The Frog Princess

Summer winds on and begins to wind down. The sounds of lawnmowers fill the air, though not as frequently as usual. A cooler summer and the exorbitant price of gas combines to encourage everyone to be less scrupulous than normal about manicuring expanses of green. Weekends are punctuated with nights out in the backyard, "camping out" as the weather permits, trips to "Pooh Bridge" to play Pooh sticks, and bike riding in the park. Tool Guy refreshed the sand in the sandbox and Bug and Princess devote themselves to engineering and excavating new roads and infrastructures to support the necessary castles for HRH. Having a girl among boys presents a curious dichotomy. She is an interesting blend of girly stuff along with the reckless hobbledyhoy. Like when Bug was grooving on all things magnetic. His birthday and Christmas money was spent on interesting magnetic kits and building sets. Princess followed his passion blithely, but insisted that the magnetic marbles for her shopping bag all be pink. So I spent quite a few minutes, sitting on the floor of the educational toy store, picking out fifty pink orbs from all of the assorted colors in the container. Well, at least we don't have to guess which magnets belong to whom...

This has been a particularly busy and eventful summer for us. I think I'm emerging at last from my gestational hibernation. When I was pregnant for Princess, we were simultaneously hit with an exhaustive and exhausting list of IgG intolerances that needed to be eliminated along with gluten. The vulnerability of lacking safe food sources outside of the home, combined with the pressures of pregnancy, created in me a tremendous desire to hole up in the house and go nowhere. I expected that to evaporate after Princess was born, but, somehow, that reclusive drive lingered. Probably due to the dynamic of being contact sensitive to any of the off-menu food stuff and cross-contamination being what it is, every trip outside the house was an "adventure." Picture Snoopy attempting a trek "across enemy lines." That would be us.

This past weekend, we assayed our first participation in our local church's annual picnic. As it would happen, the morning was cloudy and spitting. As we packed up the van and headed out under the blessings of a light sprinkle, Dog kept up a running monologue about how it would be a temporary shower, accompanying the windshield wipers that kept working harder and harder to keep the road visible. I finally put him out of his angst by assuring him that we'd at least stay there long enough to eat, knowing that there was a pavilion where everyone would shelter from the storm.

Under a persistent drizzle, we unloaded the treats of the day and shared a table with another family for lunch. Rain wasn't the only risk of the day...this was a new recipe that I was trying and it was just as much a gamble to serve it to the Hobbits in public as it would be to serve it to guests. (As luck would have it, everyone liked the dish.) As you may recall, I'm in a food funk. My foodie partner has been holding my hand through this pout. She entrusted me with a stack of beloved "Taste of Home" magazines, from which I tweaked Anna Minegar's recipe for pulled pork.

Everything Free Pulled Pork

3-4 pounds bone-in pork ribs
4 cups water

Sauce

1 cup Breatharian Flames Ketchup
1 cup water
2 T maple syrup or vegetable glycerin
2 t wheat-free tamari sauce
1 T tapioca starch

In pressure cooker, cook ribs with 4 cups water for 25 minutes after the cooker has reached optimum pressure. Meanwhile, dissolve tapioca starch in cup of water, then add mixture with ketchup, water, maple syrup, and tamari sauce to heavy saucepan, and heat until thickened. When ribs are finished cooking, remove and strip meat from the bones, using two forks to shred the meat into fragments. Stir into sauce and heat until warmed. Serve over fresh bread.

When the rain slackened off...and even before...Bug and Princess dashed from the cover of the pavilion and went to explore the delights of the playground. Which included a merry-go-round. Before the end of the afternoon, Princess had assumed the "responsibility" of pushing everyone...all for the joy of "tripping" and allowing the momentum of the equipment to drag her through the muddy track worn down by previous hoydens. Heh. Not a few concerned parents pointed her out to me. One of the matriarchs pulled out her camera and captured the moment for posterity. I still have the princess slippers that did the honors of the day...I haven't been able to bring myself to wash them.



On the drive home, the boys were discussing what they wanted to do when they got home. Dog wanted to read the latest books from the library. Bug wanted to play with his Bionicles. Princess declared that she was going to go and slide through the mud. The conversation turned to food. Dog wanted chicken sticks for dinner. Bug wanted cowboy eggs. Princess declared that she wanted to go and slide through the mud.

If they would just stay five...

The Hurrier I Go

I'm repenting myself. I'm beginning to think that making to-do lists isn't such a good idea. To-do things on a page together are like rabbits...they reproduce more little to-do things. It's almost like when you start fixing up the house and more things start unraveling than what you planned on renovating. This to-do begets that to-do and we all know how long the begets begot before they were done.

Delusionally, I keep thinking that at some point, I'm going to get caught up on housework, caught up on food chores, and caught up on homeschooling to the point of being able to sit down and relax without it all hanging over my head. I just googled up my personalized homepage and realized that the items on the to-do pad there hold things that still are undone. Oh, and I haven't looked at that page in over six months. Sigh. Well, in all fairness, there hasn't been a lot of demand lately for that snow suit needing the zipper replaced, so I cry "mercy!" there. And you know things are starting to approach pathological when the door greeter at Sam's says, "Oh, I have your book!" And turns to bring you your to-do diary. The one that was weeks ago abandoned in the seat of the shopping cart when you were distracted by having to settle the seat spat in the van, while you were off-loading groceries.

This whole attitude reminds me of when we first started our food journey. Oh, I knew that the gluten thing was going to be for life. And I was okay with that. Making gluten free foods didn't daunt me...armed with a pile of Bette Hagman cookbooks and a catalog from United Buying Clubs, I was loaded for bear. It wasn't until after we had to go everything free that things started to get a bit more stressful. In fact, going gluten free felt positively halcyon by comparison. But I didn't think it would last that long. The literature said that IgG's would heal up and we could reintroduce the forbidden foods in four to six months. I remember using that to encourage my father..."Hey, Dad, it's only for four months...six at the most!" It was probably a good thing that I didn't know.

