abooja

Stay tuned for my wrapup of pastrami dinner night...

As if baking tasty wheat bread wasn't difficult enough, along comes the imposter, gluten free bread. Like a Bruce Lee body double without the skills, it almost passes for the real thing, but only from a distance. Up close, most gluten free breads lack the exquisite form and good taste of the wheat breads they mimic. And that's the good news. Granted, I have only baked gluten free for a couple of months now. My efforts may improve with time. What I baked today, for instance, can't possibly be as good as it gets, at least in terms of looks. I have yet to slice into it. Soon. I decided to make Zoe Francois' recipe for gluten free baguettes, but shaped the dough as a boule, since I wanted to serve it with pastrami. It calls for a cup and a half each of King Arthur Flour's gluten free multi purpose flour and Ancient Grains blend. I had the multi purpose stuff, but not the other. I found on the KAF website that Ancient Grains is a "blend of 30% each amaranth, millet, and sorghum flours, plus 10% quinoa flour. I had everything, but the amaranth, so I used teff flour instead. I've since read that teff is often used in gluten free "rye" breads, which works for my my purposes. As with most artisan-in-five-minutes type breads, the mixing can be done right in the rising bucket. I'm paranoid about not mixing the ingredients well enough, so I first whisked the dry ingredients in a large bowl. The recipe includes a ground flax mixture as an egg substitute. The preground flax straight out of the bag was too course to gelatinize, so I ground it much more finely in my coffee grinder. This worked, and was stirred into the flour mixture, along with oil, honey, and water, then plopped into the bucket. One of the saddest things about gluten free bread, besides eating it, is that it deprives the baker of the opportunity to knead, shape or, otherwise, really manhandle the dough. It wants to be treated gently. It's more batter than dough. This particular dough felt like thick, doughy foam, more so after it rose. Shaping it was like a third grade art project, scooping the gelatinous foam from the bucket with wet hands, then gently molding it into a boule-like shape without losing too many air bubbles. This is Sculpture 101, not Gymnastics. Apparently, adding enough flour to make a gf dough pliable will render hockey pucks. Speaking of which, here are some photos of the finished loaf. Cross-sections are not yet available. It doesn't look altogether awful, but I haven't cut into it yet. Verdict? To be determined. By the way, I've stopped using my Droid for photographs, even though it's got five whole megapixels compared to my old Olympus, which has four. I started using it when I forgot my usual camera for Saturday's party, then kept using it in order to be consistent. I'm sorry that I ever did. Even at four megapixels, the Olympus takes much clearer photographs. That's because I can lock it into my tripod, whereas I just lean the Droid on whatever is handy. Big mistake. I invariably lose whatever focus I may have achieved when I press the button to take a photo. These photos were taken with both cameras.

I have been slacking off on my planned blogging duties this week. It has already been an exhausting, but fun, few days. Howard also experienced hypoglycemic episodes two evenings in a row, undoubtedly from waiting so long for me to serve dinner. I asked him to bring home Chinese takeout last night, rather than wait until God knows when for all the elements of the meal to come together. Pastrami and rye (or roast beef and rye ) will, therefore, be eaten tonight. Today, I will assemble the seven layer cake, bake the rye bread, and bake the gluten free boule that, in a rush of guilt, I threw in at the last minute. Fortunately, we have enough leftover Chinese takeout to tide us over when my long awaited pastrami dinner is officially declared a failure, sometime around 6 p.m. tonight. For what it's worth, this was the first time we have eaten Chinese takeout since my diet began, and I didn't get sick! We had chicken with cashew nuts, Shanghai shrimp, and boneless pork ribs. I'm pretty sure the ribs contained some gluten, possibly in the form of wheat flour in the hoisin sauce. But I avoided my usual favorites, like wonton soup, steamed pork dumplings, and moo shu pork with Mandarin pancakes, which would have delivered a more powerful wallop of gluten-induced distress in just one or two forkfuls. I miss that stuff terribly, but I value my health more. Wait, did I just say that?? Health schmealth! Schmearing French buttercream on some layer cakes should fix me right up...

