a house divided

Maybe it was too good to last. Maybe I was asking too much. Though come to think of it, I didn't ask. He offered.

Whatever the cause, things are changing at my house, and chaos is in the air.

I can't eat gluten, dairy, soy, corn, and a bunch of other things that escape my mind at the moment. GK seems to be able to eat anything he pleases without obvious repercussions. For the first year or so, he was completely up for clearing out our pantry and freezer and fridge of foods that might make me sick. He is a sweetheart for sure, but I still think some of his motivation came from a desire to not have to listen to me in pain half the time. Anyway, year one was pretty easy around our house. I was still struggling to determine what I could safely eat, but he was willingly eating what I cooked and forgoing sandwiches except when he went to lunch with friends. I went through the usual grain substitutions, trying lots of interesting sounding flours and adding sugar into my diet for the first time in years. I also started cooking with xanthan gum and guar gum and all sorts of yucky stuff. I was determined to find food I could eat, and that was the direction much of the gluten-free literature was sending me. It was only after months and months of trial and error, mostly error, that I put enough puzzle pieces together to rule out lots of culprits in my diet in addition to gluten and dairy.

As I added to my list of "must avoids," the Paleo approach to food, drink, and lifestyle started to become an obvious choice. Obvious for me, anyway. Like many of us, I'd gone through phases of avoiding red meat, trying on vegetarian, toying with vegan, low-fat, low carb, low protein, high protein, heavy supplement use. Still, in my heart of hearts, I'm a meat-eater, a happy carnivore. I can easily fantasize about thick rare steaks, carpaccio, lamb shanks, and lobster. I grew up eating raw lamb and frog legs. Paleo sounded perfectly fine to me. I could easily do without grains and legumes.

Uh, what was I thinking? GK would happily, very happily, forgo meat entirely. He will eat it, but he most definitely did not want, does not want, any association with a diet that revels in it. Though Paleo is certainly not all about gnawing on knuckle bones and emphasises real food, including lots of vegetables, it may elicit visions of cave men with clubs eating raw flesh. And did I mention this man practically lives for potatoes and beans? Seriously, I could serve beans twice a day, every day, and he would be thrilled. I didn't even think of all that as I talked excitedly about finally finding a grove that seemed to fit, about bloggers and cooks who used ingredients I could actually eat and shared recipes I could use without constant substitution. I also missed what should have been an even more obvious shift. I was now talking about a personal choice, a positive move toward something I wanted, not just escape from the pain of the last few years.

So as I embraced Paleo foods, GK quietly took another stand. He didn't ask me to change the foods I bought or ate. And thankfully, he's not one of those scary people who likes to slip offending foods onto your plate just to show you. No, it wasn't horrid; it was just weird. He started picking up cheeses when we shopped, stood looking longingly at the bread section before slipping a loaf of sprouted grain bread into the cart, and asked for oatmeal. The contents of my kitchen started changing.

And then came the big guns; he wouldn't eat the meals I'd cooked. He said there was too much meat or too much fat. He asked for beans and sandwiches and oatmeal with raisins. Yikes! Who was this? What happened to the man who said he didn't mind at all? The one who said he could just eat those foods when he was in a restaurant? The one who was happy to eat scrambled eggs instead of his beloved oatmeal?

We are working out the kinks in all this still. Since I cook and he cleans, I've agreed to add some meals where meat is optional, others where it plays a less significant role. Though our meals had never been meat-fests, they must have seemed that way to him. It is, of course, more complicated now, and I worry sometimes about cross-contamination, but heck, ya do what ya gotta do. I guess I should still count myself pretty lucky.

don't cook (much) on thanksgiving

Sacrilege, I know, but hear me out.

I love Thanksgiving, and I always, always, always insist on hosting our family's Thanksgiving dinner. I've been doing this since my now adult children were tiny. I've always loved the planning and the shopping and the days of preparation. But by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was tired and cranky and pretty hard to take.

There are just over 20 of us for dinner these days, and somehow over time, we seem to have taken a holiday known for its excess and skyrocketed it to new dimensions. Seriously, we have a roast turkey or two, a faux turkey for the vegetarians, two or three kinds of stuffing or dressing (one of which will be vegetarian), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, turkey gravy, vegetarian mushroom gravy, fruit salad, tabbouleh, Brussels sprouts, creamed onions, corn, a few additional vegetables, fresh cranberry sauce, jelled cranberry sauce, several varieties of dinner rolls. Then if someone wants to try something new like mashed cauliflower, it is added to the list. We don't replace; we don't substitute; we add. I didn't even mention pies here, as that would be another full page, and usually, I don't make any of the desserts on Thanksgiving. I should be clear here, very clear. I do not do all the cooking, not by a long shot. Many, many other people work for days, as well.

I mentioned recently to my daughter, Kristen, how much I enjoyed entertaining, having parties. Her response startled me at first, then I realized she was right on the money. She said, "No you don't, you hate it. You like the idea of having parties." What an awful thought, worse because it was true. I love the preparation and planning, but by the time a party has materialized, I am so damned tired and irritable, I just want to find a quiet corner and curl up for a week or two.

Working our way through this has not been quick, nor has it been very easy. One recent year, after we raced to get the 1500 dishes on the table, get everyone seated, trip over those who wanted to hang out in the kitchen to visit, and finally sat down to cold food that should have been hot and warm food that should have been cold, it hit us. If it's going to be cold anyway, why worry about cooking the gravy just before you serve it? Why boil, drain, and mash the potatoes in a kitchen already filled with pots and pans and people running in all directions? If it's going to be cold anyway, why try to time the turkey so that it has precisely 30 minutes to rest? Phooey, let's make it ahead and serve it dry and cold and tasteless. Yeah, that won't work, but something has got to. And something certainly does.

 I have, at long last, found a way to enjoy it all. After all, restaurants don't cook everything last minute. They couldn't. Good ones know what holds for a few days or a few hours, what can be frozen even weeks in advance, and what really needs that last few minutes of your time.

Today, 9 days ahead of Thanksgiving, I plan to make creamed onions and freeze them in an oven-safe serving dish that will make it all the way to the table. I love making creamed onions, though I don't eat them anymore. I love to take my time and enjoy making them. I can do that today; I cannot do it next Wednesday or Thursday. Other dishes that can be made a week ahead and frozen include many vegetables, sweet potatoes or squash, even gravy. Mashed potatoes can be made a day ahead and kept in the refrigerator. They are incredibly easy to reheat in a crock pot (at our house we sometimes use two.) 

Tonight I'll also start turkey stock, continue really, I started it yesterday. I'll cook a turkey breast and hind quarters separately the day before Thanksgiving to be sure we have enough to slice and serve without my brother, Bob, having to stand and carve the turkey I'll roast on the big day, all through dinner.

turkey hind quarters, browned under the oven broiler and ready to simmer with aromatics for stock

I will make vegetarian foods one day and those with meat on a different day. This not only keeps the vegetarian dishes meat-safe, it keeps them from contaminating the gluten-free, dairy-free, Paleo-friendly dishes I look forward to eating.

I'll add some more details in the next few days, including my suggestion for exceptionally good, though not dairy-free, mashed potatoes.

For some really good ideas of what to serve and suggestions for even more sources, check any of these recent posts. They're all good and mostly all Paleo. Some are even Whole30 approved.

Whole9 Thanksgiving
Ginger Lemon Girl Thanksgiving
Food Lovers Primal Palate Paleo Thanksgiving Recipes