The Gluten-Intolerant Family Member and Holiday Food Traditions

One of the hardest things about taking control of your own health is that it often requires that you eat much differently than the way most Americans eat.  It can be extremely isolating, especially when it comes to family traditions, gluten intolerant family members, and celebrating the holidays.

Sharing a meal together is one of the primary ways we celebrate community.  So I have favored ditching old family favorite foods and replacing them with something that everyone can eat and enjoy.

For example, my family, both nuclear and extended, always expected to have a Buttermilk Pound Cake at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Unfortunately, it requires white flour to make it.  This ingredient has been stricken from our kitchen since we learned six years ago this month that Emma is allergic to it.  A couple of months later we learned that she had to strictly avoid corn and rice as well.

Now, the Lighter Than Air Chocolate Cake has replaced the Buttermilk Pound Cake as our go-to celebratory cake.  Everyone loves it, and it is completely flourless.

Just so you know, I have tried baking with white flour for other family members, but the stuff goes everywhere.  You open the container and scoop, and a cloud rises up and dissipates on countertops and appliances.   Trying to clean everything perfectly afterwards to prevent cross-contamination is time consuming and stressful.   And you are expending more precious energy cooking twice.  I finally decided it just was not worth it.  Family members who want to eat white flour have endless opportunities to do so when they are not at home, whereas Emma can eat at very few places away from home with peace of mind.

If there is one place where a person with food allergies should feel safe and supported, it is in their own kitchen.

Believe me, the support is incredibly important, because many folks think that gluten-intolerant people are just selfish troublemakers who want attention.  And they let you know it by their expressions.  The nay-sayers fail to realize that gluten-intolerant people would like nothing more than to be able to eat the white flour with no concern for the consequences!  Giving it up is hard, but being able to function normally on a day-to-day basis makes it worth it.

I believe that a lot of people who are gluten-intolerant don't even know it.  My neighbor down the road stopped in yesterday with his wife to tell me that he had found enormous relief for his interstitial cystitis since I recommended to him that he do a Whole 30 elimination diet.  He had struggled with it for years under the care of urologists, had undergone surgery seeking relief, and had to take early retirement because of it.  I gave him the original Whole 30 book and a companion recipe volume last month, and he told me yesterday, "I absolutely did not believe that this would work, but I was so desperate for pain relief that I started it the day you gave me the books."  He took out his phone and showed me his log of taking serious prescription pain medications and how over the course of the 30 days it diminished to none.  He also explained that his energy has returned.  He is able to work on building his house again, and is now going to drive to his daughter's house in San Antonio for Christmas, a trip he could not make prior to the Whole 30.  His wife is amazed at the change in him.  She is going to do a Whole 30 herself starting in January.

So I encourage you to adapt your celebratory foods to ones that everybody can enjoy together.  Make new traditions.   The family celebrating together is more important than the individual menu items.

Living on Gecko Time

I don't know if it's the Year of the Gecko or what, but for the last several months, we have been blessed with a gathering of geckos every night--on my kitchen sink window and also on my mother's bathroom window.

We have grown to love them.  Every night, while I perch on the side of the garden tub, waiting for my mom to potty after I get her dressed for bed, we count the geckos on her bathroom window and wonder what they're thinking--why they favor this window and my kitchen sink window, and what they think about.

We worry that with the cooler weather, they will soon disappear.

"Don't go, geckos!" we tell them.

"They're so cute." my mother opines.

I think it's because ours are kind of chubby.  Also, there is something about the way they curl their tails, forming lower case "j's" with legs, that I find attractive--kind of reminds me of paisleys, I suppose.  I love the way they stay in one place, then suddenly all move and pause again.  Maybe it is gecko freeze tag, but I suspect it has something to do with potential prey.

Anyway, we count them eagerly each night.

"Only four!  Is it getting too cold for them?"
"Look, six tonight!"

We savor living on Gecko time, but winter is coming.

Joining The Milk Cure 2012 and a Fiona Update

Emma and Fiona enjoying the lush Spring grass yesterday evening

Today is the first day of the Milk Cure.  Emma and I are both doing it for our Lenten fast.  We practiced this week by drinking mostly raw milk, raw kefir,  and kombucha.  Ginger kombucha mixed half and half with kefir is tasty and refreshing.  We ate one meal with meat at suppertime.

