Thank You Twisted Tomato!

Just a quick shout of thanks to a GREAT restaurant!!

If your travels bring any of you, as they have me, to Nelson BC, eat at the Twisted Tomato!

My hubby and I were there the other night because they have Gluten Free pizza crusts (made with white rice flour) and gluten free pasta!

I had the Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza (hold the onions). It was FANTASTIC! I’ve missed pizza SO much!! The crust was thin, tender, and terrific! Even my hubby agreed! Thought about taking a photo with my phone – but that would’ve involved stopping eating!
LOL!!

I saved three pieces for the next day – as I’ve always LOVED cold pizza. I wanted to see how the crust stood up to a day in the fridge. The answer? Great! This is now going to be a fave for me when I’m in Nelson, and apparently they’re opening in nearby Trail!

I haven’t tried they’re pasta yet, I’ll blog when I do!

🙂

Cloudy Christmas with fructmal

Wow, I have to say I have been overwhelmed recently by all the comments on my blog – particularly the “What is Fructose Malabsorption Disorder?” page! I feel I do need to emphasize that I am NOT a health care professional, just a hardware store cashier that has been suffering with this for a long time and has been able to network with others and educate myself (despite all the misinformation and cr*p out there!).

I have recently discovered that I am not notified everytime someone comments on my blog – I only get a notification the first time someone comments. Once I approve them they can comment without my being notified! Which means some people have been thinking I was ignoring them!
I am trying to redo my settings… hopefully I can fix this so that I always know when someone is awaiting a response!

On other notes….
I have been going through a few bad days lately. Last week I found myself at work with no packed lunch. Normally I would go to one of three nearby places where I could get an edible lunch – either a raw veggie wrapped in veggie leather, a quinoa edamame salad or a rice noodle and shredded carrot salad. Regrettably, all these options are NOT CHEAP and I had a $5 bill and no bank card! ~sigh~
I only get 30 minutes so I can’t stray far and wide searching for food. I broke down and got a microwavable stew – thickened with enriched wheat flour. blech – It was not very palatable (though a BIG brand beginning with “C” and ending with ” ‘s”) and I have been SICK.
Flatulence, skin breakouts, scatterbraining ALL over the place! I have been joking with my customers that I’m flailing around and telling myself I’m “multi-tasking”! LOL!! I haven’t been sleeping well and have been what I call “cloudy”.

I don’t like to call depressed “depressed”. I try to remind myself that this feeling that I’m pathetic and useless and I don’t even know why my husband stays with me and should know better and do better and work harder and be prettier and no matter how hard I try I will never be strong or good or talented or special, just stupid and ugly and useless….. I try and remember that it’s just clouds, passing over the sun. The sun isn’t gone; it’s still shining brightly and beautifully in a clear blue sky… just behind the clouds. Clouds don’t stay forever. They always drift away eventually and it’s sunny again. Clouds don’t stay, the clouds will go away, I’m feeling cloudy but I will feel sunny again… I just have to keep going. Get out in the sunshine. Have a warm, comforting shower. Don’t watch the news or cop shows, watch Rescue Ink or Stargate Atlantis. Something light and positive and keep the faith.

Christmas is coming. Normally I am Miss OMG-New-Ornaments!!!-Tree-Dorky-Antler-Headgear-YAY! This year decorating was a chore that took me five days of plugging away, occasionally stopping to eat, go for a walk, stop the downward spiral of cloudy thoughts about how I should be done and how I’m so behind and I’m just a stupid idiot every year and why did I think I could make my house look pretty when I have no taste and I suck and…blah blah blah. I showered again – just stood under the warm water really, and gave myself permission to cry. Big, ugly, snotty-nose cry. I ended up bent over with one hand on the shower wall and one on my knee wailing in heaved… like I was emotionally vomiting.
Well. The tree is up. I put the empty garland boxes and light boxes away. My husband will vacuum.
Done.

I hate wheat.

😦
AVT

Tendonitis better – Fructmal-friendly treats – SciAm article

Yahoooo!
My tendonitis behaving VERY well (thanks to this wonderful gizmo my sweetie bought me), so I’ve been working through my accumulated emails and wordpress responses! I apologize to anyone who has written and thinks I dropped off the planet – I just dropped off the ‘Net for awhile!

I wanted to draw attention to a great article in Scientific American on Celiac Disease. You can read it online here.

Though Celiac and Fructmal are very different, the article paints a hopeful picture for all of us with food intolerances. The article explains the advancements and new ways of thinking currently moving science forward in the way they look at food intolerances and their relationship to many ailments and symptoms that would seem unrelated. The article may be about celiac, but the shift in scientific & medical thinking was a really positive and hopeful sign to me as a Fructmal.

