A new look

Hello out there!

Obviously, I have a new look here . . . I've decided to give the blog another whirl. It's true I got insanely busy last fall, as well as slightly discouraged, and so quit blogging. However, as it is summer again, and I have nothing but time on my hands (considering that the loser temp agency I signed up with for the summer never has any jobs for me), I've decided to take another crack at it. In the spirit of a fresh start, we therefore have a new look. I may also decide to rename the blog, but as I haven't yet come up with anything fresh or particularly witty, that may or may not happen.

The reason I may rename things here is because the focus of the blog may change. I haven't decided that either (don't you just want me to be your personal life coach? I'm so great at making decisions!). While I love cooking/baking still, and of course am still gluten-free, I don't necessarily have time to experiment and post recipes during the school year (see the crickets that have taken up residence here since last November if you have questions about this). I am, however, still in school, attempting to get my master's in literature, which will become infinitely more difficult this year considering that we have comprehensive exams and a giant, fancy-pants essay due in the spring. I am also trying to lose weight (see my last post), and am still trying to get a novel published.

All of this to say, there are a lot of things I could write about here. It could be a food blog, a school-themed blog, a weight loss blog, or a writing blog. Or a combination of any or all of those topics. So I haven't yet decided what exactly it is I want to write about here now that we're starting over. Which means that I can't decide yet what I want the new title to be (if there is a new title at all).

For now, I'm thinking a lot about writing and reading, because I'm working on a new book and am doing a lot of reading for said comprehensive exams (also a lot of procrastination reading, aka books I wanted to read during the school year but couldn't because I was too busy and am now reading them instead of studying). I sent out my completed YA novel to about 8,000 agents over Christmas (okay, 15), and although I got one nibble, no one actually bit. This was, needless to say, very disheartening, and I hit the ice cream and potato chips pretty hard. However, like I said, I'm working on something new, and a friend and I have started a writing group (she is also trying to get published). I'm also doing a lot of baking, but it isn't particularly inventive because I found a fantastic new GF flour that works in just about any recipe just like regular flour. So I just sub it in and don't usually have to tinker with anything else. While this is nice for me, it would make pretty boring reading for all of you, as you could easily sub or swap for yourself. If you're curious, the flour is made by Whole Foods and is called 365 Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour (I tried to find it online but couldn't. If you go to Whole Foods and go to the aisle with the baking mixes, it's there, in a yellow box).

So that's that. I will try to actually make, instead of just list, some decisions soon, and we'll see what happens! Let me know if you have any thoughts/ideas/suggestions . . . I'd love to hear them!

Til next time!

The Evilest Laugh I've Ever Heard

Okay. So it's been almost a month since I've posted. I'm sorry! But for those of you that really care, that Devil's Food Cake really should have kept you company while I've been gone. Because it is DELICIOUS.

Anyway, I don't have much to say right now because I've been doing nothing but homework for the last month. I could rhapsodize about a few things, but to be honest, I have more homework. (I know. It's a sad state of affairs.)

But I do have something to rant about. Namely, the scale in my doctor's office. (cue booing and vegetable throwing)

Here's the thing. I've been overweight for a long time. I've tried exercising, but after a few weeks when I don't see results I usually get discouraged and quit. I've tried dieting, but with the sheer amount of crappy gluten-free food I have to eat, I have trouble denying myself anything that tastes good that I can eat, no matter how bad for me it may be.

I'm nothing if not a spectacular rationalizer.

But, started about a month before I moved out, I somehow started losing weight. I don't know how. I always had a slight suspicion that once I quit hating my body and started loving myself for who I am, I would finally start losing weight. I achieved that sort of psychological calm over the summer, and suddenly the pounds started floating off. I lost ten pounds in one month. No joke.

Then, I moved out. And if you read my previous post, you know that I took it pretty hard and was basically incapable of eating for about two weeks. More pounds, gone. Then, once I was able to eat, I found that I just didn't eat as much anymore. Probably because I'm so busy; but I find myself eating only three meals a day and one snack at night. That's it. Plus, I walk all over campus all day.