If it was just brussels sprouts that he put up a fight about, I wouldn't so much mind. Historically, he has hated all vegetables, except iceberg lettuce, green beans, peas, carrots, potatoes, and corn. He has gotten a lot better about it, but it's still an uphill battle. Like Woody Allen in Sleeper, he's holding out for the day when vegetables are declared junk food, and large slices of chocolate cake are considered healthy. Thanks for the kind words, but I may soon have to declare this pastrami a failure. I haven't cut into it yet, but it feels like a very large, expensive piece of jerky. Might be serving store-bought roast beef on that rye bread, after all.

Why, thank you! You're being too kind. And Howard will undoubtedly gloat about his amazing brussels sprout intake upon reading your comment. I used to like Goya black bean soup. Not as soup, but as a topping for rice. I read that it wasn't considered GF, so I stopped eating it. Of course, I have no idea if the stuff I had this afternoon is GF, because I'm being a bit less strict these days. It was Progresso's Frijoles Negros y Jalapeno. As for the nuts, I lately favor Planter's South Beach Diet mix of almonds, cashews, and macadamias. Shortly before that, we polished off an industrial sized tin of Planter's Virginia peanuts. I didn't care as much for its sister tin of cashews. The cashew quality is far superior in the mixed nut collection. I currently have nothing good to say about GF granola bars. The few bars I've tried, including both granola and breakfast bars, have been moderately tolerable, at best, and downright awful, at worst. I don't mind the peanut butter chocolate granola bar from Bakery On Main. They're not very filling, and I can't always find them. But I don't daydream about eating them. They're sustenance, and little more. I find this to be a shame. Most of the elements of good granola can be eaten by those with gluten sensitivity, including nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and oats, if you use the GF kind. I hate how most mainstream, GF packaged foods seem to be the domain of the healthy foods industry. Why can't my granola bar have real sugar in it?

Dinner last night was uneventful. All-night pastrami making will do that to you. I wasn't even going to mention it, but thought that, in the interest of full disclosure, sharing this frequent weeknight staple might be vaguely interesting. I will, however, spare you photos of the gluten free granola bars and the many handfuls of salted nuts I typically eat for breakfast and lunch, as well as this bowl of canned black bean soup that sits in front of me as I write. Given that Tuesday night's dinner was sandwiched between chicken pot pie on Monday night and pastrami sandwiches tonight, I wanted light and relatively healthy fare. And simple. That meant making my standard salmon dinner of grilled soy and maple glazed salmon, maple and brown butter roasted carrots (both recipes courtesy, once again, of Cooks Illustrated), roasted brussels sprouts, and some type of starch, usually rice. To spare what was left of my sanity, last night's starch was supposed to be steamed jasmine rice. Except, I screwed up and reached for the bin of basmati rice instead. (Actual basmati. I just store it in the Texmati container.) Unless I'm making a pilaf, I typically boil basmati like pasta. I've only ever steamed jasmine. Until last night. No wonder it tasted so odd. Gluten free tamari took the place of regular soy sauce. For me, the real stars of this show are the brussels sprouts. For Howard, not so much. I did not grow up eating them, and the versions he was served were boiled and bitter. It took a lot of convincing to get him to try even one the first time. He's much better about it now, but will bristle if I place more than this exact amount on his plate. Speaking of which, I know I'm terrible at plating. We recently purchased a few sets of smaller, round dishes because Howard thought that the size of these flat plates was compelling me to serve huge portions. I still reach for them when plating this particular meal, however, as I hate it when the sweet maple-soy glaze sticks to the brussels sprouts. Yes, I'm one of those people. Not with all foods, but with this meal. On a giant, blue dinner plate, each element can exist in its own time zone, preserving the integrity of the brussels sprouts. I'm off to bake a gluten free seven layer cake. I hope. Edited for yet another typo, etc.

