The kids remain at Grandparent Shangri-La, and we are free to cook at our leisure…sigh! We threw some Afro-Cuban jazz on the Sonos and are currently spinning delicious delights in the kitchen.

On the menu tonight: cremini mushroom risotto finished with madeira and beet powder accompanied by flank steak smothered in peppercorn gravy.  Add a nice bottle of wine to share, some Ballers (thanks again, HBO) and it’s a Marvellous Monday!

And the post-script with a little beet dye for colour…

The Grandparents have the kids this week, (thank you, thank you, thank you, R&A) and BG and I have been rediscovering couples dining, sleeping in on a Saturday and quietly, without interruption, reading.

Amazing. I have finished more books this week than in the last five days than in the last few months. I used to be a voracious reader.  I was a lit. major who took pleasure in reading five novels a week.

You heard me. I’m proud of that. I own my geek.  It’s been a loooong time since I even hit one novel, let alone five.

Hello Sandra Beasley. I picked up her “Don’t Kill The Birthday Girl” and it was at once memoir, science, history and current status of major allergens as they relate to our neighbours South of the 49th.  

But I could relate.

A has celiac disease. He (ironically) does not have any known allergies.  Sure, he is lactose intolerant for now, but once his villi heal, there’s no known cheese he can’t try.

Beasley’s book transported me to a place of both sisterhood and the realization that we are really lucky that gluten is our only enemy.  Much like visiting the GI clinic, which is soberingly placed beside the major organ transplant clinic, we are lucky.

A can be cured. A will be well. In the early months of an auto-immune diagnosis, books like Sandra’s comfortingly remind me there is a whole world of support available to us, whether online or in the very old-fashioned form of a book.

Thank you, R&A.

Thank you Sandra.

Forgive the interweb silence, however we took the family to Van Isle this weekend to celebrate BC Day by celebrating BC, and kicking back.  It was a chance to get away, get out of our heads, and log some serious beach time.

While we weren’t able to outrun the pervasive fire smoke in the air, we were at least able to drop a couple of degrees and cool down in the water.  The kids and I hit the beach multiple times a day, our swimsuits never really did dry out, and there was sand in the tent.  All in all a successful weekend.

The only challenge came with the cooking.  We entered the hostile territory of a fully gluten kitchen, with a crumby toaster,  and cross-contamination lurking in every corner.  We tried really, really hard, but A ended up getting “glutened”.  His first day of Beach Holiday was spent mainly in the fetal position in intense pain, and there was nothing we could do but wait it out and make ourselves crazy micro-dissecting every action and motion that may have contributed to his pain.

You see, we don’t know just how sensitive A is – whether he reacts to a rogue crumb or can successfully navigate the interior of a regular bakery.  There is literally no way of knowing, save measuring his reaction after the fact, and too late.  It’s so frustrating to have so many more questions than answers.   It made for a pretty frustrating Friday.

Thankfully, things turned around, and I had to check myself to figure out what name to put to this new feeling……was it…..possibly….relaxed?

Happy BC Day!

The smoke has arrived in the lower mainland, and two years later, here we are again…plunged into a surreal moonscape of acrid tang and stinging throats.

I took the boys up to Burnaby Mountain to see what we could see, and it wasn’t much.  The satellite images of Western Canada show a gossamer blanket of white-spun cloud that belies the seriousness of the situation.  I can only imagine being on standby to flee and then forced from my home for weeks at a time.   I can’t conceive of the stress of not knowing if everything has literally just gone up in smoke…

Here’s to the first responders; the firefighters, the emergency personnel, paramedics and the volunteers helping out in the evacuation centres.

Knowing the depth of the alternative, I think I can deal with a little smoke in my eyes.

 

 

 

There’s been a death in the family, but it’s not what you think.  We have collectively been experiencing the seven stages of grief, and all of us are in mourning.  We are mourning food.  We are mourning our new-found limitations of food, and the implications those limitations bring in daily life, social interactions, travel.  Something as simple as a playdate is irreparably changed forever.  Travel.  Restaurants.  Food runs the risk of becoming feared.

(Please note, dear reader:  I am all-too aware that Celiac disease is manageable, by no means terminal, and fairly common these days, these writings are the voices in my head, and I respectfully do not seek to take away from others facing far more dark journeys – more on that later)

The first stage of grief is classically shock and denial.  And boy, did we go down that river.  Initially, when A’s tTg tests came back so high, we thought it was a mistake, incorrect, perhaps he was only highly sensitive to gluten and did not truly have celiac disease.  Maybe only a “little gluten” was okay?  But A kept getting sick, kept missing school, and kept experiencing a lot of the textbook reactions to someone who is being “glutened”.   We placed our hopes and dreams in the extremely capable hands of the GI team at the hospital, and waited for our endoscopy date.  The Doctors informed us that we must retain gluten in the diet on a daily basis in order to provide an accurate result, so I was instructed to effectively poison my child on a daily basis.