When, at four and then six months, we weren't gaining foods, but still losing even more foods than had originally shown up on the tests, I realized that this wasn't a sprint. It was a marathon. And now, as we're approaching the six year mark and the six month window is a vague memory in the past. I'm having to remind myself again...not a sprint...marathon...think marathon.

With that in mind--and remembering how I hate my own cooking right now--I decided to take a page out of my gardening partner's book and resort to stir fries. Oh! That reminds me! I have to tell tales out of school. My gardening partner will just have to forgive me. In addition to sharing gardening passions, we also share co-op responsibilities. She has the herculean task of juggling the produce order without benefit of purchasing software, as well as gambling on whether or not enough members will make impulse purchases sufficient to sell off any unencumbered produce before we close out our monthly pick up session. It's no mean feat and she does it every month. This past month, there was an unusual amount of bok choy unsold by the time the truck arrived and she came, loaded up and with a plan in mind. Whipping out her wok, she chopped up one of the heads of bok choy and tossed up a quick stir fry, adding just a dash of wheat-free tamari sauce and some onions. Setting it on the check out table, next to our accountant--where people have to stand to pay for their order--she waved it under everyone's noses and pointed out the fresh heads of bok choy on our surplus table. Heh. I guess I don't have to tell you that all of the bok choy sold...

With a surfeit of squash out--and me continually threatening the Hobbits with more vegetables--I decided to shamelessly rip off her cooking technique. And her measuring technique. The end result was this.

Scorched Squash

A couple of zucchini and summer squash, chopped up
A couple of dashes of San-J tamari sauce (not corn-free, despite their declaration on their website)
A couple of teaspoons of minced garlic
A couple of spritzes of olive oil

In a very hot wok (I put this under my "blow torch" burner on my stove), spritz with olive oil, just enough to keep the squash from sticking. In small amounts, stir fry squash until seared and browned, but still offering resistance when forked. Add minced garlic and tamari sauce and stir fry a moment or so longer to incorporate flavors. Serve hot.

This past week, I genuinely took the week off. I spent one hurly-burly day cooking ahead and spent the rest of the week with my feet up, listening to mp3's supplied to me by my mom. Thanks, Mom! Amazingly, I'm not any further behind than I usually am and I'm significantly more rested. Marathon...marathon...marathon...

Breatharian's Diary

This is gonna shock you, so brace yourself. I'm a list maker. I know. Whoda thunk? What can I say? When every Hobbit views me as their own particular property and at their disposal for endless interruptions, it's very difficult to remain on track. Some days I find myself literally drifting in circles, like a rudderless boat. But it's worse than that; it isn't enough that I make to-do lists. No. I have to have categorized to-do lists. I have a to-cook list, to-clean list, to-school list, to-project list, to-garden list, and a chore list for the kids for each day. Is that anal enough? Not quite.

I've decided that I've discovered the value of a diary. Not the kind of soul-searching, deeply-delving journal where one pours out one's essence onto the pages as a bequest to future generations. No. This is much more shallow and callow than that: I want Brownie points. So much of what I do through the day is repetitive, routine, and ephemeral that I feel the need to have something to show for it. After all, I was on my feet and moving from early morning to 9p last night before I finally dusted my hands and called it a day. I didn't get but half of my to-do stuff done, but I was busy doing things. Doggonit, I want credit for what I did. Yep. I'm starting a diary. You know those dry, stale things that were a laundry list of laundry, et al that one does in a day, but no one is interested in reading? Yeah, no one in posterity is going to want to read these things, but dagnabit, at least I can hold that up next to my trashed house and say, "See??? I did SOMETHING!!"

Phyllis Diller said, "Cleaning the house while you have children is like shoveling the walk while it is still snowing." Yeah, but you can't wait until the mess stops making to start cleaning it. We had a taste of what that would be like this past week when Tool Guy was...um...tooling. He's converting some wasted space into a room for Princess. New England cottages are usually characterized by realtors as being "cozy." Well, our cottage is quite "snug," thank you very much. This little conversion provides us with some "found" space, but in order to utilize it, we had to displace a great deal of...er...stuff. Our timing lacks synchronicity, because while he was projecting away on the room conversion, I was beginning to tackle changing our wardrobe over from winter to summer. Which requires evacuating the contents of the attic. The house was in a state somewhat less fit for polite society. So as much as I would like to wait until it stops snowing...still gotta shovel. Through all of this mess.

There's a lot of Breatharian cooking that doesn't take a lot of time, even though the little bites of time start adding up after a while. Making ketchup is one of those things. Of course, since almost all ketchup is corn-sweetened, contain corn vinegar, or corn-based citric acid--though that may change with corn prices rising--Hunt's and the ilk are off the menu. As my tomato plants are adjusting to their new home in the greenhouse, I'm eyeing the last jars of tomato sauce and wondering if they will hold out until the first fruits come in. And I grab another jar to make ketchup.

Breatharian Flames Ketchup

6 ancho chile peppers, stemmed & seeded
1/2 white onion, chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
3 cups water
3 T vegetable glycerin
3 T maple syrup
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 quart plain tomato sauce
1/2 t salt
pepper

Place peppers, chopped onion, and minced garlic in a large saucepan and cover with the water. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes or until peppers are soft. Strain out peppers, onion, and garlic and blend in food processor. Add tomato sauce and remaining ingredients and blend well. Adjust seasonings to taste and spoon into glass container. Store in refrigerator.