Our back deck is partly shielded by a hill that runs parallel to it. Wind will breeze through the valley between the hill and three pairs of semi-detached townhouses, including ours. Assuming I continue this winter smoking lunacy, I may consider placing a sheet of plexiglass to the right of the smoker, when in use. We already own such a sheet, which we purchased for candle burning on our 10th floor Hackensack balcony. I wish I had thought of that earlier.

Thanks! I would gladly drive to Philly for fatty plate. (Try saying that five times, fast.) I didn't think I should have to. I never thought it possible that *I* could know about a cut of meat that a butcher did not. The place I went to received several good reviews. Who runs a butcher shop and cannot even conceive of the possibility that a cook might want extra fat on her brisket? Never again.

Having completely misjudged how long it would take to smoke a nine-pound brisket in what is now subfreezing weather, I am still up at 2:00 3:30 a.m., nursing the smoker. May as well blog about it. I knew that this pastrami was cursed from day one. I buy my meat at Wegmans and Sam’s Club, with an occasional foray into Giant for chicken. But I didn’t want ordinary, cryovaced brisket for this pastrami. I wanted plate. Or navel. Um, navel plate? Whatever it’s called, I never got it. I sourced out what was supposed to be a very nice butcher within fifteen miles of here. The guy who helped me first claimed to have no idea what plate was, then proceeded to say, “but, isn’t that stuff really fatty?” He said he couldn’t even custom order it for me. I was speechless. He kept pressing me for an order and, not wanting to waste a trip, I asked for two briskets. I never even looked at the price. It was more than $100. Furthermore, it was almost completely stripped of fat. Devastating. The morning before we left for the party, I seasoned the larger of the two briskets with a combination of kosher salt, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, sugar, cloves, bay leaves, and saltpeter, per Chef Fowkes' recipe in The Great Pastrami & Smoked Meat Experiment . I ground the spices in my former coffee grinder, which was a breeze. (I will be upgrading to a burr grinder soon, if I play my cards right.) Not quite as easy was the task of trying to shove this brisket into a long, but narrow, Foodsaver bag without losing all of the seasoning. Here's a shot of it, post-shove, at the bottom of my spare fridge, getting pressed to death. Three days later, I cut open its vacuum-sealed bag. Removing the dry cure was a snap with the help of a pastry scraper. Two male cardinals observed the pastrami making process. One remarked, "All this work! Can't you just drive to Famous Fourth Street Deli and order a freaking sandwich?" You have to soak the cured meat for three hours, changing the water every half hour. This was a nuisance, more so because I initially neglected to support the steam pan from below, and placed it six feet from the sink. The first time I carried it across the room to drain it, I spilled about a quart of water on my counters and floor. This is before that happened. While it soaked, I prepared the final coating: two parts black peppercorns and one part coriander seeds, also ground in the coffee mill. The brisket now resembled a large, breaded cutlet. It was then weighted down overnight. The next disaster was, and continues to be, the smoking of the meat. As I've mentioned, the charcoal has been rained on, and ashes deposited across the entire surface of the brisket. I started this way too late to begin with, then had to tack on several more hours worth of smoke time. It's difficult maintaining a 225 - 250 degree fire in this cold weather. I tend to think my smoker, a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker, is misaligned and, therefore, not maintaining its temperature as well as it's purported to do. Getting the fire going was a no-brainer with the assistance of a chimney starter. I then dumped the hot coals on a pile of cold coals at the base of the smoker. I replaced the midsection of the smoker, and added the brisket. A remote thermometer, plugged into a section of wooden spoon, was placed in the grating to monitor smoker temperature. Another probe thermometer was placed in the brisket itself, and soon removed when it started giving wacky readings. Finally, I topped the smoker and crossed my fingers. I would use the Thermapen to check the temperature of the pastrami from time to time. Did I mention it was cold? Colder still, now. Incidentally, I just pulled it from the smoker. I was supposed to weight it down again, cool it for another 24 hours, then steam it for three, weight and cool it again, etc, but that's just not going to happen. Definitely the steaming, but only once. I want to serve this thing tomorrow. To be continued...

