxes that the cereals came in? Nice, no?) It is more than a little humbling to find that we have immune systems of clay.

Yep. So these days, along with the other stuff on the menu, I'm eating humble pie. I'm less hostile to antibiotics these days, though the ear infections in the house didn't get dosed with them and everyone recovered with their hearing intact despite the dire predictions to the contrary. (I'll spare you the drama of trying to contact a pharmaceutical company on the cusp of a New Year's Eve weekend: No one answers the phone for five consecutive days.) In fact, there are a few other medications that I'm beginning to feel pretty grateful for. Along with the antibiotics, my doctor gave me diflucan to counterbalance some of the less pleasant and more uncomfortable side effects of killing off every little organism in my body. The diflucan accomplished in four little pills what I've been working toward, inching toward for an entire year: I can eat all my old foods again.

This resurrected some unresolved feelings of resentment I've had against a former family doctor. We went our separate ways when I'd asked him to prescribe diflucan for the Hobbits when it first became apparent--at least apparent to me--that dysbiosis was the underlying cause of the spiraling food reactions. He was quick to dismiss me and I remained dismissed. I pretended that he didn't know what he was talking about and began addressing the supposedly imaginary dysbiosis with alternative methods. And that's where we've been this past five years. My recent experience confirms to me I was right all along and this five year grind was avoidable. Sigh.

Still, there is a quiet thought that accompanies the occasional stabs of resentment that flare up: we needed to take that five year grind. We needed the discipline. We needed the journey. The struggle. There's no way of knowing until much further down the road what seeds have been planted during these five years that will produce fruit. In me. In them. Fruit that would never have come to bear any other way. "It has not yet appeared what we shall be..."* I rest on that.

I'm still staying away from sugar, though. So I'm still casting around for ideas of how to fill that hole. You know, the hole that still nags at you, even after you've had a full meal. Or when you're burrowing down under the covers with a toasty rice bag and a good book. Just the time when something to nosh on would make everything perfect. Just the time that I used to cuddle up with a bag of Rollos and not stop until the bag was empty. And of course, every sugar-free candy you can lay your hands on is...drum roll please...sweetened with corn. Um. Not. Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Nope. He was wrong. That would be 99% desperation, because it is during the times of desperation that inspiration strikes.

The taste I had in my mouth was for chocolate butter cream frosting. So I dug around in the dusty recesses of my food stores and came up with an almost empty box of powdered cocoa, left over from the days when the Hobbits could do chocolate...which blessedly they can again...but somehow this box got overlooked. Hallelujah. The rest of the stuff was near at hand and I went to work with a passion. The prospect of sugar free chocolate will do that to me. What can I tell ya? Sin On a Spoon was born.

Sin On a Spoon

(All ingredients/amounts negotiable)

8 T ghee
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 T coconut milk
2 T vegetable glycerin or agave nectar

Blend butter with balloon whip mixer attachment on high until soft. Pour in cream/coconut milk and sweetener, whipping until blended. On stir setting, add cocoa powder, turning speed up to high as the powder becomes incorporated.

Find most isolated spot in the house, lock the door, and refuse to share with anyone. Enjoy.

*_{1 John 3:2}

Twenty Four and Counting...

Milestones. We've seen a few of them over the past few years. Making our last cross-country move. Buying our home. Bug's first steps here. Starting schooling. Our homebirth with Princess' precipitate arrival...good thing we'd planned a homebirth! Each dietary diagnosis. Each food taken out. The foods we've been able to add back in. And now Tool Guy and I celebrating our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. Next year, the big one.

Several months back, our Party Planner offered, out of the blue, to take care of the Hobbits for Tool Guy and I to go off for a weekend. Days away seemed overly ambitious to me...stretching the umbilical cord a bit further than my comfort zone allowed, but we were definitely ready for a night out. So I watched the movie releases and waited for something relatively interesting and decent to come out. This took longer than even I had anticipated, Hollywood's creative vacuum being what it is, so it happened that the night we settled on was close enough to our anniversary to call it a celebratory date. Sweet. Dinner and a movie.

In our area, the safest place to eat out for anyone who is only gluten-free and not Everything Free is Outback. So we dressed to the nines...well, as ninish as one can get and not over-do it for an AMC Loews theatre, you know...and headed out for our date. I'm trying to remember the last time I've eaten out. Probably four years. Yeah, Outback isn't haute cuisine nor any of the other culinary ideals like eating local and all of that, but it's someone else's cooking. It's hard to be critical of something that is at least half way decent and I didn't know intimately from start to finish. If nothing else, the mystique is appetizing. We arrived hungry and were seated immediately, which is another indicator of how long it has been since we've eaten out together. We've never been seated that quickly at an Outback in our entire marriage. Yeah, that 24 year thing. Hey, I'll take my milestones where I can get them.

It was so refreshing to have a relaxing meal, refreshing conversation, and idle ease with a minimum of fuss. Our server did attempt to bring us a loaf of bread, but that was the only bobble. We each had our favorite picks and finished it all off with the brownie. It's probably an indicator of all the tweaking and testing that I've done that I was unconsciously evaluating the dessert as I dove in. My mind was weighing the crumb, the texture, the taste...all that stuff. Given that it's just cocoa powder, eggs, and stuff that just adds flavor, like a bunch of terrific crunchy walnuts. It did crumble apart rather easily...no mystery about why. But a massive mountain of ice cream, whipped cream, and shaved chocolate goes a long way toward holding that brownie together and I'm not about to quibble with such a surfeit of sugar, right?

