Salmagundi

Item One
Profiteroles were in the news this past weekend, with three out of five contestants on the Next Iron Chef opting to make a croquembouche for their chocolate-inspired wedding-worthy dessert. I watched the ensuing fiasco with not a little satisfaction, knowing that my own gluten-free boules are at least as attractive as - and possibly texturally superior to - those produced by Chefs Tsai, Canora, and Caswell (definitely more attractive than Chef Canora's, which looked like demoralized and deflated golf balls when they came out of the oven). This is the second time I have been ahead of the curve, the first being when I outpaced Chef Dumont in my knowledge of xanthan gum and its wily ways. I have decided the Chairman could save himself a great deal of time and aggravation by halting his search and crowning me the next Iron Chef without further ado - it would be a doubly appropriate choice, given the fact that I spend much of my working day surrounded by great hulking piles of metal.

Item Two
Sir has been summoned to Tokyo once again, leaving the Kid Squid and me languishing at home, raking leaves and plowing through algebra homework. As a penalty for his desertion, I am requiring that he present himself at the Ginza branch of Laduree in order to purchase some macarons as my consolation prize. I have already visited the website to choose the flavors I shall require in my Boite Prestige: jasmine mango; bergamot; rose; pistachio; black currant violet; chestnut; and lemon cedrat should do nicely for a start. I will not stand in need of licorice, coconut, or mint, which is bound to make Sir's life easier. I did not know previously that Laduree lay claim to the invention of the macaron, which they attribute to one Pierre Desfontaines, cousin of the Great Man Himself. I was also unaware that they age their macarons for two days before presenting them for sale, as this holding period is deemed necessary for a 'perfect balance of texture and flavour'. This spells disaster for Toad and me, as we will this weekend be obliged to eat at least some of ours - for quality control purposes - immediately upon fabrication.

Item Three
At long last, I have been able to make my semi-annual pilgrimage to Mitsuwa, where I stocked up on a wide variety of gluten-free pantry staples, including five bags of good sushi rice, three different varieties of naturally-brewed shoyu (which I have decided is gluten-free); two kinds of organic tamari; sesame oil, mirin, rice vinegar, and lots of other goodies. I always make it a point to buy something I've never tried before, and on this visit it was a packet of goma dofu, a tofu-like substance made from white sesame seeds, water, and kuzu (or kudzu).

My Mitsuwa haul: the goma dofu is the
upright white packet in the middle

I had some for lunch today. It tasted like a very gelatinous peanut-butter pudding, and the sticky sweet miso helpfully provided as an accompaniment only served to heighten its strangeness. I was just getting ready to declare it not worth the calories when I discovered I'd eaten the whole thing. Such is often the way with Japanese delicacies, I find. They grow on you.

During subsequent research, I ascertained that goma dofu has a long and noble history and is, in fact, an artifact of Shojin Ryori, the vegan cuisine perfected by Buddhist monks. Kuzu, it turns out, is an awesome gluten-free thickener that I will be trying at the first available opportunity - although any temptation to grow it in my own garden is tempered by the warning implicit in the pea-cousin's moniker 'the foot-a-night vine' or 'the vine that ate the South'.

Item Four
On my way home from Mitzuwa (keeping an eagle-eye out for some Real Housewives - alas, they must all have been getting manicures in Paterson that day), I made a short detour to the Fort Lee, NJ branch of Whole Foods. As difficult as it may be for readers to believe, I had never before stepped into one of these organic warehouse giants, as none has yet been built within forty-five miles of my domicile. I thought I would see if they had any brands of gluten-free baking flour I might try, and possibly some g/f soba, which was conspicuouslyy absent from Mitsuwa's shelves. What riches! Two new kinds of baking mix, plus bags of buckwheat flour and sweet chestnut flour (I predict that galettes de Bretagne and crepes aux marrons are in our future). Also, I saw several different types of boxed cake preparations that I thought looked intriguing.

Readers have been telling me to stop pounding my head against the wall and go ahead and invest in some box mixes already. Hitherto, my response has been, 'If I didn't use cakes from a box before, why on earth would I now?'

The ingredients on the labels were suitably natural, organic and virtuous, so I chose two - lemon and chocolate/cayenne - for trial. I also bought a box of g/f pie crust mix, since Thanksgiving is coming and there's only so much a girl can do, right?  I will report back on these gluten-free labor-savers in due course.

Oh - and Whole Foods had the soba I was looking for, too.