Showing posts with label gluten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gluten. Show all posts
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Monday, March 17, 2008
We're in business!
And by "we" I mean "my sister and her husband." I originally said "we" because if this company makes my sister and her husband rich, they've promised to buy me lots of plastic surgery. And some gum.
Anyway, their first shipment of gluten-safe baking mixes from Norway has finished its trek across the Atlantic, passed two customs inspections with flying colors, and arrived safely in its Chicago warehouse. Which means it's all ready to be ordered by and shipped to you so you can start making gluten-safe yummy sounds in the privacy of your own kitchens.
Just click here to get started:
I know: Imported from Norway. Just in time for St. Patrick's Day.
(If any pro-gluten mercenaries have hacked into my blog and disabled the link, just visit tasteslikerealfood.com. Then send the URL to all your gluten-sensitive friends. Remember: yummy sounds.)
Anyway, their first shipment of gluten-safe baking mixes from Norway has finished its trek across the Atlantic, passed two customs inspections with flying colors, and arrived safely in its Chicago warehouse. Which means it's all ready to be ordered by and shipped to you so you can start making gluten-safe yummy sounds in the privacy of your own kitchens.
Just click here to get started:
I know: Imported from Norway. Just in time for St. Patrick's Day.
(If any pro-gluten mercenaries have hacked into my blog and disabled the link, just visit tasteslikerealfood.com. Then send the URL to all your gluten-sensitive friends. Remember: yummy sounds.)
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Oh, hi!
Remember me? I used to write a blog here. Back when I was brimming with time and ideas. Brimming! But for the last couple weeks I’ve just been brimming with deadlines. And 14-hour workdays. And that bloated, greasy feeling you get when you eat fast food twice in a row because you barely have time to wash all the pee off your hands, much less sit down for a decent meal.
Unfortunately, deadlines and 14-hour workdays aren’t exactly a wellspring of interesting blog content. Unless you want to hear about the web site and the branding guidelines and the relaunch collateral I’ve been writing. Which I’m pretty sure you don’t. Trust me. Brimming!
But! The fiancé and I did sneak off to Iowa this weekend to help celebrate my uncommonly photogenic nephew’s ninth birthday. And his idea of a celebration was a good old-fashioned roller-skating party. Which I think I was more excited about than he was. But only because I own Xanadu on DVD and he doesn’t. Yet.
Before the party, though, we all had to carbo-load, which we did by stuffing our bellies full of my sister’s delicious gluten-free sour cream waffles:
And why did we eat gluten-free? Because my sister is gluten intolerant. Which is exactly like being gay intolerant except without the lack of logic or the angry, unhinged diatribes on the local editorial pages. Click here if you want to buy some of my sister’s company’s delicious you’d-never-know-it-was-gluten-free gluten-free baking mixes. They’re gluten-hostile! But gay friendly! And the more you buy, the sooner my sister can surprise me with a nice retirement mansion in Barcelona.
Once we were coursing with gluten-free energy, we packed up and headed off to Super Skate, where I hadn’t stepped a single wheel-booted foot since my feathered hair and I had celebrated endless grade-school birthdays on its endless expanse of reasonably smooth flooring:
Super Skate, I was a little disturbed to discover, has not changed much since the late 1970s. The skating floor is still cracked. The carpet is still puckery. The check-in area still looks like the visitors’ lounge in a medium-security prison. The whole place still smells like mildew, wasted youth and spilled soda. And the giant macramé owl still hangs on the wall outside the bathrooms:
But—despite the deejay’s unforgivable lack of access to a recording of “Xanadu”—we had a blast. My nephew, who is usually pretty mild-mannered, proved himself to be a bit of a skating prodigy. But my normally fearless niece just could not convince herself that stiff-limbed marching plus a death grip on her uncle does not equal skating. She clung to me like Mike Huckabee to his hubris through the entire Hannah Montana songbook, threatening to bring me down every time the forces of inertia and gravity got the best of her. Eventually, I just realized I could hoist her off the floor whenever she was about to lose control and then lower her back once her frantic kicking stopped. It was just like Olympic pairs skating, except with dumber choreography. And fewer sequins. And no National Anthem at the end. But it was still awesome, though our time on the rink left me with the lingering LCL knee pain I usually get after a long training run.
That night we had a celebratory dinner at a place called Fiesta del Sol, which is español for “You have some nerve coming into our restaurant and asking us to bring you food. We are very busy right now doing things that, quite frankly, do not need to involve bringing you food. Things like leaving our Precious Moments® crèches on display in March. Right next to our creepy collection of dusty Mexican witch dolls. Which are really the remains of the last people who came into our restaurant and selfishly requested that we bring them food. Just like you! Let this be a lesson to you, you arrogant and disruptive food-asker-forers. By the way, we have exceptionally delicious blended strawberry margaritas with sugar on the rim.”