I suppose the first indicator that there would be a change of direction in our evening plans was when we stopped off at the bank's ATM to get cash for the festivities. Tool Guy had recently received a newly PINned card, which had worked the last time he'd used it. Not tonight. Not at the bank's ATM. Not at another nearby ATM. And, unfortunately, not at the restaurant. And equally unfortunately, my purse with the checkbook and perfectly functional ATM card were at home. They were gracious about the glitch and we headed home to get more reliable coverage of our dinner tab. Scratch the movie. Fall back ten and punt. Sighing over the necessity, we drove back and continued the threads of the things we'd discussed over dinner, enjoying the night sky and joking about finding some spot to go parking. Hey, twenty-four years isn't that long, you know.

It's nice to be able to enjoy such food without worrying about reactions. Well, Tool Guy did have a minor reaction, but in a public place, cross-contamination is probably inevitable. I didn't even have any kinds of kick-backs from all of that sugar. The meal was grainless (except for the corn that has to be in there somewhere)...even the brownie...so that was right up my alley. Someday, I need to go into the kitchen for some cooking dangerously and figure out how they do that flourless brownie. Meanwhile, I'm contenting myself with grainless pancakes. They're pretty light and fluffy and actually rather delicious. Well, not as delicious as brownies, but they do fill the hole and when slathered with ghee, they'll do. Until I hammer down that brownie thing.

Grain-free Pancakes

1 cup eggs
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 t guar gum
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda

Blend up eggs and coconut milk before adding remaining ingredients and mixing. Be ready to add more milk...the coconut flour thickens as it absorbs moisture and it is very absorbent. Dole out onto heated griddle over medium low heat, turning when the top bubbles and loses its shine. Serve with ghee and maple syrup.

I had to smile when we walked in the door to see a totally darkened living room, populated with Hobbits on the floor, munching faux popcorn and shoestring fries. All of the faces were turned up toward the TV screen with 3D glasses perched on each nose. It looked like a flashback from the '50's. Trust Party Planner to come up with something that would make a simple DVD and a dark room a festive event. No one was missing us. Heh. Grabbing the stuff we'd come for, we dashed back out with just some quick explanations to resume the rest of our evening. No movie. Just lots of talking about plans and ideas for the next twenty four years. Good food and good company is all that counts.

For This We Give Thanks

The holiday season is upon us, despite the commercial attempts to skip both Halloween (no great loss there) and Thanksgiving this year. The garden has been put to bed and I've pulled absolutely as many leaves out of the yard as I ever intend to this year. Poke me with a fork. Of course, Thanksgiving brings up the remembrances of colonists and the profound gratitude for simple survival, which has bequeathed to us the traditional foods that represent this holiday to most Americans. These days, nothing in history is being taken for granted, but is being re-examined, rewritten, and restructured. Whatever the actual facts of the first Thanksgiving may or may not be, it is certainly appropriate to designate a time to acknowledge what we have received and be grateful for it.

We have a lot of things to be thankful for this year. The Hobbits continue to grow and thrive, to challenge and thrill us with their burgeoning personalities, skills, and reach, to amaze us with demonstrations of what they are capable of. Physical blessings and provisions above and beyond what we could have ever dreamed of asking for. A bountiful garden. Generous friends and family who love us unconditionally and forgive the hurts that closeness occasions. Deeper walks and deeper relationships. Expanding experiences and expanding borders. "He makes all things new."*

Recently, I received a phone call from a close friend. Since the inception of our multitudinous food allergies--which coincided with the unanticipated pregnancy with Princess--I've drawn in upon myself and pulled into a safe circle where I could figure out the huge confusion of what was happening to us and create a place for the Hobbits that wasn't rife with landmines. No eating out, no traveling, no socializing that involved the presence of food--too much risk of cross-contamination with my contact canaries who cop reactions from just touching the stuff. I called this period of time my "gestational hibernation." Which was pretty accurate while I was pregnant and Princess was a baby, except that now Princess is creeping up on five years old. The phone call from my friend was a wake-up call that it was time to take some baby steps out of my den. A fellowship lunch was coming up. We usually duck out before the food is served, despite Dog's protests that he'd like to stay "this once." Gently, this friend prodded me to reconsider cooking something safe for us to eat and coming along to join in the fellowship. Given our strides forward and her winsome reasoning, I relented. Unbeknownst to me, she ran interference for me with the kitchen coordinators to isolate our food to a corner of the kitchen to prevent cross-contamination on the site. We just had to show up with our food, eat, and enjoy. Blessings of the day: no later food reactions to cause regrets and a good time was had by all.

At the meal, this friend brought a ratatouille, which I'd never tried before. Since I'm impervious to contamination reactions, I taste tested the recipe and decided this was one to add to our repertoire. So in celebration of the many things that we are thankful for, it's part of this year's celebration...remembering to give thanks for friends who care enough to prod us to expand our comfort zone. Along with the Autumnal Beef Stew, per Bug's request.

Ratatouille, tweaked from Diana Rattray's about.com recipe

Olive oil, sufficient to coat vegetables
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1 onion, quartered and thinly sliced
1 eggplant, cubed
4 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch slices
2 teaspoon dried leaf basil
1 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried leaf thyme

In a 4-quart Dutch oven or saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 6 to 7 minutes. Add eggplant; stir until coated with oil. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep vegetables from sticking. Add tomatoes, zucchini, and herbs; mix well. Cover and cook over low heat about 15 minutes, or until eggplant is tender but not too soft.

During the course of the year, the Hobbits and I have discussed the various and sundry holidays and their significance. We discuss the various theories about the origins of each holiday. Some holidays are rooted in things that we don't embrace, but we still choose to celebrate that day anyway because its original meaning has been lost and it has acquired a meaning that is significant for us. So whether the story of the first settlers is apocryphal or not, we have begun molding and shaping a holiday tradition that makes it uniquely ours. Each year, as we have begun adding foods back into our originally sparse and spartan menu, it has become our practice to include those foods newly re-introduced from the past year in our Thanksgiving dinner and the next new food that we intend to trial. So you can see that our Thanksgiving dinner doesn't look anything like what most folks here are eating, but it gets to the heart of what we have to be thankful for.

