Sharing the gluten free wealth

Whilst browsing other gluten free blogs, especially American ones in preparation for my trip to San Francisco in September this year, I stumbled across this great little feature on Gluten free baking article on the great recipe resource that is http://www.epicurious.com/ ...

Might take some time to find coconut flour - must admit I have not come across that one before!!

Happy Anniversary

A year ago today my life turned around. I received the confirmed diagnosis of coeliac disease.

In all honesty, in the lead up to my appointment with my gastro man I never thought that I would get a positive diagnosis for anything let alone coeliac disease. Since I can remember I have hounded my various GPs determined to get to the bottom of my joint pains. This is where it all began – clicky knees. As a girl of 17 doctors oh so wisely informed me it was ‘growing pains’ (?) but dissatisfied with my supposed diagnosis I continued to pursue investigation through my time at university and beyond, when I then developed clicky ankles.

With a strong family history of arthritis I was anxious to eliminate this as the cause of my complaint. Memories of my dear Nan, who suffered both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis and how incapacitated she became, fuelled my drive to get to the bottom of the issue – particularly as it seemed to be branching out to other limbs.

Embarking on my new life in London after university, I began to find that I was waking in the night to release my ankles from feeling stuck. Off to the GP again, and this time I actually made some progress and was referred for arthritis tests at the hospital.

Negative. No arthritis - great news!

But what is it that’s causing my joints to crack and actually get rather painful? I kept asking myself.

During this long investigative period I was also studying a food degree where among other things, we were exposed to cutting edge nutrition research, and quickly learned to appreciate the connection between what you eat and what happens to your body. This was a subject I remained massively interested in, and when working in the food industry attending a conference on food trends I attended a talk by Patrick Holford. He spoke about his theory of optimum nutrition and the impact of specific nutrients and foods on health so, in my normal knowledge seeking self quickly bought his Optimum Nutrition bible to learn more.

Scouring the index for information on arthritis – knowing I didn’t have the condition, but still suffering the symptoms – I started to discover the impact of wheat and dairy on the joints, how glucosamine and fatty acids can improve joint function and reduce pain and plenty more enlightening facts…

Reading this and around the subject further, I decided to reduce my intake of wheat. This was a big undertaking as I have always had a sweet tooth. I have many sweet memories of happily devouring freshly toasted crumpets or English muffins dripping with butter, home made maltloaf on return from school, pasta carbonara in the local Italian as a student and dense chewy Italian bread toasted to a crisp topped with fresh local ricotta and olive oil as my Italian breakfast in the morning sun.

Mmmm heaven…

But I decided to give it a go, largely based on wisdom from my unofficial sister in-law based on a lifetime of allergies. She is seriously allergic to eggs but has stangely found herself craving eggy foods before. Delving into this further, I learnt that you often and rather unfortunately crave the things that are bad for you. For me its croissants, muffins, toast and anything remotely wheaty… I figured I could be onto something.

So, giving up wheat, replacing my morning toast with porridge and my evening pasta with puy lentils I began to feel much better. I missed my croissant fix but was happy to be feeling better.

Untill my boozy weekend in Dublin. Somehow I managed to eat bread at every meal. Not delicious homemade soda bread, but supermarket bread to mop up the yolk of my fried egg and hangover. And boy was I ill. I will spare you the details –here but for those with stronger stomachs the symptoms look here.

So, when I returned to my GP to pick up where I had left off on the joint issue, I mentioned in passing my unpleasant bread experience and bingo… I was despatched to the gastro man and one year later here I am. Living gluten free and loving it.

I have to finish this piece by saying that getting diagnosed has been one of the best things to happen to me. I have totally reconnected with my passion for food, I am thrilled to be back in the kitchen, cooking loads and experimenting with natural gluten free foods. I am really healthy these days and I even lost 5kilos!

Happy Gluten Free Anniversary to me – and yes I will be going for dinner to celebrate!

Sharp knives and supper

This Christmas I had received a virtual voucher for a cooking course of my choice and I had been searching for a class I really wanted to do. So, last night I ventured into the Marylebone Ginger Pig shop after hours to attend a lamb butchery class.