Unfortunately, deadlines and 14-hour workdays aren’t exactly a wellspring of interesting blog content. Unless you want to hear about the web site and the branding guidelines and the relaunch collateral I’ve been writing. Which I’m pretty sure you don’t. Trust me. Brimming!
But! The fiancé and I did sneak off to Iowa this weekend to help celebrate my uncommonly photogenic nephew’s ninth birthday. And his idea of a celebration was a good old-fashioned roller-skating party. Which I think I was more excited about than he was. But only because I own Xanadu on DVD and he doesn’t. Yet.
Before the party, though, we all had to carbo-load, which we did by stuffing our bellies full of my sister’s delicious gluten-free sour cream waffles:
And why did we eat gluten-free? Because my sister is gluten intolerant. Which is exactly like being gay intolerant except without the lack of logic or the angry, unhinged diatribes on the local editorial pages. Click here if you want to buy some of my sister’s company’s delicious you’d-never-know-it-was-gluten-free gluten-free baking mixes. They’re gluten-hostile! But gay friendly! And the more you buy, the sooner my sister can surprise me with a nice retirement mansion in Barcelona.Once we were coursing with gluten-free energy, we packed up and headed off to Super Skate, where I hadn’t stepped a single wheel-booted foot since my feathered hair and I had celebrated endless grade-school birthdays on its endless expanse of reasonably smooth flooring:
Super Skate, I was a little disturbed to discover, has not changed much since the late 1970s. The skating floor is still cracked. The carpet is still puckery. The check-in area still looks like the visitors’ lounge in a medium-security prison. The whole place still smells like mildew, wasted youth and spilled soda. And the giant macramé owl still hangs on the wall outside the bathrooms:
But—despite the deejay’s unforgivable lack of access to a recording of “Xanadu”—we had a blast. My nephew, who is usually pretty mild-mannered, proved himself to be a bit of a skating prodigy. But my normally fearless niece just could not convince herself that stiff-limbed marching plus a death grip on her uncle does not equal skating. She clung to me like Mike Huckabee to his hubris through the entire Hannah Montana songbook, threatening to bring me down every time the forces of inertia and gravity got the best of her. Eventually, I just realized I could hoist her off the floor whenever she was about to lose control and then lower her back once her frantic kicking stopped. It was just like Olympic pairs skating, except with dumber choreography. And fewer sequins. And no National Anthem at the end. But it was still awesome, though our time on the rink left me with the lingering LCL knee pain I usually get after a long training run.
That night we had a celebratory dinner at a place called Fiesta del Sol, which is español for “You have some nerve coming into our restaurant and asking us to bring you food. We are very busy right now doing things that, quite frankly, do not need to involve bringing you food. Things like leaving our Precious Moments® crèches on display in March. Right next to our creepy collection of dusty Mexican witch dolls. Which are really the remains of the last people who came into our restaurant and selfishly requested that we bring them food. Just like you! Let this be a lesson to you, you arrogant and disruptive food-asker-forers. By the way, we have exceptionally delicious blended strawberry margaritas with sugar on the rim.”
Friday, January 18, 2008
Are you gluten sensitive?
If you can’t tolerate gluten, you probably already know how horrible gluten-free foods can taste. And how impossible it is to eat—and maybe actually enjoy—a truly gluten-free diet. Until now.
Introducing TastesLikeRealFood.com. Click on this festive logo to discover a world of delicious gluten-safe baking products:
Meet gluten
Gluten is the mixture of proteins left over after the starch has been removed from wheat. Its chainlike molecules make gluten essential for baking because they stretch under high heat, trapping carbon dioxide and giving bread products their spongy, airy texture.
Gluten is also used as an adhesive filler in thousands of other foods from salad dressings to ice creams to vitamins to deli meats. And, of course, you can’t escape gluten if you want to enjoy sandwiches, chips, pizza, fast foods, cakes, pies … even beer.
Gluten for punishment
If you’re gluten-sensitive and diligent enough to read the labels in the grocery store, you can avoid many gluten-filled products. But if you have severe gluten intolerance, even a little exposure to gluten can be harmful. Severe intolerance makes it hard to “cheat” on your diet even for one meal, and eating in restaurants can be out of the question.
In mild cases, gluten sensitivity just gives you an upset stomach. Severe gluten intolerance, though, can trigger a catastrophic autoimmune response. In the presence of gluten, your immune system starts destroying your villi—the tiny, fingerlike projections in your small intestine that absorb nutrients from food. And when you get no nutrients from the foods you eat, you can develop anemia, osteoporosis, depression, stunted growth and behavioral problems in children, and even type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
It’s a family thing
Gluten sensitivity is hereditary, and it appears with higher frequency in people of Scandinavian descent. Like my sister.
