Fifth Columnists

Christmas preparations are in full swing a chez Fractured Amy. The stockings have been hung from the chimney with care; the house has been festooned with pine branches and holly sprigs; and Sir has done his usual sterling job of bedecking the gazebo in the woods with twinkly white fairy lights. The Messiah can be heard more or less round the clock (except when interrupted by carol services from Wells Cathedral) and the Kid Squid leaps from his bed every morning to see what new delight may be found in his personally-prepared advent calendar.

Since this is my favorite time of the year, it has proved somewhat difficult of late to work myself into my customary lather of gluten-free indignation. It's not easy to snipe and snark when one is cheerfully humming Good King Wenceslas and Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming, as is my wont once December 1 rolls around.

Still, today is a terribly rainy Tuesday, which means I must rouse myself from contented satisfaction to indulge in some well-deserved testiness prompted by Things To Which I Take Exception.

What is the object of my current ire, you may well ask? Well, I will tell you. Today's travails and tribulations come to me courtesy of The New York Times, a publication that in my humble - but generally agreed-upon opinion - is typically above reproach. The specific source of my torment is a feature from last Sunday's magazine section headlined Beat the Wheat. This unfortunate choice of titular phraseology alerted me to the likelihood of anger-causing content such that I only just got round to studying it today. My particularly good mood of late has caused me to avoid strenuously potential buzz-harshers.

The piece turned out to be a bit of puffery about how General Mills, ConAgra, Anheuser-Busch and other stalwarts of the gluten-industrial complex have discovered that beaucoup dosh can be obtained by benevolently shilling wheat-free convenience food to perplexed passengers on the gluten-free bandwagon.

A few interesting factoids emerged during my perusal:

• for reasons unknown to science, young people today are nearly five times as likely to have celiac disease as they were in 1950. Not to be diagnosed with it, mind you - which would be understandable - but actually to have it.
• celiac disease is now appearing in countries with little history of the disorder, including Mexico and India
• the gluten-free market is up by 33 percent since 2009 and is now something like a $6.3 billion industry (this according to Spins, a market research and consulting firm for natural-product producers)
• 80% of that market is driven by core commando consumers - that is, individuals who must avoid gluten because their quacks have told them to. The article is silent on who the other 20% are, but we know, don't we? It's the crazies who think gluten-free diets will help their candidates win elections and inspire the world's remaining dictators to embrace democracy.

This much I already knew: the evil minions of agribusiness are determined to unload (at exorbitant prices) certified maltodextrin-free breakfast cereal on unhappy gluten-freedom fighters who clearly don't take as much joy from plain organic super-yogurt, chia seeds, and homemade preserves as I do.

But here's something that came as a shock to my already-delicate system: there are entire battalions of g/f guerrillas colluding with the enemy!

That's right. Infiltrating our cadres are traitors to the cause who in their spare time are advising the Sinister Forces of Food Processing as to the best ways of luring freedom fighters over to the dark side.

The example cited by the article was The Casserole Coup, which was sneakily perpetrated recently by a consulting board of (I'm sure otherwise blameless) gluten-free do-gooders.

The problem with which the quislings confronted their handlers was the impossibility of creating a one-dish wonder from Progresso gluten-free cream of mushroom soup, which (according to informants) is neither sufficiently 'gelatinous' nor 'gluey' for the production of 'a great casserole'. General Mills have seized upon the opportunity and are now working overtime to engineer a can of condensed g/f soup that will work as well (or as badly) as its mucilaginous counterpart.

Just for fun, I looked up the nutritional info on said product. I discovered that over half its calories come from fat (and that's before you add all your other delicious casserole ingredients) and that one cup gives you 37% of your daily sodium requirement. The casserole-defying gluten-free version has similar characteristics, with the added bonus of a healthy dose of modified food starch (appearing on the label near the top, just after soybean oil).

After receiving this intelligence hyperventilation caused me to fall off my computer chair, rendering further research impractical.

Is this really an improvement? Is there not a better way? Of course there is. We can be thoughtful about what we eat and the ingredients with which we cook. We can decide that convenience does not out-trump quality and accept that we alone - and not profiteers from the wheat wars - must be responsible for what we put on our own tables. And we must bring these misguided wheat-free warriors back into the fold.

But such revolutionary fervor will have to wait until January.

At this time of year, my righteous indignation never lasts for long.

