ElaineK

We just moved to the SF Bay area and Sunday was my first farmer's market here. In North Carolina, the farmer's markets were higher quality than the grocery stores, but also more expensive and everyone had the same price for everything. So I was shocked to discover that the prices were lower at the farmer's market here, and that pricing was quite varied even though the market wasn't massive. We'd already done our shopping for the day and still bought: yellow raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cucumbers, cilantro, asparagus, white peaches, yellow peaches, nectarines, sweet cherries, and some absolutely delectable Pacific Snapper. There was so much more delicious stuff I left behind. I'm already plotting apricots and pluots for next week. And more vegetables, especially greens. California produce tastes so much better when it hasn't been trucked 3000 miles and gas-ripened on demand.

I object to the rule for the sake of the rule, and my child would be exempted from it for medical reasons. I'd not send my child to any school with that rule by whatever means necessary, even though she wouldn't be subject to it. The idea that it is better for children to go hungry than to eat a less-healthy-than-someone-else-decided-is-required meal is insane. I had to supervise my child's lunch for a few days this year because she wasn't eating enough, and we were noticing behavioral and educational problems. Discussing it with her teachers, they were also of the opinion that a less-than-nutritious lunch was preferable to no lunch in terms of how much learning happened and how little in-class disruption there was. Are there societal bad things that happen when people eat too much? Yup. Is that the problem of the schools? Does this solve that problem? Not in my opinion. Schools are there to educate. Educating about nutrition and healthy choices and taking care of you body can fall within that mandate. Requiring the consumption of specific foods? No.

There is most certainly a point of diminishing returns for working while inebriated. It's an awful lot like the point of diminishing returns for working while tired. One of our management tools has a big warning on every page not to use it when you're tired, because you can't undo changes that it makes. On the other hand, I know that there's a lot of work that gets done in the evening, sipping a beer or a bourbon and soda. It's mostly documentation, or monitoring patch runs or paperwork. The developers/admins I've seen doing it typically consume far less than a unit of alcohol per hour, and routinely "neglect" their drink when they get absorbed in what they're doing, only to eventually toss the rest of it. The IT developers I've worked with work all hours. So there will be a week of nights that you work until 2am, and then a code push at 9am. And you hang out with your fingers and toes and everything else crossed that you aren't about to discover some undocumented difference between dev and test or test and production. After an hour of testing, you might knock back a few celebratory beers at 10am, soak up some sunshine outside, attempt to build a stirling engine out of random items found in the break room or make yourself a massively over-sugared coffee concoction. Then you spend the rest of the day doing things that require less thought. I don't know, I think that I see monitored and otherwise unrestricted access to alcohol during the day as more a testament to a culture that expects you to live your life in the office than anything else. My husband recently applied for a job with a startup. I looked at their benefits page and said. "They're offering you free breakfast, lunch and dinner. They're going to do your laundry for you and have an in-office gym. That translates to 'We expect you to be at the office from breakfast until after dinner. And we expect you not to have time to do your own laundry or visit your gym when it's open.' You will live at this startup until they go public or fail to make funding. Is that really what you want?" Like it or not, that is usually the nature of a startup. And people who thrive in the pressure-cooker nature of a startup (in my experience) aren't the type to try to work sloshed, because they'd be embarrassed to have their coworkers see shoddy code. Do I think that alcohol-access makes people better than they would be without? Heck no. But it's hard keeping IT talent in the bay area right now. And if a beer keg keeps employees happy without noticeably reducing the quality of their work? I can see why they'd do it.

Just to clarify, you asked Kajikit to acknowledge that, not me. I don't believe that they've replied to the thread since. However, the fact that you may be assessed a fine doesn't change the tenants of the ADA. I don't claim that's fair, but there are many situations in which the intersects of well-intentioned laws aren't completely fair. In the situations I've been in, the local health department was aware that the business owner's hands were tied and would not assess a fine for a service animal being in a food consumption area. Plant tours and the like that would have a service animal in a food prep area would be a far more difficult situation to navigate. Illegal? No. It is a violation of their merchant agreement to require ID when paying with a credit card though. Depending on the card, asking for ID can be a violation of the merchant agreement. Being fully aware of the law means that you need to be aware that the ADA requires you to allow active service animals (those in the company of "their" individual with a disability) into your shop and that you can't enquire too closely into the nature of their disability or the service the dog performs. To do otherwise opens you up to lawsuits that are likely to cost you more than $120 to resolve. Protecting your business is up to you, and some conversations with the local health department about how they would handle it, or your lawyer/small business association about the best ways you can protect yourself from liability may be in order. Moreover, there is no official documentation for service animals in the US. Seeing that piece of paper doesn't give you any more than the illusion of protection. You're not going to photocopy it and keep it around in case the health department asks. You're going to look at it and nod your head and serve your customer and promptly forget what was on it.