We split hairs.  We gave A as little gluten as was possible to provide an accurate test result.  We tried to make it fun with cinnamon buns from the bakery, dim sum with the family, or fluffy white bread and rolls.  We continued in a state of numbness and shock and continued in our daily lives.  We all got a little numb.

We started to learn things.  Little tidbits like flour’s ability to stay airborne for up to 24 hours.  Like gluten came in some dry spices.  Like gluten was in some chicken stock.  Why?  Why is there gluten in spices?  What does wheat have to do with dry mustard?  (Google it.)

Initially I put on a brave face after the blood test, and marched A around Whole Foods, with the objective of illustrating just how much was available gluten-free and non-GMO.  He nearly broke my heart when he looked at the price tags in the store and asked me if I would have to get a second job to pay for his special diet as it could clearly get quite expensive.  Initially it took us 3x the time to go down the grocery aisle, as we were not just reading fat/sugar content on labels, but now we were reading all the really big and small words on all the labels of all the things we picked up.   This couldn’t be our new reality.  This was the sick joke being played on a family of foodies.  We all loved to cook, for goodness’ sake.  We competed within the family for “best dish” and “best appie” on Saturday nights.  We loved food.

This couldn’t be our new reality.

Turns out, it was.

 

 

 

I love spice.  I really love spice.  Spice so hot your eyelids bead with sweat as you yearn for the next bite.  Needless to say, I gravitate towards anything with chilis, cayenne or other heat sources.

Creole and cajun cooking is so fabulous; it’s comfort food in a loving, slow-cooked pot. Aromas waft around you like a cosy hug, and I dare you not to go for seconds.

So with a bit of cloud and a breeze, I decided to put on a Jambalaya tonight–a versatile dish adaptable to any protein, really.

A shot of the classic Cajun/Creole mirepoix and the finished product: hand-blend your own Cajun seasoning-it’s super-easy!

The hospital called today with notes from the dietician and a fresh new set of reference articles and useful links for the newly diagnosed celiac and their family.  Much of it wasn’t new to us, and a lot borrowed heavily from the Canadian Celiac Association.  (great site)

I interrupted a family bike ride to take the call, and A immediately turned sullen and angry.  He was resentful of the interruption, but more so the reminder of his newly-diagnosed condition.  He challenged why they were calling just then and sped home.

I understand this is an initial roller-coaster.  There is a bona-fide mourning period for both the lifestyle he used to enjoy and the foods he can no longer partake in. There are truly seven stages of grief through this process.

Mostly right now, there is his anger.  Anger at the situation, anger at the permanence and anger at a fledgeling attempt to go out to dinner with disastrous GI results.

I must remember to take a deep breath, and keep moving forward.

Current mood……

I like to challenge myself with unfamiliar ingredients.  I often pick up items new to me and google what to do with them when I return to the kitchen.  Some experiments (cooking with okra) demand further research and practice.  

Today it was time to transform tomatillos.  I love salsa verde but have always skirted the papery-wrapped pequeno green tomatos with no idea as to prep or cook.

This was a mistake.

Rough-chop onion, tomatillos, chilis, olive oil and some cumin/cilantro (or coriander if your cilantro has succumbed to this heat) wih a pinch of salt, blend and serve with my husband’s “boss rotisserie chicken, as A would say.

Delish. And as always, GF.

It’s summer and the kids are home for lunch every day.  It’s great not packing a lunch in the mornings, but it just kind of delays the inevitable:  “What’s for lunch?”

I have been wanting to make the kids Nori cones, as A is really bummed out he can’t have California rolls any more, but as I couldn’t find the cord for the rice cooker, I opted for quinoa-stuffed Nori cones with peppers, green onion, wasabi and a bit of mayo.  I shredded some pork (ghosts of pork chops past) and added some cracked pepper.

Funny thing, quinoa subs in for rice pretty well, and while we scored 1 hit, 1 miss, I think we will be making these again.

(and forgive the blurry shot!)

Want a fast, easy mid-week meal to incorporate a couple of leftover chops?  We are huge fans of Pho, and with some GF stock, millet and brown rice noodles, lemongrass and the mirepoix of the East, (ginger, garlic and green onion) this too can be yours fairly quickly.
Add some chilis, chopped cilantro and squeezed lime and the world is yours!