My mother would not recognize my pantry.
We joke that my mother didn't cook so much as heat. There were a limited number of things she actually cooked, but my mother is of the era that believed in convenience food. Military culture didn't do us any favors, either; military family food tends to a weird combination of ethnic food and the seriously weird. In any given potluck you were likely to see green bean casserole, lumpia, and some dessert featuring red jello, cool whip, and pretzels. My mother's pantry, as a consequence, tends towards cardboard boxes leavened with a few paper packets and some cans of tuna.
We were already far away from that model, what with my MIL's affinity for actual cooking and our sense that food should involve, you know, food. But since my chiropractor told me that I need to be off dairy, wheat, oats, and rye, we've crossed over into foods my mother would never know what to do with.
Tapioca flour. Rice flour. Xanthum Gum. Add these to the bounty of the CSA (celeriac?) and it's a whole new world.
It hasn't been a smooth transition, of course. The staff retreat featured a lunch consisting entirely of sandwiches (all with cheese) and cookies. Oh, and there was macaroni salad. So I said to hell with it and ate it all, because I am not yet at a point where I can bring my own food to such things and feel okay. I regretted it (among so many things that day), but the damage was done.
Ms. P was amazing and spent most of yesterday cooking things to have for lunch (and some dinners) all this week so that I don't walk down the street to the fish fry or, worse, eat rice krispie bars and m&ms for lunch, which I've totally done. The difficult part is still finding breakfast foods and snack foods and making sure I have enough to eat, because veggies and protein, while tasty, do not last so long in my tummy.
(By the way--did you know that raw almonds taste exactly like almond extract smells? I'd only ever had roasted almonds before, and they don't taste like that. I thought almonds were like grapes or strawberries--things for which the "flavor" doesn't really match the reality. Now I know to stay away from raw almonds.)
The BFF is on very, very, very restricted diet, so I knew intellectually that it would be hard. I wasn't prepared for how viscerally hard it is. It's hard to be the "fussy" customer at restaurants who needs things just so. It's hard to consider bringing one's own food when the provided food can't be made to work. It's hard to think about holidays and visiting people and having to either screw up people's holiday traditions or eat something sad and pathetic by myself. It's hard to plan ahead and make snacks available when I've never been much of a snacker. It's hard to give up the ice cream and cookies I love for substitutes that aren't as good. It's hard to rethink the menu so I don't have to rely on substitutes that never live up to the originals. It's hard to go to restaurants and have my choices limited to a handful of things that have neither dairy or wheat. It's hard not to go to restaurants when that's our fallback when we're exhausted or stressed or depressed.
It's hard to be the one who doesn't fit. Again.
I do think it will make me feel better, and I'm hoping it helps me get knocked up. It's likely to be worth it. But the trenches, oh, the trenches are not a very nice place to be.
Anyone got a good gluten-free chocolate-chip cookie recipe? I could really use one right now.