In the name of eating good local food, but unable to justify a humongous budget for it, I am enjoying learning how to be thrifty. An introduction to the cheaper and tastier cuts by Hugh Fernley Whittingstall’s Meat book, I was looking to learn more about the subject; what part of the animal different cuts come from and how best to cook them, with the ultimate aim of buying great value for money local meat. The course was an incredible insight into the work and skill put into getting a simple lamb chump steak onto the plate and I will be returning to absorb even more from both their beef and pork sessions.

Unlike many courses, this one was really hands on – more than I expected when we were playing around with expensive rare breed meat - and I went home with dried blood under my nails to prove it. With only 6 per class, it was an intimate evening with Perry and Borut, two butchers who between them have 45 years experience in slicing and dicing meat. In typical butcher style, it was a light hearted evening with plenty of banter at the token girl’s expense, but there was a serious undertone of respect for the animals about to be butchered and the safe handling of deadly knives and saws.

Borut began the evening talking us about the three Ginger Pig Yorkshire farms, explaining how they control as much of the process as possible, from growing their own animal feed to selling it in their own shops, and hopefully to the point of building their own abattoir. Many mysterious butchery terms were uncovered, and we learnt that male and female lambs over 1 year are called hogget, and female lambs over 2 years are mutton. Unfortunately the boys are surplus to requirements after their reproductive duties – it is a woman’s world after all!

Talking over with, we moved to the butchers block to watch Perry expertly segment the first of the lambs. The beautiful dark marbled meat that was strangely dry but soft (due to the breed selected) was turned into recognisable cuts with admirable precision, ease and speed. Helping us to understand what part of the animal each part comes from, the group talked through the wealth of names used for different cuts and parts, the lambs anatomy gradually starting to make sense.

Then it was time to get stuck in as we each took a turn at removing the legs, belly, and shoulders using the company’s favoured continental butchery style of “seaming”, working with the natural seams in the meat to preserve the muscle quality. As I found out when removing the shoulders from the ribcage, much of this requires brut force and could be indicator to why most butchers are blokes.

More hands on experience, this time preparing a roasting joint by de-boning and rolling our own shoulder of lamb. Watching Perry pull out three clean shoulder bones, roll and secure it with terrifying ease…how was I ever to repeat that? I asked.

Surprisingly, once I got used to working with the tip of the knife against the bone, and looking for the natural seams, despite being one of the last to remove my bones, I got there. For some of the class, the real mystery came with tying the butchers’ knots, and thankfully my inner Girl Guide shone through meaning I was not last to complete. (Yes, there is alway an elemnent of competition!)

Finishing the evening with a delicious simple supper of slow cooked shoulder of lamb on the bone, and a well deserved glass of red, we chatted until the wine bottle was empty. I then hopped in the cab laden with my not so perfectly rolled shoulder of lamb, complete with bones to make stock at the weekend.

Happy Christmas!

Gone fishing....

I love markets – particularly food markets, although I do love to rummage through a good flea market when the opportunity arises. There is something unique about the energy and atmosphere generated by a collection of people selling their wares that makes the whole experience more colourful and fun. Maybe I am just an old romantic with images of quaint French men selling “fromage” on the streets of Paris… Personally though, the lure of interaction with people whose knowledge and experience can turn for example a randomly purchased pork knuckle, into one of the best meals I have had, is just simply irresistible.

Since writing my article for Time Out London on local fish I have come to understand the raft of value for money suppers that can be made from local, seasonal fish. Standing on pelagic trawler (fishing boat to you and me) in the choppy Thames Estuary I very quickly understood how little I knew about the subject, so I booked myself onto a course at Billingsgate Fish Market.

On this occasion I wasn’t there to learn how to prepare and cook the fish, although they do have a wonderful collection of fish cookery courses based at the market that I will be following up on - I was there to satisfy my love of markets with a tour.

Billingsgate is the largest inland fish market in the country and caters to both the general public and restaurant trade – so you too can grab yourself some amazingly priced fish, although with the market only open from 5-8am, you have to be early to get the good stuff. Housed in a purpose built building since the 1980’s, the fish market sits in the shadows of Canary Wharf on the waters of the dock, a no less grand, but definitely more modern location than its previous setting near London Bridge since 1850.

The tour began rather early at 6.15am, when the market was already in full swing, and our intimate group of five were shown round by Barry from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers. As I remember, he was responsible for quality at the market, so certainly knew a bad fish when he saw one.