Keeping a diary of to-do stuff keeps me accountable. It keeps me on track. It keeps me aware of how I use my time. "Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom." _{Psalm 90:12}

Oh. Yeah. I'm also one of those people who do something and put it on the list for the joy of crossing it off. Am I pathetic or what?

Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a middle-aged woman in possession of a good(ly) sag must be in want of an exercise program. Yep. That would be me.

There's a myth that circulates around that women of spare frames are correspondingly spared sag. Please allow me to disabuse any reader of this notion. Gravity is no respecter of persons. This point was driven home to me when in the recent past, I raised my hand to wave and my upper arm waved harder than my hand. I looked in horror at what looked like a flapjack hanging from beneath my bicep. Where did that come from?? Gulp. Time to face the ticking clock. I'm turning into my grandmother.

So much for pride. Time to overcome the prejudice against exercise. Don't get me wrong...physical exertion doesn't bother me. I've never gone in for "formal" exercise because I figured that gardening as I do--I'm deliberating upgrading what I do to "farming"--that I didn't need to get all chummy with an equally aging Jane Fonda. When I'd go to the doctor and meet the ubiquitous question of "Do you exercise three or more times a week?" I always answered, "Yep" without a qualm of conscience. After all, what else is mowing an acre with a push mower, but exercise?

My gardening mentor gently pointed out to me the benefits of regular cardiac exercise. Not the least of which is an improved immune system and increased energy. Both of these caught my attention, given our little pneumonia stint this past Christmas and the fact that most days I fall face forward into bed, going to sleep before I've finished crashing.

So gritting my teeth and resurrecting a mini-trampoline that I'd bought for the benefit of the Hobbits, I acquired some handweights and burned off some of my favorite fast-stepping music onto a CD equal to the amount of time I wanted to...okay...give me a minute...I'll get it out...exercise. Some pretty amazing things are happening. And I thought I was in pretty good shape. I'm now enjoying being in better shape. And that energy thing? Yep. It's actually true. During crunch week a while back and the week thereafter, I gave myself "permission" to be excused from working out. And I felt like death warmed over on a cracker--gluten free, of course. As soon as I pushed myself to pick up those weights and start it all over again, my energy level rocketed.

Lots of things I can do with that energy. Gardening--rather, farming, getting the house whipped into shape, planning for that SAT essay prep class I have to teach this fall. What else? Oh, yeah. That would be cooking.

A while back I was playing with a biscuit recipe. What's Southern cooking without biscuits? This one turned out so nicely that Tool Guy refers to them as my "Bisquick biscuits." And he's not far off the mark on this one.

Almost Bisquick Biscuits

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup dehydrated potatoes
2 T tapioca starch
2 T potato starch
1/2 t salt
1 t guar gum
1/2 t baking soda
2 t cream of tartar
1 egg
2 T oil
Coconut milk to equal 1 cup total liquid

Preheat oven to 375*. Fill muffin forms half way and bake for 15 minutes or until done.

When these popped out of the oven, I handed one to Dog for him to taste test. His eyes rolled back in his head and he mumbled through a mouthful about getting some ghee. I assumed that meant he liked them. Matter of fact, I don't think there was any left of that first batch for Tool Guy to try. We're working on that sharing thing, but every Hobbit has his priorities: Feed me.

My priorities these days including starting early with some weights, some jogging, and Steven Curtis Chapman "Live(ing) Out Loud" in my ears. Summer is coming on and there's grass to be cut. "Bring It On," because I'm ready!

Happy Birthday!

Birthdays and other auspicious beginnings. Spring is the perfect time for both. That's probably what spurred me on a year ago to start blogging about all of the stuff that we'd been through and where we were heading. Yep. This week marks one year of blogging for me. Whew. Never knew I had that much to say. Well, an exasperated former supervisor probably knew it. There may come a day when I run out of things to say, but Breatharian, today is not that day.

Along with the beginning of blogging, this week celebrates another beginning: the day Princess emerged into the world. Each of my pregnancies and deliveries were radically different from the others. Dog, being a recalcitrant, unrepentant transverse position, required a c-section, even resisting two attempted versions. Bug was an unmedicated v-bac (natural birth after Cesarean) in a hospital birthing room with a midwife. While we hadn't planned on another baby, when I became pregnant with Princess, I swore that I was going to have a home birth. Fortunately, my birthing success with Bug paved the way for finding a midwife who would accept me as a client. Other than being very tired and cranky...the whole Breatharian thing had descended upon us by that point...it was a pretty good pregnancy, especially for someone tipping the Big Four-Oh.

My final visit with the midwife informed us that the delivery could be at any time...which turned out to be that night. I'd gone to bed early with the benefit of some Benedryl courtesy of a cold shared by Bug. Thanks, Bug! Shortly after midnight, I was pinched awake by the contractions. Leisurely strolling to the phone, I informed the midwife that we were getting close. Bug's arrival was prefaced by twenty-four hours of labor, so I wasn't anticipating anything precipitate. I should have known better. Princess has always been determined to set her own pace. From the start. So far, nothing has changed. Heh.

When it became apparent that things were moving faster than the arrival of the midwife, Tool Guy, in a spousal state of panic, tentatively suggested heading toward the hospital. When this was greeted with gutteral growls, he retreated to the laundry room to warm up some towels instead of warming up the car. Good plan. Suggestions to change locations or change positions were equally death-defying efforts. He lapsed into supportive silence. Not for nothing has this man been married twenty years.

With all of the aplomb of a runaway train, Princess bound out into the world and decided to stay. Fifteen minutes later, the midwife arrived and, looking over the situation, informed me that she never had any worries about us. It was nice, though, to have someone tuck Princess and I into bed and take care of the rest of the details.

Princess requested cupcakes for her birthday this year and since Sin on a Spoon is essentially an icing recipe, I decided to play around with toppings on our standby cake recipe.