This year the Hobbits are singing the praises of Fage Greek Yogurt. We're trialling dairy. Cross your fingers, folks...

_{*Rev. 5:21}

Unprofitable Servant

We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. Luke 17:10

I guess it's becoming clear that I hang out with a lot of foodie kind of people. It kind of happens that people who are in the same set of circumstances gravitate together. A goodly number of the email lists I inhabit are about food and food choices. Many of the people that come are, like me, in search of answers to questions that the medical community does not appear to possess the ability to answer. There are an astonishing and saddening number of people that persist in having problems that doctors and tests say aren't there. How contrary of us. I like hanging out with these kinds of people because the pooled experiences, feedback, ideas, and synergy of highly motivated folk can produce astonishing results. My best puzzle pieces came from these kinds of dynamic exchanges.

Change can be hard. Especially when it comes to eating. There are ten million diets out there, each with their own line of highly specialized products just for this very reason. Most of us want the variables and details figured out for us. But some people can see a truth, foresee the consequences to themselves, and set a course for themselves for change that is unwavering, in spite of the fact that they have no immediate feedback mechanisms rewarding or punishing them along the way. They just see a future danger and discipline themselves toward change without flinching. I admire these people so much because I had to be dragged into this. I'm one of those people for whom the consequences had to be more immediate and intense or I probably wouldn't have come along for the ride. That said, I'm never tempted to cheat...at least on the Hobbits' behalf...the consequences are too severe for us. That's why I admire people who can look down the road at potential cumulative damage and change direction. That takes so much more will power. I have to say that I admire them a lot more than I admire me. I only did these things because I was spanked into it. I'm the unprofitable servant....I've only done what was required of me.

Shortly after our introduction of bread, I started having my own set of difficulties that pushed grains off the menu for me. During this time I played around with a grain-free sourdough bread made from bean flour. This bread uses garbanzo and fava bean flour, but any mild bean could be milled in most grain mills and then used. It has a hearty taste, but the texture tends to be a bit crumbly. I can't say that it is something that I'd yearn for like chocolate chip cookies, but as a stop-gap bread, it's a pretty good fill in.

Grain-Free Almost Everything Free Bread

Starter:

2 cups bean flour
2 cups kefir-fermented apple juice

Mix thoroughly and let stand for 24 hours.

In a bowl, measure out:

1/2 cup tapioca starch flour
1/2 cup potato starch flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons guar gum

In a mixer, whip up 4-6 egg whites until frothy.

Into the meringue, pour:

1/3 cup olive oil
1 egg
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 cups sourdough starter

Mix in dry ingredients. This yields a rather thin batter for a bread. It will be about the consistency of toothpaste, but not spreading out with the ease of pancake batter. Pour into bread pan and let rise until doubled. Bake at 350* for an hour.

I'm still reading farming books. The latest point of inspiration is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This is the first of her books that I've ever read...I've never been much of a follower of Oprah Book Club type of books. But I loved it. It was a great book. I laughed and cried, but mostly I thought that she'd been looking in my windows. She and I share an affinity for tomatoes and her description of her summer kitchen sounds a lot like mine. Actually, given our different perspectives on life, I was amazed that we had so much in common. Their story of making the changes necessary to eat local, uprooting their lives and relocating across country to follow this dream is amazing. I'm astonished and have a profound amount of respect for people who are willing to shake up the status quo and endure the disequilibrium that this brings all for the sake of personal growth and for ideological reasons. These people who are willing to endure the inconvenience and sacrifice with no other motivation than an intrinsic ideal...they've got what I want.

I think I'm ready to move beyond just dragging my feet and doing what is required of me. Look out local...here I come.

Thanksgiving Comes in October for Us

Okay...uncle. I'll admit it. It's Fall. Every morning, there is a fresh layer of leaves carpeting the lawn, my garden is slowing down and it's getting downright nippy from time to time. The deer have lost their foxy coat and are turning gray. The squirrels are pillaging the trees for nuts; each tree has a pile of hulls littering the ground beneath. And the torrent of food from my garden winds down to a trickle. It's been a fruitful summer.

The other major hallmark of Fall in our house is the annual pear harvest. A neighbor of my parents, who live down South, has pear trees growing in her yard and what is food for us is a burden for her, since she has no use for them. Every October, my father harvests these pears by the boxful. Boxes of them. Hundreds of pounds of them. Every October, my parents trek up to our house with these boxes and boxes of pears. Every October, we spend a week in the kitchen, cutting, slicing, pureeing, spicing, processing, and canning. This year, the Hobbits were particularly excited about helping out with the processing. Everyone was armed with a knife and a cutting board. It's a family affair. The Hobbits sat down with my parents and plowed through two hundred pounds, non-stop, while I processed in the kitchen, non-stop. Dog is ten years old and is starting to produce adult-like labor, but even Princess didn't give up her end until the job was done. In fact, she was decidedly crestfallen when the last pear was chopped up and her part was complete. Between the garden and the pears, my basement is bursting at the seams. See how much we have to be thankful for?

The pear butter recipe is really simple, just a lot of work when you're talking two hundred pounds of pears.

Pear Butter

14 cups of pear puree
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 teaspoons vanilla

Whirl through food processor and freeze or can as desired.

Dear Mrs. Baccus,

What can I say? Words fail me to describe your generosity in sharing such delicious pears, year after year, so faithfully. These have become such a staple in our household. Preserving these pears each fall has become a tradition in our house that we all look forward to. The pear butter recipe is a well-worn and spotted page in my recipe book. Each fall I imagine all of the possibilities. Some of them get juiced, some of them are sliced and dehydrated, but most end up in rows of jars that will sweeten our winter.