Can Androids Make the Gluten-Free Leap?

I am not, as a rule, a gadget maven although my two favorite objets techniques of all time - you know, the ones I will grab before fleeing from a burning building - are my Smartyphone and my Kindle. And my iPad.

Three objets techniques.

I love my Smartyphone because of all the cool stuff it allows me to do. I can save myself a fruitless trip all the way upstairs by texting the Kid Squid from the kitchen to find out whether he wants to join me in a cup of tea or go for a walk. I can keep track of the gluten-free shopping and take pictures of all the exotic ingredients I require so others can reconnoitre the supermarket without me. I can play Angry Birds and Scrabble to my heart's content - much-needed relaxation after an afternoon wrestling with a g/f baking experiment. I am able, now that I have given in and paid the introductory fee of 99 cents, to follow all the latest happenings (and recipes!) as revealed by the New York Times. I can even obtain directions to that fabulous new boite that's been the subject of so much local buzz lately.

I'm just kidding about that last one: the Valley is scandalously short on boites and their ilk, but a girl can dream.

My iPad is necessary for streaming Netflix videos and downloading volumes with pretty pictures or diagrams - such as cookbooks and On Food and Cooking - which don't transfer well to Amazon's 'reads like a book' device. It is also useful for downloading photos when I am travelling, so I can free up valuable space on my camera's wee memory chip.

As for my Kindle, well, you know that I refuse to buy dead tree anything anymore and that's that.

But none of these devices, tragically, does it all. I don't really like reading novels on my iPad (there's too much glare and I don't like the tricky swiping maneuver required to turn the pages - also the battery doesn't last that long) while the Kindle is useless for movies and web browsing. The Blogger interface is compatible with exactly none of them, so when I think the mood will strike I have to ensure access to a computer: when we travel, that means I need to carry my little HP netbook or borrow the Squid's laptop when he isn't looking.

True story: when DMR and I presented ourselves at security at JFK in May before our flight to Johannesburg, I was taken aside and questioned at length by the TSA for having my iPhone, my Kindle, my iPad, and my netbook in my carry-on bag. 'You don't need all four,' the big scary guy exclaimed, while pulling them out of my bag and spreading them accusingly on the metal table. 'Why do you have all four?' I light-heartedly quipped that my husband had asked the same question while I was packing, ha ha ha, but the Uniformed One was having none of it. It was touch and go there for a bit, I kid you not, but I was eventually allowed to proceed despite the alarm-raising profile prompted by all my redundant technology.

Sometimes, though, one can't help oneself. From curiosity, or aggressive marketing, or the need to be au fait with the cultural currency (such as it is) of this modern age we live in, one finds oneself doing something outrageous. And that is why, despite the fact that I didn't really need it, I bought myself an early Christmas present this week: a shiny new Kindle Fire. It arrived fortuitously yesterday while I was lying on my Second Empire fainting couch, recovering from Sir's long-distance lecture about I-forget-what. I am pleased to report the improvement to my mental and physical well-being was instantaneous. I removed the device from its earnest-looking recycled cardboard box (it might have been constructed from the leavings of gluten-free bread manufacturing), charged it up, and stood back to see what would happen.

Joy of joys! My entire Kindle collection was already on its virtual library shelf in full and glorious technicolor. I discovered that I now have access to the New Yorker (an exclusive contract with Amazon, oh my), Saveur and yes, even Bon Appetit if I feel so inclined, without a single tree having to give up the ghost for the cause. My cookbooks look awesome and I can access the USDA nutritional database on the web if I need to do some sudden high-ratio baking. I can watch movies, hooray, and play Angry Birds to my heart's content.

But best of all, thanks to non-Apple technology I am now able to do this:

Huzzah for Androids: now I can blog on the go.

Breakfast Reading

I am still without a morning newspaper, since I continue to be philosophically conflicted about the NYTimes' online subscription plan. My fervent hope is that the Powers That Be will see the error of their ways and give up the paywall as a failed experiment before election season gets into full swing, but in the meantime I am without my early-morning current-events fix. I therefore spend the happy twenty minutes (the time it takes me to enjoy my Breakfast of Gluten-Free Champions) checking e-mail, catching up on Facebook, and perusing dead tree magazines, chief among these being my cherished New Yorkers and mysterious gratis issues of Bon Appetit.