I had planned on photographing the mouthwatering outcome of my labors. Unfortunately, there was an unanticipated "earthquake" in the refrigerator and the results were...um...unphotogenic. Oh, they were still delicious enough for a Hobbit to gobble, but their appearance didn't do the cupcakes justice.

Caramel Carob Cupcakes

First make the cupcakes:

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)

Sin On a Spoon Icing
(All ingredients/amounts negotiable)

8 T ghee
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 T coconut milk
2 T vegetable glycerin or agave nectar or
8 drops stevia
2 tsp. lecithin

Blend ghee with balloon whip mixer attachment on high until soft. Pour in cream/coconut milk, lecithin, and sweetener, whipping until blended. On stir setting, add cocoa powder, turning speed up to high as the powder becomes incorporated. Mix until the desired consistency, adding more lecithin if necessary to emulsify the ghee and coconut milk.

Caramel Topping

2-4 T maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. ghee
Enjoy Life chocolate chips

In heavy sauce pan, combine ingredients and boil until syrup reaches the string stage. Allowing the syrup to cool just enough to not melt the icing (stirring the whole time), drizzle over the iced cupcakes. Garnish with chocolate chips.

To avoid refrigerator earthquakes, these are best served immediately.

Five years ago. Today. Snuggling the latest baby to bless our homeschooling group, I had some flashbacks and baby yearnings. Briefly. It's pretty exhilarating to be the mommy of an exuberant five year old. Think I'll keep her.

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."

Breatharian Revisited

Our foods, like our lives, are works in progress. Nothing is static, at least not for long. And being an inveterate tweaker, I'm constantly playing with the variables. One of the beauties of hanging out on food lists is that there are other food geeks who love to tweak as much as I do. They often come up with ideas that jump start me off in a new direction or affirm the germ of an idea that has been fermenting in the back of my mind.

A few months ago, one of those tweakers mentioned cold ferments in relation to sourdough breads. I had noticed that when I keep my starter in the refrigerator, not only do I not have to feed it as frequently, it also doesn't taste as...well...sour. Don't get me wrong. I like a tangy bread. But then, I have other aesthetics to please. The ones that are shorter than me. What can I say? They outnumber me. Oookay...no sour sourdough. Got it. So I keep my starter in the refrigerator. But TLS was talking about keeping the whole thing in the refrigerator. All the time. It took me a while before I could wrap my brain around it. Sometimes the gluten/gluten-free barrier makes my brain shut down.

Then I decided why not? Let's cook dangerously. I started making up my bread the night before and just shoving it in the refrigerator until the morning. Then I'd pull it out, pop it into the oven at 100* for a couple of hours or until it rose to my satisfaction and baked as usual. Good bread. Really, really good bread.

Then a few weeks ago, she recommended this book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. And I'd like to recommend it as well. Just let me say up front, it's a bread book. And it isn't gluten-free. But this book has a fine attention to detail. As I read through the book, I found myself nodding in agreement, because my experience in the kitchen confirmed what they were instructing. But they've written it down in such a way that organizes it and explains everything, including how to adjust the bread in order to change the texture in the final product. They talk about "slack" dough making a better crumb than a dough that must be kneaded by hand. And guess what, Breatharian? Gluten free dough is best when it is slack, so this entire idea is well suited to the gluten free bread.

They spend a couple of pages talking about how wetter doughs will yield a "custard" crumb, which is a desirable texture in bread. I can avow and affirm that this is indeed true and, while they attribute this quality to the gluten in the bread, I can also avow and affirm that gluten free bread is able to achieve its own "custard" crumb. Perhaps not to the gluten-oriented palate, but to the Breatharian one, the texture is heavenly. All of the Hobbits, including the tallest one whose palate still bears the memory-taint of gluten, noticed and commented on the marked difference in the quality of the bread after doing a long rise, cold ferment. Bug pulled out a slice of day-old bread and inquired, "Did you bake this today?" Poking an inquiring finger into the slice, I felt it give under my finger, then spring back. "Nope. But it sure feels like I did." He spread ghee on it and devoured it without even considering toasting it. How many gluten free breads can you say that about?

In the past year, since the Glutenator laid the groundwork for the sourdough bread and made me believe gluten-free sourdough was possible, I've been tweaking the basic recipe to improve the texture and longevity of the loaf. The Glutenator once observed that Martha Washington's recipes called for a great deal of eggs...many more eggs than contemporary recipes require. She theorized a couple of reasons for this: 1) everyone raised chickens and eggs were ubiquitous and 2) wheat flour of the day was lower in gluten than current strains of wheat.

Building on the theory that more eggs provides more structure for flours that have less gluten, I've added more egg whites to my recipe. Also, having discovered a much cheaper source for guar gum, I'm adding it with abandon to my recipes. Both of these do wonderful things for improving the texture of the bread.

I'm experimenting with the outer limit of how long a loaf of bread can rise in the refrigerator before the yeast cycle is exhausted. Hertzberg and Francois recommend no longer than five days for a gluten bread and I'm theorizing that a gluten-free bread would probably not sustain itself for that long. Currently, I've allowed bread to ferment for up to 48 hours and still turned out a very successful loaf. I've been trying working toward finding the exhaustion point, but it is difficult to stay that far ahead of the Hobbit appetite. But still I try...

Almost Everything Free Sourdough Bread (v. 2.0)

Starter:

2 cups gluten-free 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
3-4 teaspoons guar gum

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

Into the meringue, pour:

1/3 cup olive oil
3 egg yolks
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 return to the refrigerator for a minimum of 8 hours or overnight. Remove to a warm oven to rise. The dough may have a skin on top of it. I judge that the bread has risen sufficiently when the skin has stretched to cracking around the edges and the dough underneath takes on a more liquid appearance. Bake at 350* for 1 hour or until done.

