Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wp-ultimate-recipe domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/maryzahc/public_html/adultfoodallergies.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121 Allergy-Friendly Fridays – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)
My friend Corinne, of sparecake, decided to move out to Wyoming for a job. So I went down to spend a day hanging out with her before she left. We’ve cooked together a few times — Corinne isn’t gluten-free, but her mom is, so we’ve tried out some recipes. For this final attempt, we did a Frankensteined faux Thin Mint, using the cookie from one cookbook and the chocolate “frosting” or glaze from another because that’s what we had all the ingredients to do.
The cookies were not exactly like the originals, but were still crisp and chocolatey and minty, so overall, I’ll call this a success. We did reduce the amount of mint extract in the chocolate coating by a lot, as it was almost dental cleaning strong the first time around. Interestingly, there is no mint in the cookie part of a thin mint. Who knew? It’s just in the chocolate glaze.
The dough for these cookies was super dry, and we had doubts it would hold together for rolling or cutting, but it did both admirably.
This dough is pretty dry. But it ends up tasting good.Cut out cookies.
So this dough involves cutting in the shortening, “kneading” the very dry dough until it sort of holds together, and then rolling and cutting. After the cookies are baked and cooled, add chocolate mint coating. It is a few more steps than “regular” cookies, but, hey, this is re-creation. Miss Girl Scout cookies? This is the recipe for you.
For the full recipe, I’m going to shoot you over to Corinne’s site, sparecake. For the allergic, you will need a non-dairy milk, a safe-for-you shortening, and a meltable safe chocolate.
Courtesy of a holiday trip to the Philadelphia area, I’m so glad to bring you a few brief restaurant reviews. I am finally becoming somewhat comfortable traveling and eating out despite my food allergies. Frankly, it’s about time! I’m still not all that daring, as being sick when on the road is awful, but the Philadelphia area had a lot to offer. (I’ll admit — I also just brought breakfast: instant gluten-free oatmeal, tea, and an electric kettle. Starting off safe makes each day easier.)
We had three notable stops on this trip, places worth sharing with all of you: the Sweet Freedom bakery in Bryn Mawr, Agno Grill in Philadelphia proper, and Yantze Chinese Gourmet in Lansdale. Sweet Freedom and Agno are dedicated, 100% gluten-free restaurants. But let’s go backwards and save dessert for the last, yes?
Yantze Chinese Gourmet is a very nice Chinese restaurant in a very dull and mostly empty strip mall in Lansdale, a suburb north of Philadelphia, and the above link goes directly to their gluten-free menu. It’s a pretty decent menu with a lot of classic American Chinese restaurant dishes on it, and all lunches come with soup and ice cream. There is a chicken rice soup that is solely on the GF menu, which is what I had, and there is a lemon sorbet option for dessert (I did not try that). The staff seems well-versed in what it means to have a gluten-free menu, and I felt comfortable eating there. I ordered the cashew chicken, a personal favorite, and it may have been one of the nicest versions of that dish I’ve ever had.The chicken was moist, the celery crunchy, the cashews nicely toasted and the sauce was flavorful, but not too thick and there was not too much of it. There are a lot of dishes containing nuts, though, so if that’s one of your allergens, your mileage may vary on this review. No photos from this one — I wasn’t thinking of a review at the time, but it really was good enough to mention. This is upscale Chinese.
Agno’s Rice Bowl with chickenAgno’s Steak Wrap
Agno Grill in Philly is a Mediterranean “fast casual” kind of restaurant near Rittenhouse Square that I read about in Kaila’s review at GF Life 24/7. Actually, that recommendation is part of the reason I’m writing about more than just the bakery. Knowing that other people with food allergy issues had an experience worth sharing is incredibly helpful and reassuring. Agno Grill was staffed by two knowledgeable women who were able to answer all my questions about ingredients in their food. I only wish I’d remembered to ask what was in the wraps (I didn’t want one, so it didn’t cross my mind!). I ordered the rice bowl, topped with chicken, the roasted carrot mint salad, the tomato cucumber salad (which did not have feta in it, as the photo on the website shows), and some of the pickled beets, with the lemon oregano sauce. My dining companion ordered a wrap with the steak, the same carrot and tomato salads, and the quinoa tabbouleh, with tzatziki sauce. I also had an iced mint tea, which was excellent. The individual flavors of all the vegetable ingredients really stood out in this meal, even the beets (which I keep trying, even though, eh, I don’t love them). This was a great filling lunch, and if this was in my neighborhood, I would be there regularly.