Two items of note caught my eye this morning as I spooned up my chia seeds, organic yogurt, and home-made banana and strawberry compote.

The first, which filled my heart with unutterable joy, was the notification from Amazon - sent to me personally! - that Neal Stephenson's next novel is due out on September 20. Those who know me - and are familiar with my slavish devotion to Stephenson's oeuvre - will immediately understand the significance of this news. I have been waiting ages and ages for him to produce his next herniating tome and getting quite impatient, frankly. I'd already re-read his previous four books, like, six zillion times (I find novels to be uncomplaining companions at the stove, particularly when one is stirring for the long periods required by custard, cheese curds, and risotto) and was beginning to despair there would ever be another one to brighten my life. The notification this morning was as manna from heaven and I hastily pre-ordered a copy.

Such was my delight that it took some effort and concentration to get annoyed and provoked by the second item of note, but I managed it nonetheless. Never let it be said that I allow a good mood to get in the way of self-righteous indignation!

The source of my consternation was, of course, the September issue of Bon Appetit, delivered to my door yesterday by Glenda, our otherwise valuable and doughty mail ma'am. What did I see as I perused the contents of the so-called Restaurant Issue? My spine was chilled by an item appearing on page 62 under the heading Good Health:

Gluten-Free for All: We get to the bottom

of the diet du jour

Ye gods.

I have observed before that everybody is going gluten-free these days - often for dubious reasons, in my opinion. I'm afraid I am not one of the faithful who believes that the eschewal of cereal proteins will cure autism, left-handedness, debt in the Euro-zone; or atmospheric perturbations such as the hurricane currently bearing down on all of us (the less said about earthquakes, these days, the better).

I'm not even sure a gluten-free diet will help one overcome 'fatigue and brain fog (in just three days!)' as the medical experts quoted in the article assert. Quite apart from my previous ignorance that 'brain fog' was a scientific term and the laughable claim that 'now it's easier than ever to find decent baked goods,' I found the piece objectionable in many, many different ways.

My views on the gluten-free bandwagon are firm and well-documented elsewhere. I would, however, like to add to my not-inconsiderable list of grievances the fact that I'm pretty sure the last time I went into a restaurant and made mention of my dietary restriction (the staff did ask, after all) there followed a certain amount of discreet eye-rolling in response. I can only suppose this is because every third person is presenting herself with a 'gluten intolerance' these days and chef is getting fairly fed up with diners turning up their noses at his glorious home-made bread, delicate spaetzle, and perfect tart crust.

The last thing we bona fide gluten guerillas need is a bunch of newly-converted enthusiasts creating extra work and bad mojo in our favorite kitchens - especially since said campaigners will soon have moved on to some other fear, leaving us to deal with the fallout. I speak as an old gluten freedom-fighter of almost an entire year's standing (I mark my twelve-month anniversary on September 12), with no end in sight - and none of my quacks' promised health improvements, either.

Resentful? Maybe.

Sceptical? Definitely.

I think I need to stop reading Bon Appetit.

But that's OK.

I'll have Neal Stephenson for consolation.

Top Chef Masters, Episode 7: Scientific Method

Whilst galivanting around the southern hemisphere I missed just one episode of Top Chef Masters, a cringe-making romance-fest involving an on-camera marriage proposal; the unedifying spectacle of What's-His-Name flirting (not too convincingly, I might add) with The Shoes; Gael Greene describing her dalliance with Elvis yet again; and Celina getting the boot for a decidedly un-sexy dish of pretzels and salad. Yes, you heard me. Pretzels and salad. 'Nuff said.

This morning, I settled down expectantly in my favorite toile-upholstered armchair to watch yesterday's DVR'd instalment with only a cup of coffee for company, as Mlle. Malaprop insisted she needed her beauty rest. Without my customary note-taking medium at hand, I was forced to rely upon my memory for the episode's highlights - no hardship, as it turned out, because with only a few competitors left it was easier to keep track of the festivities. And what diversions there were!

First, we were treated to the traumas of our foody fighters as they attempted to cook breakfast in microwave ovens. Of course, they were all offended by the very existence of these valuable appliances and went to great pains to insist they never, ever ever used them in their restaurants and - indeed! - had never touched one (not even once!) in their entire lives. Well, that is as may be - but it seems like chopping off the greens to spite the scallion, if you get my meaning. Had these people really never, ever melted chocolate, reheated leftovers, or defrosted butter with a few beeps and a whirl on the turntable? They all claimed to have kids - did they never take the chill off babyfood? Did they never simmer milk for a custard, heat soup to perfection, boil up sugar to its required temperature, or melt wax for cheese-dipping? Had they truly never experimented to see what microwaves can do?

