guest post: daffodylic tells a tale

and now, my friends, i bring you your weekly guest blog:

One Weird Day + Easy Hummus

My weird day started in my afternoon writing class; the lesson of the day was “The Topic Sentence” so I was doing my thing up in front of the class, writing notes on the sticky old white board that smears when I try to wipe it. With Valentine's Day just behind us, I chose Love to brainstorm on the board to illustrate the process of writing that perfect topic sentence. We needed to narrow the topic, so we discussed types of love. The class discussion went haywire, so I redirected... “Family love, folks. Family love is a type of love. What's another type of love?” Friends, ah yes. Students typically come up with that one on their own. OK, last one. My brain willed the students just to come up with what my students come up with every semester: Romantic love. Come on folks... it's not that hard....

“SELF love!” Shouted a greasy, squinty-eyed boy who sits to the right. The class twittered, and I had to keep my facial expression blasé and unimpressed. I try not to over-guide my students during class discussions, but I went ahead and gave them the “Romantic Love” bit. Coming back to the family section, I asked what kinds of family love there were. I received the typical answers: Parents, siblings, kids....Mr. Self-Love tried to interject his point of view of masturbation being “family love” but we all ignored him. Friends went smoothly. However, when we got to the “Romantic Love” section, a clueless older student who sits in the back called out, “PETS!” There was a moment of painful, awkward silence before the class roared with laughter.

“Uh... romantic love, Al. We shouldn't have romantic love for our animals. Perhaps pet love could go under family...” I might have stammered through my response. It's possible. The class was rapidly getting out of control. Self-romantic-love came back up, and I guided the discussion again... the example I give every semester....

Puppy love.

The class howled. Exasperated, I tossed my almost-dried-out dry erase marker down on the desk and explained, “Puppy love, class, is infatuation.”

I tried to rein them in, I really did. I took our brainstorming and tried to relate it back to creating the topic sentence, which I had to give them because they were too obsessed with discussing masturbation and bestiality.

I broke down. I took the coward's way out: Book work and early release. Weird freaking class.

I deserved a little break. A treat. Ah yes, a peppermint latte from the campus coffee shop. I'm friendly with the girl who works there, and as soon as she sees me come in, she starts the espresso machine and pulls out the bottle of peppermint. We chatted amicably – “How are your classes going?” and “Your students behaving themselves?” Nice, normal small talk. She frothed milk and pumped peppermint into a cup.

She stopped suddenly, “That's it! I know who you remind me of! The girl on Step by Step, that old sitcom. You remind me of the tomboy, cool sister!” She looked back to an older gentleman sitting in the back of the shop. “Don't you think so?”

He stood up. He had a cane that he used lightly to walk over to the counter where I stood waiting for my perfectly normal peppermint latte.

“Hmm. First, you should make that latte a double espresso.” He winked at the attendant. She re-started the machine. “And let's see... I never watched Step by Step. I think you resemble...” He stepped close and peered into my face. My latte (er... double espresso) was ready, and I just wanted to pick it up and sit on a bench in the sun and forget my weird day for a few minutes.

“Ah yes, I know who you look like, but to be sure...” He stepped even closer and touched my cheek, turning it gently and almost caressing. “Leah Thompson. Admittedly, though ma'am, I just wanted the chance to touch your cheek.”

I laughed nervously, grabbed my coffee, said polite thank yous and goodbyes, and went to go find a park bench.

OK, first my class goes out of control talking about inappropriate topics, then some old guy caresses my cheek in a coffee shop. I think we need to chalk this one up to a weird day. So I went home and made hummus because there really is nothing else to do when discussions and conversations and encounters turn bizarre.

Daffodyllic Hummus

• 1 cup (or so) cooked chickpeas.
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp cumin
• hand-squeezed juice of one lemon
• A few grinds of sea salt, to taste
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Blend it all in a food processor or blender until it is the consistency you like. Put in pretty bowl and garnish with a tsp of olive oil in the center and paprika sprinkled over the top. Enjoy with freshly toasted pita triangles. And try to forget your weird day.

recipe: gluten free spanikopitas

last night we hosted a stuff white people like-themed party. there was fondue, ugly sweaters, california rolls, granola cookies, science fiction references, cbc radio, and a lot of witty comments. white people like themed parties.

without fail, the day after a good party i feel mopey and antisocial. it may be my passive-aggressive way of avoiding having to do the cleanup, but i always want to be left the hell alone after a good shindig. today was no exception. i've spent the day trying to dodge human interaction, with mixed results. the day is finally over, the babies are asleep, my partner has quit with the friendly overtures, and i get to sit by myself and drink some leftover wine. bliss.

