Author Archives: Molly

Gluten-Free Astrology: Gemini (born May 21 – June 20)

Today marks the start of ME ME ME ME ME ME—sorry, I mean Gemini. The temperature is rising, flowers are blooming, kiddies are graduating, asparagi are past their peak but still in season, and it’s time to direct our attention to the Gluten-Free Gemini. As it should be.

Gemini begins today, May 21st, and extends through June 20th. Let’s check out what the stars have in store for me and my fellow Geminis this month.

Photo © Joe Plocki | Flickr With "twins" rather than an animal as the sign's ruling symbol, Flickr search results for "Gemini" get a bit artsy...

Photo © Joe Plocki | Flickr
With twins as the sign’s ruling symbol, Flickr search results for “Gemini” get a bit artsy.

The Gluten-Free Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the messenger god who reigns over communication, travel, and cleverness. To get a sense of the GF Gemini, think Mercury, the element: rapidly shifting, rising then plummeting, erratic and unpredictable, like that red stuff in an old-fashioned thermometer during climate change. GF Geminis are versatile and, as a friend recently reminded me, capricious. They always have something—or several things—going on, because they pick up projects quickly and drop them just as suddenly. They’re the type of gluten-freer who heard “for life” and thought, “Is that even possible?”

In other words, as a GF Gemini, it’s absolutely shocking I’ve maintained this astrology project for even three posts running. GF Cancers, consider yourselves warned.

For us GF Geminis, this month will be a time—as usual—of varied, unfinished projects, new enthusiasms, and sudden burnouts. Perhaps you’ll actually attempt to set up that gluten-free speed-dating sesh, or become briefly immersed in the world of from-scratch GF baking. You’ll look into event spaces, reach out to some fellow GF community members, realize how much work an event like this would be, and drop it immediately. Or you’ll order twelve different kinds of flour from Amazon and perform frenzied Google searches trying to choose the best blend, then lose patience, throw caution to the wind, make up your own blend, and lose faith in the entire pursuit when your baked good falls flat. But you won’t stay discouraged for long! You move on fast, and you’re quick to laugh, even at your own shortcomings.

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GF Gemini rules over butterflies and vibrantly colored birds—flitting, dainty things that delight their onlookers but are internally rather cold, bored souls already eyeing that prettier flower over…there. Though the GF Gemini is talkative and forthcoming, this urge to communicate can sometimes turn into idle, superficial chatter or gossip. You aren’t mean, you just love a good story. This month, strive not to alienate your loved ones, who have accommodated your gluten-free lifestyle handsomely, by talking about them behind their backs or tuning them out while you brainstorm your next blog post.

Then again, if you do mess up, you’ll probably win everyone back over with your fantastic people skills (which we supposedly have—I keep waiting for mine to kick in). You know how to win people to a cause, and this month just might be the month you finally persuade your relatives (and friends, and random passerby on the street) to get themselves tested for celiac disease. You aren’t, after all, content to play the part of the patient on this gluten-free stage—you’ve got to play the doctor, nurse, and researcher, too! At least until you tire of it.

The body parts ruled by Gemini are the lungs and arms (get it? Twins?), and we g-free types sometimes have asthma and weak bones to deal with. Eat those calcium-rich green leafies to avoid breaking any arms this month when you get overexcited about trying the new bikeshare program in your city; and don’t diagnose yourself with any associated autoimmune disorders just because you have a cursory understanding of them from WebMD. Beware your tendency to skim and assume mastery having done so. (Remember you’re not the doctor.)

Though your cheerful demeanor helps you to hide it (unless you’re broadcasting it to the entire internet, like I do), you do have a brooding, anxious side. Try to remember it’s springtime out there, and there are lots of interesting things to focus on in this world—no need to worry too much about what’s next in your personal health adventure.

There are lots of interesting GF Geminis to follow, too. People with gluten issues are maybe more likely to be born in spring and summer, so there are lots of Geminis; and Geminis are so lively and compelling that of course they wind up celebrities. A winning combo!