Read about The Milk Cure 2012 here.  It's a 10-day RAW milk fast being organized by The Healthy Home Economist.  Make sure and read all the links, especially the inspiring story of the woman who is healing herself of Lyme Disease with a raw milk diet--100 days so far!

I am going to add another picture or two later.  My internet is super slow right now, and it is taking too long to add each one.  But just look at the grass in the one above.  It's a fabulous time for raw milk here in southeast Texas.  We have had lots of rain.  Fiona is loving having some juicy grazing after the horrible drought we had last year.  I'm sure her calf is loving it too.  I think it should be gaining close to a pound a day at this point.

We don't know exactly when she is due, but her bag is filling out, so we are guessing that within six weeks she will calve.  We will be so grateful to have our own milk supply again: I am having to drive to Winnie, TX, to buy raw milk from Pure Milk Farms.  It's really good.  We are especially excited about the prospect of a calf to keep Fiona company.  She ran off again last week to hang out with some horses down the road.  This time she escaped because a ground wire broke on her electric fence.  We have three strands of wire.  One day as we were driving home from a restaurant, my husband pointed out to me a herd of huge beef cattle.  Then he had me notice their fencing.  They were kept in their pasture by a single wire.  Hmph.


  

From Her Valentine

An Autumn Chill, Midnight, and Moonlight

Somehow Emma and I both ended up taking naps yesterday afternoon. Naps are good. But at midnight, I found myself reading, fully alert, on the couch. Then I received a text message from Emma. I had assumed that she was in her bedroom asleep.

"Do you want me to sleep inside?" she inquired.

I guessed where she was. Instead of answering, I opened the back door and stepped out into the most deliciously cool air. Taking a few steps into the grass, I gazed through the oaks to admire the moon. I shifted my bare feet until I found the perfect frame for it in the branches. My gown blew softly in the breeze.

With my eyes full of moon, I stepped lightly across the cold grass and entered Emma's bower. "What are you doing?" I asked softly as I climbed the ladder to her loft. I could not see her when I reached the top.

"I'm going to sleep out here," she whispered. We chatted for a few minutes as she lay stretched upon a flattened air mattress, and I clung to the top of the ladder. She explained that the wind had called her from her bedroom, and she had wandered to the pond with Cotton, her cat. After that kind of an outing, I would not expect her to return to her bedroom. It would ruin the spell.

"I think I want to go inside and get some milk and crackers," Emma said.

"That sounds good to me too," I said, stepping down the ladder.

So we left the bower. Again, we were greeted by the chilly breeze, so bewitchingly playful, rippling our gowns and ruffling our hair. We decided that we would get our refreshments and enjoy them outside in the grass. In the kitchen, Emma shook the milk jar to re-distribute the cream and poured us each a foaming glassful. She filled a plate with peanut butter crackers and banana. We half-heartedly hoped that this fare would make us sleepy, though neither one of us was truly interested in sleeping. We yearned for excitement. Yes.

We exited the front door, crept between the giant split-leaf philodendron and the boxwood hedge to the darkened landscape under the canopy of pecan and oaks, where we took refuge on the grass at the corner of the house, facing the hayfield. We could hear the chickens muttering and jostling for position, a distant train, and dogs barking.

We nibbled our simple repast and sipped the creamy milk, admiring Lady Moon. China May discovered us and climbed all over us, purring. Then her cohort, Sunshine-Moonshine Thibodeaux, appeared, curling his fluffy yellow-striped tail into a question mark: "Would we share our milk?"

Emma and I talked about men and whether we should go and swim in the pond, and of my own moonlight wanderings when I was about her age. She sang lullabies. I told her that I liked the feel of the wind sneaking between my toes, and she laughed.