There's such a thing as being too highly trained (or pretending to be, anyway), and I cackled delightedly as the whiners produced limp bacon (of course!); tough biscuits and bread (naturally!); and chewy eggs (well, what did you expect?). I'm sorry: of sympathy I had exactly none. I adore my microwave and use it. A lot.

But this dismissal of microwaves' usefulness was as nothing compared to the mind-bending manifestations of hubris and lack of inquisitiveness that followed (yes, Unibrow, I'm looking at you!) when the not-yet-Masters were confronted with a selection of severe-looking scientists in bright white lab coats; nifty equipment such as beakers, bunsen burners, and litmus paper; and technical terms such as acidity, viscosity, emulsion, elasticity, and Maillard reaction.

What fun! What joy! Each of our gastronomists was tasked with preparing an edible demonstration of a basic culinary concept for a high school science fair.

How fantastic was that?

Well, not very, if their expressions were anything to go by. Even with the help of their impressively pedigreed sous chefs (a nanotechnologist from UCLA! an evolutionary biologist from Stanford!), our competitors never even scratched the surface of the limitless possibilities offered by this groovy challenge. Unibrow quickly got on the wrong side of his bespeckled geek (a polymer physicist from MIT) by displaying a woeful lack of curiosity about, well, anything at all really and Naomi never seemed to get her mind round the notion that elasticity and plasticity are, like, two completely opposite things.

That was too bad, because of all the projects, Naomi's had the potential to be the most informative and interesting. She originally came up with the awesome idea of demonstrating elasticity through the fabrication of pizza dough using a variety of flours and comparing the effects of their differing gluten compositions on the final product. Somehow, she got side-tracked by gelee (huh?) and melted mozzarella ('Look how elastic it is!' she exclaimed after pulling it to stringy and irreversible oblivion) and we never heard how the gluten experiment turned out.

Other yawn-fests included Traci's use of lemon juice to 'cook' tuna (she didn't seem at all sure about the mechanism behind this phenomenon and mumbled something about 'loosening up the proteins'); Unibrow's emulsion of a simple mayonnaise (it broke down, much to James Oseland's discomfiture); and Floyd's demonstration that beef cooked shabu-shabu style will never get crustily brown even if you leave it to bubble until the stock reduces to a salty quagmire. Mary Sue won for her collection of variegatedly-viscous sauces drizzled over hot crispy churros and that was that.

I admit that as the episode unfolded I went from happy and excited to gloomy and peevish. Having always been taught that cooking is chemistry I was a little dumbfounded by the chefs' failure to grasp pretty simple concepts and present them in an interesting, challenging, and tasty way. My naive supposition that Harold McGee is required reading on all culinary schools' syllabi, was, I am sorry to say, unfounded in fact - and none of the competitors, I presume, has as yet added a copy of Modernist Cuisine to his library shelves.

What a missed opportunity! What a chance to show kids how cool science - especially food science - can be! I was reminded of the Harvard course I plan to audit at the first available opportunity, the one where visiting professors Achatz and Dufresne teach first-years all about the fabulous feats of which molecules are capable when treated with imagination and flair.

Oh, well. I guess they all can't be Top Chef Masters.

Addendum. Naomi's failed gluten experiment called to mind an article by Melissa Clark in yesterday's New York Times online (no, I haven't bought the subscription yet - I'm still on my monthly freebies) about the great strides being made in the quality of gluten-free baked goods. Hold the phone, I thought. What have I been missing? Is there somebody out there who's cracked the conundrum and is producing - even as I self-pityingly lament my misfortune - delicious, gluten-defying pastries and cakes?

I hastily scanned the article and saw the words ethereal, fluffy, tender, and feather-light. Wow! I grabbed my best black Sanford Micro Uniball and prepared to take copious notes on the origin of these splendid products -  prepared to pay any price! go through any hoops! put my friendly UPS man to any trouble! - so I could have cases and cases of gratifying gluten-free goodies delivered to my door, directly and without delay.