You would think that over these years the kids would tire of eating pear butter muffins, but with each batch, still Bug runs through the house, excitedly announcing when a fresh batch has come out of the oven. Then there is a corresponding thunder of feet as everyone lines up to get a steaming handful. I wish I could bottle up that enthusiasm and send it for you to enjoy. It smells like muffins fresh out of the oven. And that enthusiasm is just as fresh each time.

Thank you.

Pick Two

I adore interpreting. I used to be a workshop junkie. Workshop? I'm there. First there and on the front row. Conventions? Oh. My. Workshop heaven. While I was an active interpreter, I never missed a convention. If I couldn't afford to go as an attendee, I worked the convention. I got to listen and get paid. What's not to love? And I've benefited from the knowledge of some of the best in the profession. One workshop that stands out in my mind where Anna Witter-Merithew talked about the price of quality. The price of excellence. She recounted her experience getting her car repaired. The mechanic had a memorable sign posted on his wall: "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick Two." She applied this to the discipline of becoming a good interpreter. There's a price to pay and you have to pick your priorities.

This principle came back to me after a conversation I had with another mom this past week. She was asking my opinion about her teenager and some food issues. I shared my opinion of the cause of the issue and what my experience showed me would work. As I was speaking, she stood there shaking her head. "Isn't there an easier way?" she despaired. I suggested a particular supplement that people have reported as helping, but tagged on the caveat that it was $60-$100 a month. "Isn't there a cheaper way?" I responded that I do things the way that worked for us....I know no other way.

After spending the week thinking about this conversation, my workshop experience came back to me. The same principle applies to dealing with this food problem thing: "Good. Easy. Cheap. Pick two." There are supplements out there that are helpful. Probiotic packed pills. They cost. Gluten free convenience foods cost. The bottom line is that the most effective therapies take time and discipline. They can be cheap, if you're willing to do the hard work over a period of time. It comes down to the prosaic point that this "everything free" diet stuff is like all other diet stuff. It's work, it's discipline, it's more about lifestyle changes than "diet" and there aren't any silver bullets. Each person has to decide if the cost of discipline is worth the return.

The evidence is mounting, beyond just the dismissed and minimized experiences of such parents as I, that doing this kind of work pays off. A study, hot off the press, has some validating things to say about eating effecting our brain function, particularly in autistic children:

"The bacteria produce propionic acid, a short chain fatty acid, which in addition to existing in the gut, is commonly found in bread and dairy products, MacFabe said." Fascinatingly, the study scientists were able to use this bacteria to replicate autistic behaviors in rats, as well as effecting the same kinds of physical changes that are exposed in autopsies of autistic patients. "Now we're learning that the brain and body can influence each other," she said.

This sent me back to thinking about "easy, good, and cheap." And discipline. Some of the best foods that feed brain function are foods high in Omega 3 fatty acids. Like fish. Grandma wasn't being poetical when she said that fish is "brain food." It literally is. That covers "good." And the price of wild-caught sardines qualify as "cheap." But for someone who doesn't really care for fish so much, the "easy" option becomes dicey...gotta pick two. Fortunately, thanks to my Gardening Mentor, sardines can be easy to fix, if requiring some discipline to eat.

Quick Sardine Supper

1 medium onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium tomato, choppped or a handful of cherry tomatoes cut in half
olive oil
1 can of sardines
fresh basil (a few leaves) or a pinch of dried basil
salt and pepper, to taste
crushed red pepper, if desired

Heat oil in medium skillet. Add onions and saute until softened. Add garlic and cook lightly. Stir in tomatoes, then sardines. Remove from heat, season to taste. Serve over pasta, crackers, or rice.

The CBC report continues to say:

"'Treating a child's health should be the first step in addressing autism...Behaviour therapy is certainly important. But the child's health controls the bandwidth that the child has for being able to benefit from behavioural therapy. If a child is sick, they won't be able to focus."

Parents should watch their children closely to determine what foods trigger reactions and to consider removing those triggers, she said. Herbert strongly advocates a balanced diet, consisting of all food groups, not just 'bread and cheese.' 'If you have foods that (a) child is sensitive to in their immune system, that can set up processes that can impact brain function, and it can do so in a negative way. And if you remove those foods, that negative impact can stop.'"

Incredibly validating to hear The Powers That Be saying it, too.

Easy, cheap, good. Pick two.

I'm the Mayonnaise in This Sandwich

Sibling rivalry. It bites. Big time. I always said that we had Bug for Dog's benefit--he was too entrenched in the benefits of being an only child--and God sent us Princess for Bug's benefit. For the past few years, ever since she became mobile, Princess and Bug have been best buddies and do everything together. This tendency is still there, but perhaps it is an age/stage thing, but now this "attached at the hip-ness" is accompanied by continual squabbling. I don't get it. I really don't. When someone works my last nerve, the place I most wanna be is the furthermost from their presence. Not these two. Everything must be done with the company of the other, even if it means that they are going to bicker over their use of space to the smallest centimeter.

Somehow, despite my best intentions, I always manage to get sucked into this. I've tried to take the strategy of letting them resolve their differences between them. I mean, they have to learn how to get along and I don't want to always be the referee. At some point in time, however, the decibel level begins to approach aircraft velocity and a mother must needs step in. I usually "ground" them from each other. They can go about their day and do what they want, but they have to do it separately from each other. Any communications have to go through me. Yep. I'm the mayonnaise in this sandwich.

Speaking of which, I scored a major coup at the grocery store today thanks to my gardening mentor's discovery: Hormel Natural Choice deli meats. Shelly at Hormel assures me that while "natural flavorings" is proprietary information--doesn't that just fash you?--it doesn't contain any soy, dairy, or corn, nor anything that was such in a previous incarnation. Looks like sandwiches are back on the menu! Another bugaboo of ours is what to put on the sandwich. I've sussed out a safe deli meat line, a safe mustard, a safe and delicious bread...now for the mayonnaise.