~*~

i feel bad for so rarely remembering to write down my gluten free recipes. if a person liked spending a pile of cash on hard-to-find ingredients that made so-so food, they'd find that the internet is a treasure trove. for people who want something tastier and less expensive, not so much. i've had to make things up as i go along and improvise substitutions to make my favourite recipes acceptable for little mr g. f. so here's my recipe for gluten free spanikopitas. (spanakopitas? i never know how to spell that)

really, this is just a regular spanikopita recipe, heavily canadianized, with one major modification that makes it gluten free. please go ahead and alter this to fit your preferences and fridge contents, it's a versatile enough idea that you can really do whatever you like with it.

first, take these:
feta cheese, chopped spinach, pepper, eggs, dill, and cheddar. the cheddar is my very canadian addition, if you prefer a more authentic taste, skip it. similarly, i really like dill, but people often prefer oregano and other more greek herbs. add in chopped tomatoes and sauteed onions if you like.

i like to just wing it, so the quantities pictured above are not accurate. you want the mixture to be gloppy but not runny, and nicely cohesive. i used 500 grams of spinach, half the feta, one of the chunks of cheddar, both eggs, ~1 tsp of dill and ~1 tsp of pepper. it could have used more pepper. the quantities are really up to you, so long as it isn't runny you're good.

next, get:
a package of rice paper, (also called rice wraps, available at asian groceries or the asian aisle of a big grocery store. these usually cost less than 3$ for two or three batches of spanikopita, hella cheaper than phyllo) a bowl of superhot water, and your nicely gloppy mixture. the water should be in a round bowl or pot that's big enough to hold the rice paper.

this is the tricky part. (but not trickier than using phyllo) dip one sheet of the rice paper in the water and leave it there for a few seconds while it softens. the colder the water the longer it takes to soften. then pull it out and lay it down carefully. if the paper touches itself it will stick. if the whole thing clumps up into a sticky, unusable mass, put it back in the water and try again. if all goes right, you should have a more or less flat circle of sticky, wet rice paper on your counter, like this:

as pictured, put a bit of your glop in the middle. the amount is up to you: do you want bite-sized snacks or meal-sized turnovers? then fold it up into a neat package, being careful to leave some space inside the package. if it's too tight the cooking contents have nowhere to expand and your spanikopita will spill all over the pan. it's less appetizing when that happens.

place your bundles of deliciousness on a greased cookie sheet. they don't expand when they cook so they can be really close to one another, but don't let them touch or you'll end up with siamese twins. er, um, conjoined multiples. whatever.
bake them with whatever else you're putting in the oven, checking them every so often. when the rice paper is hard and the bits of cheese that have spilled out are getting golden and tasty-looking, they're done. i've never personally cooked them on their own and i suspect that baking time depends on the amount of goop in each spanikopita, but i'd say you could probably put them in at 375 for at least 20 minutes.

i know my instructions are hard to fit on a recipe card, and i'm sorry. but this is how i cook and i have a really hard time translating my vague, guesstimation-based cooking style into something succinct. probably why i'll never write a cookbook.

anyways, they're tasty and gluten free. and if you get feta made with goat milk, they're lactose free. i hope you enjoy them. i think i'll go pull some party leftovers out of the fridge now, thinking about these tasty little bundles has made me hungry.

miscelany

this month i have made:

• enough jam to last ~9 months (we love our jam around here so i'm counting on needing about a litre a month. but this is the world's best jam so we might finish it by halloween) (pics pending)

• this hat: the intended recipent, my brother in law, has a truly tremendous cranium. gigantic. so i meant to make the hat bigger than the pattern suggested. but i'm not the world's greatest knitter, it turns out. so it fits the boy. i guess my little dude gets to wear an extra-cool toque this winter.

• these socks. rather, i finished one and knit the other. it was a sock swap. kara (the best person in florida, possibly the southern states) knit me a beautiful pink sock, then sent me the pattern, the yarn and the one sock. i was to knit the other. but i was short a little yarn so i took the yarn from the first sock's toe to finish the second sock, then gave them matching white toes. it looks like i meant to do it.

