Recently in Gluten-free, Vegan Carnivore Category

What we have here is 31 days of food blogging or photo-blogging. Some of it good, some of it decent, and some of it just plain lame. C'est la vie.

Well, to finish off NaBloPoMo's July Food Blogging Challenge, I shall talk about the last 36 hours worth of gluten filled hell.

So, I have been blogging here about having Celiac's Disease and having to eat gluten-free. But what I have not blogged about is how one can't always eat at home in a perfectly controlled situation to keep from getting sick from cross-contamination or gluten hiding in food it has no business being in.

Since I was first diagnosed in the early-1990s as being wheat & gluten intolerant, I have tried to make sure that the bulk of my eating out involves "Riceatarian" food - Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican. Each of these cuisines' builds their starch repertoire on rice or other non-gluten grains (like corn/maize). C'est la top.

I test out as moderate in the range of my inability to deal with gluten on the official celiac's tests, but I also always test out as allergic to wheat as well. A double whammy. If I eat something with wheat or rye or spelt or barley, even if a bit of it (ie: thickened soup, such as clam chowder), my neck, intestines, head, and hives let me know all about it. They say, "WTF!!!! What were you thinking!?!?!??!"

Generally, if I by accident get a bit of wheat or gluten in my food when eating out, I will immediately flush, my neck and shoulder muscles will lock up, and my intestines will make an announcement that they are not pleased. The next day, I will feel like I have the flu, with fatigue, sore throat, a headache, aching muscles, intestinal bloating, cramping and either constipation or diarrhea. Sometimes the intestinal bit can go on for a couple of days. All over less than a teaspoon of wheat in a soup or sauce or... or ... or...

I am not a severe reactor, like some who can't have food that is prepared on a cutting board that once had wheat on it or eat something that was processed in the same facility as a gluten-full item. Generally, I can eat gluten-free foods that were prepared in the same space as gluten-full foods as along as the prep area was washed in between.

In the US items with wheat starch as an ingredient are not considered gluten-free, but in Europe under EU regulation, wheat starch can be used in gluten-free items as it is 'technically' gluten-free (or free of the gluten protein). When I lived in Ireland, I quickly found that I could not eat any of the items that contained wheat starch due to my wheat allergy that I have on top of my celiac's.

Since the mid-1990s, going to a dim sum lunch at a Chinese restaurant has been a fairly safe experience for me, as I have researched what I can and can't eat. The problem comes when an Asian restaurant cuts a corner by using wheat flour rather than rice flour or uses wheat flour to thicken a sauce rather than corn or rice or tapioca starch.

Yesterday, one of my fave LA area dim sum places, the Empress Pavilion, in Chinatown struck out for the 3rd time in the course of the last year. Most of my dim sum experiences at the Empress Pavilion have been positive, but three times in the last year, the food has been mediocre to not very good at all. And all three times, I have felt sick later.

Why do I keep going back? Well, most the time the food is spot on and I have no reactions. Yesterday's lunch was not one of those times. Hadashi and I arrived a bit late for lunch, there were only 4 carts in circulation with a fairly poor selection. We ended up in the confusion of piled up carts and needing food getting the beef dumplings.

Now beef dumplings are almost always suspect. Bizarre at best, just plain yucky at worst. But there was no har gow (shrimp dumplings) to be had and the only shrimp dumplings available were with shark fin, which I won't eat. So, I filled up on turnip cakes and steamed rice wrapped in banana leaf.

At the end of the meal, I broke down and had a 2nd beef dumpling. I opened it up and looked at it before eating it, it was stewed beef, celery, water chestnut and some other vegetables with suspicious white paste all over them. Ding ding ding. Dang.

The misery started about 2 hours after leaving the Empress Pavilion and lasted until late this afternoon with me camping out near the restroom most of the day today (TMI, sorry, but that is the truth).

During today's reaction, I used my time to re-research dim sum recipes, and it was confirmed that the dumplings I order should use tapoica starch or rice flour or on occasion wheat starch, but all the recipes state that wheat flour should never be used (too heavy for light dumplings).

As I can reconstruct the meal, either the Empress Pavilion's kitchen used wheat flour to thicken the beef dumpling's stuffing or used wheat flour rather than rice flour & tapioca in the turnip cake.

Regardless, third strike and the Empress is out.

Tues 07.29.08 - It took nearly a year, but I finally found dairy-free, corn free, and canola free margarine!

Thanks Willow Run Soybean Margarine.

Oops. Wrong cultural reference. The above title is a quote from the movie Spinal Tap.

No, I am not in Cleveland, nor have I ever been to Cleveland, but I do have friends who live there if that counts for anything.