This is a book well worth peeking in to. I've got my eye on a few recipes in it that might just be tweakable for a Breatharian. Tool Guy has been yearning for foccaccia and reminisces about the batches we used to buy at the farmer's market up the road from us. It just might happen, Guy.

It will take an experienced eye to be able to sort out the tips and techniques that the Breatharian can use and those that are specific only to gluten bread, but it is well worth playing around with and doing some of your own cooking dangerously. Let's hear it for the food geeks who sit around and email each other with their latest discoveries and inspirations! Thanks, TLS!

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}

The Perfect Christmas

I'm channeling Joel Salatin's dad again. Well, not literally. No dolphins or long deceased Egyptian princesses or anything like that. Just some good common sense: "Good enough is perfect."

Christmas is always a busier time of year for just about everyone. Lots of hustle and bustle and stuff to do. I pushed decorating back until the last minute because we decided to get a real tree this year. It was a combination of discovering that a neighbor down the road supplements his retirement by selling trees from his property and the fact that the attic so obscenely congested that the thought of digging it out and dragging it down the folding stairs easily tilted the scale in favor of supporting this retiree in his efforts toward maintaining the style to which he is accustomed. The Hobbits were enchanted, since they've only ever known this artificial tree that Tool Guy and I have hauled with us from pillar to post since the early days of our marriage. This year, they climbed a snowy hill with saw in hand, each took a turn gnawing at the trunk with it and then they hauled it back to the vehicle to trundle home. They're still talking about it.

The homeschooling Christmas program was another departure. Not one the Hobbits managed to distinguish themselves, which was quite singular. In the five years since we've been participating, at least one of them has managed to do something like jump off the stage and announce that he was the "champion!" or stalk the narrator or vie for control of the song book or lose her balance and fall of the platform or...or...or...well, you get the picture. They were all angels, even the angel. Bug managed to control his weaponry, both during the time he was the Roman soldier, wearing a sword and while he was a shepherd, wielding a cudgel. (What can I say? Party Planner, who also planned the program, is very ambitious...as well as brave!) And Dog actually sang along with his group. Pretty remarkable for someone who didn't get a passing grade the first quarter of music because he refused to sing. I'm thinking it was the audience that made the difference. Of course, it could also have been his rather pretty partner. Who knows? Hmmm. Now that I mentioned it, I'm going to have to think on this one...he's turning 11 this year, you know.

There were other differences this year that were less anticipated. I should have seen it coming. I really should have. That persistent cough. Princess' ear infection. That persistent cough that started getting worse. And I did all the stuff I was supposed to. Extra C. Extra D. Extra A. Extra Zinc. Sambucol. Raw garlic. The whole laundry list. And that persistent cough kept getting worse. And Tool Guy, too.

My parents come up to visit every year for Christmas and quite a few times in between. Despite our persistent coughs, they decided to stay and spend Christmas at least with us. Mom was great and organized the Hobbits in their decoration of the tree that had been cut the day before. I laid on the couch and coached the selection and watched. Tool Guy pitched in with cooking and there was a lot of stuff made up in advance. For Christmas dinner, Mom made her version of This Pampered Chef's pork roast.

Granny's Pork Roast

5 lbs. pork roast
1-2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 T olive oil
1 t sugar

Mince garlic and mix with salt and pepper. Cut slits into the roast and stuff seasoning mix into the slits. In a roasting pot, heat oil and sugar to bubbling, then carmelize the roast on all sides. In a 350* preheated oven, bake roast, covered, until internal temperature is 160*. Toward the end, uncover and allow to crisp for a few minutes. Add water to make gravy as desired.

Serve with rice or potatoes.

The day after Christmas, with that "persistent cough" Tool Guy came home with a diagnosis of pneumonia, which was the boot I needed to go and get my very own diagnosis of pneumonia. Kind of a demented keeping up with the Joneses, no? The Hobbits went in to get checked, but they only had colds and ear infections, nasty as that is. Phew! We urged the grandparents out the door as graciously as possible, hung out a sign saying, "Plague House" and I deliberated the additional measure of sticking an occasional arm out of a window to ring a bell and cry, "Unclean!"

Running a household is difficult when the movers and shakers are both out of commission. Having food brought in was out of the question. Oh, we did have some very generous friends offer. But even if people could provide us with gf meals, the hazard of being high reactors means that cross-contamination in others' kitchens would put us at high risk of reaction. We did, however, have many enthusiastic responses to requests for additional video material when we had exhausted our supply. As one friend put it, "Our videos, at least, are gluten free!" Heh. Just so.

When I couldn't go grocery shopping, I had a friend very scrupulously go to my select stores to get our food and bring it to us. Another friend came over and helped me prep out all of the foods for storage. And the co-op team worked flawlessly dealing with the co-op food delivery. All of these things provided us with the best Christmas we could have ever hoped for. Love. Support. Sustenance until we could pick up the threads of our responsibilities again.

Indeed. What more could one ask for? It was the perfect Christmas.

Take Your Medicine

And still more milestones. In my ten year tenure as a mother, this is my first encounter with the dreaded ear infection. We were driving down the road into town to run errands when Princess announced that she needed her ears squirted out when we got home. She elaborated that there was a gnat inside her ear that was causing her ear to "boom." I got cold shivers when I heard that because it so aptly described what I remember ear infections being like when I was her age. And when I was her age, I got them all the time. I was one of those of that generation who got tubes in their ears...one doctor described what lurked in my inner ear as "airplane glue." Nice, huh?

