My blog is going to take a slightly different turn. Just after Christmas this year, I came down with awful muscle and joint pain, daily migraines, nausea, it's completely awful. I am now traveling down the road of doctors, specialists, chiropractor's and homeopaths. As of right now, we have no idea what I have. We do have suspicions as to what it might be. Until I know, I am going to call this the "invisible disease". This "invisible disease" has all of a sudden rendered me gluten intolerant. So the comical edge that I used to present in my regular postings will now be about my chef husband and myself, about discovering the world of gluten free.
If you ever want to drive your chef nuts...tell him you have to eat gluten free. I swear the color drained from his face when I said this. He has cooked gluten free at the restaurant many times and done well with it. In his home.... that's just an atrocity. I was in a lot of pain and couldn't eat anything. I would eat my normal meals and be couch ridden the next day. So, out of curiosity I stopped eating my usual carbs (I am a huge carbaholic) bread, pasta, etc.. The next day, I didn't feel so bad. Okay.... so I continued that way for a few days and I got a little better each day. I then went out for a Valentine's Day dinner with my kids and parents. I salivated over the beef wellington and ate quite a bit. The next day, I was couch ridden. I went another three days carbless then, I ate a bowl of spaghetti with my boys (my vice), again I was couch ridden the next day.
I have now cut 90% of gluten out of my diet. The only gluten that would still be there is the sneaky kind that is still in your food from processing. I have felt so much better and I'm getting creating with spaghetti squash and other veg I would never have entertained. I will confess one evening my children and husband had some crusty bread with their dinner (I am trying to get them to consume the last of it). There was one slice left on the plate, I am rather embarrassed to say, I ripped the crust off and licked it just for the taste, before promptly throwing it out. I think I now know what it is like for a smoker to stop smoking.
Is it pricier to eat this way... Oh hell yes! However I'm adjusting. For an entire weekend, chef wanted to help and started baking up a storm. Gluten free brownies, brussel sprout chips, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa rice. There was no way I was going to be able to eat all of it even if I gorged. I find with the nausea I'm eating much smaller portions. The chourico, and lentil soup was really pretty good. As frustrating as this process is for me, I do get some amusement from watching chef try to figure it out too. He posted on Facebook about how much it stressed him out. He actually got condolences from his other chef friends. It kind of was like a death for us, it was sudden and unexpected but we knew it was for the better. I was angry, sad, confused..it just plain sucked.
Slowly I bought each of the many flours you need to make a gluten free all purpose flour. They can be quite expensive and each one has its own function. I had finally bought a new kitchen scale to measure out the flour as that is very important. I then went to get my basket of flours. In his haste, chef forgot to seal the top of the potato starch bag. As the basket slipped from my hands, I dropped the basket and the impact caused the bag of potato starch to POOF into the air like a cleverly set trap from Home Alone. I was covered head to waist in white potato starch. I could have gotten a job as a ghost in the Haunted Mansion at Disney World. My oldest son's eyes were as big as saucers as he looked at me covered, waiting to see my reaction. It wasn't until I laughed that he knew it was safe. So here we go on a new journey...
