A Reprieve

I took it really personal that I wouldn't be able to cook or bake again on a normal basis when I started this. I was going to conquer my fears and I was going to accomplish baking like no other. Everything was going to taste great and maybe even better than normal cooking and baking.

In the last several months I have tried several things, some have turned out and some haven't. I have turned down parties to go to because I knew they wouldn't have anything there for me to eat. I have avoided certain restaurants because I knew it was going to be a bigger trial than I wished. Almost every weekend I have tried to take the task of baking something, usually two of the same item, to taste test on. I have eliminated a lot and still I feel I have just nicked the tip of the iceberg in dealing with my eating.

This weekend came and I really had to take the time and effort to talk myself out of baking anything. It took me 50 years to even learn how to cook or bake something on a normal basis descent enough to eat, and now I have to change everything that I learned and redo it. Of course the usual baking principles apply, it is just the ingredients and what it is going to turn out and taste like in the end. Someone told me that it wouldn't be such a drive, if you knew you could do it and there was no determination of achieving normalcy all over again.

I had lost about 20 lbs when I had to go on the diet for my stomach and liver, prior to my CD issues. Since trying to gain that normalcy I was eating a lot of baked goods with who knows how much sugar were in each one. My pants were feeling a little tight.

So this weekend came and since I had no company to cook for I tried to play the rainy weekend, slow, no clean, no cook, no get dressed, no do anything weekend. So I read my book, watched movies with my husband, did a little yard work and tried to not think, I could be in the kitchen trying to make "normalcy".

I am still reading recipes and staying in the mind set, but I had to have a reprieve from my diet. I wonder if I will ever feel that normalcy again.

Blooming Days Ahead

I realized half way through this adventure I was going to have to cook and bake for myself for the rest of my life. So guess what I did, I decided to do a garden. Because I live in an area where there are a lot of outside creatures that eat my garden I have designed half of it indoors and half of it out of doors. The herbs, tomatoes, and beets were put inside. We have found that the tomatoes and beets are immediately eaten up by the small animals. The outside garden has carrots, radishes, turnips, peas, squash, leeks and green onions. Other than the carrots, I have not grown the rest so we will have to go by trial and error with the animals. How much could I lose, $1.50 for a packet of seeds and still end up buying the vegetables that I would have done if I hadn't planted the garden - hmmmmmm.

I will have to update you on the progress. I would like to one day plant a huge garden that I know that the animals would not touch. I don't mind feeding them, but I would really like to feed myself first.

Leftover delight

I blogged last friday about how I was going to use up all of the leftovers in the house. Well we didn't quite make it since I didn't have enough eggs to keep the mixes going. But I did use two recipes out of my first cookbook, "Baking GlutenFree", by Rebecca Reilly. There are two banana bread recipes in the book. One had a small amount of banana in it and the other had four times as much. The one with the large amount of bananas had less ingredients and less seasonings to it. I for sure was thinking that was the one that was not going to taste as well. It was wonderful. The other one that I thought was going to taste better tasted more like a grainer spice cake instead of a good wholesome muffin.

A friend of mine that was trying to cook through a cookbook showed me a cool trick of putting stars and notes next to the recipe. I don't know why it just seems sacrilegious to put notes in a brand new very clean book, even if it is a cookbook. I have this problem that the recipe has to be really bad for me to throw it out. Which in turn I collect a large amount of recipes that I am not sure if one was better than the other. I am soon going to start throwing out recipes since my shelf has got somewhat overloaded.

I did get rid of the stale oranges, bananas and apples I had in the fridge.

I Will Survive - Creative Baking

Okay I must admit I have been only GF for a couple of months. I actually love reading all of the great blogs out there that have been in this problem longer than me. It truly helps. It still doesn't solve a lot of my problems, the frustration of eating out, the frustration of failed cooking and baking items, the frustration of having to look at labels on a constant basis, just the basic frustration of knowing I will have this for the rest of my life.

But I am getting better where if I am sitting in the restaurant I have come down to an acceptance point of knowing 99% of the menu I can't have. When I am in a grocery store I look past all of the items that I use to love, and just accept they are never passing my lips again. When there is a party to be had, its going to be at my house, because it is easier than dealing with someone's very conscious or unconscious effort to please everyone including me in the group.

In the last several years, of course like everyone else, money has been really tight. I refuse to go into debt because it is too hard to pay it back. So I have tried to make every drop of liquid, every morsel of food, and every ingredient last as long and as creative as possible.

My daughter has been living in my basement apartment. Now I don't mind this until I see her wasting food. So who stole the bananas from the kitchen down below, I did!!! So this weekend has been dedicated to creative baking. Even if they are failures at least I tried and didn't just throw away the bananas. I must admit I have way past due oranges and apples, so who knows what will become of them.

My one daughter said Mom you didn't eat this many baked goods before you went GF, the other daughter retorted back to her, "mom just wants to be able to know what recipes are good and what will work for everyone that comes to the house."

I am quite surprised that instead of going against GF and just eat whatever I want inspite of the pain and agony, I have stayed with this diet. I truly intentionally have not had any gluten since the beginning. Now I will also admit I have gone off of my other diet for the stomach and liver a few times, but I am trying. I am also surprised that I have taken this as a challenge and actually tried to make my cooking and baking better. It has been hard.

I will survive.

Mother's Day What A Feat

Mother's Day was never one of my happier moments. When the kids were being raised I had to constantly fight to have my children. When they got older I relied too much on them to be the ones, grown up, to just show the appreciation that I guess I remember me doing for my Mom. Of course I only had one Mom that didn't have to competite with an overdemanding stepmom.

Several years ago I actually tried to test my children in allowing them to plan something for me. It turned into somewhat of a disaster. I swore after that I would no longer have a mother's day it was too painful. I even swore I would leave town so I didn't have to feel so bad.