Then we wanted more food. We took up our glasses and our shared plate and returned to the kitchen. While she got the wine glasses I opened a bottle of Merlot. I grabbed a grilled sirloin steak from the refrigerator, a tasty remnant from supper the night before. We stood at the kitchen counter, sipped the wine, and greedily tore off bits of the juicy meat with our fingers, devouring it. It was so incredibly satisfying. When we had eaten our fill, we took our wine glasses and ventured to the edge of the hayfield, stretched out our bare legs to get moontans and leaned against each other for warmth as the cold wine worked with the cold wind to chill us most delightfully, raising rows of goosebumps like lights coming on in a city after a power outage.

At 1:30 a.m., we went gladly to our beds, eager for sleep and whatever adventure the dawn might bring.

Celebrating with Goobers and Fresh Tater Pies

In honor of the Fourth and the freedom and independence it represents, I asked Herb to take the last meat rabbit we have and "throw it in the briar patch" next to the hangar. Of course I was thinking of the great Uncle Remus tale about Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Surprisingly, when I looked up the story, I found that the poem below introduces it, and it references celebrating the "Fo'th" in the South.

I declare, it's jes one mo' reason to love us good ole rebels--bless our cotton-pickin' hearts!


In Levemteen Hunder'd-an'-Full-er-Fleas,
When dey raise sech a crap er goober peas,
De creeturs wuz all des ez chummy ez you please:
Dey raced an' dey rastled, dey jumped an' dey played,
An' dey wa'n't nothin' 'tall fer ter make 'um 'fraid.

Dey had der parties, bofe dar an' here,
Id May-pop puddin' an' 'simmon beer;
An' de way dey keep der Fo'th-er-Julys
Wuz in eatin' goobers an' fresh tater pies-
An' dey wa'n't no dought, an' no perhaps,
Dat dey holp one anudder out wid der craps. . .

Artwork:
Top Left--Br'er Rabbit and Tar Baby by A. B. Burdett
Right--Statue of Br'er Rabbit on Courthouse lawn at Eatonton, GA, via Answers.com

Their Special Treasure

"Very often I have been deeply touched at the sight of a humble family going toward church in the late afternoon of a day in May. . .the father, perhaps, in overalls and wide straw hat, the mother in flounced calico skirts and reboso, with two or three little children in shabby hand-me-downs. But all are leading their special treasure, usually a tiny girl of three or four, dressed in sparkling white, on her head a white veil held in place by a wreath of white flowers, white shoes on her little feet and minute white gloves on her hands. One can imagine the love and sacrifice that have gone to procure this costume, in order to provide the little one with her special moment of glory and importance. Usually someone in the family has an armload of flowers, and the little queen goes to church to act for them all, to offer prayers for the whole family, prayers made shining and precious by her innocence."--Where the Heart Is by Elizabeth Borton De Trevino

Photo by Emmaline Haught

Blackberries are A-comin'

Photo by Emmaline Haught

Could it really be that time again? Emma told me that she gathered and ate a handful of ripe ones last night. I can't wait to make blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream! Yesterday I perused Lehman's catalog and drooled over the pictures of the oak, hand-cranked ice cream freezers. I think they cost a couple of hundred dollars. We probably spend that much now on Blue Bell ice cream a year, since it's right at $6 a half gallon. Emma loves to make raw milk ice cream, but all we have is a little 1-qt. Quisinart to do it in.

The mulberry trees, too, are full of fruit, though not yet ripe. Fiona has been grazing the lower branches of the one at the back of the hangar. She likes the leaves, especially. I don't mind her eating it, because Herb has to cut it down when he builds her barn there. The other mulberry is in the dog yard.

Together Again, Bicycling

Inspired by the fine spring weather, Emma and Nathaniel decided to go bike riding yesterday afternoon. I was so excited, because they went through a long period where they wouldn't do anything together, and now they seem to be re-discovering their old friendship. They're even planning a tent-camping trip together.

Nathaniel almost backed out of the bike ride, though, when Emma appeared in her bicycling costume. "Mom!" he groaned. "Make her take off that hat. It's embarrassing!"

"You have a hat on," Emma pointed out. She diplomatically avoided saying, "And I think it's hideous!"

Grumbling, he sauntered off to the garage to get the bikes. Of course, I tagged along to take pictures.

I took lots--several as he aired up Emma's back tire with the air compressor while she filled the front one with a bicycle pump and one with him on his bike, leaning forward over the handlebars with his hat and dark sunglasses on, ready to race off and leave Emma in the dust. He looked really cool.

