Bon Appetit!

I just returned from seeing Julie and Julia with my roommate, Other Sarah, and I have to say that my heart has been thoroughly warmed. Slow-roasted for hours in a savory wine sauce warmed. Wrapped in a pastry crust and baked to golden brown warmed. Other Sarah and I have both declared that we can think of nothing better than to find doting husbands and then spend the rest of our lives cooking French food for them and our friends.

I could identify with Meryl Streep's Julie as she longed for "Something to do-oo" and chatted non-stop with her sister. I also identified with Amy Adams' Julie as her cubicle labor prompted her to cry "I can write a blog! I have thoughts!" Julie is also bit self-absorbed, which alarmed me. Am I like that? Yikes. At least I know my reader's lives will go on if I stop writing.

I also enjoyed analyzing the technological differences between the protagonist. Back in "the last century," Julia relies on letters to keep tabs on distant friends. On the other hand, Julie can instantly encounter her idol through the ubiquitous visual culture of the 2000's. The French Chef reruns, parody skits, and a Smithsonian exhibit all allow the protagonist to commune with Julia's creative genius. Likewise, Julie's project does not have meaning until it is validated on computer and then movie screens. It's a far cry from Julia's original cookbook draft as stacks of onion skin paper.

Although it is female-focused, the male characters in Julie and Julia are what hold it together. Both husbands are patient, encouraging, and affectionate; although sometimes exasperated by their wives' cooking hobbies. It is rare to see men get so much dignity in a chick flick - there is no reason to gripe about these guys over cosmos. Their relationships with their wives make the film realistic but deeply romantic. No one chases anyone through an airport or builds an elaborate closet or breaks up a wedding. Instead, two couples love each other, work through problems, and generally explore what this film review calls the "happily ever after" part.

A good biopic sends you running back to primary documents, and this film did that. I'm sorry to say my own memories of the real Julia Child are nothing special. When I was a child I only saw her master chef series, where guests did most of the talking. To me, Julia was some foreboding elite chef whose food was boring and complicated. I much preferred the shenanigans of Yan Can Cook or The Frugal Gourmet. Fortunately, PBS has corrected my misconceptions through the Julia Child videos posted on their website. Go check them out for yourself - the Cheese Souffle one is my favorite.

This is what non-profit management looks like

This was our office kitchen at lunchtime on Friday. See what a ridiculous amount of free food is always lying around? We have Easter candy co-workers wanted to unload, leftovers from the early morning Board of Directors meeting, a volunteer's leftover birthday cake, and the bread from someone's lunch sandwiches.

It's a good thing for me most of it is gluten. (Although GF Nurse did bring me a fudge cupcake!)



I'd like say I stuck to the fruit bowl, but those mini Cadbury eggs were calling me.

Happy Easter!

The VSC House is so full of Easter candy and cupcakes you might get diabetes walking in the door. There's also leftover ham, potato casserole, and fruit salad. Not to mention my GF chocolate cake with jelly bean Empty Tomb. It's been a fun, relaxing Easter Sunday. Two of the girls had family come into town, so we had quite the full house for brunch. We gave each other "Secret Bunny" baskets of goodies. The Easter Bunny (aka Texas Volunteer) even hid eggs full of jelly beans and confetti poppers around the house. Now we're crashed on the couches, uploading and tagging Facebook pictures of the day.

This has been a lovely, and at times lonely, Triduum. Last year I practically lived in the Catholic Campus Ministry chapel during Holy Week. I always had a crowd of friends around to pray, laugh, sing, and eat with. This year the VSC girls have done some services together, but last night I went to the Vigil Mass alone. I missed my family too, who were all pumped up to see Little Brother #2 serve at "the Mother of All Vigils" (MOAV) back in Virginia.