Every new mayo recipe I've seen tags a raw egg/salmonella disclaimer to it, so I suppose I should lemming along with the rest and preface this recipe with one. To be honest, though, given the descriptions given by Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin on the conditions the chickens producing these battery eggs, I don't think I'd venture using them for mayonnaise either. Fortunately, we get what I call "yard eggs" which is a step beyond the murky term "free range" which often is a way of saying, "Our cages are slightly larger or have slightly fewer chickens than the Industrial Guys." Ours comes from a friend whose chooks run loose through his yard and his children Easter Egg hunt every single day.

Once again, I am thankful for having an antique cookbook on my shelf. Those were the days! I dip into the riches of The American Woman's Cookbook by Ruth Berolzheimer published in 1938, pg 448, tweaked our way. For this, I used rice bran oil and a touch of maple syrup. Tool Guy deemed it as good as Miracle Whip. I'd call that satisfaction.

Mayonnaise

2 uncooked egg yolks
1/2 tsp. salt
1 T lemon juice
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. paprika
1 T maple syrup
1 cup rice bran oil

To yolks, add dry seasonings, blend thoroughly, add vinegar or lemon juice and beat again. Add oil gradually while blending. The mixture should be thick and creamy. Should mayonnaise curdle, begin with a third egg yolk, add a small quantity of oil to the egg, and then by very small quantities, add the curdled dressing. At time a dressing may be quite firm when left, only to be found curdled and disappointing when the time comes to use it. This third egg process will, however, usually restore it.

Bug and Princess will--I am told and I'm taking on faith--one day reach a level of equanimity in their relationship. Today, however, isn't that day. I have hope. After an afternoon of being excluded from each other, Bug creeps up and penitently says, "I'm ready to tell Princess I'm sorry." Peace reigns.

For the next five minutes.

Over the River and Through the Woods

You'd think that winter time would be the "busy" time for my oven...lots of breads, casseroles, cookies, muffins, soups, and such keeping the kitchen toasty and warm. Nope. This is the busy time of year. I did a quick check on my propane tanks--yes, I did say "tanks" as in plural...the propane company had to come out on three emergency refills before being convinced that my consumption habits don't conform with customary trends--and they are each half full. I take this as a measuring stick of all of the work that has gone into laying food by.

In addition to the usual cooking and baking, the seasonal prepping and canning, I'm also dehydrating herbs in preparation for the coming winter. Cough and cold medicines are largely off the menu for the Hobbits. We have a wonderful compounding pharmacist who understands our needs and works with us. The palm-based vegetable glycerin from Azure Standard makes a terrific suspension/sweetener for necessary medicines for little ones. In using glycerin to make medicine for our specific needs, he became so impressed with the efficacy and quality of its properties that he's taken to using it for all of his compounded prescriptions, not just ours.

As wonderful as it is to have things like acetaminophen, ibuprophen, and dextromethorphan compounded for us for times when one needs "big guns," it is infinitely more satisfying...and less expensive!...to have "first responder" remedies laid by. A few years ago, an herbalist friend introduced me to elecampagne as a remedy for the bronchitis that had visited me the first couple of winters after relocating to New England. As a native of Louisiana, I'm used to damp. However, I wasn't used to damp and cold and my lungs showed it. Elecampagne did amazing things and I've never had a problem since. Before moving on, she shared plants with a few of us, the off-shoots of which keep me supplied with roots. Potato vodkas like Luksoswana or Teton Glacier provide a wonderful extractive media for herbals for the corn sensitive. Luckily potatoes haven't been a problem for us, but I have also meditated on the possibility of tequila, since it is made from fermented agave nectar from agave cacti. In the fall, after the second hard frost, I go and collect elecampagne roots, run them through the food processor for a second or two, and submerge in vodka for a couple of weeks. I've found that the suction from a Food Saver vacuum sealer can improve this process even further. Then I strain off the roots and bottle up the tincture for the winter's use.

Elderberry has become a winter time favorite for us. It's even possible to buy the concentrate that has nothing added. Since I also doctor colds with garlic extract, the Hobbits view elderberry concentrate as an excellent chaser to the shot of garlic juice. Use your imagination to envision the delicate shudders. I know, I know....but, it works at killing colds. Spoonful of sugar and all that.

This year, I'm branching out and drying mullein leaves. The possibilities for applications look quite promising. One site even suggested that mullein poultices are good for bad backs. This should come as good news to Tool Guy's ears...and back. Mullein is reported to be good for coughs, digestive upsets, respiratory difficulties of all shapes and sizes. I'll have to report back about what I did with my winter vacation on this one. Previously I've only tangentially noticed the poles of yellow flowers punctuating the sunny spaces in the woods and fields around, but now that I'm looking for them, they seem everywhere. While I was out foraging, I also topped off some of the seed pods and brought them back to scatter clouds of the tiny seeds into my own sunny patch on the back forty, hoping that the ground will be receptive and the deer unobservant. Maybe next year, there will be fuzzy baby mullein peeking out through the growth.

All of the growing, canning, foraging, and dehydrating come down to really one thing: independence. Whatever knowledge and ability and effort I cobble together means that I'm not dependent on someone else for it. Some else to feed me. Someone else to doctor me. Since the advent of the "everything free" years, there have been precious few professionals to guide us on our journey. Our family doctor and I walked away from each other...each baffled and frustrated with the other and I never went back. There's no getting Chinese food from a McDonald's menu and you can't teach a pig to sing...it wastes your time and annoys the pig. Yep, that was one irascible swine.

So now, if there's a scrape or scratch that needs more than a kiss, there's plantain salve from my yard. Great for bee stings, too. There's neem oil spray with a hint of patchoulli to keep the ticks and chiggers off. My knowledge base creeps forward and my remedy cabinet reflects it. Another inch of independence. This winter I'm foraging the library for more books on herbs and next spring, I'll be swinging my poke sack over my shoulder and taking to the river and woods, foraging in search of another inch of independence.