And it may be that in BC, documentation is required. In the US, the conversation would pretty much have to go "I'm sorry, we don't allow dogs inside." "It's a service animal" "Oh, ok, then!" There's just no identification or certification/documentation process. It does work on the word of the owner and the word of the owner is sufficient to prevent a fine. Even the vests/harnesses are optional. In the case of a customer who didn't appear to be disabled, and an animal who didn't appear to be trained, I think you can legally ask what service the animal provides, or the general nature of the service, but I'm not particularly clear on those regulations, to be honest. I think that allowing access for service dogs in training without an individual with a disability present may vary in the US on a state by state basis. I'm surprised that in Canada, where there generally seem to be fewer allowances for service animals that a still-in-training dog has equal access.

Because that's what the law says? You're in Vancouver, not the US, though, and Canada is still in the process of codifying treatment of service animals, and it seems to be happening on a Province level. In the US, most service dogs don't have "documents" - they're not required, and those who do have some certification intentionally don't carry them because you're not allowed to require them. See http://www.ada.gov/qasrvc.htm for a good overview. For BC, this seems to be the extent of the law http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/00_96177_01 Because some customers require service dogs in order to enjoy your fine chocolate shop. It's certainly less fun for them than it is for you. Just like it's less fun to need a cane or a wheelchair, especially in in a small and busy shop on a rainy day.

To be honest, I don't usually discuss being gluten intolerant much. It's like anything else involving the immune system, it can vary from no-reaction to life-threatening and how it affects me isn't really anyone else's problem. I've been doing this for 8 years, and it's pretty old-hat to me by now. Some of my precautions are probably overboard, but.. eh, better than the other way. There currently is no FDA standard for gluten free labeling. The FDA is currently proposing standards of 20 ppm (parts per million, so .00002%), which is what the EU standard is now. Those numbers she gave you are completely fictitious, and I'd suspect the whole story, given that there's no buzz at all about beans and gluten testing, let alone -your- beans and gluten testing. And that kind of thing spreads like wildfire in the gluten free community.

It can carry "enough". I'm not a fearmonger, but I am remarkable sensitive. And yes, I got sick from what we presumed to be our nonstick cookware when I was first diagnosed. Do I have proof that's what it was? Nope. Do I eat foods cooked in known 'contaminated' nonstick now? Nope. At least not on anything approaching a regular basis. Scratches and dings can obviously make it more problematic, as can different cleaning methods, since nonstick surfaces tend to acquire an oil film. It's an auto-immune reaction, and you can trigger it with less than 200 parts per million. That's roughly on the order of seven times the amount of sodium in my tap water. At that level it's likely to be a minor reaction (possibly even unnoticeable), but minor reactions add up and suddenly you're not getting better anymore, or you're getting markedly worse. And you start looking at anything new in your diet, instead of an accumulation of old things that you decided were "good enough". And you call and ask questions that sound insane, because there's only one new thing in your diet, so it must be making you sick. And all the while it's your nonstick cookware, or your wooden spoons, your seasoned cast iron, your stand mixer that blows wheat flour out of the motor, or your breakfast drink that added "wheat starch" to their ingredients and you didn't notice. For me - a gluten reaction is three days off work with symptoms that mimic appendicitis. New nonstick cookware is dirt cheap by comparison.

For reference, the home tests go down (accurately) to about 10 parts per million. If my math is right she's claiming that you tested at 10,000 parts per million. That's high enough that the EU won't let a product be labeled as gluten free and there are good reasons to believe that the old EU standards (200 ppm) were too generous for ideal health. Those are -freakishly- high numbers, IMO for a natural product, and would be sufficient cause for me never to buy it again. That said, I don't believe it. Wheat bread is usually 10% gluten by weight. So that would be contamination equivalent to 1% wheat bread in a bag of beans. You'd almost SEE that in the beans. Moreover, the home tests involve pulverizing the food and mixing it to a paste or slurry with water, which I think most people would find impractical to do without soaking/cooking the beans or introducing other avenues of cross contamination. And then you get a positive or a negative, not anything as precise as a percentage. I eat beans that are packed on shared equipment with wheat and barley, and could potentially have grains of either in them. I pick/rinse/soak and don't worry about it. And I'm highly sensitive. I'll point out for your future reference though that boiling and simmering don't do anything to eliminate gluten.