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Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic is a GF Gemini, and an awesome one at that (happy birthday to him tomorrow). He attributes his stepped-up tennis game to switching to a gluten-free diet, although recently his performance has been inconsistent. In his own words, he “lost the concentration”—sounds about right for a Gemini. Also Geminilike, he spends his leisure time founding restaurant chains then leaving the day-to-day operations up to other people, making cameos in music videos, and buying up entire year’s productions of donkey cheese (OK, that one’s not true).

Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Elisabeth Hasselbeck is another biggie in GF Geminiland. Like the rest of us, she keeps herself busy: not content to appear on just one TV show, she’s flirted with SurvivorGood Morning America, and of course her own show The View, where she shows off her Gemini communication skills. Plus, she’s written two books about living and cooking gluten-free (though her knack for picking up choice tidbits from other people’s self-published books may or may not have gotten her into a spot of trouble there).

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Last but most certainly not least, I have to give a shout-out to Marilyn Monroe, who was a Gemini through and through and stumbled upon her own super-weird version of a gluten-free diet, to which she attributed her awesome figure in this old Pageant article. Every day, she claimed, she ate two raw eggs in warm milk, plain broiled meat, four or five raw carrots, and occasionally a hot fudge sundae. Bizarre, yes, gluteny, no.

As always, the “information,” such as it is, in this post has been largely ripped off from The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need, by Joanna Martine Woolfolk, which is in fact the only astrology book you’ll ever need (need here being a relative term).

See also: AriesTaurus

Don’t click away yet, GF Geminis! I know YouTube calls, but resist your flighty nature long enough to leave me a comment. What new projects do you have planned this month?

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One step closer to a 100% fun-free diet

I’ve been a lazy, lazy blogger this week. I can’t blame the apartment search, because I found a short-term option for June and punted the hunt to next month. This week, there is one reason and one reason only for my lack of blog: caffeine withdrawal.

People who know me well know that I like my caffeine. When I told some people I was trying to go caffeine-free, responses included:

“You are?”
“Is anything else left?”
“So you’ll drink a 2-liter of caffeine-free Diet Coke every day now instead?”
and, simply, “…Why?”

My answers:

“Yes.”
“I hope so.”
“God no.”
and… “I don’t know.”

I don’t have a great answer to the last one. Caffeine isn’t bad for you—in appropriate quantities—and coffee in particular has been associated with lots of nice health bonuses. Diet soda has been associated with depression here, weight gain there, but the data is inconclusive. Both excessive coffee intake and excessive carbonated beverage intake can mess with digestion according to, oh, every list of tips for dealing with IBS ever; and the proteins in coffee have supposedly been found to be “cross-reactive” with gluten proteins in some people—not confirmed, but compelling.

Most importantly, I just don’t like being dependent on caffeine. I’ve spent the past several years playing a little game called “undiagnosed autoimmune disease vs. coffee” and, as of last week, was drinking 11 cups every morning (all at once, over the course of an hour), plus the aforementioned Diet Coke later on. I’m tied to the routine and it sucks up more of my time than it should. If most people are made up of 70% water, there’s a good chance I’m made up of 70% coffee. That doesn’t thrill me.

Photo © Amanda | Flickr

Photo © Amanda | Flickr

Caffeine is such a part of my routine that I nearly cried after reading Cheryl Strayed’s Wild because I knew I couldn’t possibly carry a large enough supply of coffee and water to sustain me if I ever wanted to hike the entire Pacific Coast Trail. Kindly ignore all of the other reasons I would find it difficult to imitate Strayed (e.g., I’ve never hiked or even particularly wanted to hike). The point of the anecdote is this: I’ve come to see caffeine as necessary. But what if it’s not? What if I could retrain my body to exist and, such as it does, function—without caffeine? What if it would even function a bit better?

As I (half) joked to one friend, “I hadn’t given up anything major for a few months, so it just felt right.” It was only a half joke because it’s true that I don’t feel right about just spinning my wheels waiting for my magical gluten-free diet to magically kick in; I want to keep trying things. This is another thing to try. It’s something that, back in February, I didn’t think I could do. So, progress! Sort of.