That Was Then, This is Now

Yes, Breatharian, brace yourself for more gardening drivel. I know. I'm intolerable on the subject. Just a little this time, I promise! It's the time of the year when all of the preparation and planning and waiting comes to fruition. I'm swimming in tomatoes. After scoring a stock pot from a yard sale....it was a "make me a deal" deal and the seller accepted my dollar....I'm reaching back through my recipe files for my favorite tomato sauce recipe. This has become a seasonal event in our house. The smells of baking bread and bubbling sauce tantalize the neighborhood....or at least the Hobbits. Everyone walks around with their noses in the air, sniffing. I don't think there's anything that evokes more of the feelings of "home" and "nurturing" than such good food wafting through the windows.

I've been spending such spare time as I have browsing through the archives of lists that chronicle our first furtive scrambles to figure out what was causing our problems and how to fix them. The medical community is singularly unhelpful in this area and almost all of what informed us came from those people who were fumbling and groping as we were. The Complementary Alternative Medicine community takes a lot of flack for giving little relief for the money that they collect, but I don't find the mainstream medical community to have a better track record. Somehow my searches for solutions always comes back to food.

Particularly the posts during our grain-free years stand out to me. Having a few years distance from that stage of our struggle, I'm reading my old posts with fresh eyes. What stands out to me most is how light-hearted they sound compared to how I felt. It certainly didn't feel light-hearted to me then. Some days, I felt like I was drowning. It was during that time that I developed such a strong feeling for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. After reading the books, I was never able to watch Peter Jackson's interpretation without having a stack of kleenex next to me, especially during Sam Gamgee's monologue about his favorite stories...the stories that really mattered.^* I could strongly identify with the sense of profound weariness driven forward by desperation. It sounds melodramatic, perhaps, but watching the progression of my posts where more foods disappeared and the list of intolerances grew longer, I remember that this was how it felt at that time. Some days, I wished I had a Sam to carry me up the mountain.

The sense of unknown was an overwhelming burden. The not knowing why things were going wrong. Not knowing how to fix them. I saw a lot of guessing and groping in my posts. I'm not sure that I shared with other posters just how fearful I was. Afraid of not finding the answers. Afraid of things getting worse and not learning how to make it stop. And things did get frighteningly worse before they got better. One memorable post expressed the trap I found myself in, struggling to nourish children who couldn't tolerate the nourishment they need to be able to tolerate the food they need to nourish them.

I'm finding that dealing with personal disequilibrium is very much easier than dealing with it in your children, especially small children who have only a fuzzy grasp of why they eat differently from everyone else. It's easier to accept that I can't have that slice of pizza sitting on the table than it is for a four year old. And these Hobbits were absolute troopers. I can't sing their praises enough. I've never had a moment's concern about them sneaking food or not cooperating. Which is one of the reasons that I feel so highly motivated to find ways to get them the tastes that they so desire in a safe form. In the middle of our grain-free years, Bug sighed wistfully that he missed pizza. I asked him what was it he missed about pizza: the sauce or the crust? The sauce. Since fruit leather has always been one of his favorite snacks, I decided to use this platform to jump from the sweet to the savory.

The base of pizza leather is the tomato sauce. Since the flavor concentrates when dehydrated, it is necessary to add something that will dilute the taste without altering it. My first solution was to use zucchini or squash. This was a wonderful way of disposing of the excess from the garden that I thought I wanted to can, until I discovered what canned squash tastes like. Um. Won't do that again. Another solution--Bug's preference--is to dilute with apple puree, since he prefers a sweeter taste. Hey, I don't eat it, I just make it. Besides, this is a thrifty way of disposing with all of those odds and ends of apple slices that never seem to get eaten up. I have a bag in the freezer that I toss them into and bring out when it is time to make leather of one kind or another.

Foods that are low in pectin will crumble and separate when dehydrated. This is one of the reasons that apples are in all commercial fruit leathers. Another way to enhance the texture is to use pectin. Pomona makes a terrific product that is derived from citrus and is corn-free. Adding pectin, either through apples or canning pectin gives the pizza leather cohesive smoothness and chew.

Leathers are elastic in quite a few ways, both texturally and ingredient-wise. I confess that I don't have a hard and fast recipe for this, since I tend to just dump in what's on hand, using up the leftovers, bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam in the fridge and freezer. It's all good.

Pizza Leather

2 quarts pizza sauce
1 quart squash or fruit puree
2-4 T fruit pectin

Run the sauce and fruit through the food processor until incorporated, adding the pectin slowly through the cap. When thoroughly blended, spread at approximately 1/4 inch thick evenly onto sheets of parchment or silicone baking sheets over dehydrating racks. Set temperature to 100-120 degrees and let dehydrate for about 6-12 hours. Some people swear by portable dehydrators, but I've never found one that I liked better than my own stove. It may happen that the edges will dehydrate faster than the center. In that case, I trim the dried parts away from what is still tacky. When it is completely dry and while the sheet is still warm from the stove, cut into strips with scissors.

Store in a dry container. I'd like to tell you how long it will stay edible in the cupboard, but I've yet to discover the end of the shelf life of leather...it doesn't stay around long enough to find out.

The last couple of years has seen the happy return of a few of our off-menu foods--grains not the least--but some of the things we relied on back then are still staples in the house. With the smell of tomato sauce curling through the house, appetites for pizza have been sharpened. Given the demands of canning this time of year, pizza isn't something I'm finding time to readily throw together. It's nice to be able to point to the pantry and say, "If you're really hungry for a taste of pizza, nibble on some pizza leather" and promise the real thing later.


While I still long for that future day when I can gleefully snoopy dance with the rest of the joyful "just" glutenfree-ers, it helps to remember that I'm still in the middle of the story and have yet to read the final chapter.


