Gothic Granola

Going gluten-free is not a magic bullet to health, contrary to this article from Paleo Magazine . If you have, in fact, experienced real intestinal damage at the hands of bread, pizza, cake, and beer, then your health is going to take a nosedive even after becoming gluten-free. Why? The body doesn't heal overnight.   Mmm, cake... Eww, beer...

Most days, I ride my bike to work. After a few months, I figured out something... Rules for wearing a skirt (of any length) while riding a bike: 1) Don't. 2) Bring safety pins--both to pin up a long skirt before and to fix the inevitable rips afterwards. 3) Lose sense of shame. 4) Wear cute undies because you will flash people. 5) See Rule #1. Especially because of the cold, I've given up on skirts for a while. Soup! Because it's cold outside. There's probably 1,001 variations on some vegan, gluten-free, roasted butternut squash curried soup because it is brainlessly easy to prepare. Even a zombie could make it.

Starter Start-up: Flatbread It was like having a pet. Or a vampire in hibernation. I had to go home every day at lunch, mix water and teff flour, and feed the starter. Methinks I should name it Audrey, Junior.

The snow has me grounded at my grandparents' house after our Army-Navy game party, and I made breakfast/dessert in my cupcake pan which I left here. Since my grandmother bakes frequently, her pans aren't "safe" for me (years of baked-on grease and wheat flour). Her dessert for our "tailgate" party was the conventional version of cinnamon coffee bars .  Funny story, the last time I wrote about  cheesecake , I had just made  Chocolate-Covered Katie's Deep-Dish Cinnamon Roll Pie . The 2012 pie turned out tough because I was angry and tight. Tonight I made the pie again in cupcake format. The cupcakes baked up properly puddingy because I am happy and chill. There is substance to  Como agua para chocolate !  

Cooking with Gas | Penne alla Vodka Considering how I grew up on this dish, you might wonder why I needed a recipe. Rules are nice, sometimes. As my high school Honors Biology teacher said, "Rules were meant to be followed." 'Cept when veganising and deglutinising recipes. Then rules are meant to be broken and rebuilt from their component parts into new arrangements. Kind of like proteins/amino acids. Penne alla Vodka modified from  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/penne-alla-vodka-recipe/index.html 1 pound GF penne pasta (I used brown rice rotelle and lasagne since I had kind of old boxes of each) 1 teaspoon olive oil 1 onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, grated dash sea salt 1 cup vodka (my mom used Stolichnaya; I used Luksusowa, a potato vodka, because I'm not taking chances with grain-based alcohol. 1 14- or 28-ounce can diced tomatoes (I went for the 14 but the 28 would be better) 1 16-ounce bag frozen peas, ...

Part II of Cooking with Gas, a series on recipes featuring hard liquor. If there's half a cup of water to replace 2 eggs, and the recipe is supposed to have alcohol, then that half cup of water is going to be alcohol. 'Nuff said. Had I been pulled over while driving to an appointment with The Local Massage Therapist in Arlington, I probably would've registered above acceptable blood alcohol content after having a maple bourbon donut this morning. Not that I was driving recklessly--these donuts are just particularly alcoholic. The glaze contains a teaspoon of whiskey and the donuts taste like alcohol, most definitely. They're good that way. The people who know these things keep telling me the GF alcohol I find is milder than the conventional types. I guess that's good for me since extremes (salt, sweet, etc.) do a number on me. It was too late last night to figure out an alternate glaze that didn't involve sugar, but I have ideas and 2/3 of a bottle of Queen Jenn...

Fluffy Bunny, Curse Reversed "For what has been, thanks! For what shall be--yes!"  --Dag Hammerskjold What doors are you going to keep open, once opened? Premise: I don't like marshmallows.

This year, I am grateful for learning the following lesson, and all the people, places, events, and things that taught me it. If I don't enjoy certain things with certain people under certain circumstances, I oughtn't write it off. Being open to try it again under different circumstances with different people can reverse the curse.  Thanksgiving is one of those things.

Querelous Quinoa Qualms | Front Porch Toast Bread Read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/fashion/chef-run-service-teaches-nannies-recipes-that-skip-the-microwave.html?_r=1& I'm gonna judge, and I'm probably not in a position to judge as I neither have nor want offspring. I reference my personal experience to make a point. This is not an ad hominem attack on the parent in question in the article. Rather, I am questioning her methods. Enough nicey-nicey. This is decadent. Wanting to expand your child's tastes & preferences towards healthier fare isn't bad in and of itself. Steering your child to eat your same "global," fancy-pants fare as you...why? There are distinctions between indulgence and control, and [the child's] agency in the realm of child-rearing, as I understand it. Of course a parent, if s/he has had the advantages in life to have pursued some kind of nutrition education, probably wants to feed his/her children ...

Here is a brownie recipe I made and brought to work this week; it is a mash-up of several recipes since I couldn’t find one to make what I wanted: moist brownies, not fudge, not sheet cake. The above picture is actually of zucchini brownies, but the base recipes are the same.