• my garden has flourished. the tomatoes are almost ready and i think i have a hot pepper (i'm giving it a few more days but i could pick it now if i wanted) so today i got my first fruits: i thinned the beets. there's a scarce handful here, so i took a close-up so they look bigger. then i added a couple of carrots and some garlic and sauted them in soy & sesame oil. then i added in a shiitake mushroom and some water, then some miso. and a bit of cayenne. and it's delish. mmmm.

and the boy told his first mom joke the other day. he was touching me with a frozen water bottle and i was shrieking dramatically and jumping around.
me: aaaah! it's cold!
my 2 year old: your mom's cold!
i almost died of pride, right there. also my baby started walking, but that milestone seems small compared to the awesomeness of starting telling mom jokes.

now i'm going away for a few days. tata!

the bread robot conquers

the bread robot came.
the bread robot saw.
the bread robot conquered.

the bread robot kicked ass.

most people never have to encounter gluten free bread, but your typical loaf of gf bread is very dense, crumbly, hard, and at least 7$ a loaf. i don't buy it because i wouldn't pay that much for the best bread in the world, let alone that crap.
i heard legends about a breadmaker that had a gluten free setting. they said it made better bread than what you can get in the store. it also costs an arm and a leg. but it turns out that i had a zillion reward miles built up and one of the possible rewards was this fancy-assed breadmaker. so now i have about four reward miles and a bread robot.
and the bread is amazing.
ok, it's sort of spongy and tastes odd, but for gluten free bread that's breaderiffic. it's breadtastic.and the boy is eating his first-ever peanut butter sandwich.

oh, the name: the french on the box translates 'breadmaker' as 'robot-boulanger'. and the bread robot is so shiny and metallic and makes such cool noises... it's definitley a bread robot.

his noodly greatness

so if my son can't have pasta, is he excluded from the church of the flying spaghetti monster? i can't imagine having to endure life without the touch of his noodly appendage... is there a flying spaghetti squash monster for celiacs? i suppose he could be made with rice noodles or corn noodles, but those are nasty and my deity is many things, but nasty is not one of them.
i've requested clarification on this matter from the facebook group. may the fsm (and his facebooky minions) reveal all that is hidden and inform us in his great wisdom.
ramen.

a gluten, dairy and nut-free post.

the boy is one of those horribly annoying children that can't eat anything. at 6 months he stopped gaining weight, by a year he was diagnosed as failure to thrive, and at 18 months i'd figured out that he is a celiac and he was gaining weight once more. the alternative ending to that story was that he die of malnutrition while eating us out of house & home. i'm more than a little glad that the story ended the way it did, i'm not crazy about that alternative ending. so now he's 2 and weighs about 22 pounds, only 5 pounds more than his baby brother.
anyways.
i am constantly searching for gluten, dairy and nut-free foods for the little man. (yes, he has food allergies. the fun just never stops) and i have discovered a couple of great things this week:

1. thick slices of eggplant will work as pizza crusts. i haven't tried it yet, but i'm still stoked. one day the little dude is going to realize that everyone else eats a much wider variety of foods than he does and he will want to eat pizza. so now he can have a little pizza on an eggplant crust. so long as he doesn't want cheese on the pizza.

2. these 'cookies' are pretty decent and nicely versatile, as well as being ridiculously healthy. i got them from this book. it's the best gf cookbook i've found yet. i want to kiss jeanne marie martin on the lips. anyways, the recipe:

brown rice breakfast chews

• 1 cup cooked brown rice, cold (i used hot rice. it worked fine)
• 1 tbs maple syrup (i used honey. spank me.)
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds or other nuts (i was out so i omitted this but will use sunflower seeds and coconut next time)
• 1/4 cup raisins, currants or other dried fruit (my chopped up dried apricots got all soft & delicious)
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour (i used minute tapioca. i have no idea if it's even close to the same thing, it gave it an odd texture but the kid doesn't seem to mind. i'll have to try it with actual tapioca flour someday)
• 1-2 tbs arrowroot flour (skipped it, don't have any. might try rice flour or potato flour or another of these crazy expensive flours i have kicking around next time)

mix all together and try not to squash the rice. drop by the tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet and form little ball thingies.* bake at 300 for 40-50 minutes.

*these things are insanely sticky and i couldn't form them into any shape at all. they're little haystacks, with tons of rice scattered all over the cookie sheet that burned. if i could figure how to make them into granola bar shapes i would, they're the right consistency. oh, and don't skip greasing the cookie sheet like i did. the nonstick surface of the cookie sheet came off with the cookies and that can't be good.



if you know of any good gf recipes or whatever, let me know.