of you interested in psychology, this was something akin to Piaget’s concept of assimilation, where new information is made to fit preexisting ideas, rather than accommodation, where new information leads to the growth of a new, enhanced understanding. This is a bit embarrassing to confess, but these attempts were met with varying degrees of success, most of them admittedly falling on the abysmal end of the scale. I am a fantastic cook and pride myself on preparing foods that look and taste perfect, but I’m not a magician. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make gluten-free challah taste like the mouthwatering loaves I used to produce. This led to the next stage in my life, where I began moving toward accommodation. I became adept at the replacements that worked, like potato or tapioca starch in place of flour to thicken sauces and soups, and at cooking rice pastas perfectly. I stopped trying to replace everything with a gluten-free alternative; instead, I started becoming more creative and diverse in my food preparations. I’m basically a nonconformist and hate following recipes unless I absolutely must, so I began experimenting with my own glutenfree recipes. Soon I discovered that food has so much more potential than I had previously known. Hashem, in His Infinite kindness, created a world filled with foods of every color, shape, texture and flavor. It’s like an artist’s palette of untouched paints and other mediums, just waiting to be transformed into masterpieces of lasting beauty. I must tell you, my fingers practically itched to play with it all, to make magnificent offerings out of so many choices of raw material, and that desire to create new delicacies in my kitchen has never faded. To this day, or at least up until the pandemic began, I regularly cooked gourmet meals for my family, extended family, friends, and our frequent Shabbos and yom tov guests. The food was, and still is, all gluten-free and absolutely delicious, if I may say so myself. Those of you who have been the lucky beneficiaries of my largesse are nodding as you read this, and quite possibly salivating. No false humility here, I am that good of a cook. Lest you think going gluten-free has been an easy stroll through the park on a path scattered with rose petals, let me be the first to assure you that this wasn’t the case at all. Not even a little bit. There were many inevitable pitfalls. To all the pessimists and realists reading this, you can now breathe easier. What follows here will definitely be more your style.
For starters, forget about buying takeout. Ever. Okay, there are some notable exceptions, but I’m talking as a rule here. Most people who work the takeout counters don’t really know what gluten is, and which foods contain it. True story: I ask the guy behind the counter if their gefilte fish has flour and explain that I’m allergic to gluten. He assures me that it doesn’t. When I ask him what they use as a starch, to hold it together, he explains that they use matzah meal. So no flour. Right. Here’s another true story. I’ve learned that most upscale restaurants are very accommodating when I make specific requests. Not that I can afford them that often, but it’s still good to know, right? Now, you may not know this, but soy sauce, as a general rule, contains wheat. So there I was, in a new restaurant I hadn’t tried before, ordering a Chinese stir-fry. I made sure to specify that they needed to use clean pans and utensils and that the food couldn’t contain flour or soy sauce. They eagerly reassured me that it was no problem, and I ordered the food to go. My children enjoyed their dinner immensely, but I had only eaten a few bites when I started feeling nausea and severe abdominal cramps. As soon as I was able to, I called the restaurant and asked to speak with the chef, and he assured me that he had only used a little bit of soy sauce. The manager apologized profusely and proceeded to send us another dinner, on the house, this one without soy sauce. But it was too late. I was no longer in any condition to eat anything, and in any case, wouldn’t have felt safe eating anything else from that restaurant. Silver lining? My kids enjoyed their second bonus dinner immensely! Then there was the time my father was in the hospital, and having little time to make Shabbos, I bought a container of clear chicken soup at a take-out. They assured me that they didn’t use any soup mixes or flavor enhancers. Yes, many of those contain gluten too. Again, I was doubled over with stomach pain. Further investigation revealed that they were catering a simcha that Friday night, and had cooked the lokshen for the soup in a mesh bag inserted into the chicken soup. Who woulda thunk?
> > > Coming next week: My health after gluten... 206 / THE MONSEY VIEW / February 10, 2021 www.themonseyview.com / 845.600.8484