Sweet Freedom Cinnamon Roll
Ah, Sweet Freedom. The Sweet Freedom Bakery’s list of “free”s is long and very much like my own list of allergies, which means it was freeing for me — of everything in the bakery’s two cases, the only thing I could not order because of my own allergies was the banana chocolate chip cupcake. Because of this, I had trouble not ordering everything.The bakery is vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, corn-free*, wheat-free, peanut-free, soy-free, casein-free, non-GMO, kosher, and refined sugar-free. I admit, I skipped over the last few, and I had no idea until I was looking at the menu again that the place was refined sugar-free — you won’t notice, I promise. They do use a lot of coconut, so they are not “nut-free,” but this was not an issue for me.
*you can read their corn information here, towards the bottom, but they do source vanilla and leaveners without corn. the xanthan gum is corn-derived. YMMV on that.
My top choice was the samoa cupcake. We also ordered a coconut caramel doughnut and a cinnamon roll. We also ordered cookies to take with us — the double chocolate mint chip (good), oatmeal raisin (amazing), a pumpkin cookie (okay), and a snickerdoodle (good). The cinnamon roll was a bit more of a cake texture than a “normal” cinnamon roll, but it still had the outer “crust” and chewiness of a proper cinnamon roll and the taste was spot on. We took another one of these with us for breakfast. The doughnut was a moist cake doughnut with good crumb and rich flavor. The coconut on top neither added to nor detracted from the doughnut; I wish I’d had a chance to taste another flavor of doughnut. To compare, you know?
The samoa cupcake, though, was truly amazing. The cupcake was a yellow cake with a good crumb and lacking the softness that sometimes undermines gluten-free vegan cakes. The cupcake was filled with a rich chocolate frosting and caramel sauce, topped with a vanilla (I think?) frosting, coconut, and caramel and chocolate drizzles. It was rich and decadent and quite lovely. I would try any other cake from this bakery, happily.
It’s possible that Sweet Freedom is out of your way when you visit Philadelphia. It’s worth the detour.
I know, you’re thinking that maybe a pre-holiday post should be cheerful or full of cookies or booze or something, yes? Well, instead we’re thinking more “tragedy prevention” and “preparedness.” We did name our blog “apocalypse,” after all. Being prepared lets me enjoy things.
As great as the holidays can be, they are also potentially dangerous for those of us with food allergies. Potlucks, family dinners, travel, eating out … so many places we don’t fully control our own food. As much as we work to mitigate our own risks, accidents happen. So while we hate to pull this gloom cloud into your holidays, wouldn’t you rather discuss what to do IF something happens than deal with the tragedy of being unprepared?
What is your plan for an accidental food allergy exposure? Do you have one? If you do, do the people around you know what it is and how to work it or help you? Do you AND the people around you know all the possible symptoms of an allergy exposure? It’s not just throat-closing sensations.
DON’T ASSUME. MAKE SURE. HAVE THE CONVERSATIONS.
FARE has an action plan you can use. Make sure your friends and family a) know your allergens, b) know your plan, and c) know where you keep your epinephrine injectors and/or your antihistamines. Make sure they know how to stab you if they need to, make sure they know what to do next. Don’t rely on the ER. You know you’re the only one who can properly advocate for your own care, but remember to do it before you need people to read your mind.
I guess I always feel that if I’m prepared for the worst (you know, like anaphylaxsis) then you can relax and enjoy everything else.
I bought Cara Reed’s cookbook Decadent Gluten-Free Vegan Baking a few months ago. Cara is the genius/madwoman behind the Fork and Beans blog (the woman made her own Cheerios, seriously). I bought the cookbook because I’ve made a few of the recipes on her blog (starting with these adorable ghosts, although I made a lot of weird shapes instead), and I knew that they worked, so I was excited by the cookbook. I am not being compensated for this review — I bought the cookbook with my own hard-earned money, and then I spent the rest of it on gluten-free flours to bake with.
