The coconut yogurt is by the legendary brand "SO Delicious" and while it (obviously) doesn't taste just like dairy yogurt, it's pretty darn ok.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Dairy-Free Yogurt?
There are a few replacements for plain ol', good ol' yogurt - the basics being soy, coconut, and rice. Soy was all I could get at the usual big-brand grocery store (Albertsons') but recently, at my local health-food store, I happened upon both brown rice yogurt and coconut yogurt. Brown rice sounded interesting, and the coconut sounded downright promising after the OUTRAGEOUS non-dairy frozen dessert I tried from Trader Joe's. My Husband, The Viking bought one of each and here I am - currently trying the two. Firstly, the brown rice yogurt looked terrifying. The same kind of murky brown/gray that you find between the flesh and skin of a salmon -- not promising. I got vanilla in both types so better assess - both smell just like vanilla yogurt. The thing is is that the brown rice one tastes like a baby ate some brown rice and then spit it up. It is HORRIBLE. Just absolutely nothing like yogurt.
The coconut yogurt is by the legendary brand "SO Delicious" and while it (obviously) doesn't taste just like dairy yogurt, it's pretty darn ok.
Soy, not tasted tonight but had a few times previously, was the former heavyweight champion, tasting mostly like yogurt, but with a tongue-twisting after-taste and sharp middle flavors. All in all, coconut yogurt is the new winner and has coconut shaping up to be the savior of the dairy-free.
The coconut yogurt is by the legendary brand "SO Delicious" and while it (obviously) doesn't taste just like dairy yogurt, it's pretty darn ok.
A Review of Gluten-Free Beers
Beer is one of my favorite things. Wine is nice and I've gotten too sick on too many liquors to ever even go there, but beer is. my. favorite! So it's very possibly the hardest thing to do without on the GF (gluten-free) diet. Let's jump right in, shall we?
All beers are made with wheat or barley, both of which have gluten. That means that Corona, Pacifico, Rolling Rock, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Guinness and my favorite, Newcastle are ALL OFF LIMITS. BUMMER! So what are the alternatives? Anheuser Busch has, very kindly, answered the call of gluten-free beer-lovers with their offering of 'Redbridge'. Now before I go into this thoroughly, I have to remind you that without the traditional wheat and/or barley beginnings, all of these beers are going to taste different that your old tried-and-true loves. GF beer is made with sorghum, a type of grain which, according to Wikipedia "has been, for centuries, one of the most important staples foods for millions of poor rural people in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. For some impoverished regions of the world, sorghum remains a principal source of energy, protein, vitamins and minerals." As such, sorghum beer tastes different - specifically, it's sweeter. Most GF beers have very evident fruit overtones, almost like a cider.
So. We were at 'Redbridge'. Redbridge is great - I'd have to say my second favorite. One of the best things about it is that, as an Anheuser Busch product, it is widely available - every large grocery store (state or nation-wide) carries it for about $10 per six-pack. Besides the general fruity overtones, I do notice that it tends to have a metallic sort of taste, assumably from the cap, which is a twist-off. I don't really know why some beers have this and others don't. I find that Pacifico has it pretty often, but that's besides the point.
The first GF beer I tried was Green's Gluten Free Dubbel Dark Ale which is bottle fermented and as such, is sweet, top-heavy, and FRUITY. It's sort of like the love child of beer and champagne. It's nose and top flavors are strongly champagne while the finnish mellows out eventually to a beer-like flavor. Another detractor to this beer is its size - as of now, it only comes in 500 mL.
Next were Bard's and New Grist. Bard's markets itself as 'The Original Sorghum Malt Beer" which it may or may not be. What it IS, though, is fairly true to beer in taste. I was most excited about these two beers because they are widely the best-reveiwed GF beers I've seen. Bard's biggest detractor is a sort of raw pizza dough taste. It's yeasty. Yeasty and young. It's very top is nice and seems very beer-like, but then you get this yeast kick in the mouth that is sort of a deal-breaker for me.
Lastly, New Grist. With a saucy, possibly drunk Moon-chewing-on-some-sorghum image and the ever-popular 19th C "Green Fairy/Le Chat" font, it's easy to distinguish. With it's only mildly sweet, accurately beer-y flavor, it's easy to drink! No pear-high flavors, no metallic what-the-pho?! Just good, drinkable, beer. Winner? NEW GRIST!!!