I decided to go caffeine-free rather suddenly, with no prior reflection, when I found myself at the end of Saturday not having indulged in my usual afternoon soda fix. At that point, I just thought, “Why not?” I went cold turkey, which is apparently the exact opposite of the right thing to do. Caffeine withdrawal is real, folks, and I’m proof.

By Sunday evening a headache had banded itself around my temples and behind my eyes, rendering me useless to do anything but fall asleep. I woke on Monday and my head still hurtI don’t think I’ve ever had a headache that lasted overnight that way. It’s most likely the closest I’ve ever come to a migraine. I felt so sick that I actually stayed home from work on Monday and slept all day. “Caffeine withdrawal” may sound like a sorry excuse for a sick day, but trust me, I was sick enough. That morning, I came so close to quitting: I even brewed my normal pot of coffee and poured myself a cup. I was saved by the fact that I felt too ill to drink it.

Now, I think I’m past the worst of it, beyond the initial “I’m in hideous pain” phase and into the “I can’t bring myself to do or care about anything because it turns out coffee was the only thing powering my thoughts and actions” phase of withdrawal, which according to reputable internet sources shouldn’t last much longer than a week.

Photo © Christian | Flickr

Photo © Christian | Flickr

Like many of the things I’ve given up (alcohol, lactose, oats, eating out, anything made “in a facility that processes…”), I may not be done with caffeine forever. Heck, I may not make it through the rest of the work week. But, though not necessarily permanent, it’s worth a try. In the meantime, know that although I’ve been posting more infrequently recently, I’m still here and still gluten-free. That, my friends, is permanent.

I stole the phrase “fun-free” from this post on Gluten Is My Bitch. Have you read her book yet? It’s funny!

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STEAL DEAL RENT NOW WON’T LAST!

I’ve spent most of the past couple weeks immersed in apartment hunting, and the search continues. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve spent more time looking for apartments in New York than living in them. This will be my third move since September, 2011, or fourth if you count the move into my friend’s very accommodating parents’ apartment in Soho, where I believe I overstayed my welcome as I looked for my first home. New York, New York!

My new kitchen will be “GUT-RENOVATED WITH BRAND-NEW STAINLESS STEEL GLUTEN-FREE KITCHEN APPLIANCES AND DISHWASHER,” in broker-speak. (Okay, they didn’t say “gluten-free,” but one must read between the lines on Craigslist.) Or, maybe not. Maybe it will still have the previous tenant’s gluten caked into everything. Perhaps there will be a few million of gluten’s cousins, the bedbugs. (Though one broker assured me yesterday that “bedbugs are over.” Phew!)

The apartment will also be approximately the size of a speck of gluten or a bedbug. Everyone loves to joke about this, but so far, truth be told, I’ve lived in a ginormous Washington Heights 2-bedroom and a huge Clinton Hill 3-bedroom and have actually never needed to climb over my own twin bed in order to get to my dresser. Since the plan is to move to East Harlem, I may very well experience just that.

I also may not quite get the kitchen of my dreams—counter space is tough to come by in a city that never cooks. Then again, in my current kitchen I’ve been confined for several months now to this:

Photo on 5-9-13 at 6.18 AM #3

…my own little messy gluten-free workspace, which my roommate was kind enough to install for me, far away from the toaster oven and right next to the large and luxurious couch that will most likely not fit through the front door of my new building, much less in the apartment’s living room.

So I’ve learned a thing or two about lack of space, but in my new kitchen, I’m sure to have more than I have now, because we will have a gluten-free household! (Pretty much, anyway. My sister, and soon-to-be roommate, needs her Grape-Nuts—though we’ve been scouting out gluten-free Gnuts recipes.) Yes, I will be making the fateful switch to the much-touted 95% gluten-free kitchen, so the entire kitchen should be safe for me. This will make cooking more relaxing, at least until the next time I bake plastic wrap into my hot cross buns.

