Today my father said that he wasn't sure if I could successfully represent the celiac community when it comes to setting up our restaurant to be more gluten-free friendly. He said "there are republicans, then there are crazy republicans." I believe I would be the crazy republican in the metaphor. I have to tell you I was not amused.

I guess he thinks I'm a crazy celiac because I research the disease like a mad woman, but that is because I am constantly feeling nauseous and rarely know why. Also, I want to know what the heck it is anyway, and know all the signs so when my sister starts showing them (as she is now) she can fix it quick without messing up her body too much.

And also because I am passionate about making the world know that our restaurant loves Celiacs! (or as my father refers to us in an oh-so-sensitive way, glutards...)

But, I don't think I'm crazy, I just think I care.

Thoughts?

Good Food, Good Friends

The other day we threw a very successful summer "unbirthday" party. It has been a dream of mine to have a summer birthday since I was born in the dead of winter and all my parties have consisted of sledding and skating, or when it was very, very cold, watching movies cuddle up under blankets. So, to make all things fair, my friend Shauneen and I decided to throw ourselves a half birthday party. But soon, everyone wanted to celebrate their half birthdays (turns out, most of my family was born in the winter... tricky). That turned the party into an "unbirthday" party, so we could celebrate everyone's unbirthday. The guest list was small, my parents, sisters, my twin brother, and a handful of our closest friends. We all contributed to the planning and cooking, and in the end it was the most satisfying party I've ever thrown.
The menu was the hit of the party. Because it was summer, we focused on fresh, light dishes, preferably with ingredients that were (at least in appearance) straight from the garden. And because I was one of the hosts, most of the dishes were gluten free!
We started off with a "cocktail hour" with wine spritzers and finger foods.
Kevin made stuffed mushrooms, the recipe found: http://recipes.kaboose.com/feta-spinach-stuffed-mushrooms.html

Christine made spinach and artichoke dip, the recipe found: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Hot-Artichoke-and-Spinach-Dip-II/

We all helped to make...

Tuna on bagel chips; I couldn't eat the bagel chips of course, but didn't mind because there was so much food to be had!
Deviled eggs, the eggs were fresh from the farm down the road! So fun!

And brochette; we made two types of brochette, one (small) platter for me, and a larger one for all of the other guests. I used Kinnik Kinnik baguettes.

The wine spritzer was made with a rose wine and black raspberry spritzer. It was rather delicious.

After the cocktail hour we played croquet. I haven't played croquet in a long time, but we felt it was the right thing to do for a summer party. Turns out, in my family at least, croquet is a pretty intense sport. Thankfully we had a second course to take our minds arguing about house rules and the fact that I won, apparently we "cheated." I do not agree.

The second course was delicious. We had some deviled eggs left over, so we put them out on the table.
Kristina made a very large salad with greens, cucumbers, craisens, and candied pecans.
Jessica made a caprese salad: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and balsamic vinegar.
And everyone helped to make beautiful fruit kabobs: sweet apple sausage, strawberries, and pineapple cut into cubes and layered on the kabob sticks. Lightly grilled. They were delicious.

For desert we had berries and cream, and of course cupcakes! Sarah made a batch of regular yellow cupcakes, and Jess and Kristina helped me with chocolate avocado cupcakes, which sound kind of gross, and while we were making them looked kind of gross, but tasted delicious!
I found the recipe on glutenfreesoyfreevegan.blogspot.com while I was still not eating meat (oh by the way, I'm back to eating meat...). The girl who writes the blog was hesitant to make the cupcakes at first but ended up loving them, so I took her word for it and went at it. We even accidentally made a double batch, and good thing we did, because they were snatched up quick!
Here's the recipe, I strongly recommend them!
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose gf flour (I used Pamela's pancake mix, of course)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 avocado, pitted and peeled
1 cup pure maple syrup
3/4 cup rice/almond milk
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 tsp gf vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F. Oil muffin tins (aka cupcake makers) with coconut oil. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl. Purée avocado in a food processor until smooth. Add maple syrup, rice milk, oil, and vanilla, and blend until creamy. Whisk avocado mixture into flour mixture.