The pictures came out so cute, but Nathaniel threatened to kill me if I put any of them on my blog. Reluctantly, I promised and cropped him out of all the pictures I had just taken. I especially hated to do it on the first picture above. That's the one where he was on his bike, leaning over the handlebars.


A MOTHER'S REVENGE


Quite cunningly, I made no promises about any bicycling pictures of him in my archives.

Spring and Birds

Audubon print closeup from the Maryland State Law Library.


In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin`s breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish`d dove; In the Spring a young man`s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

I don't know why Tennyson didn't say anything about Blue Jays and string in Spring.

As I washed dishes yesterday morning, I watched intently as a blue jay struggled to pull free a long piece of feed bag string that had wrapped around a crepe myrtle. The paper strip that had been stitched to the top of the feed bag with the string was still attached, adding an intriguing complexity to the quest. The jay pulled mightily, rearing back on the branch. Then it jumped to a different branch and worked from another angle. The bird really wanted that string, for nesting purposes I suppose.

I watched another minute, and then I thought I would just have to stop and get a picture. I dried my hands, grabbed my camera, carefully turned the front door knob, and slowly, slowly eased the door open.

CREEEEEEAK!

The blue jay winged away, leaving the prized string and its gaily swinging paper strip.

That made two of us who didn't get what we came for.

Luckily, French Garden House's husband succeeded where I did not. He captured beautiful photos of a hummingbird mama and her nest of two eggs. It feels strange to see the little mother setting contentedly--no blurred motion of wings in the sweet scene, just the quiet expectancy of incubation.

Emma cleaned and sanitized her incubator yesterday and will spend the next two days stabilizing the temperature before filling it with Barred Rock eggs. She will begin her own quiet expectancy, waiting for the day when a single chirp becomes a choir of new life, all yellow and fluffy.

Valentine's Day

On Thanksgiving

I give thanks for my Alabama ancestry and that connection that I feel with the land. I give thanks for my grandparents. How I miss them! They took me to "dinner on the ground", to pick messes o' peas on summer mornings, and to call on the sick in bare-walled houses with a single light bulb hanging down. I give thanks for all the time that we just sat together on the porch, sipping Dr. Peppers and rocking while we shelled butterbeans, snapped green beans, and shucked corn.



I give thanks for the rustic beauty of country living that I learned to love as a child.



And I give thanks for the profound luxury of getting to spend time as an adult with my Grandma Somerset: sleeping in the bed next to hers under half a foot of quilts, getting up in the morning and rushing to light the gas heater in the kitchen, then huddling together in front of it; cooking grits, eggs, and bacon while listening to the AM radio on the kitchen table; sitting on the piano bench together and singing from the old Broadman hymnal; listening to her tell me stories of growing up as a child bride under the loving care of her mother-in-law and fishing companion, Ma Set.

For all this and so much more, Father in heaven, I thank Thee!

May-Day Ideas

Ho! the merrie first of Maie
Bryngs the daunce and blossoms gaie,
To make of lyfe a holiday.

Here are two ideas that I was not familiar with until Emma got The American Girl's Handy Book by Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

There was, at one time, a very pretty custom observed in Merrie England of fastening bunches of flowering shrubs and branches of sycamore and hawthorn upon the doors of those neighbors whose good lives and kindly habits were thus recognized by their friends. . .

The maids and matrons of England formerly had a way of their own of observing the day. On the first of May they would all go trooping out with the earliest rays of the morning sun, to bathe their faces in the magic dew, which glistened upon the grass once a year only, and was supposed to render the features moistened with it beautiful for the the next twelve months.

For Catholics, honoring Mary is the pleasantest of May activities. She is the true Queen of the May.

Most people are familiar with the May-pole dance. Last year Emma and I attended our first.

A beautiful Marian hymn:

Bring Flow'rs of the Rarest


Bring flow'rs of the fairest,
Bring flow'rs of the rarest,
From garden and woodland
And hillside and vale;
Our full hearts are swelling,
Our Glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest
Rose of the vale.

O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May,
O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.