_{* "It's all wrong...by rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were and sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you...that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But, I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now."}

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Let no one say they weren't warned. I said that I'd wax extensive about gardening and, dear Breatharian, it's gardening season. Lots of stuff flowing in and I'm weighing, charting, and journaling what is doing what in order to plan for next year. So far the Celebrity plants are out-performing the heirlooms. I'd planned on saving the heirloom seeds until I realized just how busy the bees have been in the garden. Doubtless the heirlooms have been cross-pollinated with the hybrids. Oh, well. Scratch that idea. I'm enjoying the fruits of this year's labor nonetheless.

Even though it doesn't outweigh the cucumbers or tomatoes, one of the most satisfying crops that I'm harvesting this year is the daikon radish. I've tried unsuccessfully for three years with seeds whose "get up and go" got up and went. Lots of green stuff but absolutely no root. I used a different company for this year's daikon and the results have been highly gratifying. As I pull in these saber-sized roots, I remember a couple of summers ago when a friend of mine graciously tutored me in the art of making kimchi. Looking back, I can't think of a better way to spend a crisp, sunny autumn day with the kids playing outside than to be inside making kimchi.

We started out with HUGE mixing bowls that looked like they could hold five gallons. I had no idea that they came in that size! My friend had jump-started our project by quartering napa cabbage and soaking it overnight. She'd soaked about a dozen heads in about 3-6 pounds of rock salt dissolved in one of these monster bowls. She told me that when the leaf is limp enough to bend without snapping, the consistency is right. Then rinse the cabbage two to three times before continuing.

Off to the side, she had pureed up about 3 heads of garlic, a finger of ginger, and coarsely chopped scallions, about 10 bunches. Then we took about 5 pounds or so of daikon radishes and shredded them on a mandolin style shredder. After shredding these (and these days I use a carpenter glove), we dumped in the ginger, garlic, and onions with approximately 1/2 cup of brine shrimp and 1 cup of very mild pepper. I tasted the pepper and it had a very slight bite to it that took a while for even that to kick in.

After mixing all of these together--wearing rubber gloves the whole time--she then picked up one of the quarters of napa, grabbed up a handful of the spicy "stuffing" and rubbed the napa all over until it was covered in red juices. Then from the bottom of the quarter, she started folding back the layers of cabbage and spreading small amounts of the spiced and shredded radish between the leaves. Spread radish, fold down leaves, spread radish, fold down leaves, until the entire quarter was "stuffed. She then folded the quarter in half and crammed it in the bottom of a 1/2 gallon glass jar....ironically with a commercial kimchi label. Lather, rinse, repeat until the jars are full and all of the product is gone.

All of this filled up 7 or 8 jars. She said that she puts half in the refrigerator immediately and half out on the porch for two days. The porch batch then comes in and they start eating that batch, which lasts them approximately a month. When that kimchi is gone, then they start on the half that lived in the refrigerator.

Re-creating the recipe for a smaller kimchi appetite was a bit challenging. I had to catalog approximate measurements, as she doesn't measure anything and does all of this intuitively. With a little trial and error, I came up with a kimchi for my size appetite and my heat tolerance. I prefer a larger ratio of radish to cabbage and this recipe reflects it. I've made radish kimchi, but it lacks something, as well as possessing a certain--what's the word Tool Guy used?--I'll call it "pungent" instead. Yeah, radish kimchi is more pungent. So I throw in radishes to cabbage in a 2:1 ratio. There's even a hint that radish was the original vegetable in kimchi.

Kimchi is one of those dishes that the Western palate considers too...um...exotic to consider with relish, but there are a lot of good reasons for learning to love it. According to the World Clock, digestive diseases are the #4 leading killer among non-communicable diseases and takes a bare second to AIDS in number of lives lost.

Recently, with SARS and Bird Flu making such a sensation in the headlines, kimchi has enjoyed renewed popularity. It seems that a concentrate of kimchi actually cured Bird Flu among birds that were positive for the illness. Of course, officials were very cautious about any claims and were very low-key about the study results, but at the time, kimchi was a sell-out item on Korean restaurant menus. The story even caused an upswing in sauerkraut sales on US shelves. Unfortunately, I suspect that the beneficial variable in kimchi and possibly sauerkraut is the live probiotic value that is cooked out in the canning process. The study didn't go far enough to pin down the variables, but it's nice to know that we can protect ourselves from something without the help of big government or big pharmaceuticals. Imagine. Flu vaccine. In your own kitchen.

Downsized Kimchi

3-6 T salt in a gallon of water for soaking
1 head napa cabbage, quartered
4 lbs. daikon radishes
5 green onions
1-2 T or to taste of Korean/Chungok red pepper
1 clove crushed garlic
1 small piece of ginger or 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1-2 T of Real Salt
gallon sized glass jar

Soak cabbage in salt water overnight or until the leaf bends without snapping. Chop onions, garlic, and shred radishes. Wearing gloves, mix the spices, onion, and garlic with the shredded radish. Since I use more radish than cabbage, I line the bottom of the jar with cabbage leaves and pile in hefty layers of radish, interchanged with cabbage leaves until all of the product is used up. Let sit overnight or 2-3 days and move to refrigerator.

And before you say anything, yes, I know my kimchi looks....pale. In my defense, I'm trying to svengali the Hobbits into eating this probiotic powerhouse. Bug is inhaling the garden pickles, but I'm trying to use the Asian panache to lure in Dog, who loves stir-fry. I even had him shred up some of the radishes with me. Cross your fingers!

While my mentor and we students were busy shredding, chopping, and prepping, it was enjoyable to discuss the process and learn things that aren't in recipe books. Nothing can substitute for one generation of hands teaching another. As we sat on the floor and were finishing the project, she looked around at all of these jars and laughingly said, "When I see all of this kimchi around me, I feel rich!"