Spoon batter into prepared tins. Bake 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out with some crumbs attached. Cool.

Everything turned out wonderfully. And I felt so proud of everything we had accomplished. Sitting at dinner enjoying the conversations and the delicious array of food, I was completely content with life, if only for that moment. It's funny what good food can do.

Eat to live, not live to eat.

I love food. I do. And I love meat, as anyone at the Hibachi grill could tell a few weeks ago as I slowly ate and (embarrassingly enough) moaned through my plate of steak and fried rice. But lately I've been thinking back on all those late night Mexican dips I inhaled - gobs of layered cream cheese, salsa, and cheddar cheese, shoveled into my mouth. And the mounds and mounds of red meat I consumed on a daily basis, bordering the acceptable level of pleasure as I ate it. I have been drooling, ooing, and ahhing over pieces of meat and gobs of fat. And then of course I would wonder where all this extra chub came from.
Then, one day, I picked up a book. First of all, please believe me when I say that I am not a read a book and jump on the bandwagon kind of girl. If an idea is beyond silly before I read a persuasive essay about it, I'm going to think it is loads of silliness after I read it. But for some reason this book made sense. It spoke to me. Actually, it basically yelled at me to get my act together. So, I started reevaluating my relationship with food. This is what I knew: I had no interest in eating vegetables, and although I love all kinds of fruit, I rarely ate any. Yep, I was your all American meat and potatoes kind of girl. This didn't add up to my dream of being a highly acclaimed nutritionist - and a skinny, fit nutritionist to boot. I'd been doing all of the studying, but none of the living.
So I made a change in my life. I figured why not? It was summer and I was in need of a new adventure. My first task was to take meat out of my diet. This didn't go over well with my family, who ironically enough own a beef cattle farm. And our beef is all organic grass fed Belted Galloway beef. Supposedly (at least according to my grandfather) the healthiest in the country. So I had to explain to them that I do not hate beef, I am not against using cattle for food, I just need a change in my life for the moment. I am pretty sure they are still not convinced, but thankfully I'm known to be a little loony, so they just brush my silliness aside.
Cutting out beef is very beneficial for my diet because it forces me to eat fruits and vegetable and really think a bout what I am eating, to make sure I get all the nutrients I need for the day. I have also found ways to make vegetables more exciting so when or if I go back to eating meat I will happily continue to get my daily vegetables in. I also realized how easy it was to get my whole grains through brown rice, brown rice pasta, and gluten free oats. And of course I eat a lot of nuts and beans to ensure I get all of my amino acids and iron (along with the vegetables).
I am also in the process of cutting out sugar. Interestingly enough it has not been as hard as I thought it would. Maybe because I have been dissatisfied with each morning as I step on the scale and my weight continues to increase. Or maybe since my mind is so set on changing my lifestyle and proving my family and friends that I can stick to it, I have had zero cravings. Which is amazing, because I love chocolate, even more than meat.
So meat was week one and sugar is week two. Week three will be dairy. But do not be confused, I am not becoming vegan. I still eat eggs, and honey, and I am not going to scour every ingredients list to make sure there is no whey powder or dairy of any sort, I'm already busy enough scouring them for gluten. No, I will just be giving up dairy, mostly milk and cheese. I hesitate to give up yogurt because one: I love it so much, and come on, I can't give up everything I love, and two: it is chock full of acidophiles and live bacterias that are good for you. But I will cut back.
Mainly this is an experiment. I do not intend to make this a permanent lifestyle change, unless of course it makes me feel a hundred times better and I continue to be healthy. But for now, I just want to see how it will affect me. And hopefully it will lead to some long term changes that will benefit my mood, energy, and intestinal health.