Final result? Twenty pounds and two pants sizes in two months.

On the one hand, I'm over the moon about this. On the other hand, I'm a little pissed because I just bought myself a whole new wardrobe before school started, and while all the tops still look okay, the pants/skirts are now too big. As are my shoes. (yes--I lost a shoe size. Who knew that happened??? It seems so wrong!) And I mean, who would ever have guessed that I'd be pissed about losing weight? What the hell? The whole thing is insane.

But anyway, I had an appointment with my general practitioner yesterday, and since he's been on my case for like, EVER, to lose weight, I figured he'd be doing a dance of joy. Perhaps a jig. With jazz hands.

But when I got on his scale, that atrocity had the gall to say I've only lost NINE POUNDS.

NINE POUNDS.

ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TELLING ME THAT TWO PANTS SIZES ONLY EQUALS NINE POUNDS??????

What the hell, right?

I can only come to the conclusion that the scale in his office is of the nefarious nature and somehow knows the hopes and dreams of the women step on it, and then proceeds to crush those hopes and dreams while manically laughing within it's plastic-and-steel head.

If it has a head. Whatever.

Thankfully, his nurse concurred with me. She says it always adds ten pounds to her weight and that she never goes near the thing unless she's weighing a patient. And even then she makes the sign of the cross behind her clipboard.

Adding insult to injury, while my doctor was happy about the nine pounds, and was starting to tap his feet a little beneath his desk, when he found out that I didn't lose the weight by diet and exercise he immediately planted his feet on the ground and began lecturing me.

Yeah. Lecturing me. Because who cares that I lost 20 pounds if I didn't lose it the right way?

Sigh. Whatever. On the one hand, I want to start exercising to prove his dumb ass wrong. On the other hand, what would that really prove? Wouldn't it piss him off more if started GAINING again?

So now I don't know what course to follow. What's a girl to do?

(of course, this is purely rhetorical. Despite the bizarre foot-loss and giant pants, I do want to keep losing weight. And--this is so a sign of my new mental health--not because of cosmetic reasons. Really. I've found some kick-ass plus sized clothes lately that I actually feel good about myself it, and found a tailor who can alter clothes to make them kick-ass. Right now it's more about the health thing--losing weight will help with all my other medical problems, and then maybe I can go off some meds and then switch to a lower cost insurance)

So that's the rant for today. Now that you've sat through all my bitching, let me also share with you the two videos that helped me see the light again. They're really short and trust me, hilarious. The first one is Denny Crane from the TV show "Boston Legal" kicking almost as much ass as my new clothes. The other one is a clip of the SNL mock of the VP debate. I love McCain and Palin, but considering that just yesterday I threatened to throw my TV out the window if I heard either of them say the word "maverick" one more time, I basically laughed until my face turned purple.

So that's it for today. I'll try to be back sooner next time, but until then . . . stay off of scales. For my sake.

Little Life Lessons and Devil's Food Cake

Here are some of the things I've learned in the last two weeks of graduate school and living alone:

1. DO NOT keep a candy dish full of Life Savers Wint-O-Greens in your office, no matter how cute, pink, and heart-shaped said dish is, or you will find yourself with a ragingly wicked addiction to said Wint-O-Greens and will constantly walk around with minty fresh breath, deadened taste buds, and crinkly plastic wrappers falling out of your pockets at odd moments.

2. Within two weeks you will stop caring what you look like for your classes, especially when you have to dress up for teaching/shadowing other classes, and will resort to t-shirts from your undergrad alma mater, rubber bands in your hair (the coated kind from Scrunchie, though, because real rubberbands totally get stuck in your messy bun and then you have to cut huge chunks of your hair out and you cry), and no makeup. If you should happen to feel like looking a little "nice" for class, you will use a claw clip instead of rubber bands.