Fifty Ways to Tweak a Cake

I'm looking forward to August as a month when I can actually rest. I have an entire stack of Victorian murder mysteries in sequential order piled up next to my bed, calling to me. I'm still tying up loose ends from last school year and beginning to fray the first threads of next. Yes, Kim, I promise to have my homeschooling co-op return packet to you by the end of the week. Cross my heart and hope to die. Hold that spot for me! As the fruits of the garden begin to flood in, I'm daily crawling through the bolt holes between the plants, groping for heavy fruit. And our buying club order has been put to bed for the month, so begins a whole new cycle of meditating and purchasing.

An interesting article flashed across Yahoo, stating that the weight of one's friends has a large influence on one's own personal weight and perception of what is an acceptable weight. Makes a lot of sense, though. As a buying club coordinator, I see how much influence the members have over each other in the purchases we make and the products that become popular. Like iron sharpens iron, we rub off on each other and encourage each other to think critically about what we buy and what we eat.

On the other hand, chocolate is chocolate and so requires no meditation. Just open that wrapper and enjoy, right? Endangered Species: It isn't junk food. It's a handful of anti-oxidents. Heh.

Interestingly, there are more and more people cropping up in my life who are re-evaluating what they eat, the value of it, and whether what we take for granted as being nutritious is actually such. It really challenges my own way of doing things, how we eat and how that is perceived. Some of my closest friends are starting to do the same and it is very rewarding to walk with them, exploring these topics. Everyone has their own baby steps and it's encouraging as more and more people around me start to take them.

My party planner just wrapped up another wonderful celebration of Dog and Bug's birthday. It was a Buzz Lightyear theme, which was a wonderful platform for every home educator's dream of weaving fun with learning. She set up game stations for each planet of the solar system...and we universally agreed that Pluto is a planet, thankyouverymuch. Each station had a task to accomplish, a fact to collect toward earning a prize for each planet. The yard was scattered with string, scraps of planetary factoids, games, scrambling, screaming kids and a boisterous good time.

How can you thank a friend for such meticulous planning, set up, and coordination? Well, when she's taking her own baby steps toward changing things, you do some baking for her. One of her own hobbits is coming up on a birthday and needs an almost everything-free cake. Well, have I got a recipe! One friend of mine said it reminded her of the German "schlopp" cake recipe provided to new brides as a vehicle to learn to bake on, a guaranteed success. This is one of those impervious recipes that can be stretched in fifty different directions and it will come out edible each time. It has a substitution option for almost every ingredient. Depending on the substitution, the texture, loft, and consistency may change some. Instead of a light, fluffy cake, you may get a dense, moist fudgy cake. Any way you jumble the combinations, it has lots of wiggle room.

Red Devil Cake

2 cups flour (I used 1.5 cups rice, 1/4 tapioca, 1/4 potato starch)
1 c sugar (I used 1/2 c date sugar, 1/4 c vegetable glycerin)
1/2 c cocoa powder or carob powder
2 t double acting baking powder (I used cream of tartar)
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
1 t guar gum or xanthan gum
1 c diced cooked beets (I used pear puree)
1 c water or water to appropriate consistency (My uses average 1/4 cup)
1/3 c olive oil
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350* F. Lightly oil or spray two 8" square baking pan (I used a 9" round). Mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in bowl, combining well.

If using flax instead of eggs (see substitutions below), grind to meal in coffee grinder. Place 1/3 cup water in blender, start blending while adding flax meal. Blend 30 seconds. To flax mixture or to eggs in blender, add beets, 1 cup water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. While mixing, add guar or xanthan gum. Process until frothy and well blended.

Pour this quite thick liquid mixture into dry ingredients. Mix quickly just until everything is moistened and incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pans and immediately bake for 35-40 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Watch carefully as it may take less time.

Frost when completely cool.

Substitutions:

Add more cocoa/carob and chips to get a richer flavor
Sub 2 eggs with 2 T flax and 1 cup water
Sub 1/3 c mashed banana instead of eggs or flax
Sub carob instead of chocolate
Sub sweet potatoes, yams, squash, pears, or pumpkins for beets
Make cupcakes instead of cake (approx 15)

I've started hunting around for and collecting antique cookbooks. So much of what is published today bids the "assembler"--as opposed to "cook"--to open a box of this or a can of that. Old-fashioned cookbooks were textbooks in chemistry and explained how to make even the ingredients to put in the recipes. One such treasure came to me by way of my mother who, as a young wife, had been gifted this cookbook by a friend who had used it in her early years as well. The American Woman's Cookbook by Ruth Berolzheimer published in 1938, pg 481, provided me with the perfect almost everything-free frosting, which I tweaked slightly for us:

Maple Sugar Frosting

3/4 cup maple-sirup [sic]
1/4 cup sugar (I used maple sugar)
2 egg-white beaten
1/4 cup carob powder

Cook the sirup and sugar together until it spins a thread (220*F.), remove from the fire and cool while the egg-whites are beaten stiff and whipped with carob powder, then pour the sirup in a thin stream, over the stiff whites, beating the mixture until it is thick enough to spread. A rough surface may be obtained by spreading the top of the cake with the back of a spoon before the frosting is set.

Oh, yeah. Be careful. Hot maple syrup burns. Ask me how I know.

The frosting, too, is tweakable since the carob powder to color and flavor the icing was my addition. When Princess turned three, she decreed a pink birthday. Scrambling around a bit, I was able to juice a beet sufficiently to color the icing pink without adulterating the flavor. The smaller male Hobbits were put off by the knowledge that the pink had come from beets, but I was unabashed by their reluctance since that left more for the larger Hobbits to polish off with relish and aplomb.

I'd love to give credit where credit is due with regard to this marvelous cake. Alas, however, it is much like the urban legendary Neiman Marcus cookie recipe: it has made the rounds of the internet so many times that it seems impossible to trace where it came from. Someone out there definitely deserves kudos.