This year I took it as casually as I thought I wanted it. I didn't even think about it. Friday before that Sunday came and my oldest said "Mom, me and the kids would like to come up and see you for Mother's Day tomorrow. I thought great, its going to be one of those we are going to show up and you either spend the money or do the work while we are their visiting.

By Friday afternoon I had to really step back and try to think this out. My oldest daughter is a very good Mom, she has three little ones that are very good children. She has just gone through a lot regarding medical and financial bills and so to ask or to assume anything more would happen was wrong of me. My youngest hasn't been lucky enough to be a Mom yet, but I wanted her to be part of my life for one very pleasant day. The year before she wasn't even talking to me, so this year was a celebration that we were back together. If it meant me pulling it together like most Moms would do, so be it. Motherhood sometimes seems so painful, but I wanted my daughters around to celebrate Womanhood.

I initially said to my oldest that what I wanted was to go shopping and maybe out to lunch. I even had to re-evaluate that as well. Why go shopping when none of us had any money. Why go to lunch when most menus didn't really facilitate my diet, and then I would have to juggle three little ones in a restaurant and pay for it all too.

So I started whipping together all of my recipes. Knowing my son-in-law wouldn't be there, why not pamper my daughters and I and give to them what they really like. So we had a mini gourmet lunch just at home.

Seafood cocktail
Butternut Squash Soup
Stuffed Porkchops/Applesauce/grilled Asparagus
Upside Down Pineapple Cake
Chocolate Cupcakes for the little ones along with chicken nuggets/yogart
(Did I say it was all gluten free)

They loved it and seemed really appreciative of me doing it. Sometimes you have to work at being a Mom just to know they love you.

I would have loved having my son there, but again I know that he is busy trying to provide for his wife and child. I will soon have to call for lunch with him when he isn't so busy.

Rolly Polly

When you get to my age, your life is a bunch of memories, some good, some bad, but their my memories. Today I remembered a big memory.

My first husband and I took the kids to a buffet. We won't mention names of the buffet, but in the interior it had these long conveyor belts that came out of the kitchen and into the main dining area. They would have different items on each conveyor belt specializing in a certain food. Salads were on one, meats on another, etc.

There were only a few families in the restaurant. We noticed this large family sitting across the way. When I say large, I didn't mean in number of members, but we did notice they had quite a few members in their family as well. Now mind you my husband and I were not heavy at all, unlike what I am now.

After we had our fill we started to leave and one of the kids said they needed to go to the bathroom, so off we went. When we got to the hall where the bathrooms were, there was one of the children from this family laying in the middle of the hall rolling back and forth, screaming "I ate too much." Now mind you this child that was around the age of 8 was as heavy as I was at the age of 25. I swore to myself that day I would never have my children or I ever look that bad and never would they roll in the middle of a restaurant screaming "I ate too much." Until today.

I have learned over the last several months with physical problems of my stomach, that if I eat one spoonful too much I swear I am just going to lay down and start screaming. Today I went to Taco Bell, had two hard shell tacos, then I went to the grocery store, had a handfull of candy, by the time I got back to work I thought I was going to start rolling at my desk, screaming "I ate too much."

Moral of this story, only eat as much as your stomach will hold.

The Power of Food

When life isn't just going your way at work it can be quite a low self esteem moment. I had been working with my present job for close to 12 years, 35 total years in my profession. I am not old by any mean, but I sure the heck not immature and young. I have learned from the best and had to deal with the worst.

A couple of months ago about the same time I was getting sick one of my bosses decided to leave. He was such a great boss. He was willing to treat me like a teammate and encouraged our conversations personally as well as on a professional level. Some bosses do one or the other, but usually not both.

I had also been working with three other bosses for the last 11 years. About the same time I lost my one boss, I gained another boss. He seemed extremely likable, but he wasn't going to be like Tom. I soon realized his manner with me was more on a professional level than ever a personal one, I appreciated that. I don't encourage personal aspects in my job, it's nice when they treat you as an equal even in their personal life, but it isn't necessary.

However, soon after he arrived I realized the guy was psychotic. He was mean, and rude even on a professional level. In my 35 years on the job, I had never been treated that meanly from someone other than one person and that person would have had me fired if she could of. I knew this gentleman didn't have decision regarding my employment with three other bosses in front of him, but he could spread enough gossip to make other people not trust me.

He fired me over the smallest little thing, I sweat the big stuff and when he did this, I knew he was psychotic and that it wasn't me.

My other bosses had wanted to take me to lunch for staff appreciation week. Even though in the past I have really appreciated this week. My office does make us feel like we are part of the team. They do want us to know we are appreciated. Knowing that most of the festivities are around food and most of the food I can't eat, I was not excited about this.

My senior boss asked if he could take me to lunch and I had already contemplated just telling him "no," but I didn't. Two months into this GF issue I had done my research and realized the number one place that I was dying to go to with a great GF menu was PF Chang's. I immediately piped to him I want to go to PF Chang's. Now he has never seen me so determined about a restaurant. He immediately gave me this smug answer "gluten free must be the new fad these days." I wasn't excited about the food issue that I have had to dance around with every restaurant, now I had to deal with a nonsympathetic unknowledgeable boss. I was dreading the whole thing.

The day came and my boss seemed all of sudden very receptive to my GF issues. Not only was he receptive, but he encouraged everyone that went to order off of the GF menu so we could all share. Even though AGAIN GF was the subject of lunch, that food was amazing. I had not gone to a restaurant that was so great with their menu, their staff, their answers to GF, with just about everything. For the bosses to not only be acceptant, but also encouraging, plus a fabulous restaurant, it made my whole two months of dealing with this issue.

I will be returning to PF Chang's real soon.