All beers are made with wheat or barley, both of which have gluten. That means that Corona, Pacifico, Rolling Rock, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Guinness and my favorite, Newcastle are ALL OFF LIMITS. BUMMER! So what are the alternatives? Anheuser Busch has, very kindly, answered the call of gluten-free beer-lovers with their offering of 'Redbridge'. Now before I go into this thoroughly, I have to remind you that without the traditional wheat and/or barley beginnings, all of these beers are going to taste different that your old tried-and-true loves. GF beer is made with sorghum, a type of grain which, according to Wikipedia "has been, for centuries, one of the most important staples foods for millions of poor rural people in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. For some impoverished regions of the world, sorghum remains a principal source of energy, protein, vitamins and minerals." As such, sorghum beer tastes different - specifically, it's sweeter. Most GF beers have very evident fruit overtones, almost like a cider.
So. We were at 'Redbridge'. Redbridge is great - I'd have to say my second favorite. One of the best things about it is that, as an Anheuser Busch product, it is widely available - every large grocery store (state or nation-wide) carries it for about $10 per six-pack. Besides the general fruity overtones, I do notice that it tends to have a metallic sort of taste, assumably from the cap, which is a twist-off. I don't really know why some beers have this and others don't. I find that Pacifico has it pretty often, but that's besides the point.
The first GF beer I tried was Green's Gluten Free Dubbel Dark Ale which is bottle fermented and as such, is sweet, top-heavy, and FRUITY. It's sort of like the love child of beer and champagne. It's nose and top flavors are strongly champagne while the finnish mellows out eventually to a beer-like flavor. Another detractor to this beer is its size - as of now, it only comes in 500 mL.
Next were Bard's and New Grist. Bard's markets itself as 'The Original Sorghum Malt Beer" which it may or may not be. What it IS, though, is fairly true to beer in taste. I was most excited about these two beers because they are widely the best-reveiwed GF beers I've seen. Bard's biggest detractor is a sort of raw pizza dough taste. It's yeasty. Yeasty and young. It's very top is nice and seems very beer-like, but then you get this yeast kick in the mouth that is sort of a deal-breaker for me.
Lastly, New Grist. With a saucy, possibly drunk Moon-chewing-on-some-sorghum image and the ever-popular 19th C "Green Fairy/Le Chat" font, it's easy to distinguish. With it's only mildly sweet, accurately beer-y flavor, it's easy to drink! No pear-high flavors, no metallic what-the-pho?! Just good, drinkable, beer. Winner? NEW GRIST!!!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free
I've known for some time that dairy doesn't exactly agree with me. But my stomach has been so out of whack for so long that I really couldn't be bothered to give up my favorite foods when there was going to be so much else still to fix.
My father used to work for a company that dealt solely in milk products and he was very adamant that my brothers and I drink our milk. When my brothers were in their teens, our family went through EIGHT GALLONS OF MILK A WEEK. We drank milk with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As a midnight snack, and a cure to heartburn. It helps that we lived in a rural, ranching and dairy area so drinking milk was supporting our local economy and the lifestyle that our friends and family have chosen and taken pride in for generations. As a kid, drinking milk at a friend's house involved unscrewing the lid on the metal milk pail and using a ladle to dip under the cream and get the fresh, warm milk before it was put in the fridge. To paraphrase Barbara Mandrell, I drank raw milk before drinking raw milk was cool. I tell you all this to underline how prevalent milk and the dairy culture was in my life.
It's sad and superficial to admit that the only thing that started me on my dairy-free lifetstyle was a possible correlation between milk products and acne. I am delighted to say that being completely and truly dairy-free has eliminated like, 90% of my acne! I still get some when, shall we say, my hormones are at their most rambunctious, but most of the time my skin is smooth and flawless. The unfortunate part here is that lactose isn't the problem - it is the natural hormone that cows (and all mammals, in fact) produce while they're lactating. So lactose-free alternatives don't do a thing for my acne. I consumed lactose-free versions of my favorite foods for two weeks before researching the acne link further and finding out the unfortunate truth. To add a wonderfully ironic twist, I found out that the lactose intolerance was a large part of my heartburn. So I cut dairy out and My Husband The Viking was very helpful, pointing out foods that I may not have realized had dairy and buying everything dairy-free. Although my stomach got a bit better, I was still definitely in the sensitive-stomach category. I went home for my brother's 30th and talked to my cousin's wife, who told me that she went gluten-free and her stomach got better, her moods evened out and (BONUS!) she lost 20 pounds! She's only five feet tall so 20 pounds is substantial. She and I have always had similar digestive issues as well as anxiety issues so it was a remarkable thought to live my life without pain or anxiety. So when I got back down to So-Cal, I pitched the idea to The Viking and he agreed immediately.