This is, hands-down, one of my top 5 cookbooks I’ve ever purchased. Only a few cookbooks capture my kitchen this way, where I keep picking them up and picking out something new to make from them. I love cookbooks, and I enjoy just reading them. But for the majority of cookbooks, they sit on my shelf a lot and I think about making things from them. This one? I’m baking from, nearly weekly.
THIS IS NOT A HEALTH FOOD COOKBOOK. For anyone who thinks “gluten-free” and “vegan” both mean some weird definition of “healthy,” um, yeah, this isn’t it. This cookbook is cookies and cakes and pastries and sugar and then some more sugar. It is awesome. Cara Reed’s goal in food seems to be bringing us all the cookies and things that we miss, living with food restrictions (chosen or not). She makes pop tarts.
Reed’s recipes are all based on one of her two flour blends. I’ve only made the standard one, and I’ve been through 3 recipes of it (it makes 9 cups. NINE CUPS.) I’m sure I’ll get to the second blend; I keep meaning to. But making flour blends is one of the *sigh* *so much work* BAH parts of gluten-free baking, so the fact that I have one on hand means I’m more likely to bake. The fact that this one is half sorghum was also a selling point for me; so far, I’ve had more luck with sorghum than any other gluten-free flour.
The one and only “problem” I’ve had with any of these recipes is that, in my oven, the cooking times are too short, by anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. At the moment I’ve misplaced my oven thermometer, but it was good 6 months ago. Regardless, this is a pretty easy issue to fix. It is consistent enough that I’m adding 5 minutes of time to every recipe and then going from there, though. Different ovens.
So far, I’ve made the following recipes:
Chocolate Cloud cookies, which were quick, easy, and chocolate
Brown Sugar donuts
Cracked Pepper and Herb Drop Biscuits (but I made them plain)
Gingerbread cupcakes
Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes
Blackout cake
Whiteout cake
Chocolate “Soufflés” Individual cakes (more like lava cakes)
Cinnamon Streusel Coffee cake
Pumpkin Streusel bread
Dark Chocolate Quick bread
and several frostings for this
High on the list of things to try:
the Samoas
Cheese-Its
cheesecakes (Key Lime Bars, and strawberry cheesecake)
Chocolate Indulgence biscuits
the almond croissants and danish squares
Cinnamon Raisin loaf
Okay, does that list make you drool? If not, really? I’d offer photos, but it turns out that I’ve not remembered to photograph a single one of these recipes. They are *that good.*
When I had to start gluten-free baking, along with the vegan side (the egg allergy was new at the same time, but I was so good at vegan cake already that it didn’t matter), I failed so much. I made brownies that no one wanted to eat. The experiments that weren’t inedible just weren’t very good. I tried a few cookbooks, but honestly, I was disappointed, overall, with the results. Gluten-free failures are expensive, too! I have been a baker since I was 10 years old. I have always loved baking, especially cakes. I’ve gone through several obsessive baking phases — first Bundt cakes and then for a while vegan cupcakes. This is a less thematic baking cookbook to be obsessed with, which is nice. But the other thing that’s nice is that these recipes all work.
In early July, on vacation, Denise and Mary Kate took a day to head west to Gilsum, New Hampshire, home of the Badger factory. Badger is a skin care products company based here in New Hampshire. In the interests of “shop local,” we figured we could head out and get to know one of our local companies. We’ve waited this long to tell you about it so we could post some reviews, too.
About Badger:
Badger started with one product: Badger Balm, an intensive hand moisturizer designed by carpenter Bill Whyte for his fellow carpenters and their winter-dry skin. Formulated in the Whyte home, Badger has grown from that single product and home production in 1995 to a product line of more than 70 items and a factory/office building of its own in 2014. This building is open for tours (which are short and fun — and the place smells amazing).
Badger formulates all its products in the Gilsum factory. Their focus on “natural” ingredients and herbal and traditional medicines is great for those of us with allergies — NOT because “natural” means anything at all these days, and anyway, most of what we are both allergic to is natural. But the small size of the company and their attention to detail means that a) they can tell you where their ingredients are sourced, how they are processed, and how they are used in each product, and b) because this attention extends to detailed labeling that cites much of this information right on the label. Need to know how the extracts are produced? The label tells you: most of them are carbon dioxide extracts. Need to know the source of the vitamin E? The label tells you: all their vitamin E today is sunflower-based, rather than soy-based (bad for Denise, good for Mary Kate).