Two Daughters of Charity were at my Vigil, though, and they insisted on driving me the 50 feet to my house after Mass. It was 10pm after all :-) The Vigil is inherently beautiful - you can't not get goosebumps from blessing sacred fire and hearing the Exultet sung. The ritual can overcome musical ridiculousness, like the tambourine-accompanied musical number the choir director tried to create out of Moses parting the Red Sea. The same guy chose Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus for the communion hymn. I think he is seriously confused.

Mass at the Cathedral this morning, on the other hand, was blissfully magnificent. I was alone again, naturally, but it was worth it. I played in some abridged bell pieces, and just generally enjoyed being part of the choir but not actually having to sing like a professional. Of course the "Christus Vincit" and Hallelujah Chorus nearly reduced me to tears. This Mass was bittersweet, since it might very well be my last playing bells. I hate to leave just when I am finally a good ringer and recognized as part of the group. The "boys club" of lower register bells seems to accept me. Karen, our director, said I am a great ringer. The sacristan even knows I need a low-gluten communion host saved! Dear Pope Benedict, please assign STL an archbishop ASAP so I can play in his installation Mass. Thanks.

Allies Against Wheat

It's always a weird experience meeting other gluten-free people. At first, there is the initial excitement of someone who understands your food issues. After a while, though, you realize they don't share all of your opinions/favorite recipies, and they are very stubborn about their favorites. I'm realizing there is a spectrum of GF living, and I, as always, hover somewhere in the middle.

On the far right we have Nurse Jan, who always shares baked goods with me when she's in the office - zucchini bread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes with fudge icing. She's also really, really intense about her GF-ness, avoiding things I would never consider dangerous. "Oh yeah I'm hardcore. I make my own vanilla!" Besides insisting on homemade BBQ sauce, salad dressing, and sausages, she also avoids cocao processed with alkali. Huh? In all my research I have never heard of alkali poisoning anyone's innards.

On the other hand there is the GF Winterthur fellow I met over interview weekend. She was very sweet and supplied me with pretzels and ginger snaps from Trader Joe's. One of the other Fellows is her GF watchdog/food buddy. She'll eat the icing off a cupcake or caviar off a cracker and hand it to her friend. I'll be honest, I would never do such a thing. What about stray crumbs? Yikes!!! (Ok maybe for the caviar. But just once.)

But then again, I cheat sometimes too. Fast food is my downfall. Of course I would never touch a hamburger bun again, but I put a blind eye to the fillers that are probably lurking in my crunchy taco. Or the battered onion rings that were probably in the same oil vat as my fries. I've had to draw the line, though, at beer-battered fries in Irish pubs. I love those places, but eating there is super hard. Everything is basted in Guiness, and a bowl of iceberg lettuce is hardly bar food.

You never know what your fortune cookie will say

Yesterday the VSC house went to P.F. Changs to celebrate New Yorker volunteer's birthday. She and her boyfriend eat there nearly once a week, so they know the entire staff. I can't blame the "creepy-eyed" manager for saying hello every time they come in - they are such an adorably nerdy couple it reaffirms all our faltering faith in true love.
My gluten-free shrimp with lobster sauce was delicious, and I got double the fortune in my cookie.

Everywhere you choose to go, friendly faces will greet you.
Many pleasurable and memorable adventures are in store for you!

Those were definitely true this weekend, from the Creighton students who slept on our floors to the Winterthur fellows who drove us around. Nowhere did I count my blessings more than when I returned to the NFNF office. Everyone welcomed me back and wanted to hear how the interviews went. Even if they don't understand or care about material culture, they were excited for me. It felt like home.

The adventure continued because..I got in to Winterthur!! I am still shocked. Getting the news was such a fun experience - I broke the news to my freshman roommate in real time over Gmail chat. (She got in to Winterthur as well!) Then I ran to the break room, where the NFNF girls greeted me with hugs and shrieks of joy. All day I got to share the good news with yet another co-worker. The office manager said she is "as proud as if my own kid got into grad school." How fortunate I am to be part of the NFNF family.

Stress-blogging

It's already been a stressful day at work, so I am going to distract myself with some links of interesting stuff.