The the foody side, I recently discovered two new foods. Jordan’s brand Morning Crisp cereal and Glutino brand Pretzels.

There are a couple of varieties of Jordan’s Morning Crisp. My local grocery store had the “nut” kind. Sweet oat clusters and big chunks of nuts! Almond, hazelnuts, pecans… no wheat! They recently replaced it on the shelf though with the FRUIT and nut type… I’m going to see about THAT!! HA! I loved the cereal and had no reaction to it.

The Glutino pretzels were also delicious. Taste just like regular, ordinary pretzels! Turns out I can’t continue eating them – but not for Fructmal reasons…totally unrelated. I am particularly sensitive to carboxymethyl cellulose. I get heart palpatations – and the Glutino pretzels contain it. But if you aren’t sensitive to it (carboxymethyl cellulose is in all “freeze-pop” type frozen treats, for example) then GREAT! Taste, texture, small, all match the “real” pretzel experience!

Well, gotta go. Still can’t over do it~
🙂

Wheatless Dark Chocolate Roll….from YouTube’s everythingdarkchocol

Whew! Back online!

Microsoft weirdness had me off the computer for awhile, but I think we’re good now.

I have been working a lot at my part-time job lately, as a couple of people were away and they needed me to pick up the shifts. I realize how much I’ve missed the writing time! It has also been far too hot here for me to do any baking… 😦

Before the heatwave I did get some wheatless burger buns done from a mix by Celimix. They’re not bad at all! Will post pics next time! Just in time, too, as we now own a GRILL!

In the meantime, I am posting this terrific vid I found on YouTube. The poster is “everythingdarkchocol” and the recipe looks awesome! She hasn’t tagged it as wheatfree, but it is!

Flourless Dark Chocolate Roll filled with Chocolate Ganache:

Enjoy!

🙂

AVT

Kinnikinnick Wheat-free cake mix…great!

Well, I made up the Kinnikinnick brand Gluten-free White Cake mix…

no photo because…well…it smelled REALLY good, and the camera was in the car. LOLOLOL!!!

I rate this highly.  Unlike the Bob’s Red Mill cake mix, which while good, did have a bit of a bean aftertaste (due to the prominence of chickpea flour), this mix had a slight cornbread scent and flavour which I liked more.

Good texture, very light.  I frosted it with chocolate pudding and topped it with a little shredded coconut.  My sweetie doesn’t have fructose malabsorption, so he doesn’t have to go wheat-free, but he loved it!

Check out the Kinnikinnick website!  They have a great selection and they have a Canadian and a US location – all the better for shipping, my dear!

I think tonight I’ll try the Celimix brand hamburger buns.  The GORGEOUS weather we’ve been having has my sweetie thinking about burgers!

Now, however is WRITING time!  An article for Constant Content, and some research on the saga of Gilgamesh!

🙂

AVT

Fructose Malabsorption Website now up!!

Well, I decided to do something about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a Fructose Malabsorption website out there!

Fructose Malabsorption website

It’s very simple right now, but I look forward to photos, recipes (rather than just links!), more links to it and more links from it!  If you have something to add, even just a suggestion or a comment, let me know!

Further on the wheat-free front, the sandwich bread and pizza rounds I got from Kinnikinnick Foods are AWESOME!!  I very much recommend them!

I’m making the White Cake  Mix tonight!  Review and pics to come!

🙂

AVT

Updated the blog!

My blog now has a new page with a complete explanation of what Fructose Malabsorption is, the symptoms, the foodplan, etc!

Tried to make it both fun and informative!

🙂

AVT

Celimix, Almond Milk, gluten-free Safeway…

I had a rather delightful DUH! moment today!

My sweetie and I do almost all our grocery shopping at Safeway. Most things are more expensive, but the lighting is largely incandescent, the music is quiet, the store is clean and they have an awesome selection of organic food – not just produce but soups, pasta sauce, frozen stuff – you name it.

Why, why, why then was I surprised today to find they have had gluten-free bakery stuff all this time and I didn’t realize it? The Safeway bakery department has a wall of glass cabinets displaying fancy cakes and the like. Next to it is an upright freezer with boxes of frozen creampuffs, tartlet shells..AND A BUNCH OF OTHER STUFF I NEVER BOTHERED TO LOOK AT!!

hmmmm…. I wonder what those could be?

Here’s a clue: when gluten-free bread is baked, you always slice it as soon as it’s cooled and store it IN THE FREEZER! That’s right! My local Safeway has gluten-free bread, cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins, pizza rounds…all from an Alberta company called Kinnikinnik.

YAY!!!! I bought bread and small pizza rounds!