3. You will bond with fellow grad assistants (aka GAs) over dorky jokes such as someone saying, while an extremely vocal crow is practicing his opera outside your window, "Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'" Yes, one of my fellow GAs actually said this, and yes, I actually burst out laughing and immediately decided I wanted to be her best friend.

4. You will come to love and appreciate the orchestral sound of fifteen students clicking closed their clicky-top pens in tandem when the professor ends class.

5. You will find that people you thought were going to be incredibly annoying at first are, in fact, some of the funniest people you have ever met, and the people you thought could be potential friends are the REAL annoying people (this particular rule has burned me several times over the last couple of weeks; my instincts were only right about Quoth the Raven Girl--henceforth dubbed Raven, because it's funny--and the professors. Apparently, my professor-reading skills are bulls eye, while my peer-reading skills are sadly lacking).

6. If the people who live above you have bizarre tendencies, you will become intimately acquainted with them. Hypothetically speaking, say the person above you likes to move her furniture around her apartment at two'o'clock in the morning. You will hear every single moment of furniture feet scraping across the floor. Or, also hypothetically speaking, say her shower pipes run parallel to your bathroom/bedroom wall. When she turns on her shower every morning at six'o'clock in the morning, the sound of gushing water akin to Niagara Falls right by the headboard of your bed, or near your toilet so that you race into the bathroom thinking the toilet is overflowing, will also wake you up.

These hypothetical situations would earn such a person the nickname of the Clomper, and cause you to mock her to all your GA cohorts while guzzling coffee in order to make up for being woken up twice in the middle of the night.

If, of course, such a person really existed.

7. Homesickness can cause actual physical distress, such as an inability to swallow food or have your body process it in a normal way. For two solid weeks, I haven't eaten more than two meals a day (and the two-a-day estimate is generous). For someone who is generally a stress-eater, this has been quite a reversal. And I'm not going to lie; just the thought of food often makes me sick. This must be what morning sickness is like, and let me tell you: NOT FUN. It's a wonder so many women have second children.

I have had a box of really yummy, premade chocolate chip cookie dough in my freezer at H2 since Labor Day. Said cookies are usually consumed within 12 hours of their purchase.

It's been FIFTEEN DAYS. I finally just made them tonight because my stomach feels up to it and my stress level is up.

On the other hand, I could make a fortune selling the Homesickness Diet to millions, because I've lost ten pounds.

8. You will realize that after spending fifteen days doing nothing but going to class, talking to professors, doing homework, sleeping fitfully, and occasionally eating, you will be exhausted. Today is actually the first free day I've had (last Wednesday was also technically a free day, but I cleaned H2 from top to bottom because I was bouncing-off-the-walls anxious and homesick), and I've got to tell you, I feel so lethargic. And really, it's only half a free day, because I worked this morning and then went grocery shopping with Raven.

I was planning to spend today giving H2 a mild cleaning (just because some of the floors are scuzzy and I want to keep on top of the bathtub so that I don't get any nasty mildew issues) and then do some serious getting ahead on my homework, but when I got back from grocery shopping I was too tired to even think about anything. So I thought back to how difficult the last two weeks have been (not just with the workload, but with the hardly sleeping/eating and emotional stress on top of it all), and I thought, "Honey, you need a break."

So I put on some sweatpants and a pajama shirt and have been reading "Bitter is the New Black" by the fantabulous Jen Lancaster for the last two hours.

It would have been longer, but I kind of dozed off for a while.

Then I made myself those frozen cookies, and here we are.

I will, of course, being the industrious woman that I am, do some homework after I eat my cookies.

After. Because you can't eat cookies while reading "The Obedience of a Christian Man." It just doesn't work.