As someone who's struggling with it now (and the poor kid is seriously underweight to boot), patience. Lots of patience. Yelling and screaming and pressing the point got us vomiting. Nagging from well-meaning relatives about how she was never going to eat anything but specific brands of macaroni and cheese got us not eating at all. Rationality, negotiation, "mouse bites", licks, letting her help cook, letting her pick. Letting her eat food off our plates... Mostly though, we just go with the flow on food. Macaroni and cheese because pasta with butter and parmesan (specific brands, because other ones "had a taste"), which became pasta with tomato sauce and parm. Cole slaw that's slowly widened to several different types of dressing. Following acceptable flavors got us from dill pickles to fresh cucumber salad and balsamic dressing for carrots and cabbage (from the slaw). The really hard part is not "losing" foods. She'll take a sudden irrational dislike to foods she's adored. They just "don't taste right" anymore, and we scramble for a bit finding replacements and altering things. Some of them come back, and some don't. I wish I knew why.

Reform Judaism + Secular Christianity + a multitude of food allergies has lead to a Christmas day tradition of Christmas movies, family games and a steady stream of homemade Chinese-American food. We'll start the day with rice porridge, topped with soft egg, pork of some persuasion (likely stir-fried with chilis, cloud ear, garlic, ginger, scallion, and chili-bean paste), and bok choy/other green. Mid-day nibbles of gingery chicken wings, salt and pepper shrimp and another vegetable or two TBD, possibly a quick pickle. Then dry fried string beans, a noodle dish TBD, bean sprouts with cilantro, maybe kung pao or sichuan chicken. Much ultimately depends on what good-looking vegetables we find at the market in the few days before the 25th, as well as when we exceed the capacity of our bellies.

I don't think that restaurants attempting to be "healthy" suffer more than other chains. People are generally incapable of remembering pricing or calorie information for very long, and are unlikely to say "Gosh, the calorie counts on these salads are kind of high, lets go to McDonalds!" And if they suffer at all, or people's habits change at all, appears to be debatable. That said, I do think it's reasonable to provide a minimum of calorie counts, even if as a consumer, that's only the start of the my decision tree. I'll admit it - I'm fat. No one forced calories in my mouth, and for the most part, I've cooked them myself over the last several years. I've hit the point that I'm not willing to be fat anymore, and frankly, while it isn't as sexy as other diets, controlling calories works for me to take the pounds back off. For me - a calorie -is- a calorie. From the perspective of weight management - my body doesn't care if it's a calorie from fat or a calorie from broccoli. (Yes, there are some minor variations in metabolism, but they're largely irrelevant compared to the calorie flux between one restaurant sandwich and another.) I still eat out at restaurants occasionally, and I do look at calorie counts (sometimes in advance, and more often after the fact). Those calorie counts help me decide what's a 'good deal' for my calorie budget. Sometimes it's the "healthy" option, and sometimes it isn't. But knowing that the salad and the burger have the same 800 calories gives me a metric for comparison.

Change "foods" to the word of your choice and the statement is probably equally true. Software, televisions, automobiles, statistics, journalism, music, literature, movies, art...

This. Exactly this. I've been gluten free for seven or eight years now (and I can't eat potatoes, and the spouse can't have unfermented soy), and I don't crave the foods I can't have. I crave being able to go out to lunch or dinner on the spur of the moment. I crave not having to explain my diagnosis or my eating habits to people I barely know. I crave being able to trust people (who I know have the best intentions, and make the best efforts) to serve me food that doesn't make me sick.

I can't speak to the comparison, but when my coffee guy started selling Technivorms, he had some blog posts that might be interesting to you. http://muddydogcoffee.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/6-easy-steps-to-the-worlds-best-drip-coffee-at-home/ http://muddydogcoffee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/the-technivorm-cheat-sheet-to-making-ultimate-coffee/

Down to four ounces in glass. http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=3430060 Kimble Chase makes some dual scale ones, but they're quite expensive. http://www.safehomeproducts.com/shp2/product/graduate-1oz/30ml/mattress-pads-and-covers/257357/257357.aspx?source=GoogleBase - might work, and glass conical dual-scale graduates seem to be popular on pharmacy supply websites.

Fresh picked blackberries with milk and a sprinkle of sugar. That was our traditional post-blackberry-picking snack at Grandma's when I was a kid. Then she'd make the rest of the berries into pie. I liked the berry-soup better than the pie, and it will always remind me of her bright yellow kitchen.