First off we were shown the crucial points to look for when buying fresh fish. Barry pulled a huge farmed salmon onto the table to demonstrate the qualities we should be looking for using a nose to tail approach. Some great tips that I picked up were:

• Eyes should be bright and clear, like glass – not cloudy
• Look into the gills to check their colour. They should be bright red in most fish.
• Look inside the belly if it has been gutted and make sure it is cleaned out
• Fish are naturally slimy – not wet. Fish have a natural slime over their whole body that protects them from parasites and also makes them impossible to pick up.

In pelagic species (fish that swim near the surface of the sea – I just learnt that!) this will be thin slime. For fish that live nearer the seabed such as Dover sole as in the picture above, it will be like snot. Honest! Imagine Slimmer from the Ghostbusters films – just like that! Slime is a good thing though as this is a naturally occurring layer over the fish which prevents the caught fish’s flesh from deteriorating….so look for slimy fish!

(Apparently the supermarkets and some fishmongers wash off the slime since customers don’t like it, so that’s why they have to spray them with water to keep them looking fresh).

The group was then guided round some of the stalls where Roy talked through a raft of fish species such as Hake, Dover and lemon sole, halibut, brill, tuna, cod, pollack, sea bass, mackrel, sprats and herrings. We were bombarded with information about the species, their quality (pointing out ones that were past their best – providing great examples of what not to buy!), cooking tips and how they were caught.

In addition to this, we covered shellfish, looking at the various prawns for sale, learning the difference between native and Canadian lobsters, rope grown and wild mussels, and about hand dived, dredged, soaked and dry scallops. (There is not enough space here to mention everything I learnt, but scallops was the particularly interesting subject. Short story – don’t buy “soaked” supermarket scallops!)

After shellfish we moved onto smoked fish, where we enjoyed a sneaky taste of kiln smoked salmon whilst being talked through hot and cold smoking processes used for the sprats, kippers and haddock on view.

Phew…

Then last, but by no means least we came to this huge chest of metal drawers…..

any ideas what's inside...

...Live eels!

So, with numb feet and a memory full of fish, we headed back for a cup of coffee to thaw out. Dashing off after big thanks for Barry, I dived into the car and headed off to work high on all the knowledge I had acquired in just 2 hours and so early in the morning! Amazing!

Learning to write

Back in September 2007, I began a course that I had umm’ed and ahh’ed about for a while, not sure if it was another faddy interest of mine. I have always been a bit of a nerd, and remember spending a whole Easter holiday as a teenager hiding away in my mums’ bedroom (away from the distractions of my own) with piles of folders, text books and notes studying for my exams. Secretly I absolutely loved it, and a few years on I openly admit to loving books, researching and learning. I get a real thrill from absorbing information from the “experts” and eagerly search the internet and events listings for something interesting – and let’s admit usually related to food.

So the course I started last year was an evening course in Food and Drink Journalism at City University. Given my then, recent diagnosis with coeliac disease and having just left work in the corporate food world, it seemed a timely moment to peruse other career opportunities, doing something I enjoyed.

The course is currently run by Lulu Grimes from Olive Magazine and Guy Dimond the food and drink editor at Time Out, and it has to be said that it was one of the best course I have taken. The content was varied, covering restaurant reviews, recipe writing, blogging, drinks writing, cookery book publishing, radio journalism, all dotted with visits from guest speakers, including Richard Erlich who writes for Good Housekeeping and Time Out and the producer of the fabulous Radio 4 Food Programme.

As part of the course there was a fair amount of homework – something I always secretly thrive on – and one such piece was to pitch and write a feature, which would then make up that terms class magazine. This process of pitching and writing was supported by some incredibly detailed and valuable feedback, and I have to admit to loving every second of the writing. Anyway, to cut what could be a very long story short, after the final submission of my feature, at the bottom of the page, Guy asked if I would be interested in working on the piece a bit more, to get it published.

Did he need to ask? Did he think I would say “nah, you’re alright thanks”?

I couldn’t believe what I was reading!

Guy thought this was good enough for publication? You can imagine my yelps of woohoos!


So, here it is. Six full months after beginning a course that I thought would just keep me occupied on some cold Monday nights, it actually led me to being a published! It was the most incredible experience, full of the highs and lows that come with learning something new, and I learnt more than I ever could have imagined. To read the article, click on the link below:


Time out - Fishing in the Thames

In the spirit of life long learning, I always welcome (constructive) feedback, so feel free to drop me a line to let me know what you think.

I hope you learn something too.