Today is a wash in food-blogging-land. A wash. I had a bad night's sleep (it was too hot in my apartment) and then a very busy day. I did accomplish quite a lot in terms of work and I did go to the fabulous Mother's Market for my rice bread and other gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free staples.

Best of all, I *finally* found a vegan margarine / butter substitute that did not have any casein, nor canola oil, nor corn of any form in the ingredients. Just plain ole soy. Yay for soy!

This may not sound exciting for you, but since I am allergic to dairy, corn, and canola, trying to find any vegan or substitute dairy products is very hard as most non-diary products trying to imitate butter that do not contain casein, or corn (gives a buttery taste), or canola oil. It has been nearly a year since I have been off all three and today is the first day that I found a butter / margarine that does not contain any of the three allergens. Yay!

Tomorrow morning I shall have soy buttered toast with watermelon for breakfast. I am already excited.

Now if only I could find a good vegan cheese that was canola and corn free...

I have been gluten-free for 14 years now and diary-free & egg-free off and on for years, but officially off for the last year, much to my intestinal track's delight.

Most baking relies on flour with gluten, eggs, and some sort of liquid or fat that is usually diary based to create the chemical reactions that are necessary for a delicious, light, nicely risen baked good. In most recipes that are gluten-free, egg-free, and diary-free there are two substitute ingredients that just don't work for me.

1) Egg Replacer. Hello Tapioca. You are fine as boba balls in boba tea. You are fine as pudding. You are extra fine as an ingredient in dim sum wrappers. You suck as an egg replacer.

No matter what I do, be it follow the package directions or recipes or what, everything that I use Egg Replacer in comes out rubbery or hard or both. I have taken to leaving it out when I use a gluten-free baking mix, as the mix usually already includes tapioca, taro root, or arrowroot to help hold everything together.

In normal baking the proteins in the egg mix with the gluten protein in the wheat flour to bind the ingredients together and to help the batter to rise and be light. Egg replacer succeeds at binding the ingredients together but fails at the goal of lightening the batter. Thus rubbery and hard.

2) Agave Syrup. Agave Syrup is very popular in vegan baking recipes as a substitute for both sugar (are animals harmed in the making of sugar?) and the liquid that diary provides. Agave Syrup is 3x sweeter than sugar, is a liquid, and dang it all it gives me the same headache as tequila without the happy margarita part.

I can live without Agave Syrup, as I am not allergic to cane or beet sugars and I have no problems ethically with using either, but the lack of eggs is cramping my baking style, as evidenced by the world's ugliest and most unappetizing pancakes ever.

Finally, yes, I could buy gluten-free baked products at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Mother's Markets, but the only problem is that most of these goods contain either butter (allergy), egg (allergy), or canola oil (really bad allergy).

Back to the baking drawing board I go. I am going to try to make blueberry pancakes tomorrow.

Mon 07.07.08 - The hardest part of a gluten-free, diary-free, egg-free, yeast free allergy diet is breakfast.

Think about it. No eggs. No regular bread. No regular cereal. No bagels. Etc.

Ever tried to make a pancake with rice flower, rice milk, and egg replacer? It can be a disaster.

I am one of those folks who needs to start every day with a good protein breakfast, to not do so is to court hypoglycemic disaster just before lunch. When I was first taken off of wheat and yeast in the late 80s / early 90s, I became a morning egg eater, as well as learned to eat dinner leftovers for breakfast.

Now that I am off eggs and diary on top of the no gluten and no yeast, breakfast can be challenging. I am very happy to report that Ener-G's Gluten-free Yeast-free Brown Rice Loaf is my morning savior, along with a few other gluten-free items. But I am supposed to not eat the same thing everyday, to rotate my food choices so that I do not develop new food sensitivities. Thus, the challenge.

This morning, I had two slices of bacon, two apricots, two slices of the Ener-G break with apricot jam, and some tea with honey and rice milk in it. It was delightful.

Due to my gluten-free vegan carnivore ways, shopping for food is always interesting. For the last four years, ever since the grocery store strike of 2004, I have foraged for my food mainly at the nearest Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, with an occasional trip to the nice Ralph's for the few odd items that can't be purchased at WF or TJs.

For years I have had friends ask how I can afford to purchase the bulk of my groceries at Whole Paycheck, my response is a short to drawn out speech on the difficulties of purchasing healthy food when one is gluten-free, diary-free, plus other allergy free (like no canola oil!) at a regular supermarket. For years I assumed that I was spending tons more $$ at Whole Foods so that I didn't puke or break out in hives (a good expenditure in my book).