In our tour, we asked specific questions about processing and cross-contamination and cleaning procedures. In the production facility on site, most of Badger’s equipment is cleaned with detergent, alcohol (yes, corn-based), and a hot olive oil flush. All of the tinned products, as well as the oils and bug spray, are made on site. The lip balms and sunscreens are made in other production facilities, with ingredients sourced and supplied by Badger, that follow Good Manufacturing Practices.
A display of Badger products at the factory
On specific allergens:
No wheat or peanuts are used in any of the products produced in Gilsum, though the facility is not certified free of either. Your comfort level with this may vary, but if you want to ask questions, customer service is knowledgeable and friendly.
The soaps, lip balms, and sunscreens are produced off-site, and on lines that may have processed these ingredients.
Soy is used in a few Badger products, as well as used on lines in the off-site facilities. Tree nuts, including coconut, are used in Badger products and may have been used on any of the lines. In all cases, good manufacturing processes are followed, but your comfort level with these may vary.
Corn is not used in Badger products, but corn alcohol is used, at high heat, as part of the cleaning process (but not the final step, which is a hot olive oil flush).
The company does recommend patch testing if you are sensitive to any of these things.
Products made before 2012 may have different ingredients than today’s. Read the labels.
On our tour:
We wish we’d been able to take pictures, but when we asked, the tour guide regretfully explained that photos weren’t allowed because some of the things we were shown were actually somewhat secret. Which makes sense. But we really wish we’d been able to take pictures of the gleaming machines filling the balm tins because that was really awesome. The factory itself was spotless, clean and airy, in direct contrast to other factories Denise has worked in the past. On the production floor, they had the biggest olive oil containers we’ve ever seen. We could have gone for a swim in them if the containers didn’t have a top. The company works directly with a family estate in Spain called Soler Romero. The factory store also sells the olive oil which is USDA certified organic. Denise is still kicking herself for not buying any.
The headquarters has a cafeteria which serves employees a free daily organic lunch during their paid 30-minute break, which includes fresh, in-season produce from the Badger gardens. The tour guide told us about their Babies at Work program where on a case-by-case basis a parent may be allowed to bring their new baby to work for the first 6 months. The company also has opened its own full-day child care center for children of Badger employees at reasonable prices in the former Badger Company facility. Employees get a quarterly stipend for products from the Badger lines. It seems like it’d be a pretty cool place to work.
We also got to see The Secret Badger Lab, where they design and formulate new products. The Secret Badger Lab had big picture windows in it, which seemed somewhat antithetical to the secret part (no one was in the Secret Lab that day). It was impressive to see the whole process, from idea to production, all in one building.
Our tour guide was wonderful and because we had emailed in advance, discussing our food allergy issues, she had prepared a handout for us to review, and was ready to discuss the manufacturing processes, the cleaning protocols and their cross-contamination processes with us. If you are local and you want to go on a tour yourself, they are available Tuesdays through Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. by appointment. And if you buy products at the factory, there is a discount.
Mary Kate’s Badger haul
So far, I’ve really enjoyed trying out the stuff I bought on our Badger visit. Overall, the products smell great and are very moisturizing. Going more or less clockwise:
I’ve been a regular user of the Headache Balm for years, so I thought I’d give the Stress Soother stick a try. I really like the delivery system (it’s basically a giant chapstick — in fact, Denise has a chapstick that size), but while I do find it nice mid-afternoon or during conference calls at work, I will buy the headache balm in stick form next time. I prefer the smell and, for me, it’s slightly more effective.
The dual color Lip Tint lipbalm (top, in Copper) is a little bit of a mixed bag for me. I rarely wear lipstick because I can’t remember to reapply it all day and I generally can taste (and don’t like) the flavor of the pigment. That’s true here, too, though I’ll say that the color is subtle and nice when I do wear it. I think I’m just destined to be a lip balm kind of woman forever.
The Mustache Wax was a gift, and while I haven’t personally used it, I do like the results. It’s not stick or greasy, but it definitely adds a final touch to facial hair grooming. The Arnica Sore Joint Rub wasn’t particularly effective for me, but mostly I get muscle aches, not joint aches, so I might not be the right user for the product. It smells pretty good, though.
