The Intolerant Gourmet

Well, it is out. I and the press seem to be pleased. Do visit The Intolerant Gourmet and buy it if you like it at the major chains and most booksellers

broken

It turns out that when I fell I broke both my neck and spine as well as several ribs. Wildly, I seem to be surviving with good surgery and medical care, but it is certainly clear that hospitals have no notion of how to make a lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant pleasant. They all need my forthcoming book. Makes me feel useful.

No Milk or Butter

my forthcoming book, The Intolerant Gourmet, has recipes with ought any dairy. Dairy is the largest group of intolerances in the world. There are pills that can be taken, but they leave some residual discomfort. Following my book you and your friends can eat safely and very well. enjoy

soba gome

These are the small hulled Japanese buckwheat groats. After playing around, I found that mixing a given quantity--say 1 cup--of the groats with twice the quantity of of water--say two cups--of other light liquid such as stock and letting them soak and swell for a half to a whole hour and then cooking gives the best result. This keeps the groats from getting mushy. The amount of liquid needed for the actual cooking will depend on what is being cooked with them. I used large scallops and small mussels which gave off plenty of liquid. I cooked this in a wok with the seafood on top, tightly covered. I had seasoned the soaked groats with a large handful of fresh tarragon leaves and a good quantity of kosher salt and pepper. The dish took about fifteen minutes of actual cooking, or until the mussel shells opened. It served four as a light main course.
Vegetables, fish and chicken would be good alternatives.
Now the fun begins.

Another Grain

I thought when I finished The Intolerant Gourmet that I had covered all the grains. Well, it turns out that there is still one more, buckwheat groats. This is a tiny form of buckwheat that grows wild. I found some in a few days of experimenting I should have some solid data. the groats, like all buckwheat, are not a wheat but a non-gluten seed.
As they used to say on the radio in my childhood: "Stay tuned."

Nature's Gift

Of course one can buy cultivated Pleurotus oestreatau (oyster mushrooms); but as a rare gift, one comse accross a tree with soft scale like growths that are these mushrooms in the wild. Recantly this good fortune came our way and we cut down a large bounty. From these I made soup. They weigh very little so a large mound is deceptive. I cleaned the mushrooms by cutting off the hard part of the stems and cut them into strips about a quarter inch wide following the lines of the gills. This gave me a pound of prepared mushrooms which I put in a sauce pan with five cups of chicken stock. I brought theme to a boil and reduced to a simmer and let cook about fifteen minutes. I stirred in three quarters of a cup of white miso and that was that. It was also a good opening for a meal of composed salads.

It is also gluten and lactose free.

The Intolerant Gourmet

Life is strange. The Intolerant Gourmet is the title of my forthcoming book--end October, early November. I have been working on it for four years. It turns out that by hideous coincidence that there is a book with the same title by an English writer and published in England using English weights and measures.

I hope that you will wait for my book or order it now. Many of you have enjoyed my recipes over the years.

If you want my book with my recipes and fitted to our kitchens, it is important that you specify that you are ordering The Intolerant Gourmet by Barbara Kafka.

I hope that you will. I am very proud of my book and I think that you will enjoy it and its food. Also in addition to being gluten free it is lactose free. Many people have a great deal of trouble digesting milk products.

I hope that you have wonderful food using my book and that you are healthier for it.

Let me know what you think and be patient until you can get a copy of my book.