We've been dairy-free for two months, and gluten-free for only a week. Already my digestion is 100% better and I've lost two more pounds. We've mostly just eliminated the things that usually have gluten, instead of replacing them with gluten-free options. We HAVE tried gluten-free beer and gluten-free, dairy-free pizza :-p Stop laughing, it really wasn't that bad, once we added some pepperoni!! It's really easy to trip up - wheat is everywhere!! Some of my favorite Asian foods' flavorings have wheat in them, not to mention soy sauce. We've switched to low-sodium, gluten-free Tamari and haven't had any problems.
Now we're gluten-free, dairy-free, and movin' to Norway!!! :-D
My father used to work for a company that dealt solely in milk products and he was very adamant that my brothers and I drink our milk. When my brothers were in their teens, our family went through EIGHT GALLONS OF MILK A WEEK. We drank milk with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As a midnight snack, and a cure to heartburn. It helps that we lived in a rural, ranching and dairy area so drinking milk was supporting our local economy and the lifestyle that our friends and family have chosen and taken pride in for generations. As a kid, drinking milk at a friend's house involved unscrewing the lid on the metal milk pail and using a ladle to dip under the cream and get the fresh, warm milk before it was put in the fridge. To paraphrase Barbara Mandrell, I drank raw milk before drinking raw milk was cool. I tell you all this to underline how prevalent milk and the dairy culture was in my life.
It's sad and superficial to admit that the only thing that started me on my dairy-free lifetstyle was a possible correlation between milk products and acne. I am delighted to say that being completely and truly dairy-free has eliminated like, 90% of my acne! I still get some when, shall we say, my hormones are at their most rambunctious, but most of the time my skin is smooth and flawless. The unfortunate part here is that lactose isn't the problem - it is the natural hormone that cows (and all mammals, in fact) produce while they're lactating. So lactose-free alternatives don't do a thing for my acne. I consumed lactose-free versions of my favorite foods for two weeks before researching the acne link further and finding out the unfortunate truth. To add a wonderfully ironic twist, I found out that the lactose intolerance was a large part of my heartburn. So I cut dairy out and My Husband The Viking was very helpful, pointing out foods that I may not have realized had dairy and buying everything dairy-free. Although my stomach got a bit better, I was still definitely in the sensitive-stomach category. I went home for my brother's 30th and talked to my cousin's wife, who told me that she went gluten-free and her stomach got better, her moods evened out and (BONUS!) she lost 20 pounds! She's only five feet tall so 20 pounds is substantial. She and I have always had similar digestive issues as well as anxiety issues so it was a remarkable thought to live my life without pain or anxiety. So when I got back down to So-Cal, I pitched the idea to The Viking and he agreed immediately.
We've been dairy-free for two months, and gluten-free for only a week. Already my digestion is 100% better and I've lost two more pounds. We've mostly just eliminated the things that usually have gluten, instead of replacing them with gluten-free options. We HAVE tried gluten-free beer and gluten-free, dairy-free pizza :-p Stop laughing, it really wasn't that bad, once we added some pepperoni!! It's really easy to trip up - wheat is everywhere!! Some of my favorite Asian foods' flavorings have wheat in them, not to mention soy sauce. We've switched to low-sodium, gluten-free Tamari and haven't had any problems.
Now we're gluten-free, dairy-free, and movin' to Norway!!! :-D
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Thailand
Here it is, already April, and I've been neglecting my blog right off the bat. I think I have come to understand the reason for that. Thailand wasn't what I expected. Well I guess it would be more accurate to say that Thailand was MORE than I expected. I knew it would be hot and humid, but knowing is so different from KNOWING, ya know? Knowing that it would be hot and humid was one thing, but experiencing the quasi-suffocated feeling of the moist, polluted Bangkok heat is a whole different ball of (melting) wax. And then both of us being tall and blonde, we fairly screamed 'tourist' (I'm sure the backpack and camera didn't do much to underline that perception) and as such, we were badgered for guided tours, long-neck-boat rides, tuk-tuk rides, tuk-tuk tours, guided tuk-tuk-tours of long-neck-boat factories.... you get the idea. We couldn't go 10 yards in Bangkok without being solicited for our money. I understand - I really do: Bangkok's ENTIRE economy is based on tourism and we were tourists. I am all for people making money and supporting themselves but this was headache-inducing. Speaking of headaches, almost everyone also uses a bleach that is scented with a fake-Gardenia scent and it's nauseatingly prevalent. I mean, this stuff is used to wash windows, spray down your corner of the street, wash your floors....EVERYTHING! For a girl from a town with 400 people, this amount of hustle, bustle, and