9. Despite said vicious homesickness, emotional upheaval, unplanned for weight-loss (none of my new clothes fit! Why did I spend $300 on a new wardrobe if I was going to lose weight and none of it would fit me right anymore???), the Clomper, and exhaustion, you will find yourself feeling inexpressibly content. Even though your body is in an uproar, your schedule is so full that it doesn't all fit in your date book, and one of your professors is completely sadistic, you will feel, without a doubt, that you are in the right place, doing the right thing, and that you couldn't possibly love it more or be happier that you're doing it.

And that, my friends? That makes it all good.

Now, I believe that some weeks ago I promised you a rockin'-Devil's Food Cake recipe, so here it is. Make it, and you will enjoy it. (just don't forget the xanthum gum, like I did. It'll still taste rockin', but it will be a little dense). It's really easy to make, and an interesting point the cookbook mentions is that Devil's Food cakes get their name because of the "slight red hue cast by the cocoa powder." And, of course, it's "sinfully delicious taste."

Devil's Food Layer Cake, adapted from "The Ultimate Chocolate Cookbook"

2 1/4 C cake flour (make your own by adding 1 teaspoon of corn starch to every 1/4 C GF flour)
1 C cocoa powder
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t xanthum gum
1 C butter, softened
2 C light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 t pure vanilla extract (the imitation kind isn't GF, so please use pure!)
3 eggs, warmed to room temperature
1/2 C milk, warmed to room temperature
1 C water, boiling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of two 9-inch layer cake pans with parchment paper. Lightly coat the sides of the pans with butter and flour.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and xanthum gum. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar, using an electric mixer on a medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. add the vanilla. Adjust your mixer to a medium speed and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until thoroughly blended.

Adjust your mixer to a low speed and alternate blending in the flour mixture and milk until lightly blended. Mix in the hot water just until smooth. The batter will be thin.

Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the cake. Cool on wire racks.

Makes 10-12 servings.

Tom Thumb Tiny

I'm not going to lie here. Graduate school is A LOT OF READING.

A LOT.

My eyes hurt.

But yes, I am getting a MA in literature, so yes, I should have been aware of the massive amounts of reading. Which I was.

But still. Eyes. Hurt.

So, as usual when I am a) bored with what I'm reading, or b) about to jump into a telephone booth, don my costume, and become Procrastination Girl (able to stop an assignment in its tracks with the flick of an eyelash), I turned to TV.

Of course, I'm home this weekend, and my TV is at H2.

So instead I turned to YouTube for more kitty videos.

Here are the picks of the day:

Christian the Lion (which will make you cry. I swear. It's so freaking adorable that you will shed fat crocodile tears)

and Kitten vs. RC Mouse (which will make you laugh. How can she jump so high? It's a marvel of nature, is what it is)

Sorry this post is a little light on content and a lot heavy on YouTube links, but seriously, unless you want to hear me rant about Marat/Sade (which you can look at in the Sidebar under "What I'm Reading Now" if you're really interested) or the Short History of Writing Instruction (which I find fascinating but I'm guessing would make you normal folk start cranking out zzz's), then this is basically all I have to say.

Graduate school makes your world very, very small.

On the bright side, I found some vanilla flavored hot chocolate mix the other day, and it's just about hot chocolate season. Woot!

(like I said, very, very, small)

Outrage

I saw today that the Emmy nominations are out. And can I just say . . .

WHO LEFT NATALIE DORMER OFF THE LIST???????

For those of you who may not know, Natalie Dormer played Anne Boleyn on the Showtime series "The Tudors." This series has been under some fire because it's pretty explicit (with the sex and with the torture). But, okay, for Tudors fanatics like myself and my friend M.A., who cares?? It's the Tudors!!! You can't make up a story line that's as fascinating and bone-chilling as these people's lives were. You don't even need to embellish it because it's way more soap-opera than Days of Our Lives could ever hope to be.

The Tudors rock.

Okay, and granted, the first season I wasn't too sure about Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn. Anne was such a dynamic, amazing person that the actresses they hire to play her generally fail. Natalie Dormer seemed like another link in the chain.