I know that antibiotics are the normal course of events in most protocols for dealing with ear infections, despite the fact that the cure rate for sitting it out is almost identical to the cure rate for prescribing. Well, put me in the wait-it-out school of fish then. The more I read about antibiotics, the more I want to save it for things like tuberculosis and bubonic plague and not on frivolity like keeping cattle being fed a biologically inappropriate diet alive long enough to slaughter. Stephen Harrod Buhner talks about the overuse of antibiotics in his book, Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria, pp. 8-9. Particularly riveting was his description of how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. "As incredible as (their) capacity for literally engineering responses to antibiotics and passing it on to their offspring is, bacteria do something else that makes them even more amazing and dangerous. They communicate intelligently with each other." He goes on to explain how bacteria position themselves alongside each other and pass DNA back and forth, the resistant bacterium sharing its immunity with the naive one. As if this wasn't alarming enough, the resistant bacteria exudes pheromones that attract non-resistant bacteria to them in order to share this resistance. And exposure to only one kind of antibiotic lays in motion the chain that teaches the bacteria to be resistant to all antibiotics. It is believed that by these mechanisms, eventually all bacteria will be antibiotic resistant. To all antibiotics.

So it becomes clear why avoiding the use of antibiotics seems like a good idea, particularly in such ambiguous situations as a 50/50 chance of improving by not doing anything. And Buhner gives some pretty good suggestions about herbal alternatives that can be applied without risk of increasing bacteria resistance. While we wait and see how things with Princess' ears will progress, I dose her with garlic, licorice, ginger, and echinacea. While I was running errands, I picked up some mullein and garlic oil drops to put inside her ears and dose with that.

And, of course, there is the old traditional standby...chicken soup. Tool Guy tells me that before we got married, he hated chicken soup. Dunno what he'd been eating before, but when I whipped up my first batch of the homemade variety, he was hooked. He is an admitted chicken soup addict. Actually, all of the Hobbits are. With cold weather settled in outside and bronchitis settled in at least one set of lungs inside, we're swizzling the chicken soup. And now Princess' ear infection. Well. Nothing for it, then. Time to take your medicine.

Chicken Soup
(Or as Bug calls it "Chicken Noodle Doodle Soup")

2 whole chickens, quartered
4-5 carrots, bias sliced
1 lb. sliced mushrooms...anyone who has read Tolkien knows that Hobbits adore mushrooms, right?
1 bunch green onions, bias sliced
4-5 stalks celery, bias sliced
1 tsp. sweet basil
1/2 tsp. sage
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/4 tsp. rosemary
2 bay leaves
Black pepper to taste
2 tsp. Real Salt
1 gallon of water

In the largest stock pot you can manhandle on your stove, set the water and chicken to boil. (If you're in a hurry, this process can be shortened to 20 minutes or so in a pressure cooker.) Bundle herbs into a coffee filter and staple closed. Add this herbal sachet, salt, and pepper to the chicken while it boils. After the chicken is cooked, remove pieces into a bowl and allow to become cool to the touch in order to debone. Meanwhile, strain the broth through a cheesecloth and return to a clean stock pot. Place all of the vegetables into the broth and return to a boil, cooking until just tender. Debone the meat and return to broth. (Be sure to save the bones to make bone broth later!) Serve over hot pasta and enjoy!

Come Fill the Cup

Bug and I are having this repetitive, back and forth conversation about winter. Somewhere along the line, he got it locked into his red little head that Winter begins on December 1st. Every day during the month of November, he would run to the calendar and announce how many "days remaining until Winter." Every day, I'd have to remind him that Winter officially begins December 21-22, not the December 1st. It probably doesn't matter, because when you're this age and in this part of the country, Winter really begins when it snows. And Breatharian, it has snowed...on December 1st. So Bug feels quite vindicated.

We even had our first activity canceled on account of snow. Pity. It was a church dinner and I made the Autumnal Beef Stew with some killer alterations...Campbell's Soup, look out! It didn't go to waste though; all of the Hobbits made short order of it. Even I managed to snag a bowl or two.

We've had our first weather-related power outage of the season. Almost in synch with Tool Guy's morning exit at 7:00a, I heard our neighbor's burglar alarm go off. Squinting in the direction of the clock, I was greeted with a darkened face. Yep. Power's out. Tool Guy had cleared a path to lug the generator up the hill, but with snow and ice since, it was a tricky proposition. Still, I managed. Welcome Winter...whatever the date!

BK--Before Kids--I was quite disciplined about my Christmas regimen. Thanksgiving Day, the tree went up. December 1st, cards went out. Gifting chores done way ahead of time. That kind of thing. Needless to say, this schedule as suffered the predations of time and the vicissitudes of motherhood. I was bemoaning the schedule for the next few weeks to another mom at our homeschooling co-op and how busy things were going to be. She placidly replied, "Only as busy as you let it be." Know what? She's right. I think I'm going to notch it down this year. More snow flurries are coming down and in celebration of winter, I'm making a great old standby that fills me with some of that magical, healing soup broth. Quick, easy, filling, nutritious, and most importantly for the chronically cold: warming!

Egg Drop Soup

1-2 quarts bone broth
2 cups bone broth, kept separate
2-4 T tapioca starch (depending on desired thickness)
2-4 eggs, scrambled with a fork
Pepper, optional

Tapioca starch is probably the best substitute I've found for cornstarch. So heat 2 cups of the broth just until liquid and dissolve the tapioca starch into the broth. The remaining broth bring to a rolling boil, stirring in the well-mixed broth/tapioca starch mixture. Stir until the whitened soup becomes translucent. When the soup returns to a rolling boil, slowly drizzle in the eggs, stirring constantly until the strings of egg are completely cooked. Grind fresh pepper over the top to taste and enjoy!

The tree isn't up yet--I'm shooting for this weekend. I've recused myself from Christmas card obligations for the remainder of my existence. And Tool Guy did all the major shopping in October. All that remains is for me to make up a few more tote bags, rice bags, and the Roman soldiers' armor for the co-op play. I'm thinking cardboard shapes glued to a fabric tunic and some metallic paint. What'da ya think? Oh, yeah, and I need to replace the zipper in Dog's snow suit. After all...it's past December 1st...it's snowing...must be Winter!