Yes, I agree the filling looks fabulous. Just like what I'd want in a pot pie.....I can feel the creamy warmth from it. Thanks! It grew on me after today's lunch -- in more ways than one.

Thank you! I hated not being able to have a pretty crust, but the original recipe never crimped too well, either. At this point, I'm just happy to make meals that are edible.

The best laid plans... I asked Howard to tend the smoker for me while I showered. By the time I got out of the bathroom, he was on edge because the alarm for the remote thermometer kept going off and, each time, he would have to add water or charcoal, close or open vents, etc. I was more concerned that the meat was overcooked, since the other thermometer, in the pastrami itself, had a very high reading after just two hours. I took its temperature, and it was fine. I came back inside and finished making dinner. A short while ago, I decided to test it again. This time, I noticed its ashen veneer. I wondered if it was, in fact, well overcooked, and if the spice rub had seized on the pastrami's surface. It's been dark out for the last several hours, so it was hard to tell. Then, it struck me. Howard had mentioned how a puff of smoke flew up into his face when adding the water to lower the temperature. He said it happened a couple of times, but I was too busy prepping dinner to pay it any mind. As he would soon confirm, he had been pouring the water directly over the hot coals! He didn't even remember that the smoker included a water basin. He was dumbstruck. I was livid. It turns out, I was able to rinse most of the ash away. I made some more spice mixture, pressed it back on, and set the brisket back to smoking. Here's what it looked like before I did all that:

Actually, yes. I stockpile it for baking purposes, particularly at the end of the year. If you'll notice, another twelve pounds lurk in the refrigerator.

I have been outside in my pajamas while tending the smoker with the pastrami in it, but I thought I'd post some fridge shots before taking my first shower in two days. This is the spare refrigerator in the basement/media room. My parents bought it for us as a wedding present because the fridge in our old Lawrenceville apartment had a miserable, old over-under number that was way too small, even for just the two of us. This one sees a lot of bulky leftovers, large bags of onions, beverages, and cookie dough (soon to come). In this case, I'm storing the vacuum sealed, pressed pastrami under two cast iron dutch ovens weighted down by water bottles. The next two shots are of the deep freezer, right next to the downstairs fridge in the media room. The bottom drawer is filled with chocolate, nuts, and various chips. The shelf directly above contains most of my storage flours, as opposed to the stuff I use regularly. I'm guessing that I must have 22 or more by now, but I haven't counted since before the gluten free diet began. Above that is one of the free turkeys we recently got from Giant, a local chain supermarket, along with a pork shoulder, various cuts of lamb, etc. Above that is the first free Giant turkey, when I was still able to get Empire kosher. Those ran out in no time. There also are a dozen or so two-packs of homemade hamburgers and a few packages of cooked meatballs. The meatballs are not gluten free, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to eat them after all the work that went into making them. I always store butter in the freezer door. The white box of Valrhona batons is the blur in the upper left-hand corner. One day... Edited for grammar, etc.

We still have a bag of that from when Howard was following an allergy elimination diet that included just rice, lamb, and a handful of other foods. He couldn't stand it and, quite honestly, I never tried it because the color just didn't appeal to me, let alone the texture.