But then. Season two. Holy crap. There aren't even words to describe how well she pulled it off. There were two scenes in particular (where she miscarries her last baby and her execution) when I turned the M.A. and said, "She's going to win an Emmy for this." We compared forearms and found that we were rife with goose-bumps. The latter episode, where she was killed, we both cried.

Apparently, whoever decides who gets nominated has a shocking incapability of goose-bumps and is devoid of any sort of emotion. I suggest that these people seek medical attention immediately, because something is clearly very wrong.

I tried to find both clips for you, but the miscarriage one is nowhere to be found. And this clip, of her dying, goes two whole minutes into the next scene. So you can skip those parts.

But watch her last minutes and tell me: should we send some doctors over to the Emmys, or what?

T-minus 2 Days

I'm feeling a wee bit melancholy tonight . . . my official move-out day is Labor Day (and no, the irony is not lost on me. I'll be laboring, carrying boxes and unpacking crap, on Labor Day). While I'm excited about my lovely H2, and excited/nervous (read: ready to throw up yet also giggling with glee) about starting classes, and equally excited/nervous about shadowing Karen (an adjunct prof who is going to be my Jedi master for the next four months), I am also incredibly sad that there are only three more nights left to hang out with my Mom watching movies until 2 am. It's a sad, sad day.

Especially when my Dad stays up until 11 watching whatever is on Dateline or Sports so that we hardly get any TV time. The Sportscaster is screaming in my ear about football as we speak.

Like I care about football. I am so not one of those girls who cares about sports. Once, at a restaurant, my dad decided he was going to embark on the noble task of Helping Me Understand Football. It was one of those places where you could draw on the tablecloth with crayons, and he was totally making Xs and Os everywhere (I'm guessing the Xs represent one team and the Os the other, but I'm still a little hazy on that point). The table was so covered, and his voice was rising with such distress at my inability to understand the difference between a full back and a tailback (again, still a little hazy), the the waiter was like, "What's up dude?" Next thing you know, the waiter had grabbed a crayon and was in on the whole thing.

An hour and half and a tasty meal later, we left the restaurant. The waiter was still laughing, my dad was still frustrated, and the only thing I learned was that there are four downs to a touchdown.

Maybe? I could be wrong.

Long story short, I'd so much rather be watching That Thing You Do with my mom than listening to the annoying sports guy on the local news holler about football.

P.S. Why do they always yell? Don't they know there's a microphone on their lapel? They're not standing in a crowded stadium with a megaphone. They're worse then televangelists, I swear.

So yeah, I'm feeling pretty low. Even though the sportscaster just cried, "Give me more cowbell!" (Hilarious, but not sure what that has to do with football)

My entire bedroom is filled with boxes, which is depressing, and I keep thinking all these maudlin things like: "this is the last time I'll change the sheets on this bed" and "this is the last time I'll get to use this pillowcase" and "this is the last time I'll rent something from the Blockbuster on the corner." I know I'll be home on weekends and holidays or whatever, but it just won't be the same.

And vis-a-vis the boxes, I'm sad to say that I accidentally packed my cookbook, and for the life of me I can't remember what box it's in. What this means to you is that you'll have to wait for the Devil's Food Cake recipe until I unpack on the Day of Labor.

So, to cheer myself up, I watching two of my favorite, most adorable videos ever on YouTube. If you need cheering up, then check this and this out. A better mood is instantly guaranteed.

However, when I logged on to YouTube, this video was recommended for me. I'm not sure how YouTube could possibly know about my ongoing love affair with popcorn, and I'm pretty sure that this whole thing is somehow an elaborate ruse, but still it's vaguely entertaining.

One thing that did make me let out a "whoop whoop" in this weekend of melancholia was John McCain's veep pick. I lovelovelove it . . . I think Sarah Palin is so smart and tough, and she's exactly what his campaign needed to galvanize voters. Before I was kind of like, "I don't really know about McCain, but there's not another choice . . ." Now I'm like, "McCain/Palin ROCKS."