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.

Not 'Til You Eat Your Vegetables

Here's my dirty secret. I don't care for vegetables. Yeah, yeah, I know I garden and all of that, but I just like certain vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and broccoli. Guess that's one of the reasons that vegetarianism never pulled very strongly at me. They are beautiful on the vine or in profusion at a farmer's market, but once I get them home, there's this whole disconnect. Okay. Now what do I do with them?

So I'm planning next year's garden and my New Year's Goals early. Both of them have to do with eating a wider variety of vegetables. For the past several years, I've been focused on getting the Hobbits healed up and we're well on our way. Some of the masses of medical information that I sifted through indicated that higher portions of protein are necessary in cases of compromised gut integrity and so that has been my biggest focus. But these days they are catching up to themselves and Bug and Princess have even pulled ahead, so I'm looking to balance things out and include more vegetables in our diet.

Of course, an assay of this nature means--for me--a systematic pillaging of our library's resources of recipe books for appealing dishes. The problem with most recipe books I've found, especially vegetable ones, is a heavy reliance on ingredients of which most are off the menu for us. But I'm stalking this one dish at a time. Baby steps, you know.

With an abundance of leaves littering the ground and cooler weather creeping up, I'm starting to really believe that summer is over. Spending ten hours de-leafing the yard has a tendency to drive that point home. Especially when you wake up the next morning and the yard looks as if you did nothing the previous day but swan on the couch with the latest Victorian thriller and eat Endangered Species chocolate. Next time, I think that's what I'll do and just tell everyone that I de-leafed the yard. No one will know the difference, right? Anyway... These days, I'm feeling like warm comfort food, so when our latest co-op delivery brought us grass-fed stew meat on sale, I splurged and then decorated the meal with as many vegetables as I dared.

Autumnal Beef Stew

2 lbs. stew beef, cubed
3 large carrots
3 large parsnips
2 yams
2 potatoes
6 tomatoes
1 zucchini
1/2 vidalia onion, sliced
1 tsp. dried sweet basil
1 tsp. dried thyme
4-6 dried sage leaves
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
1/2 tsp. Real Salt
2 cups bone broth
1 tablespoon lard or olive oil
1 tsp. sugar

Bias slice carrots and parsnips. Cube yams and potatoes. Slice tops off of tomatoes and drain out liquid and seeds--I find a helpful prod from a finger does this nicely. Rough chop tomatoes and zucchini and run through food processor until liquefied. Measure herbs into a coffee filter and staple closed. Heat oil and add sugar, allowing to caramelize to smoking point. Brown meat and onions in oil, adding broth and vegetable juice when sufficiently browned. Bring to a simmer boil and toss in herbal sachet, sprinkling in salt to taste, and allow to simmer for half hour. Add remaining vegetables and simmer for 30 minutes or until fork tender. If there isn't enough liquid, add more broth with vegetable juice until sufficiently liquid. Serve alone or over pasta.

Everyone in the family, Hobbits included, downed this delight with dispatch. Tool Guy waxed long and appreciative. The parsnips added a delicate sweetness to the whole dish and no one wanted to waste a drop. It was a gratifying foray into expanding our palates. Confidence bolstered, I'm now meditating on eggplant, brussel sprouts, cauliflower...all the possibilities. In just a couple short months, it will be time for seed shopping and before you know it, sprouting season will be upon us. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that winter will be enough time for me to get ready...so many seeds...so little space...

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.

Back in the Saddle Again

Nope. Not ready. Not even close. It's too soon for the leaves to start turning and definitely too soon for the school year to be starting. Even after having left the South for quite a few years now, I still gauge Time For Fall by the heat quotient. It isn't time for fall until we've sweated out so many days that we can't drag ourselves through another hot and sticky morass without screaming. Even though we've been in New England for almost six years, I still find myself reaching for my inner yard stick of measuring out the summer. It doesn't feel like it's time for fall yet.

The garden is starting to play out. Tomato production has peaked and while quite a few still hang on the vines, there are more surrounding me in baskets full to the brim than are out there, dodging the predations of hornworms. I'm still mowing the lawn, the decrepit mower having finally gotten back from the shop (the first day back, I had to splint up the limp ignition cable...I told Tool Guy he owes me for repairs. Heh.) but now the grass is sprinkled with the first falling leaves of autumn and the squirrels are attacking the "pig nut" trees with fervor...a sure sign of impending change.

And homeschooling co-op begins. I'm so not ready. I'd planned on a few more splashes in the river, a few more outside adventures, a couple hundred pounds more out of my garden. Ah, well...

Over the summer, Tool Guy and I painted the dining room. He told me when he came home with the paint that it was the gray I'd asked for. With some squinting, the color blots on the lids did look a liiitle bit gray. On the walls, though, it is definitely on the blue side...unless you're examining the color at night, in which case, it looks closer to sea green. However, cleanly painted walls mean a blank slate to be filled up with all of the art projects and newest creations of the year. Last year's works have been archived into portfolios in storage and the first offerings of the new year adorn the places of honor. Okay, we're sorta ready.

Of course, the Hobbits look forward to fall reunions, old friends coming back, and getting back into the routine. It's a little unsettling at first, because every year is a little different than the previous one and we always show up with last year imprinted on our minds. There's always some disequilibrium and discontent until we get used to the new schedule, new rules, new faces and the lack of some of the old. It's like breaking in new shoes...a little stiff and awkward at first, but quickly becoming the favorites.