The Anti-Bug Sunscreen I’ve only gotten to use once so far. The zinc oxide might, I think, make it difficult to use every day, under makeup, and it does make it harder to rub in (but, conversely, you have to rub it in and therefore probably apply it more thoroughly and effectively). I think that will be true for all zinc oxide sunscreens, though. I was out for a few hours, and the sun went in after a bit, so I might not have gotten burned anyway. Not the best test for the sunscreen part. BUT. It was hot and humid and buggy. The bugs left me alone and I did not sweat off the sunscreen. This would be excellent for hiking, I’d think.
I’ve kind of saved my favorites for last. The Nutmeg and Shea moisturizer is amazing. The smell, which is nutmeg-forward, is different in a really good way, and the moisturizer is rich. It takes a bit of time to soak in properly, yes, but the results are definitely worth it. This will be a product I’ll use for a long time. I can’t wait to use it on my hands and feet in the winter. This is definitely my favorite product of the entire haul. The last thing up there is the Highland Mint lip balm. This is also a keeper, with a good mint flavor and a really nice smooth texture. There are about a thousand flavors, though, and I might need a different flavor next time. Though mint really is nice.
Badger, as a company, is a place I’d like to support. Luckily for me, I enjoy their products, which makes it pretty easy to do.
With the coconut and corn allergies, I have a really freaking tough time finding personal care products that are safe for me, and you’ve all seen me put recipes for lotions, lotion bars, and lip balms on our blog. That being said, when we were looking into places to visit Badger seemed promising because there might be a sunscreen I could actually purchase and not have to make myself. And I really did not want to order zinc oxide to experiment with making my own sunscreen until I got a recipe right. Here’s my haul from left to right: Cayenne & Ginger Sore Muscle Rub, Badger Anti-Bug Shake & Spray, Lime Rocket Cocoa Butter Lip Balm, Pink Grapefruit Lip Balm, Sweet Orange Cocoa Butter Lip Balm, Badger SPF34 Anti-Bug Sunscreen and Eucalyptus & Mint Aromatic Chest Rub.
Denise’s Badger Balm haul
I know that you’re going to ask, Denise, why buy lip balms when you’ve made them before and you have the stuff to make them? I’m going to make this really simple. Because I CAN. The fact that I don’t have to spend half an hour making lip balms the next time I run out is worth gold in and of itself. It’s nice to just be able to buy a product for once JUST LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. (Oh, was I yelling? Sorry about that.) The Pink Grapefruit lip balm, which has a olive oil, castor oil, and beeswax base instead of the cocoa butter, seemed a bit more moisturizing to me than the cocoa butter oil ones, but I liked all three. For those with corn allergies, I did not seem to have any issues with cross contamination either from the corn alcohol equipment cleaning or from potential cross contamination from the beeswax (depending on what the beekeeper fed the bees), but I’m not super-sensitive either. They all smelled pleasantly fruity, and I’d buy them again.
The Eucalyptus & Mint Aromatic Chest Rub smells wonderful. It’s intended for use as a soothing chest rub, or as a steam inhalant when added to a humidifier or pot of hot water, but I really haven’t had a cold, a cough or a stuffy nose since I bought it, so I haven’t been able to give it a good test. But the aroma is pretty awesome.
The Cayenne & Ginger Sore Muscle Rub smells amazing. Because with ginger and cayenne spicy goodness, how could it not? I concur with Mary Kate’s review in that it didn’t seem that effective for sore muscles, but it’s got some great moisturizing ingredients so I’m happy using it as a balm.
The Badger Anti-Bug Shake & Spray works well. It has the aroma of Citronella, Rosemary, and Wintergreen essential oils. You’re really going to smell like citronella, but it kept the bugs away. I didn’t mind the feel of it and the spray is a convenient application method. Just a quick disclaimer, I am generally pretty accident prone and if it’s possible to break something, I’ll probably break it. However, I didn’t expect to put a significant dent in the spray bottle by tossing it a couple of feet. I was aiming for a tote bag but I missed by a couple of inches and it landed on the floor. I’m not saying that I’m disappointed in the package or that it’s a problem, because again, bug spray that works that I don’t have to make is gold, but just be aware that you may not want to repeat my mistakes if you wish your bug spray to remain pristine and without big dents in the bottle.