First, Barbie turned 50 this week. I owned a few growing up, including my aunts' 1970's Skipper and a Wedding Day Midge who frequently lost her head after a neck injury. Here are some fun commemorative pieces about an iconic plastic pop-culture.
The Onion's Best-selling Barbies
Memories of a Muslim Barbie
The sad saga of Ken

If toy-time doesn't de-stress you, how about some comfort food?
Here's some interesting criticism of the recent "organic and local" mantra.
I agree that such food is pricey and impractical for many Americans. Just frozen veggies or an apple a day would be a big improvement to many NFNF clients' diets. Whether your food is nutritious is a bigger deal than where you got it.

In light of that, I'm excited to see that First Lady Michelle Obama is promoting fresh, healthy food that's also realistic for families. I especially like that she'll eat both organic carrots and Five Guys burgers, a D.C.-area institution. That cream-less creamed spinach sounds delish, too.

Pop-top champagne and other fine dining adventures.

Everyone else was on a date or out of town tonight, so Jessica and I teamed up in search of dinner out. We finally chose Sasha's on Shaw, a cozy new wine bar in the neighborhood where her Covenant House kids clean streets. (They apparently call it "bar in the 'hood")

I loved the decor - green armchairs around granite-topped tables, blond wood floors, and light bulbs dangling inside old wine bottles. Our waiter was cute but distracted, though, and the portions were far too small. Trout salad with pine nuts, lemon zest, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil sounds delicious, doesn't it? Too bad it only covered a smallish plate. Jessica's two crabcakes were simply that, with a few onion bits sprinkled on. We were so hungry afterwards, we drove through Jack-In-The-Box for some greasy carb sustenance.

BUT our meal also included one of the coolest food discoveries in ages - sparkling wine in a can! Francis Ford Coppola produces the stuff, which is named for his daughter Sofia. It's bubbly, sparkling, and tasty, whether poured into a glass or sipped through the bendy straw (yes, bendy straw) that comes with it. Brilliant.

Yum

Last month when I called home to get recipes for the office chili cook-off, my Dad asked "Do you ever do work at your office? Or do you just have parties all the time?"

Yes, we work. We just eat lots of food in the process. Between flotsam-and-jetsam baked goods and the monthly nurse meetings, there is a lot of food in the NFNF offices. For instance, today the Healthy Start staff sponsored soul food lunch. Of course, fried chicken and cornbread are off-limits to me, but greens mixed with ham are a thing of beauty. Nurse Jan is GF, and she has gotten into the habit of letting me sample her latest baking project. There are also tostitos and sweet tea in the kitchen.

I can't wait for Cinco de Mayo lunch in May.

"We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon" - The Decemberists

I feel badly about not completely loving Gluten-free Girl's book. She and I really do have a lot in common. Her GF story even got me thinking about my own journey out of wheat-land. Many people with celiac disease waste away under-nourished, but recent theories suggest others continue to gain weight, over-eating to compensate for lack of nutrition. Can I blame my Freshman 15 on that? I did spend many nights in my dorm eating bowls of kashi and peanut butter for no good reason other than that it sounded good.

Also, apparently traumatic events (in her case a car accident) can trigger celiac symptoms. High school stress was certainly the beginning of my trouble with food. And it wasn't until I got diagnosed with my circulatory problems that I took the trouble to investigate my unpredictable stomach-aches.

Like GFG, I was most eager to embrace new, healthy food when I was at my weakest. Suddenly sapped of potassium and B vitamins, I looked at berries and bananas like they were liquid gold.

Recent discovery 1: adding a dash of cinnamon to your berry/banana/OJ smoothie makes it even better.
Recent discovery 2: In a baking crisis, 2Tb water, 1 Tb oil, and 1/2 tsp baking powder can fill in for an egg.
Recent discovery 2: Adding cinnamon and flax meal to the GF pancake mix your Aunt Judy sent you may sound good, but for some reason it makes the batter stick to the pan. Lucky I used that egg substitute, so I had no worries about salmonella in half-cooked hunks of dough.