clamoring was. Just. Too. Much. The food, like much of Asia's food, digested really quickly so here I was - hot, sticky, jet-lagged, claustrophobic, and constantly hungry. While I can't say that My Husband, The Viking took to it like a turkey buzzard to roadkill, I can honestly say that his demeanor and disposition changed NOT A JOT. In the middle of our stay in Thailand, we took a 14-hr train ride to Chiang Mai. The train ride was interesting in itself because it boasted ONLY an Asian toilet, which is to say, a slightly elevated hole in the floor with corrugated-metal foot rests. Please heed my warning when trying to 'pop a squat' on a lurching Thai train!! Actually, I don't have a warning, per-se, but just be very, very careful. (Over-share alert!!!) My flip-flops were literally SATURATED with 'moisture' from these forays - and I didn't miss the hole. So who's moisture was that? Ugh.Chiang Mai was a wonderful departure from Bangkok. Only a fraction (like 1/16th) of the number of people hawking things on the sidewalk and the general pace of life was slower. The only drawback is that in an 18-hour trip to Chiang Mai, I managed to acquire almost 30 bug bites. What!? It was really pretty disgusting. On our big day in Chiang Mai, we went to a place called 'Tiger Kingdom'. You get driven out there (we chose a tuk-tuk) and you get to choose which sizes of tigers you want to.....pet! We chose large, small, and x-small. So first we're shepherded in to an garden-like enclosure and introduced to a trainer who tells us "don't touch their heads, stay by their tails, and pet them hard. Otherwise they'll think you're a fly and they'll bite your hand off". Ahh, I see. No big. So we spent 15 minutes with five 600-pound tigers - my favorite of which was named Bobby. We were fortunate to be there virtually right when the place opened, because tigers sleep most of the day and all of our tigers were awake, engaged, and photo-op-ready. Next, we moved on over to the 'smalls' who all had flower names. There was Jasmine, Gardenia, Lotus, and.....annnnd.... the other one. Whoops. Anyway, these kittens were about 6 months old, about 50 pounds, and damn cute. They were climbing on logs, chasing bugs, romping with each other, and then finally passing out in a kitty pile.
The train ride back from Chiang Mai was (blessedly) a sleeper car.
I would go back to Thailand, but I may very well skip Bangkok all together. The heat, humidity, and bustle was too much for this country mouse. Arm me with some appallingly 95% DEET bug spray, and it's Chiang Mai for me!!!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Halloo
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| Where I'm from |
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| Where I'm going |
Currently, I live in Southern California (wooo!) with my husband and two cats. I work at an AMAZING children's and maternity store with a passel of awesome ladies (and Rob the Accountant) and my husband wines and dines the SoCal wealthy at the Zagat-rated best restaurant in the cittay. We live a good life, here - in February, it's been 70 degrees Fahrenheit and we're about to jet off to our H O N E Y M O O N in Thailand (literally - we leave on Tues)!! We've been married for 7 months and together for five years. I was born in Montana and grew up in rural Northern California in a microscopic town where eccentric artists and good 'ol boy ranchers rub elbows. My humble opinion is that it's one of the most amazing places on earth. My husband, however, was born in Oslo, Norway. He moved to CA when he was four, and back to Norway at age 12 with his Mom and two siblings. At 18, he came back to CA to live with his Dad and go to culinary school and meet a wife. No, just kidding, that just happened to happen. So he was a cook and I was a baker and that's why we always get invited to pot-lucks. AND why we are able to consider some of the region's most promising chefs and pastry chefs 'friend'.
Ok, here comes the big plot twist - we live this golden life on the Californian Golden Coast, having beach picnics for Christmas, only owning flip-flops (well, and gladiator sandals), and seeing John Corbett, Jane Lynch, and Katy Perry on the street, but come July 2012, we will be calling Bergen, Norway H O M E. Not kidding. From mid-winter beach volleyball to mid-winter beach ice skating. Glacier skating. We will be trading our two cats in for a polar bear and a reindeer, whom we will train to drink Coca-Cola and fly, respectfully. No, no, I kid, I kid - everybody knows that Polar Bears like rootbeer, better.
I get asked 'why' all the time, but I really thought it would be obvious - the man has lived halfway around the world from his MOTHER for almost a decade!! And so many women will be like "Gurrrrrl, do you know what you HAVE!!? Your mother-in-law is 20 travel hours away - it's a dream come true!" However, my mother-in-law is very cool - I mean, she's European; she gets points right there. She's also very 'live and let live' and as long as I treat her boy right, we ain't gon' have no problems. Besides, when you're a young couple with no children and no career to speak of, you gotta take those adventures as they come, right? I know.
So count to three and come with me to world pure chaos, from Thailand to Norway and beyond.
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