Re: Education Part 1

I am fortunate enough to work for people who consider continuing education for their staff to be extemely important, and acually go to great lengths (and expense) to see to it that we get a very good education. So, on that note, I will warn you that my brain is currently swiss cheese from attending classes for the past few days, though I have to admit, I loved it. I was That Kid, the one that couldn't wait to go back-to-school shopping every August, who couldn't wait to get new textbooks and find out what we'd be learning next. I still am.

If you were to go through my bookshelf, firstly my husband would probably look the other way if you stole something because it would delay his having to try to figure out where yet Another bookshelf was supposed to go. Secondly,  you would also note quite the disparity of subject matter. I went through a phase where I was fascinated by physics, another where I read as much as I could on global politics as pertaining to the oil and war industries (and thank all the gods that That was short lived), not to mention my uber-snot phase where I couldn't get enough of the Greek masters. However, the lions share of my collection is and has always been my cookbooks. I read them! I'm like a little kid with the pictures, I point at them and say "Look!!"! If it is a book about food, and it will teach me something, hand it over and you'd better say if you want it back!

Now, imagine my abject horror when first, I had to cut out all dairy (I am severely intollerant to caseine) but then also all gluten. Argh!! What was I supposed to do with my lovelies??  Tried and tested recipes, favourites, the baking....(insert overly dramatic hand gesturing here) I am pretty sure at some point I cried. Basically, life sucked.

At first, I readily accepted all the sympathy I was given (who wouldn't? My life had been totally turned upside down, me, who loved food that much. What the hell was I supposed to do?  I indulged my inner diva and preened a little bit, that's what). However, it didn't take very long before I actually started thinking about what  I was being asked most often: so what are you going to eat now? It took even less time for me to accept the statement "Oh, I'd kill myself!" as a challenge. Why should I kill myself? I already knew how bad fast food is, and unfortunately found myself relying on it far too often. When you consider how much I have always loved to cook, I had certainly allowed myself to slack off. Now throw in the fact that Montreal has two fantastic markets, both the Jean Talon and the Atwater which are open all year round, plus a million little fruitterie and shops, and I really had zero excuse. Okay. Pitty party over, aaaaaaaaaaand Go!

It took me a couple months to get bored of what I could cook that I was 100% sure had no gluten or dairy; a lot of soy products, fresh fruits and veggies and meats. I ate really well, but the minute you accept that kind of challenge, what are you going to eat now, you keep it in the back of your head. If you've already eaten it, you remember, and store it away for future reference, but you go looking for the next thing. You remember the dishes you used to love, and the things you'd always wanted to try, and All Those Cookbooks.

It has taken me over 2 years to get to where I feel confident enough to try to convert over just about any recipe so that I get to eat it too, though that doesn't mean it's going to work! I have had my share of flops (one of the guys I worked with suggested we use the first chocolate cake I ever attempted to replace some of the bricks in the building we worked at, and I have as yet to successfully make cinnamon buns, but those are stories for other times) and my husband and I have a pact that any experiment that is Not a success goes in the garbage, even if it means going out for dinner. However, I am having more fun playing with this than I would have every imagined! Quite possibly, the biggest compliment I now get is when people ask me what my lunch is, I tell them and they ask "You can eat that?". Most excellent.

Back to the Begining

One of the hardest things that I had to come to terms with was that even though I have been cooking and baking for my entire life (my mum hated to cook, and was overjoyed to realize that I felt otherwise!), I was going to have to relearn EVERYTHING. Cooking was bad enough (until you can't eat gluten, you wouldn't believe the shit they put it in!) but baking... Gah! So when I did take it up again, after giving myself permission to mess things up and throw out what didn't work, I started looking around for cook books dedicated to GF and DF eating. The first thing I realized was Good Luck! But then once you do find them, they are not all created equal. Now, as I have a minor (read: large) obsession with cook books, that was less of an issue for me, since I just collect the damn things anyways. The two that I use the most are Cooking for Isaiah by Silvana Nardone (I decided I needed a waffle maker when I saw the recipe for Hash Brown Belgian waffles with apple sausage and fried eggs, though I'm happy to make Belgian waffles too) and Simply Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free: Breakfasts, Lunches, Treats, Dinners, Desserts by Grace Cheetham, though I also have her other one, I just haven't used it yet! Silvana's all purpose flour mix is the best one I've tried to date, and Grace's pie crust is simply wonderful. Well worth it, and both books have a lot of helpful info as well as just really tasty food!