If you have any thoughts about puppies, kittens, dollhouses, popcorn, or Sarah Palin, please feel free to let me know . . . I need something to distract me from my room of cardboard and dwindling movie time.

2008 Summer Pancake Games Come to a Satisfying and Delectable Finish, despite the Chairman

Oh my goodness, people. Perfection has been achieved.

And I only have one thing to say:

Gluten-Free Girl, will you be my best friend?????????

I made her pancake recipe (as solemnly vowed to you), and they were fantastic. They looked and tasted like REAL PANCAKES. And get this: they totally looked like restaurant pancakes.



I am not even kidding.

Plus, as an added bonus, they're made with teff flour, which is a whole grain. That means that it's completely healthy to eat these pancakes. Like eating whole-wheat ones, except gluten-free whole-wheat. It's a miracle!! Here are my only issues: 1) because of the teff flour, which is brown, the batter is brown instead of the yellowy color it usually is. Don't be freaked out by this. It will still taste fantastic.


2) because of all the baking powder and xanthum gum, the batter is extremely puffy (this is good because then the pancakes are light and fluffy). So that you don't come out with pancakes ten stories tall, smooth it around a little in the pan to make it thinner. Trust me, it'll puff back up plenty.


That's it! The recipe is below. Make and enjoy!

Other than the pancakes, I have been on a baking spree this week. I made Irish Soda Bread (also from a Gluten-Free Girl recipe, also with teff flour, and also fantastic), and Devil's Food cake, which was like heaven. I made it for my birthday so that we wouldn't have to get ice cream cake, and it was even better than pancakes. I'll give you the yummylicious recipe for that too, but next time. This post is long enough as it is!

Despite my many successful forays into baking, tonight my mom and I were making spaghetti, and AFTER I had boiled my water and made my garlic bread, I realized I had no gluten-free noodles.

This necessitated a last-minute drag-race to the grocery store. Not the good grocery store that has an entire aisle of gluten-free goodies and is a few towns over, but the stupid grocery store a mile away that decided to merge all of it's GF stuff with the regular stuff, so while I was searching fruitlessly for corn noodles I had to be taunted by shelves and shelves of bright yellow egg noodles. I was about to leave the store in the midst of a huge hissy-fit at their lack of GF noodles when I spotted an odd colored bag peeking out of the bottom shelf. Odd colored bags tend to mean GF, so I knelt down. There, under all the other shelves and a bit of dust, were the noodles I was looking for. Well, they were and they weren't. There was only one brand, and they were made of brown rice.

Like palm kernel oil, brown rice is one of my old enemies. The first GF bread I ever bought was brown rice, and it tasted like I'd cut up a refrigerator box and spread peanut butter on it. So I thought, maybe it's just the bread. And tried some brown rice noodles. This time it tasted like I'd shaved a refrigerator box into little curly-cues, boiled them so that they were mushy enough to not need chewing, and slathered them with tomato sauce.

Needless to say, I swore off brown rice immediately and haven't let one morsel pass between my lips since.

But what was I going to do? It was a total Hobson's choice situation. (I learned that phrase from dictionary.com, which sends me a Word of the Day every day. If you don't understand why I have dictionary.com sending me a Word of the Day, or why I'm giggling with glee because I actually got to use a Word of the Day in conversation, please consult my very first post). I had to buy the dreaded brown rice noodles. I tried to tell myself, "Hey, it's been five years. Maybe they've improved their brown rice recipes. Maybe it won't make me feel like I'm eating at recycling facility turned restaurant." Plus, I had garlic bread, which would help disguise any cardboard-esque tastes.

So I optimistically went to the self-checkout lane (read: stomped my way over with a One-Glance-My-Way-And-I'll-Mow-You-Down-With-My-Car look on my face). And as the cherry on top of the whole experience, I saw that Chairman Mao was in the checkout lane right next to mine.