Catholic humor alert

Life in the convent continues to roll along as we find new ways to have fun together. Last weekend was out first Renewal Weekend at a cozy Franciscan retreat center about an hour west of the city. Il Retiro met all the usual retreat location descriptions in my head. When I go on retreat, I expect to drive a long time to some place I have never heard of on a two lane road that is winding and confusing. I expect to stay in a house covered in wood paneling and sit on a worn-out 70's era couch. And I expect to snack myself silly. Yup, we had all that this weekend. The cook outdid herself with gluten-free cookies, fudge cake, and even pancakes! It's a good thing we only stayed 48 hours, or I would have gained about 10 pounds.
The focus of the weekend was the results from our Myers-Briggs tests (I'm an INTJ, apparently.) Seeing our similarities and differences mapped out really helped foster some discussion and understanding. Just because people don't do what you would do doesn't mean they are crazy, they just process things differently.

For instance, no one else seemed to be thinking the same retreat-center monologue I was. As we drove through the trees past a run-down barn, everyone else's minds turned to .... horror movies! "Just wait, tonight we'll all get the urge to scatter in separate directions and then get picked off one by one." So, we spend a good part of our first night at Il Retiro hiding in dark corners trying to scare each other. It's not what I would have thought up, but hey, it was pretty fun. Different can be good.

I'm glad we didn't think to bring any DVD's, because it forced us to get creative. Besides the usual marathon Trivial Pursuit sessions, we played Sardines in the nooks and stairways of Sr. T's bunkhouse. (She was busy writing thank you notes on her Daughters of Charity notecards.) Nothing forces you together like being trapped in a closet in a spooky house.

Random songs lyrics have become another hallmark of VSC bonding. Jessica and I are the main offenders usually. She'll launch into something, and then I'll finish when she forgets the words. There is one song, though, that has lodged itself in everyone's brain. At least once a day, one VSC girl must turn to another and inform her:
"Girl, you can have whatever you like...YEAH" or
"I want your body(body), need your body(body)...to gather for group prayer."

It got so bad that Jess and I had to stop ourselves from singing the song on the way to visit the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope. Yeah, T.I. would not go over well in a real convent.
Our visit was great, and the real convent had the feeling of a calm spiritual oasis. I was touched when Sr. Rosalind ecstatically showed us their little chapel which had contained the Blessed Sacrament for three whole days. "Jesus is in there!" she giddily whispered before we peeked in. Over lunch, she revealed that she's also celiac, but has miraculously been able to receive a communion host ever since she visited Lourdes. Sr. Ros' unabashed love for the Eucharist reminded me not to take our own chapel for granted.

Shouldn't we all look toward our tabernacle and hunger for the Bread of Life? Shouldn't we say

"I want Your Body
Need Your Body
As long I got You I don't need nobody."

Yeah.

Food, Glorious Food

I could be writing about so many more profound things, but I have to put in a good word for the joy of cooking. My stipend doesn't give me a lot to spend on food, so I get the fun challenge of being creative. There is something very satisfying about making something new and, if I am lucky, delicious. So far our well-stocked spice cabinet and leftover vegetables have been my best allies.
Recent inventions include:

• Gluten-free peach pancakes (needed more peach) and a dill omlette stuffed with tomatoes (Why is there an enormous bottle of organic dill weed in our pantry?)
• Black beans (a VSC house staple), carmelized onions, and shaved zucchini sauteed in garlic powder and olive oil

It helps that I have read yet another memoir by Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl. Her breezy, sunsual, hyperbolic style makes any meal seem like a sublime privilege. Just one chapter is enough to make you want to run and fire up the stove.
I've read her books in reverse order, just now getting to the initial volume about her hippie college days. Commune life and picking up random men in Morocco would likely have turned me off when I first discovered her, but now it seems very appropriate for my current life in a new city. Does she ever feel guilty about going establishment and working for mega-publications like the New York Times and Gourmet? If you have never heard of her, I recommend starting with Garlic and Sapphires, which chronicles her incognito restaurant reviews for the NYT.