Last night, I made gluten free chicken pot pies. I've been working on other projects simultaneously, about which I'll post shortly, so dinner wasn't served until 9 p.m. Since my all-time record is 11:50 p.m. on Christmas 2009, I was feeling pretty good about this. I also have not made pot pies in forever, and this is my first attempt at making a GF pie crust, so there was a bit of a learning curve. My primary concern, naturally, was the crust. I wanted it to be flaky, and not biscuit-like, so I nixed the recipe from Gluten-Free Baking Classics (Annalise G. Roberts) because it included an egg in the dough mix. I'm a big fan of the vodka pie crust recipe from Cooks Illustrated. I found a GF version of the recipe in the comments section on SeriousEats.com, and went with it. It substitutes brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour for the all-purpose flour, plus 2-1/2 teaspoons of xanthan gum. All other ingredients and proportions are identical to the original recipe. Backing up a bit, I'd like to talk about the recipe conversion process. I keep a copy of the original recipe handy, which I have already converted to weight measurements, a notebook, a calculator, a scale, and a cheat sheet with the one cup weight equivalent of an assortment of GF flours, which I previously scaled out via the dip and scoop method. There is both chilled shortening and cubed, cold butter in this recipe, making even the GF version rich and flaky. The finished dough chilled for a few hours, then I scaled out 4-ounce chunks, one for each 7.5" pie plate. By the time I took this shot, it lost .05 ounces of weight. Rolling it out was more of a hassle than usual. The dough was quite dry. The recipe I used called for .5 cup more flour than the original CI recipe, but I went with it because the guy claimed success. I have also found that GF recipes require a bit more flour than those with wheat flour. I had to be especially careful with this dough which, in its original incarnation, is quite moist. As for the filling, I knew that I wanted something distinctly unexotic, with carrots, peas, and potatoes to accompany the chicken. Once again, I went with Cooks Illustrated, but made some adjustments. I poached two pounds of whole, split chicken breasts instead of boneless. Their recipe does not include potatoes, so I boiled some cubed russets in an adjacent pot. Frozen peas defrosted on the hot stovetop. The original recipe involves making a light roux with .5 cup of all-purpose flour. Since I was adding potatoes, and was averse to the idea of using that much GF flour in the filling, I just thickened the stew with a cornstarch slurry and the aforementioned potatoes. I also added 1 tablespoon of dry sherry instead of 3, and about 2 ounces of heavy cream to finish. I could have done without the parsley, visually speaking, but I used much less of that as well. I typically like a two-crust pot pie, but was concerned about the GF pie crust holding up, and wanted to cut back on the carbs for Howard's sake, if not for my own. The original CI recipe calls for keeping the filling hot before topping it with crust. This runs counter to all my instincts about baking pies, but I dutifully followed the recipe anyway. This crust, while crumbly and impossible to crimp while cold, was equally impossible to crimp after it warmed up, so I sort of just smooshed it into the indentations on the plates. Here's what they looked like before all that: And after they came out of the oven: The verdict? Pretty darn good! While neither the filling nor the crust was ideal, they were certainly more than adequate. The crust was flaky, though not nearly as flaky as the original recipe. It tasted "normal", with no odd aromas or flavors. As underwhelming as that must sound, that is a major achievement for me. I don't want to make food that tastes okay, considering it's gluten free, but food I enjoy eating so much that I don't even think twice about its gluten content. This was one such dish. Success! Coming up: Pastrami & Rye Prep Edited for grammar

Thanks! I think you're going to be disappointed when I tell you what they really are. The square ones are Corelle dinner dishes we bought at some outlet in New Jersey when we first got together. The large platter is an Emile Henry piece that I bought on discount at Century 21 in Manhattan when I worked in the area. And that wavy dish? Martha Stewart dessert plates (we have the matching mugs!) from Kmart. As for the pronunciation of Acme, I have never heard that. Then again, I never shop at Acme (too depressing), plus we've only lived here two years.

Thanks! I really enjoyed your blog last week, particularly the reaction I got when sharing the photo of the raw kangaroo meat with my husband. It's only been a couple of months, but I've found this diet easiest to handle when I focus on reasonable substitutes in dishes that I would typically prepare. Thus far, I do not consider GF bread to be a reasonable substitute. I've baked hamburger buns from scratch and hot dog buns from a King Arthur Flour mix, and hated both. The hamburger buns, however, made pretty fabulous bread crumbs, so I used them to prepare a chicken parmigiana. The sweets that I've baked have been more successful. The oatmeal raisin cookies were the best, followed by a GF version of the New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe, GF rugelach, GF peach cobbler, and GF brownies. I realize that's a lot of baking for a handful of weeks, but I wanted to know if I could ever come to terms with this as a permanent lifestyle change. I'm starting to believe that I could.