The only safe for me sunscreen that Badger had was the Badger SPF34 Anti-Bug Sunscreen. I’d echo Mary Kate’s review in that it is harder to rub in than other sunscreens. I did like the dual sunscreen/bug repellent properties. I do wish that it had a higher SPF, as I used to use an SPF 100 before coconut, but according to WebMD, that might not be as big a deal as I had previously thought. And again, I didn’t have to make it! (Cue heavenly choir).
I wish more of their products didn’t contain sunflower so that I could try them, but I’m happy Badger has some products I can use and make my life easier.
Overall, the Badger visit was a rousing success. If you are looking for personal care products, check out Badger’s website and see if they might have something you’d like to try. This post is all the opinions of Denise and Mary Kate, was not sponsored, and we were in no way compensated for any of this review.
Back in June, Mary Kate and Denise met up at the far side of Mary Kate’s apartment complex parking lot, with a super-long outdoor extension cord, a garage sale crock pot, a can of olive oil, some devil lye, and safety googles.
Denise and Mary Kate put safety first.
We were there to make soap. Safely outdoors, away from cars and buildings and enclosed spaces, lye and water were mixed, added to olive oil, and cooked in the crock pot until done. Or until it sorta kinda maybe looked a little bit like the pictures Denise got off the internet. Then we dumped it in a baking dish, and Denise took it to her in-laws — because soap needs to tour — before taking it home to cool completely.
Why make soap? Well, if you are Denise, there may be two soaps on the market that you might be able to use because the majority of soap is coconut oil-based. Add avoiding palm oil (because of cross-reaction possibilities with coconut allergies) and corn-derived ingredients, and good luck to you. If you’re Mary Kate, anything that involves mostly sitting around but also the possibility of destruction is good. Plus, there were safety googles.
The other reason is cost. Denise did the math when we were done: Her soap costs $26.78 for 64 oz (8 bars @ 8 oz each) which works out to 41 cents an ounce. The supplies for making this soap (not counting the equipment, which is reusable, and ran approximately $30 or so) cost $13.87 for 74.73 oz, which works out to 19 cents an ounce. It was also a few hours of fun.
Denise uses the soap for laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and shampoo, as well as for actual soap. This represents a significant cost savings. The olive oil soap is maybe not as pretty as commercial soap, but it works great and is gentle.
This soap is a “hot process” soap, meaning it uses heat to help the lye saponify (make into soap) the oil. There is also “cold process” soap, where time alone completes that reaction, and we do want to try that soon. The internet is full of recipes for soap, but this is the one we followed.
We made you a video. It’s really an automatic slide show of the photos we took set to music, and it runs about a minute. Enjoy (and be kind?).
So in Mary Kate’s inaugural kitchen story post she asked what the workhorse pieces in your kitchen are and if they had a history. My workhorse piece is my KitchenAid mixer. And it does have a bit of a story.
When I was a kid (there’s some debate over the exact age, I thought it was around 15, but my mother claims it was before that, maybe 12 or 13), my father decided to buy a KitchenAid mixer for my mother for Christmas. Now, this was mostly because my dad’s friend had bought one for his wife, and my father was a “Keep up with the Joneses” kind of guy. Keep in mind that my mother was working 10 or 12 hours a day, she wasn’t all that interested in cooking anyway, and I was basically responsible for getting dinner on the table at that age already. To complete the picture, my mom has often said that she made a pie once before I was born, just to say that she could do it, and that was enough. So a KitchenAid mixer wasn’t an appropriate gift for my mom in any stretch of the imagination.
I tried to explain this to my father while we were shopping. He didn’t listen, because that was not his thing anyway, and I have to admit that I didn’t try as hard as I could have to convince him that it was a stupid gift for my mother because. . . it was a KitchenAid mixer! (Cue heavenly chorus.) I knew that the use of the said KitchenAid mixer would default to me, as the main cook in the family. So sue me, I let appliance lust sway me from the straight and narrow path of insisting that my father pick a Christmas gift that my mom would actually like.
