Well, hell (nearly a year later)

Being the addict that I am, I occasionally succumb to wheat bread lust and drop a couple slices of store bought white bread in the toaster in the delusional hope they will make the outsides of a bacon cheese burger worth the clogged head and the following near coma that wheat bread is for me. Delusional is the keyword.

During the warm seasons I can avoid wheat, mostly. But once the air becomes chill the urge to play with flour, heat the house by way of the oven and fill our lives with the fragrance of bread overwhelms me. Even our son, who suffers the wheat allergy more so than I, has asked when I will bake bread again. He doesn't eat my bread, though his wife snatches loaves and sneaks off to their apartment to nibble at them like some hording hamster. He just wants to inhale their fragrance as it reminds him of how things were in his early childhood when mom and dad had life under control and he was mostly safe and free to do as he pleased.

So between the urge to bake and a son's request followed by his wife's need to nibble, how can I not break out the bread books and start building?


This bread was a "white" bread recipe I added yogurt to in place of milk. It also has a large egg yolk and a 1/4 cup of European style butter in it. I didn't care for the result, though my FIL says it's the best bread I've ever brought him. DIL seized the half loaf I had left on the cutting board and ran off muttering "Precious. My precious." Women are so strange.

A second bread recipe was made with yogurt added to give it a less sweet taste. It was such a flop I didn't bother to take pictures of it. Our three dogs all but inhaled that bread. Which reminds me of something a friend once told me. "You're breads are delicious. You're too picky about them. Just enjoy each for what it is."

But I can't. To accompany my wheat addiction is a streak of perfectionism. In damned near every other aspect of my life I settle of mediocrity. But bread? I'm my son's father and I too recall those childhood days of bread in the oven, steaming on a cooling rack, sliced hot so butter melted as it was spread and all the world was safe and mine.

Well, hell

I knew it was coming! And it finally did. My wheat allergy got bad enough to set me on a wheat free course!

The second week of the new year found our household going down with clogged heads, phlegmy coughs, sore throats, chills and fevers. As the nasty stuff settled into my chest I began to notice that every time I ate noodles, or bread, my head clogged up and I felt much worse overall. Feeling miserable enough, I decided I was done with wheat! At least eating it. I still need to make noodles and bread for those who can eat the toxin without obvious distress.

Fortunately, my friend in Texas convinced me to begin making sausage at home. I complain constantly that the stuff I buy from the local stores is either tasteless or inconsistent in flavor. The sausages above are from a "breakfast" recipe she sent me. Delicious sausage! As I'm not one for faux breads made with anything but wheat, I decided cabbage leaves would serve as wrappers. I like cabbage so that works out quite well for me. I'm going to try collards and chard come warm weather. I'd like to grow as much of what I eat as I can.

I also play around with Asian rice noodles and bean threads so using the Asian rice noodle in place of traditional pasta wasn't a big step for me. (The rice/corn pasta that is supposed to be a substitute for wheat pasta is simply disgusting to me. I find there is no substitute for wheat!) I've been able to enjoy my tomato sauces over Asian rice noodles though as well as using the noodles in nontraditional lasagna, which I've found to be superior to traditional anyhow! (I use Alfredo sauces, and cheddar and Provolone cheeses, as well as whatever sausage recipe I'm playing with.)

Stepping away from the standards and exploring the available foods I'm finding or making has been a gift from the gods! Using a little psychology (very little, I haven't much of a mind to work with) I've managed to convince myself that wheat products are poisons that I find disgusting and deadly! I walk through the pasta, baking and bread aisles of the supermarket making the sign of the Cross and muttering "By the power of Christ I command you! Stay back!" Poor DW hisses at me to stop it, but it works. The smell of store bread sickens me and their pasta long ago stopped appealing to me.

DW thinks I've lost my mind. She might well be right. I have fresh egg/wheat noodles hanging in the kitchen. The fragrance is causing me to drool, but I have no desire to even taste them. My sinuses began to clog as I rolled the dough and I itch now that they are cut and hanging. But half of the noodles'll come off the rods and go into bags to be taken to the friend who gave me the eggs from her "run of the property" birds. The other half go to Florida, to a Net friend who loves them more than I ever did and I used to think fresh egg noodles walked on water!