Why, thank you! And I'll have to look up that recipe. No other food allergies here, so we're good on that front. I'm not exactly sure, but I suspect it's been a problem for around ten years. I've always had digestive issues, and they got markedly worse before being diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis a couple of years ago. It's an auto immune disorder that eventually left me saddled with hypothyroidism. Three doctors and three medications later, my current endocrinologist suggested that we may be barking up the wrong tree with my various medications and dosages, and had I considered that I might be gluten sensitive. I tested negative for Celiac, but my digestive health took a distinct turn for the better after a few weeks on the diet. That puts me in the Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS) category, which features many of the same symptoms with the exception, perhaps, of actual damage to the small intestine. This slight difference makes me feel somewhat better about occasionally cheating, but only when really worth it. We'll see how I feel about that Thursday morning, the day after the rye bread.

Noooo, I did not! Wish I had one for myself, in fact. Her gift was considerably less expensive. Hmmm...she must have opened it by now. It was a FoodSaver, with extra bags and plastic rolls. She mostly catered, and had a friend make some dips, including hummous, guacamole, and salsa. I wasn't going to post a photo (since half-eaten dip isn't so photogenic), but since I mentioned it, why not. The photo is blurry and otherwise stinks, but I loved the flowers on the table: I actually prefer the flavor of corn based pastas, like Schär, but still don't love them. This diet is really motivating me to cut back on my carbs.

Unfortunately, with the whole gluten intolerance problem, my days of Chinese fast food are mostly over. I've read here about Han Dynasty, but managed never to get there.

After the party in Brooklyn on Saturday night, we spent the night at my father’s house. I luxuriated much of the morning on a foldout bed, then started on the usual (for my father) early Sunday dinner. Knowing that time was short and the drive home nearly 2.5 hours long, it had to be simple. And Italian. And gluten free, of course. I opted for pasta e fagioli, which I had recently prepared, and enjoyed. My version included canned cannellini beans, roasted tomatoes, lots of finely chopped onion and celery, minced garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, parsley, the dreaded gluten free pasta, and was served with parmigiano reggiano: As a kid, I would sneak spoonfuls of pasta, straight from the colander, before my mother or grandmother added it to the lentil soup. If it was fresh, I would even eat it raw, straight out of the bag, extracting lengths of soft perciatelli from the perforations in the bag. This gluten free stuff has decent texture, if cooked perfectly, but the taste is abhorent. I purchased bionaturae organic gluten free penne because that is what I used the last time, and it worked. I tried to force myself to eat it plain when tasting it for doneness, but had to spit it out. It smells odd. It doesn’t reheat well. But in this soup? Perfectly acceptable, smothered as it was by aromatics and tomato, and contributing to the velvety texture of the soup: The real achievement here is that my father actually enjoyed it. He claimed to notice no taste or texture difference from his usual Barilla, and even asked for a second bowl. I left him with a little over three quarts of the stuff. I'm curious to see how it reheats for him. I deliberately left off the words "Gluten Free" when labeling the soup. Why remind him?

Hi, Cali -- Exton is about a 45-minute drive northwest of Philadelphia. It's very suburban and strip mallish, but in an upscale kind of way. We rent a townhouse at the top of a hill with lots of great wildlife right behind us. More importantly, Wegmans is three miles away. Edited after I looked at a map.