Chairman Mao is the nickname I gave this guy who was in my Middle Eastern History class last semester. I loved the class. It was really interesting, and since beforehand all I knew was that the Mid-East was somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic and that we're at war there, the class was also quite informative. For example, I now know where Iran and Iraq actually are and can discuss (not at-length, but somewhat) the origins of the issues between Israelis and Palestinians. All well and good.

But there was this guy . . . pale, pasty, with the reddest hair I've ever seen, and the biggest mouth on the face of the planet. He was always arguing with the prof, acting like he knew more than her (in which case, why the hell was he taking the class in the first place?). And to make matters worse, he was a raging Communist and used every pause to breathe the prof took to acquaint the rest of us with Communist principles. Sometimes (read: 99.9% of the time) his comments didn't even gel with whatever we were talking about in class. They were just completely out of the blue.

Hence the nickname Chairman Mao for the red-headed freak (and no, the fact that he has red hair was not lost on me. That's the kind of irony you couldn't make up if you tried).

Anyway, I kind of hated him (read: loathed him with the burning intensity of a thousand desert suns). He ruined every class session he was in and, I think, really detracted from what the prof had to teach us because he ate up so much of her lecturing time.

Here's the worst thing he did. One day, when we were talking about the Palestinians and their lost homeland, he actually made a comment about "our persecution."

"Our persecution." As if he were Palestinian.

The boy couldn't be more white if he tried. He looks like a copper-headed Pillsbury Dough Boy.

I realize that anecdote has nothing to do with Communism, but it does highlight his complete, total, and utter stupidity. He's the kind of guy I just wanted to smack and say, "Listen, I know that right now you're full of arrogant, pretentious and pompous assumptions you honestly and passionately believe are true, but in a few years you'll be out in the real world and they'll all get smacked right out of you. So do me a favor and SHUT UP SO I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THEM."

And this was the guy I had to confront in the self-checkout lane.

Read: paid with my head down and then ran as fast as my flip-flops could propel me so that he wouldn't recognize me as the girl who shot daggers and flames at him with her eyes all semester long.

Oh, and the noodles? Totally slimy and mushy. Thank God for garlic bread or I would have spewed.

So, long story short, don't get too cocky just because you bake a few things and they turn out completely yummylicious. Otherwise brown rice and Chairman Mao may raise their ugly heads . . .

P.S. I know my posts have been extra long lately, but now that the Pancake Games are over and there's no pressure to finish a specific recipe before I post, I promise from now on they'll be shorter and more frequent. That's my new solemn vow to you.

Gluten-Free Pancakes o'Yummyliciousness (from Gluten-Free Girl--see here)
¼ cup sorghum flour
¼ cup teff flour
¼ cup sweet rice flour
¼ cup tapioca flour
½ teaspoon xanthan gum
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons organic cane sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder1 cup rice milk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons sour cream (or goat’s milk yogurt)


Combining the dry ingredients. Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir them with a wire whisk. (I have found this is like sifting the flours, without having a sifter.)
Combining the wet ingredients. Pour the rice milk (or whatever kind of milk you are using) into a different large bowl. Add the eggs and sour cream. Whisk it all together. Making them one. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, ¼ cup at a time. Stir well between each dry addition.
Patience. Let the mixture sit for at least thirty minutes, at room temperature, to settle into itself.
Cooking the pancakes. Turn a burner on medium heat. When it has come to temperature, add your favorite greaser here — canola oil, butter, or non-dairy spread — just enough to coat the pan. Using the ¼ cup measurement you pulled out of the drawer to measure the ingredients, dollop the pancake batter into the pan, from the height of a few inches. Allow the pancake to cook. Don’t be over eager to turn it. When bubbles have formed and mostly popped on the surface of the pancake, turn it. The second side always takes half the time to cook as the first, so watch this carefully. Remove the pancake from the pan and serve. Makes six small pancakes.