Recently, I decided to test assumption by going to the the nice Ralph's in Huntington Beach near my brother's house to see how much of my food I could purchase there and at what price. Well, the nice Ralph's had about 35-50% of my preferred brands of gluten-free and diary-free items at about $.10 - $.50 cheaper with a Ralph's Club Card. But, the big but, is without a Ralph's Card, it was more expensive than Whole Foods. Also, the Ralph's is about 5-6 miles away, where as Whole Foods is just under a mile away.

Pavilions, the upscale version of Vons Supermarkets, re-opened a brand new store in their old location on Pacific Coast Highway at Main Street in Seal Beach. My next door neighbor gushed about how amazing it was... The Deli! The fresh fruit & veg! The meats! etc. The same neighbor said I should go over there as I would not go back to the local Whole Foods or Trader Joe's.

Today I went to both Whole Foods and Pavilions today with the specific intent of comparing prices on 10 of my weekly food expenditures. Pavilions was a big surprise, as they had many of the weekly items I buy at $.20 - $1.00 more per item with a Club Card and much more without ($12.99 for a bottle of Gnarly Head Zinfandel wine with the Club Card! Yikes! $8.99 at MoBev and similiar at WF.). Only one item was equal in price and one was below with a Club Card, but without both were more. And while the new Pavilions was two times the size of the local Whole Foods (a former Wild Oats), one had to really hunt and peck for the organic and gluten-free items. Overall, my neighbor was very off on his opinion of the new Pavilions.

While Trader Joe's is usually cheaper than Whole Foods, with the exception of their rice pasta, almost every other GF good on sale contains canola oil and eggs, which makes it a no go for me. I do like TJ's for their frozen fish and a few other items, but only enough to visit once a month or so.

All of this is to say that my local Whole Foods has come out the winner for the best purveyor of organic and gluten-free items at the best price. I guess I can't call them Whole Paycheck anymore...

Photos by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95 camera phone.

I am a big fan of the Thai Kitchen Spring Onion Rice Noodle Soup Bowl. Gluten-free, check. Dairy-free, check. Egg-free, check. Canola oil free, check. Takes only 3-4 minutes to make... Sign me up!

After I first found this little gem of Jenifer friendly food goodness at Trader Joe's a few years back, I would just make it by the package directions.  But ever since I have returned from Ireland, I have made it a meal by adding whatever complimentary veggies and meats that I have in the refrigerator and/or chicken broth if I have it on had.

Happy Spiced Up Thai Kitchen Rice Noodle Soup Bowl:

1 package of your fave flavor of Thai Kitchen Rice Noodle Soup Bowls (or any other instant noodle package, but I won't vouch for quality & gluten-free with other brands)

1/2 bowl (the plastic bowl that comes with the Rice Noodle Soup) of water

1 bowl (see directly above) of Chicken broth or veggie broth

All the packets of stuff that come in the Thai Noodle packaging.

Put all of the above in a pan on the stove that will fit plus room or find a big bowl and do it in the microwave. If stove, boil for 5 minutes. If microwave, nuke for 3 minutes.

As the soup is cooking, chop up whatever tasty vegetables and/or meat you have in the refrigerator that would be complimentary.

I like to use leafy green veggies: Bok Choy, escarole, spinach, kale, etc.

I also like to use pork (bacon or pancetta, pre-sauted/cooked), turkey or chicken leftovers, or cooked ground beef for extra protein.

Add the veggies and cooked meat to the soup, cook until boiling or the veggies are wilt-ish/ cooked to your taste.

Serve. Eat. Be happy.

1) A few new food blogs that I have run across this week or two:
   Just Bento | meal in a box 
   Chocolate & Zucchini : Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen
   lobstersquad : A Food Blog with Drawings
   The Sensitive Baker Blog
   CeliacChicks


2) The LA Times food section is recommending Osteria Mozza this week in its restaurant review, particularly the mozzarella bar. It sounds very intriguing. 

3) Regardless what cranky commenters at Yelp may say, What's Wharf continues its reign as my favorite local restaurant and one of my top 10 of all time.  I have always liked that Walt's serves good seafood and has a wait staff that is willing to help you find something on the menu that will work with one's food allergies.  I first found Walt's while still in high school on the recommendation of my allergy doctor who said that they are one of the best restaurants in SoCal for catering to folks with food allergies.

Sometime this spring, Walt's brought on a new executive chef, Christopher Krajacic, who has been revitalizing the menu and rotating in new dishes, as well as adding a Chef's Tasting Menu, all the while keeping old favorites on the menu.  Last week when I took my sister Allison to her "Last (gluten-full) Meal" at Walt's, I had a chance to talk to the Christopher the Chef about his additions to the menu and thank him for keeping the menu friendly for folks who multiple food allergies.  He told me that in a previous job he was a caterer for the San Diego Celiac's Society.