I’m nervous, but excited! Now enough time wasting; I’ve got to get back to hitting refresh on Craigslist. Stay tuned. I’m sure there will be an update…any…day…now.

Tell me about your gluten-free kitchens, your real estate adventures, your Grape-Nuts recipes—anything, really, to distract me from the grim ticking-down of days until June 1st, lease-starting day. Hopefully.

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Pride and Prejudice and Gluten

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a celiac man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the appetite or baking ability of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

Someone, after all, must take on the hard but fulfilling task of baking her way through that fortune, one bag of superfine rice flour at a time.

So begins PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND GLUTEN, the classic novel reimagined to include something scarier than ballroom dancing and zombies alike. 

prideprej

When Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood, he doesn’t know quite what he’s getting himself into. He quickly learns he has entered a zone of intensely elevated celiac prevalence, brought on no doubt by many years of marrying one’s cousin and so forth.

Just as quickly, the news spreads that a likely young bachelor has let Netherfield Park. The gritty gifted cupcakes begin pouring in, as do the invitations with postscripts appended in the beautiful script that comes naturally to those women who have spent years practicing, all to the effect of, The buffet will have hummus.

Bingley good-naturedly agrees to attend, and brings along his friend, Darcy, with whom he pleads, hovering by the refreshments table in the grand tradition of non-dancers at balls, “Come, Darcy, I must have you try a bite of this.”

“I certainly shall not. You know how I detest anything gluten-free, unless I am particularly acquainted with the brand. With such a spread as this it would be insupportable. If there were any traditional baked goods, I might consider it, but alas, there is not a cracker or pudding in the room it would not be a punishment to eat.”

Having overheard all, Elizabeth Bennet—snarky before her time and with a measured but abiding pride in her own talent for recipe development, which though passable is widely understood, even by Elizabeth herself, to be inferior to her sister Jane’s—writes Darcy off as the worst kind of gluten-eating boor: too proud of his own lack of immune response to gluten, too prejudiced to try the teacakes at which Elizabeth has slaved away, combining four different recipes and throwing out three batches before she got them just right.

“I could easily forgive his pride,” Elizabeth sniffs, “if he had not mortified mine.”

You may think this story over before it has even begun, but there are twists and turns to come as Jane Bennet and Bingley fall in love over millet scones and buckwheat biscuits, then are driven apart by Darcy’s cynical remarks about their future children’s double genetic risk and the Bennet family’s inappropriate dinnertime discussion of matters gastrointestinal. After a suitable amount of mutual anguish, the two come together again as the beautiful and gluten-free always do.

In between, there’s a spot of trouble for Lydia, the youngest Bennet daughter, involving one Mr. Wickham, a roguish character who never truly intended to keep his kitchen cross-contamination-free. Darcy, it seems, has known all along that Wickham’s promises were as thin as the paper towels he wouldn’t actually use to wipe up his own crumbs. It is Darcy who alerts the family, though sadly not before a glutening catastrophe to which he refers in only the most euphemistic of terms; this is, after all, a novel of manners.

Darcy’s aid in this matter, and then in reuniting Jane with Bingley, endears him somewhat to Elizabeth, but what seals the deal is a letter he sends her with, enclosed, his recent positive biopsy results. It is revealed that his excessive pride was born of his fear that he himself may all too soon be forced to sup on sandwiches insupportable by their fragile bread, and piecrusts made of grains his family would scorn as peasants’ fare. Furthermore, it was persistent gluten exposure that caused his irritability and dour physiognomy.

The twin barriers of Darcy’s gluten eating and terrible personality now removed, there is nothing to stop Elizabeth from wedding him immediately, which she so does. As in the original, they all live happily ever after, except for Lydia.

*

So what do you think? Will Keira Knightley agree to take the lead?

Text adapted from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, now in the public domain. Wheat image from jayneandd at the Flickr Creative Commons. Book cover image stolen shamelessly from Penguin—they can afford it.

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