Then there's the annual "What's For Snack?" discussion. Unlike the meal menu selection, I want everything standardized for snacks. Thursday morning prep is too wild and woolly to try to handle it all times three. This year, we've settled on the perennial shoestring fries and chocolate chip cookies. In my opinion, Julie Andrews was unforgivably remiss when chocolate didn't make her list of Favorite Things, but it sure is at the top of ours. In our soy-free days, even soy lecithin was a problem and that ruled out just about all chocolate, soy being the emulsifier of choice in candy and chocolate chips. Enjoy Life chocolate chips became one of our Favorite Things. Still is.

Almost Everything Free Chocolate Chip Cookies adapted from Sandra J. Leonard and The Gluten Free Baker Newsletter

10 T Purity Farms Ghee
1 t salt
2 t vanilla
1/2 cup maple sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup sorghum flour
1 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup potato starch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 package Enjoy Life chocolate chips

Beat ghee until soft and fluffy. Add salt, vanilla, and both sugars. Beat until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until well combined.

Combine flours and baking soda in a mixing bowl. Add half the flour to the butter mixture and beat on low. Scrape down bowl with a rubber spatula and add remaining flour.

Fold in chocolate chips. Chill mixture for two hours. (I make a huge batch of this and make cookies off of it for weeks from the fridge.)

Separate out balls of dough, approximately tablespoon-sized, and lay out on cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Flatten to about 1/2 inch thickness and bake for 10-12 minutes at 375*

Let cool on wire rack.

There's a big bowl of cookie dough in the refrigerator, I've got my ASL lesson plan prepped out, and we're tackling Singapore Math one page at a time. Yep. We're back in the saddle again. Princess' eyes sparkle as she bites into one of these cookies and she exuberantly informs me that I'm "the most delicious mommy!" Aw, shuuucks....

The Kitchen Is Closed

A few months ago before Dog's tenth birthday, he and I were standing toe to toe over some now-forgotten issue that he was waxing mouthy about. I snapped back at him that I'd tolerate no teenage lip while he was still in single digits. Heh. I was expecting to have a few more years of "kid" stuff before we got into the "teen" stuff, but Dog has always been old for his years, so I shouldn't be surprised.

One of the more memorable discussions we've had of late is over, not surprisingly, menu options. I expect that food choice is going to become a much-debated topic in the coming years. This discussion wasn't what one would necessarily expect, though.

As a bit of background, when we first started with our "free" lifestyle, I made some conscious decisions about how we would structure this. Since things are so very limited, I wanted to offer the Hobbits as much choice and control as possible within the very tight framework of our operational limits. To that end, I came up with ways to provide three choices of meals that could be prepared quickly and gave each of them the opportunity to choose for themselves from those three options at each meal. My version of convenience food...kind of a Once A Month Everything Free Cooking...except my major food prep ala OAMC is more frequently than that. This might mean that I might make up three (or four, counting dinner meals) different dishes for the same meal, but at least they would have some control over what they were eating.

We've gone on this course for about four years now and it's worked rather well. Not much fighting over food nor complaints about not liking what was for dinner. Still and all, some days it can be rather tiresome. There are days when I just want to do one thing and be done. This was one of those days. I just made food for the meal, set it on the table and called the Hobbits to come and eat. Dog sulked at me that he hadn't been consulted on his menu option and was prepared to be disagreeable about it. I pointed out to him that the number of children in the known universe who were at liberty to choose what they wanted to eat at every meal, every day probably totaled three. That was, of course, before I'd read the UCLA dinner study....I was stuck in my Baby Boomer childhood memories. Still, I'll entertain an "amen" chorus of comments to anyone who cares to leave any...any ammunition would naturally be shared with Dog. Hey, coming up on this pre-teen thing, I need all of the help I can get!

I decided that it was way past time for him to understand the amount of work that goes into making one meal, let alone coordinating three, however quickly they could be assembled. I'd meant this as a "taste of his own medicine" kind of natural consequence to his petulance, but he was actually rather excited about the idea. I'd settled on a quick and beginner-friendly recipe inspired by one shared by my gardening mentor. It's especially nice for those who are sensitive to tomatoes--not that this is us, for a change--because it relies only on herbs and spices for flavoring and color, not tomatoes. The lost-to-posterity cookbook called it "Real Deal Chili" (let me know if anyone knows the attribution for this recipe!) but I call it the

No-mato Everything Free Chili.

4 lbs ground meat
1 onion or 1 T onion powder
3 garlic cloves or 1 T garlic powder
4 T paprika
4 T chili powder
1 T cumin
1 T oregano
2 t pepper
1 t kelp (only because I'm always looking for a vector to sneak in sea vegetables)
1/2 lb. sliced mushrooms
2 t salt if not using bone broth
1 quart bone broth or water
2-3 T arrowroot or tapioca starch (optional for thickening)

While slicing mushrooms, brown ground meat in dutch oven and drain. Pour broth, mushrooms, and seasonings into dutch oven and boil until mushrooms are soft. If using starch flour for thickening, dissolve starch in small amount of water and add to boiling mixture. When the opaque liquid becomes translucent again, return ground meat to the oven and mix thoroughly until heated through. Allow to simmer to reduce if desired. The Hobbits like it served with rice snaps.

Dog took eagerly to chopping up the mushrooms--he's been one of my prep chefs for a while now--and measuring out all of the ingredients. He'll be able to lift me someday, but right now he still needs some help handling a hot cast iron dutch oven. The rest of it he does very well by himself. These days he considers this recipe his specialty and would be mightily offended if I were to presume to usurp his prerogative. Gotta smile. Just don't let him see it. We're always sure to have chili in the refrigerator, whatever the weather. So whenever Dog complains about what's on the menu, I direct him to the refrigerator where he can find his very own bowl of chili. I cooked one dish, hung up my apron and the kitchen is closed.