She was diagnosed soon after she graduated from college, and she’s spent the last 15 years struggling to find foods she could eat that didn’t taste like sludge. There was almost nothing available in America, but while visiting friends in Norway a few years ago, she discovered a line of gluten-free products there that were actually delicious.
But having them shipped every few months to America was expensive. So she did the next best thing: She and her husband landed exclusive U.S. distribution rights to the entire product line. After a year of travel and negotiations and all the other fun things involved in setting up a business, their first shipment is finally en route to America.
And their web site—ingeniously named TastesLikeRealFood.com—is up and running. It’s not ready to take orders just yet, but it can take your name and email address and alert you when you can start buying their great products.
Visit the site every day for a week
Because you won’t be hearing from me for a while. We leave today for a week-long Atlantis cruise out of Miami, and I don’t plan on even looking at a computer until I’m baked to a golden brown and all caught up on my New Yorkers. Have fun and eat like a ... um ... gluten while I’m gone!
Introducing TastesLikeRealFood.com. Click on this festive logo to discover a world of delicious gluten-safe baking products:
Meet gluten
Gluten is the mixture of proteins left over after the starch has been removed from wheat. Its chainlike molecules make gluten essential for baking because they stretch under high heat, trapping carbon dioxide and giving bread products their spongy, airy texture.
Gluten is also used as an adhesive filler in thousands of other foods from salad dressings to ice creams to vitamins to deli meats. And, of course, you can’t escape gluten if you want to enjoy sandwiches, chips, pizza, fast foods, cakes, pies … even beer.
Gluten for punishment
If you’re gluten-sensitive and diligent enough to read the labels in the grocery store, you can avoid many gluten-filled products. But if you have severe gluten intolerance, even a little exposure to gluten can be harmful. Severe intolerance makes it hard to “cheat” on your diet even for one meal, and eating in restaurants can be out of the question.
In mild cases, gluten sensitivity just gives you an upset stomach. Severe gluten intolerance, though, can trigger a catastrophic autoimmune response. In the presence of gluten, your immune system starts destroying your villi—the tiny, fingerlike projections in your small intestine that absorb nutrients from food. And when you get no nutrients from the foods you eat, you can develop anemia, osteoporosis, depression, stunted growth and behavioral problems in children, and even type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
It’s a family thing
Gluten sensitivity is hereditary, and it appears with higher frequency in people of Scandinavian descent. Like my sister.
She was diagnosed soon after she graduated from college, and she’s spent the last 15 years struggling to find foods she could eat that didn’t taste like sludge. There was almost nothing available in America, but while visiting friends in Norway a few years ago, she discovered a line of gluten-free products there that were actually delicious.
But having them shipped every few months to America was expensive. So she did the next best thing: She and her husband landed exclusive U.S. distribution rights to the entire product line. After a year of travel and negotiations and all the other fun things involved in setting up a business, their first shipment is finally en route to America.
And their web site—ingeniously named TastesLikeRealFood.com—is up and running. It’s not ready to take orders just yet, but it can take your name and email address and alert you when you can start buying their great products.
Visit the site every day for a week
Because you won’t be hearing from me for a while. We leave today for a week-long Atlantis cruise out of Miami, and I don’t plan on even looking at a computer until I’m baked to a golden brown and all caught up on my New Yorkers. Have fun and eat like a ... um ... gluten while I’m gone!
Thursday, June 24, 2004
33 years ago today ...
I became a big brother.
And while my little sister and I fought like cats and dogs all the way through junior high, we've become best friends as adults. She's an excellent teacher who keeps her kids wrapped around her little finger; a spectacular mommy who's raising the two most delightful, articulate children; and a beacon of inspiration for anyone who's ever tried to be a thoughtful friend, get the best deal on a car, manage a household, organize a party, or live with a frustrating food allergy (in her case, gluten ... which is in EVERYTHING).
Happy birthday, little sister. I love you!
* * * * *
In other news, there was a guy on my elevator this morning reading my queer-ass Chicago magazine profile without realizing he was standing right next to me. Trippy.
And while my little sister and I fought like cats and dogs all the way through junior high, we've become best friends as adults. She's an excellent teacher who keeps her kids wrapped around her little finger; a spectacular mommy who's raising the two most delightful, articulate children; and a beacon of inspiration for anyone who's ever tried to be a thoughtful friend, get the best deal on a car, manage a household, organize a party, or live with a frustrating food allergy (in her case, gluten ... which is in EVERYTHING).
Happy birthday, little sister. I love you!
* * * * *
In other news, there was a guy on my elevator this morning reading my queer-ass Chicago magazine profile without realizing he was standing right next to me. Trippy.
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