Twice a week, my husband has night classes and I eat whatever I can scrounge out of the kitchen. Since the pickings were slim tonight, I thought of this thread and did a little meal planning for the rest of the week. It went like this: What random things are malingering in my refrigerator? Marsala, which I bought to make chicken marsala. That was popular, but I haven't made it since. I should make it again. I don't need to buy anything but chicken, woohoo! Chicken goes on the list. "I'm buying everything else on this list at Costco. I could buy chicken at Costco, but what will I do with the rest of it? I could freeze half..." Chicken salad? Gloppy, and sort of unappealing. Chicken on a green salad? What do we have to put on a salad? Green bell pepper, which small-child insisted be purchased, and she'll eat two mouse-bites of. Greek salad! I have olives that have been malingering! Mmm, and I like feta cheese. So, this week's dinners are set. Tuesday is Chicken Marsala with asparagus (purchased on spec on Sunday because it was cheap, and I like asparagus), spinach (as salad or sauteed, because it needs to be used up) and brown rice pilaf (because the brown rice has been hanging about entirely too long). Wednesday I'll broil up some chicken and make big salads with bell pepper, cucumber, olives, feta and probably no tomato. Mmm, and homemade breadsticks. Thursday is another class night, and I'll eat some combination of leftovers (probably just another greek salad, unless there's Chicken Marsala left) Friday I'll make rice salad out of whatever hasn't been eaten up yet. If we've eaten too much - it'll be fried rice instead. Saturday we're doing landscaping, and I'll make pizza. Now if there's just room in my fridge for all this.

I used to sell through Amazon, mostly technical books that we didn't need anymore. The prices for used tech books were high, since they were still in print for even more, and they were generally seldom-used reference books. However, one dispute with Amazon soured the relationship for quite awhile. I sold a high-priced item, so I sent it signature required via fedex. It was delivered and signed for - heard nothing. Until 3 months later when the buyer filed a chargeback dispute with their credit card. Amazon sent me a form mail requesting information which was completely inappropriate to the situation. The buyer claimed it had been returned and no refund was issued. Amazon wanted delivery confirmation and nothing else. So I sent delivery information. And I sent the "I never got it back, there was never a request for refund, buyer didn't meet Amazon's refund requirements. I think this is fraudulant." bit in with it too. And I called.... three or four times to check on status and to see if they needed anything, and to see if I was in the right. I emailed the buyer directly and said "If you sent it back, please send me the tracking information, since I haven't received it. I'm happy to process a refund when I receive the item or I can help you with an insurance claim against your shipper." No response at all. Another 3 months pass. And the credit card finds in the buyer's favor because Amazon failed to provide them any reason not to. I emailed Amazon and said "This is fraud, I'm supposed to be protected against fraud. And since I can't communicate directly with the credit card processor, you're supposed to represent me." Amazon's position was "You didn't say it was fraud." "Well, maybe you did, but see here, our new terms and conditions say you're liable for fraud." "No, we're not going to uphold the terms and conditions that were in effect at the time of the sale that say we'll eat the charges in the case of buyer fraud." So I was out about $100. Plus all the time it took to manage the dispute, answer emails, try to talk to someone on the phone, etc. And I was out $100 6 months later, which annoyed me more than all the rest put together. I like selling books via Amazon. When everything goes well, it's easy, and it gets things out of my house. But most books don't sell for much. And you have to sell a lot of $8 books to make up for one expensive sale gone bad. I think that if Amazon could have said "In the future, you can protect yourself by...." I would have continued to sell with them. But instead they said "Not our problem, we're taking the money. That's the way we handle credit card disputes, you'll always lose."

I do. I'm the kind of person who says to my doctor "I am intolerant to sulfa drugs" not "I'm allergic to sulfa drugs" because my reaction isn't technically an allergy. Every doctor codes it as an allergy, though. And when I go out, frequently it's much safer and less hassle to say "I'm allergic to wheat/rye/barley/oats" than it is to say "I'm gluten intolerant". Most chefs/waitstaff don't know what gluten is, and they see "intolerance" as less serious than allergy. What I have is less serious than an anaphalactic allergy, but not less serious than a mild allergy. I'll be ill for days, and there's no relief from acute symptoms. But some people who are gluten intolerant have very few or no symptoms, even if they eat quite a bit of it. Several months ago, I arranged for a gluten free/potato free menu for a special occasion meal. It was a very nice restaurant, and they deal with gluten free a lot so I had choices for every course. The meal was absolutely lovely and indulgent. We got to the dessert course and our waiter said "Now, if you want to order a dessert off the regular menu, no one here is going to judge you." And I just looked at him like he had two heads. Why on earth would I go to this trouble - make the kitchen go to all this trouble, just to ruin it over pastry instead of creme brulee? They even had a lovely-looking flourless chocolate cake, so really, why bother? It took me awhile to get to that point, though. For the first several years I struggled with "I'm already sick because I ate something that I didn't know had gluten in it. I may as well have a piece of pie!" or "Gosh, that looks -really- good, maybe it would be worth it..." Learning to live with allergies or intolerances as an adult takes some time, and I think you tend to develop some odd adaptations or maladaptations along the way. However, in line with the "It's a lot of work" understanding - what's the best way to express our appreciation as diners? Waitstaff tends to get a generous tip, since there's obviously more work involved for them. But most of the effort is on the kitchen's part, and attempting to tip the chef seems... gauche.