On Saturday, we drove to Brooklyn for my friend's 40th birthday party at the new condo she shares with her newish husband. Against my better judgment, I purchased a fairly sizeable food-related gift that I'm certain she will want to return, and which should take up a good chunk of counter space. I hope it sucks as much as it's purported to. Any guesses as to what it may have been? Nevertheless, she was kind enough to invite us, and to serve us food and drink once we arrived. Here are some photos of the spread: Note the Vitamix lurking in the background of the first shot. There was excellent chicken piccata, which almost certainly glutened me, grilled flank steak, some sort of stuffed chicken breast, spinach lasagna, roasted cauliflower, mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, corn and black bean salad. And dips and chips and salami and cheese. And this cake, which I believe is from The Chocolate Room in Dyker Heights: I decided to exercise some self control and not try the cake, but it was widely adored. Hmmph. I take comfort in the fact that I will be baking a gluten free seven layer cake later in the week, along with my first ever attempt at chocolate macarons, which are naturally gluten free. About this term, "gluten free". I hate it. Prior to beginning this diet nearly two months ago, I cringed at the notion of ever becoming one of its bedeviled practitioners. The words themselves convey cardboardish tastelessness, and a desire to place good health before good taste. Using them as often as I already have in this blog may be offputting to some, and to me, but the facts are what they are. This does not mean I will never cook with gluten again. In fact, I’m baking a rye bread (or two) to go along with the pastrami, since anything less would be a crime. But for as long as I can possibly stand it, I will otherwise try to commit to this diet. I am determined to make my gluten free life as tasty as possible. I also intend to cheat from time to time. I never did get to try the pain au chocolate recipe from Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day, and the Valrhona chocolate batons in the freezer aren’t getting any younger. Next: Dinner with Dad.

As usual, I am late. Why should my first (who am I kidding? -- my only) eGullet food blog differ at all from any other aspect of my life? I am late for things. For instance, dinner will be late tonight. Again. I suppose I could have skipped Dexter last night, but it was really good, and I am really obsessed. Hello, and welcome! As astounding as it may seem, the fine folks at eGullet have invited *me* to blog this week. Me!! Who the hell am I? Clearly, no one. All your eG faves must be holed away in charcuterie and pastry boot camps 'round the world, leaving only yours truly to keep the flame alive. I sort of feel like Will Smith in I Am Legend, except I am neither heroic, nor do I expect this to have as cheerful an ending. -- May I add that I, too, am disappointed that Gifted Gourmet isn’t this week's featured blogger. First things first... This was a meal I prepared for Rosh Hashanah in 2007, while still shacking up with my now-husband, Howard. Sadly, this was not our living room in Ashkelon, Israel, but our first apartment in Hackensack, New Jersey. I spent the first 30 years of my life in Brooklyn, New York – Bensonhurst, to be exact – then a few years in Astoria, Queens, then Hackensack. We’ve since migrated to Lawrenceville, New Jersey and, now, Exton, Pennsylvania. I am of (mostly) Italian American / Roman Catholic extraction, while Howard, originally from the Bronx, is Jewish. Neither of us is religious. After four years together, I still have not mastered the art of of Jewish cookery. There is brisket on the table, along with challah that was made, and served, with butter, as well as butter-laden chocolate babka. Apparently, this is a no no. I have tagged these items as “treif” in Facebook. Fortunately, no one in this household really cares. Unfortunately, we are both going to hell, whose tropical climate may be the most sensible explanation I can offer for the pineapple. I have a couple of things planned for this week, and I am off to go do them. A pastrami is the works, as well as several gluten free items. I recently discovered that gluten is an issue for me. This absolutely kills me. I love to bake bread and, as most of you know, gluten free bread is the stuff of nightmares. Howard is also diabetic, a condition he never took seriously until a few months ago. As such, I will attempt at least one sugar free dessert this week. Then there’s the now annual Christmas cookie bake-a-thon, mostly for distribution to Howard’s colleagues. I plan to make at least eight different varieties, plus some English toffee, and it all needs to be done by December 15th. Of this year! That’s about a pound and a half of cookie per person for several dozen people. You do the math. Doughmaking will have to somehow coincide with the rest of the week’s activities. Given the back pain that helped start the day, I expect to be in full traction by week’s end. More to come… Edited to include religious denomination.