I also found a new gluten-free mix at the health food store called Celimix brand. That had a zillion different kinds, and they don’t seem to rely on chickpea flour as much as Bob’s Red Mill does (which makes everything taste just a little like green beans). I bought the Hamburger bun mix – I’d like to give it a test run before BBQ season! Also, it uses very few ingredients, so maybe I’ll be able to recreate it from scratch!!

My mom has been telling everyone since the 1970’s that our diets were too restricted and all that wheat, peanuts, corn and soy was a bad idea. She has always advocated organic food and avoiding additives. I never SAW a cakemix or Jello or anything like that until I was an adult! Needless to say, she has quite the collection of cookbooks! She has lent me The All Natural Allergy Cookbook – Dairy-free and Gluten-free by Jeanne Marie Martin (1991) and The Food Intolerance Diet Book by E. Workman, Dr. V. Alun Jones, and Dr. J. Hunter (1986).

They both look really promising! The Carob/Chocolate cake looks very do-able and requires milk substitute. Though I have no problem with milk, I bought Blue Diamond’s Almond Breeze almond milk. I want to make it according to the recipe before messing with it.

I think I need something to WORK to boost my ego!

🙂

AT

Gluten-Free Wackiness…

Well, as I mentioned yesterday my latest wheat-free baking was inedible.  I tried a classic wacky cake recipe.  If you’ve never baked Wacky Cake (and can have wheat) google the recipe and give it a go!  I grew up on Wacky Cake and it’s great.  Traditionally it’s chocolate, and the recipe was apparently developed in the Depression during food rationing.  Wacky Cake requires no eggs, no milk, and no butter.  It’s great for vegetarians, people allergic to eggs, lactose intolerance…. great cake.  Also, there’s no dirty dishes!  You put all the ingredients directly into the cake pan and stir it with a fork, so it’s perfect for kids.

I checked out a few websites and decided to substitute sorghum flour, potato flour and tapioca starch for the flour.  I also added 1/2 a teaspoon of xanthan gum to “capture” the air from the leavening.

They came out very flat.  I think part of the problem is I was TOO CONFIDENT since I’d baked this so many times before.  Traditional wheat Wacky Cake is VERY forgiving – I’ve even made it with Extra Virgin Olive Oil (because I was out of veggie oil), Hot Chocolate Mix (because I was out of cocoa) and Malt Vinegar (because I had no white vinegar)..AND..I baked it in a loaf pan.  It still tasted good!  As a result I threw in a couple of handfuls of ground hazelnuts – I think this made the texture too course and allowed the air to escape.

I think I also need more xanthan gum, to capture the air.  The chocolate chips I threw in sank right to the bottom, the texture of the cupcakes was very crumbly and the bottoms were oily.  Everything separated.  The nice thing is, Wacky Cake is very cheap to make!

I picked up the America’s Test Kitchen Annual cooking magazine – a “best of” thing and there was a great recipe for Guinness Beef Stew.  I going to christen our slow cooker with it – though I can’t get hold of one bottle of Guinness!  I have to buy a whole six-pack and neither myself nor my sweetie are beer drinkers.  Also, I don’t know if Guiness has wheat.  I picked up a single large bottle of an English Ale – St. Peter’s Organic – which is apparently wheat-free, so I’ll try that.

I should get off the computer now, as I start my new job at the hardware store in the morning!

🙂

AVT

Getting Things Done! Yay, me!

I’ve finally replaced my blog’s generic header image (now that I have de-fracked my Photoshop!). I’m no graphic artist, but the image will do for now!

My first article on Fructose Malabsorption Disorder is finished and will be uploaded to my portfolio on Constant Content in the morning – then it will take a couple of days for the editor to approve posting it. I start my part-time job on Monday, so Tuesday I’ll start on the next article – something more in-depth.

I think my article on Self-Respect vs. Vanity will be polished soon, and I was inspired today looking at, of all things, a bottle of water. According to the “Nutrient Value” label on the side, water’s not very good for you! All the entries were of course, zero, zero, zero. Water after all, has no vitamins or minerals or carbs. It struck me that, while the Nutrient Value label on foods can tell you many things – it is not giving you the whole story. I’ll have to keep that article very focused though, goodness knows the “food nutrition” articles are a dime a dozen.

My novel is really coming along! Now that I have Photoshop back, I made myself a photo montage desktop wallpaper using images of my novel’s main characters, so each time I boot up the computer I see them. I am very visual. The actors I have mentally “cast” are David Andrews (JAG,CSI) as the male lead, Chris Mulkey as his brother (and the female lead’s former fiancee), Olivia Hussey/Seeta Indrani as the female lead, and Patrick Kilpatrick/Nick Chinlund/Zachary Quinto as the villain.

My latest wheat-free baking attempt was inedible again. ~sigh~

I will upload pics and write an entry tomorrow.

🙂

AVT