Gluten-Free

Now that I pretty clearly need to be gluten-free, though I came to this conclusion kicking and screaming, I figure I will do something other than feel sorry for myself about it. (I have also to be dairy free for all "young" dairy like milk, mozzarella, and yoghurt, though I do fine with butter and aged cheeses.)

My wife has had to be GF for years, and most GF foods just suck. Either the flavor or the texture might be right, but not both.  If you can find a GF food that you'd rate a 4 on a scale of 1-10, buy it in quantity. At least it is a legit version of the food it is supposed to be, even if it's not a good version. So as I have found a few, I thought I would pass them along. 

BTW, I am no longer seeing people make the accusation that this is made up for most people, who are affecting a food sensitivity in order to feel special. That was a thing as recently as two years ago, and someone over at Maggie's was fond of putting up videos about it. I dunno - maybe they wanted to feel special.

GF beer is rare. Gluten-reduced is more common and no good for me, and some of the safe-looking things are malt beverages as the basic alcohol part. Like the hard lemonades, darn it. It's mostly only seltzers and ciders that qualify as GF.  Glutenberg is barely okay and at least tastes like beer, and the IPA is actually not bad. They are having distribution problems at present and it's hard to find. I have to go all the way to Merrimack for it. 

We had GF toast thrown in at a breakfast restaurant and thought it good enough to inquire back to the kitchen who made it. Little Northern Bakehouse makes a variety of breads, and nothing so far rises to the level of being a good piece of bread, but the white sandwich slice is legit. You could make a cheese toast or a turkey salad sandwich with it and not particularly even notice the lack. It's a slice of bread. My wife has been getting 3 Bakers which is edible, but if you try to do french toast it's got absorption issues, and any sandwich had better be strong flavored and not put too much strain on the strength of it. Still, it's usable, though we may just go strong in the LNB direction now. (It's through North America, from British Columbia.)

Gluten pretty much means "gluey" after all, so things like pizza crust (which ordinarily has extra gluten) or a nice chewy bakery loaf are nigh impossible. Gillian's makes a garlic bread that is actually pretty good. It is crisp instead of chewy, but otherwise fine. King Arthur makes a whole line of mixes and tests them extensively, so even their pie crust, a notoriously difficult feat for GF is actually okay. They don't mention what happens if you use lard for the fat, because I think that is just too far out of fashion these days, even in Vermont. I may try it when no one's looking someday. 

Glutino is meh, but the chocolate wafers are okay. Schar is uneven but the chocolate honeygrahams are not a bad cookie. I don't have cookies much, but my wife likes Goody Girl, which does knockoffs of girl scout cookies. Schar does a cracker that is not far off from saltines in taste, but so fragile as to be mostly unusable.