The KitchenAid mixer was purchased, and as predicted by me, my mother wanted nothing to do with it. So I used it during the years before I left for college. I didn’t take it with me because there really wasn’t a place you could stash a KitchenAid mixer in the dorm rooms at Wellesley, although I did have a food processor for making strawberry daiquiris. During my second year of law school, my mother finally decided to get a divorce. Let’s just say it was not a shock to anyone, and it was certainly about freaking time. When she told me she was moving out of the house, I told her that she needed to take the KitchenAid mixer. She was puzzled and said that she didn’t want it. I said, “I know you don’t, but I do.” She took the KitchenAid mixer, and since I was living in an apartment at that time, the KitchenAid mixer and I have been happily together since. I’m now 42 and my relationship with the KitchenAid mixer since its purchase has lasted either 27 or 30 years depending on who’s memory is accurate (maybe my sister will weigh in for a tie-breaker).
Last year I noticed that the KitchenAid mixer had developed an oil leak. I was devastated, but I did my Google-Fu and figured out what was probably wrong with it. And then I found out that the nearest service center was in another state and I might have to mail it. I couldn’t imagine mailing it, let alone the cost of mailing it, and the cost of the repair seemed excessive. So I did my Google-Fu again and found a video that showed you how to repair what was most likely the problem. I decided to take the risk. If I killed it, it’d had a good long run, and if I didn’t, I’d put the money I didn’t spend on the repair towards a new one. (They have purple ones now, just saying.)
So I ordered the materials and waited for them to arrive. When they did, I spread newspaper out on my kitchen floor, and got my Kindle Fire out so I could watch the video over and over again as I did the repair. It took me about an hour, just because I was working so carefully and slow to make sure I did it right, and I wanted to remove as much of the decades old grease as I could. When I got it back together, it worked like a charm. No leaks, no drips, no nothing. To celebrate, and to make up for contemplating replacing it for a younger, hotter, and purple model, I got it a purple dragon decal (go here on etsy, but she’s on vacation until July 5) to match my dragon tattoo. Here’s hoping for another thirty or so happy years!
Pretty purple dragon decal on Denise’s KitchenAid Mixer
Note from Mary Kate: Ann is a good friend of mine from college (during which, no, no one including me used my first name) who who is an artist and chef. In one of our conversations, she mentioned that food allergies were a hot topic in the restaurant world. Of course — that makes complete sense. But rather than hostility, she expressed that accommodation was part of her job as a chef, in the hospitality industry. I invited her to write us a guest post, as I thought it might be useful for those of us with food allergies to hear from the kitchen directly. Ann writes at Winslow’s Bread Shop in her “spare” time, and I know she’s been working on a gluten-free pizza crust. The picture at the top is Ann’s work.
Pending approval, this post will appear both at Winslow’s Bread Shop and at Surviving the Food Allergy Apocalypse, which is the website of Kate, my college friend from Agnes Scott, and her friend Denise. Thanks, Kate, for inviting me to be your guest blogger of the hour!
To give a little context to readers of Kate’s & Denise’s blog, I am a chef at a well-known international luxury hotel chain. My experience comes not so much from culinary school as it comes from almost ten years of gut crushing, mind blowing, maddeningly awesome work. Food allergies were mentioned in school as a reason to avoid cross contaminating foods, but ten years ago, it was not nearly as big a deal in my work as it is now. Cheerfully being able to accommodate food allergies has now become par with knowing how to make hollandaise without a recipe or measuring tools.
I’ll admit that it’s easy for me to be irritable about the food allergy epidemic because I have been blessed for my entire life with only one food allergy: fuji apples make my lips itch. Recently I discovered that I can eat fuji apples if I peel them. Heck, maybe I’m not even allergic to them any more. Minor as it is, the fuji apple allergy was a simple and direct conclusion. My mouth only itches when I eat fuji apples, so I eat other kinds, and I also try to avoid eating things like poison ivy. That worked well until one day at work when I was hungry, and the only available food was a half case of fuji apples. Really. (We had just reopened the hotel after ski season, and that case of apples, 2 weeks old, was all the food we had.) How, then, do people come up with complicated food allergies, which require months of trials and eliminations and multiple doctor visits? I mean I have seen some things that seem downright made-up in comparison with something obvious, such as lactose intolerance, hives or passing out dead on the floor from a severe shellfish allergy. I understand that those who do make up ailments make those with genuine ailments look bad. I just don’t have the ability to decide who is fibbing, nor do I feel like risking my entire career by taking that chance.