Our voices ascending,
In harmony blending,
Oh! Thus may our hearts turn
Dear Mother, to thee;
Oh! Thus shall we prove thee
How truly we love thee,
How dark without Mary
Life's journey would be.

O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May,
O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.

O Virgin most tender,
Our homage we render,
Thy love and protection,
Sweet Mother, to win;
In danger defend us,
In sorrow befriend us,
And shield our hearts
From contagion and sin.

O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May,
O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.

Of Mothers the dearest,
Oh, wilt thou be nearest,
When life with temptation
Is darkly replete?
Forsake us, O never!
Our hearts be they ever
As Pure as the lilies
We lay at thy feet.

O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May,
O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.

Softly, Softly Fell the Snow

On All Hallows Eve

Early Friday morning, Emma Jo of the East Texas prairie climbed a tree to scout for trouble. It was Halloween, after all. Finding none, she visited her grandma, fed the rabbits, and gathered the eggs. Later, when dressed to go calling on friends in town, she heard sea chanties being sung lustily nearby.

Twirling in fright, she began running for the safety of the house.

She had to stop, though, to admire her boots. At that moment an evil,

vain,

singing pirate, leaped from the bushes, grabbed her, and whisked her away in his pirate truck.

Feast of Pentecost

Come Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and in our hearts take up thy rest. Come with thy grace and heav'nly aid to fill the hearts which thou hast made. To fill the hearts which thou hast made.

Notice that Mary, our Mother, is in the center. Happy Mother's Day!

Like Queen Guinevere, We Go A-Maying

Now it befell upon a pleasant day in the spring-time, that Queen Guinevere went a-Maying with a goodly company of knights and ladies of her court.

After the May crowning at church, Emma and I drove a little over an hour west of Houston to New Ulm for a May Pole party deep in the country. We had been invited by Emma's new friend, Lisa H., whom we met, along with her charming husband and son, at Animal Farm the weekend before.

Unfortunately, we had been bereft of our menfolk all weekend. Nathaniel had left on Friday to spend the weekend golfing and bowling with friends. Herb had had to work on the Rebuild Together Houston project on Saturday and decided to go to lunch with his Schola buddy on Sunday. So we girls were managing the best we could without knights.

Upon arriving, Lisa greeted Emma and bestowed upon her a giant bag full of all kinds of different wool: Shetland, Romney, Brown Suffolk, Angora, Coopworth, Alpaca, Black Mountain Welsh,Gulf Coast Native, and even some cotton and silk. Now Emma refers to Lisa as "my friend and benefactress."

Next Lisa introduced us all around, and Emma discovered a kindred spirit in another homeschooled 15-year-old, Lucia, who also loves to spin and sew. They quickly dragged out their wheels and set up shop on the front porch.

Soon it was time to sample the picnic supper that was laid out in the little house. Restored, we ventured to the May Pole where music books were passed out to all who were not dancing. While the dancers weaved in and out of the colorful May Pole ribbons,

we sang rounds of lilting folk songs with the accompaniment of the hostess's son on guitar. We learned a lovely song that I have hummed happily all day:

Let the wealthy and great
Live in splendor and state
I envy them not
I declare it.

I grow my own rams,
My own ewes, my own lambs,
And I shear my own fleece,
And I wear it.

I have lawns.
I have bowers.
I have fruit.
I have flowers.
And the lark is my morning alarmer.

So you jolly boys now
Here's godspeed the plow
Long life and success to the farmer!


Later, we all took a walk through the woods, around the pond, and into the lush meadow.

The day was exceedingly pleasant with the sunlight all yellow, like to gold, and the breeze both soft and gentle. The small birds they sang with very great joy, and all about there bloomed so many flowers of divers sorts that the entire meadows were carpeted with their tender green. So it seemed to Queen Guinevere that it was very good to be abroad in the field and beneath the sky at such a season.


We ended at the zip line, where we spent an hour laughing as the riders whooshed through the air, over the water, and back onto the land. Lucia and Emma picked posies while they waited their turn.

Then Emma climbed the big ladder and zipped through the air.

Twilight was setting in when we finally gathered our belongings, bid our fond farewells, and drove away, sadly, to the east. We took courage though, when we remembered our noble knights, who would be awaiting our return.