Friday Fish Fry

There's a VFW post across the street from my office, and every other Friday the old guys there hold a lunchtime fish-fry. Since food is a major component of my office's life, we of course order lunch from there. And since my boss is the Nicest Man in the World (TM), he of course fetches our massive order of cod and hush puppies.

This Friday, however, the boss was away at a meeting, and so I got promoted to head of fish fry, initiating Intern Jenny and Intern Jennifer into the group ordering ritual. Thank goodness I come from a big family, where you learn quickly to organize everyone's order or else end up battling fast-food cashiers for your chicken nuggets.
I was afraid the VFW folks wouldn't recognize me without my boss, but I needed have worried. My entrance with two other cute young girls in tow got a cheering welcome. Without "The Doc" around (as they assume my boss is), America's veterans felt much more at liberty to flirt with us "nurses." They wished we offered "Nurses for Old Guys" and regretted that Enfamil was not on their beverage menu. They also got a kick out of offering us vodka for our ice tea. As usual, one side of hush puppies was missing and had to be fought for. All in all, another entertaining Fish Friday.

Side note: in addition to the usual hush puppies, fries, and cole slaw, spaghetti is another side order option at the VFW. Huh? There are other places in St. Louis that also offer entrees like "catfish and spaghetti." The Nicest Man in the World (TM) claims it adds some sort of tangy flavor, but I consider it an affront to my (25%) Italian heritage.

Through the eye of the needle

Sometimes I get disgusted at the wastefulness of American consumerism. Like on move-out day after graduation. The dumpster on Landrum Drive served four buildings, and was an avalanche of discarded purchases that had once seemed vital to students' existences. "Perfectly good" futons, lamps, mattress pads, and other furniture items spilled out onto the road and were slowly ruined by the rain. (It was a generally dreary and depressing day. The overcast sky did not make packing up and leaving college behind any easier.) I'll admit, I added a printer to the pile. It still functioned, but badly.

That consumerism orgy made me glad I was going to be "living simply" with the VSC. Of course, that has been easier said than done. My stipend is very small, but I always have my savings to fall back upon if I can't afford that birthday party at Dave and Buster's or that dinner out. Today I faced another source of temptation: the siren song of Whole Foods.

My love affair with that hub of "whole paycheck" gourmet food has been gradual. If you had told me four years ago that I would stand before a Whole Foods butcher demanding grass-fed organic bison for my mother, I would not have believed you. I used to think of the place as some sort of left-wing cult. But now, I fully embrace its appeal as a place where BMW-driving yuppies and hemp sandal-wearing hippies can shop side-by-side, united by the self-satisfied idea that their grocery purchases are somehow helping the earth. The stores and food are attractively packaged. Whenever I walk inside, I can't help earnestly believing that buying stuff there will make me healthier, skinner, happier. My hair won't be frizzy and my body will be purged of free radicals, or whatever else magazine editors tell me is bad this month.

As if. Instead, the tasty snacks are quickly eaten and my wallet remains emptier. Arrg, I can't believe I blew $30 today at Whole Foods and its quirkier cousin, Trader Joe's. And that was after I put back the gluten-free bread mix and the second carton of delicious, delicious gourmet dairy-free ice cream. My wacky food intolerances do put a cramp in my dining style. I can't just reach for convenient pizza, mac'n'cheese and sandwiches. But does that really entitle me to those expensive GF cookies? Am I ever going to find a diary free, GF bread that doesn't have the consistency of Styrofoam? Nope-ity, nope-ity, no. Instead, I need to learn to make do with brown rice, cans of corn, and hash browns.

Plus, the New York times editors tell me beets are the new superfood. I did cave and buy an organic bundle today. But hey, they were only $2.50. And they say the greens make a tasty, nutritious salad after you have roasted the root.