Just for kicks I’ll invite you to consider food phobia fanatics as a rising minority among the allergic crowd. As an example, I’ll mention the pregnant lady who called the operator to ask her to call me to ask if our sliced turkey was cooked in our ovens or if it was prepackaged, i.e. full of chemicals. News flash: turkeys nowadays are born full of chemicals, antibiotics and gmos (genetically modified organisms/feed)…at least the ones that hotels like the one where I work are able to buy more than one bird at a time. Furthermore, those daily prenatal vitamins, whose ingredient panels are probably more than four words long, if in English, may be more harmful to an unborn child than a few slices of deli turkey at one meal. We do, in fact, roast turkeys for sandwiches and other preparations. We also have “extra chemicals” turkeys, just in case an emergency strikes the ovens, or there is a turkey sandwich convention for which we are unable to roast turkeys fast enough. If we had been unable to meet that guest’s requirements in the turkey department, I would have asked her personally what she would like as an alternative because that’s the kind of service we provide. I would have been more than happy to put all other important projects aside to make sure that one person is satisfied. Lesser organizations probably would not have been as accommodating.
By now I’m sure you may be choking on my sarcasm, and I apologize. I do not view any segment of society as the source of my difficulties in life, and I do not wish to alienate anyone. The purpose of this blurb is not to spout my frustrations in a new outlet. To the contrary, I actually experience much less frustration than I used to about life in general and people with food allergies in particular. You might say I have turned over a new leaf and adopted the asi es attitude of the friendly Mexican workers of the stewarding department, which supports me every day. It’s the way it is, and I find that suffering abates dramatically if I surrender. After all my hearty constitution seems to be a rarity in today’s world. I might go so far as to call myself an endangered animal in a rapidly changing species. Here’s why:
I work in a specialized department called the club lounge. Some of you already know what that is. For those who don’t spend much time staying in hotels, the club lounge is basically a room, usually in the middle or upper floor of a hotel, where guests of that entire floor pay a premium rate to have exclusive access to their own concierge as well as private meals prepared by a chef who cooks only for them and nobody else in the hotel. This means that nobody in the rest of the hotel gets to eat what the club guests eat. When the chef is very good, this is truly a special experience worth extra money. These guests also get a free bar, tv, computers and big, fluffy chairs.
From week-to-week, I get a report about what’s going on with guests in the club lounge. This list often has super V.I.P. guests, including the owners of the hotel, company employees at the top of the food chain, other various persons whose toes I do not want to step on and, yes, guests with food allergies. I can’t remember the last time I had a report that did not have or was not updated to add guests with food allergies. Some are boring food allergies. Most are gluten or nut allergies. Occasionally there will be an entire family.
If you are a reader with a food allergy, I beg you to make your allergy known each time you dine in public. Earlier this year we almost lost a guest who had not spoken up and ate something fatal to him. Miraculously he was saved, though I still don’t know exactly how, since the incident occurred when I was not there. I came in the next day to a memo asking us to exclude indefinitely the offensive ingredient from all future preparations. This is one very extreme and very scary example of the way in which the food allergy epidemic is transforming the food and beverage/hospitality industry. Reputable chefs will change entire menus if that’s what’s needed to avoid this kind of thing happening.
Believe me, folks, you have got real power. Nobody, at least nobody in my company, is interested in messing around to find out whether or not you’re just pulling our chain. This is why Kate and people like her are right to avoid chain restaurants and places of mediocre quality. (Could the dining experience be in for a global upgrade?) Sure some of us chefs may grumble, some of us may even get genuinely angry about having to change a menu that is very special and dear to us into a menu that doesn’t make much culinary sense. But when it comes down to risking a life or causing some medical trauma or even being the source of an unpleasant experience, we don’t have the guts to stand our ground forever. That’s just silly, and it’s bad business. I hope that the chefs who refuse to budge will gracefully find work in metallurgy or concrete, where being hard is valued.
As a passionate member of culinary society, I say “yes!” to evolution, whatever that means. May the fittest survive in this insanely rapidly changing environment, and may the food industry grow ever better for everyone.