For the same reason she listed gluten twice, egg yolk and egg white separately (and not even next to each other)and included black mold. Because, y'know, every restaurant -I've- ever been to puts black mold in my food. I once had a very long list of foods that I reacted badly to. It's pretty common when you're recently gluten intolerant, but I've never seen anyone who phrased their list so very badly. Or kept coming up with more things they refuse to eat even though they can. Then again, I would have been pretty grateful for soup, rice and veggies. I went to restaurants very seldom, and frequently contented myself with a glass of water so as not to be a bother or to get sick.

When I was pregnant, latkes were one of the foods I craved, and one of the few foods I could keep down. So, my husband now knows his latkes. Putting the grated potato in the ice bath does keep them from turning brown and washes the starch off the potato pieces. I suspect that the crisping up is a result of starch removal more than the ice, though. Very cold potatoes (from the ice) seems to give you a more cohesive batter, though, and slightly nicer looking latkes. I like -really- crisp latkes, so our end process was to shred, soak in ice water and then spin dry in the salad spinner. Mix with onion, egg, salt and pepper - then fry. Adding potato starch/flour/matzoh will give you a less-crisp cake, with more of a mashed-potato consistency center. To get a crisp outside/soft inside I'd suggest adding a bit of the wet potato starch back, or not spinning the potatoes and using regular flour. This year I think I'm going to try tackling a gluten free sufganiot, which has always been a miserable failure in the past. My fryer oil is nearing end-of-life, and what better time to fill it with a million little particles of dissolving not-a-donut?

I'd suggest he go poking around http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/ and particularly that he start with http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2009/03/gluten-free-multi-grain-sandwich-bread.html Karina has some absolutely lovely recipes most of them would fit their needs. I believe she lost dairy and eggs after she started the blog, so some might not be appropriate. I have a grilled flatbread recipe that I think would work, but it's really not the same as a loaf of bread.

How do you boil eggs in the microwave? You should put them in a pan of water or is there a special technique? I've always heard if you put an egg in its shell in a microwave without piercing the shell it will explode. Yes, eggs microwaved in the shell without protection will explode. However, the method that works is equally terrifying, if non-risky. Wrap the eggs individually in aluminium foil. Submerge them in water (in an microwave-safe vessel), microwave on high until the water boils, and then on medium for another ~ 10 minutes. The water keeps the foil from arcing, and the foil blocks the microwaves from the eggs, so you're effectively just using the microwave to boil the water that cooks the eggs. I grew up with no stove and no oven, so I've cooked most things in a microwave (including bread and a whole turkey), but there isn't much that I currently prefer to microwave. Deep frying in a microwave would tend to create oil-geysers as small portions of the oil superheat - I wouldn't recommend it.

I converted the Frog Commissary cake to be gluten free (I also reduced the yield, reduced the sugar and generally abused it), and it was remarkably tasty. I think I prefer a spicier cake, but it's certainly the best gluten-free carrot cake I've made so far. Ingredients 1 stick melted butter 2 T oil (I used peanut, because it's what I had) 2 T light coconut milk 3/4 cup sugar 126 grams sweet gluten free flour blend (50g sweet white sorghum flour, 50g Whole Foods bake mix (sweet rice flour works fine too), 26g coconut flour) 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 2 eggs 2 cups grated carrots 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans 1/2 cup raisins Instructions Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium (2.5 qt) bowl, wisk together the melted butter, oil, coconut milk, and sugar. Sift together the flours, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add half the dry ingredients into the sugar-oil mixture and wisk. Add one egg, half the remaining dry ingredients, the second egg and the remaining dry ingredients while whisking vigorously. (Don't worry about over mixing, you can't make it tough)Add the carrots, raisins, and pecans. Scoop with a 2oz disher into cupcake tin and bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on rack. Makes 14 not-too-sweet cupcake/muffins. They take cream-cheese frosting and some chopped toasted pecans very well.