Alas, 'twas not to be. Careful reading of the article revealed the usual qualifications, caveats, and apologies. Those fabulous muffins were in actuality only 'better then most other whole-grain muffins made with whole-wheat flour' - faint praise if ever I heard it. Cakes tested with g/f flour were 'only a little more crumbly' than their traditional counterparts. The article took joy in the fact that xanthan gum, 'once available only in ... food-processing plants - is now in a health food store near you!'. Ye gods.

I myself take no satisfaction in the fact that 'Sixty [gluten-free] cookbooks were published in 2010 alone': that's sixty too many, in my opinion. Why shouldn't I be disappointed that g/f brownies are 'sticky' and pizza dough 'crackerlike' when made from sawdust and bean shavings? Once again, we are told that we must 'let go of our expectations' and settle for 'different, wetter, softer' doughs and batters.

Well, I'm done settling, thank you very much, and the only expectation of which I've freed myself is that I'll eat bona fide wheat-flour pastry or cake more than once or twice a year.

And you know what? I'm OK with that.

Coming this weekend: ever the optimist, I experiment with an intriguing new recipe for almond and orange cake.

Bleeding Heart

Campers, today I have distressing news about quinoa, one of the few gluten-free grains remaining on my ever-diminishing roster of allowable foods.

But first, a few titillating factoids that I failed to uncover during my initial web research so very long ago:

• quinoa was initially popularized in the USA by NASA scientists (they really get around, those guys), impressed by its unparalleled combination of amino acids and other life-enhancing nutrients
• quinoa prices have tripled in the last five years (darn - I should have bought those futures when I had the chance)
• quinoa is, strictly speaking, a chenopod - and a close relative of beets and spinach (a chenopod, as we all know, is distinguished by its petal-less flowers)
• quinoa grows best on salt flats

Now to my latest crisis. Buried in this morning's New York Times, barely noticeable amidst headlines about Libya, Japan, Yemen, and other hotbeds of international intrigue and hullabaloo, was a story about a place not generally on my current events radar: Bolivia.

I hereby admit that I know next to nothing about Bolivia. My most recent exposure to this rather underappreciated (by me, anyway) plurinational state was during a family movie-marathon session with Stephen Soderbergh's political epic Che, the subject of which is one of the Kid Squid's most esteemed heroes. Believe me - despite the delicious presence of Benicio del Toro, only a mother's love could have kept me sitting there for the four and one-half hours required to chart the great revolutionary's rise and fall.

Che would no doubt be discomposed by the circumstances surrounding capitalism's most recent South American casualties. It turns out that while quinoa prices have been climbing and Bolivia's export of the grain (sorry, chenopod) has been burgeoning, home consumption of the miracle food has plummeted by 34%. This is because rich American folks like me, who eat quinoa because it's cool and groovy and gluten free, have driven the price of quinoa beyond the reach of those who previously relied upon it as a staple. The foreign aid outfits who first organized quinoa growers to export their crops are now wringing their hands over the unforeseen consequences: higher profits for producers, to be sure, but at the cost of increased childhood malnutrition in quinoa-growing areas.

Oh, the guilt! In January I suffered torments over my failure to support organic beef producers in Paraguay - but that culpability was as nothing compared to being a prime cause of hunger in Salinas de Garci Mendoza.

I guess quinoa's another item that's off my dietary docket. Whatever is a politically conscious, hand-wringing, card-carrying gluten-freedom fighter to do?

Back to Work

Today I have been checking the NYTimes and BBC websites rather more often than is good for me, eager as I am for news of the unfolding crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Pressure vessel steel is a material that comes into my place of work from time to time, and I know something of the dedication and seriousness with which nuclear engineers and technicians pursue their vocations. As one who doesn't even like to share the same laboratory space with a tank of liquid nitrogen when it starts a-hissing, I have great respect for the heroic efforts of those Tokyo Electric Power employees going about their dangerous and vital work. I offer them a hearty Ganbatte, kudasai! and implore them to harden their navels as they carry out their onerous responsibilities.

It is in no way meant to trivialize the risk to them (and to all of us, frankly), when I tell you that I suffered a small meltdown of my own recently in the relative safety of my own domestic kitchen. More precisely, I experienced a meltdown in my own feverish brain.

I am speaking, of course, of my latest wheatless pasta debacle.

Campers, you are all aware that before the onset of my gluten-freedom fighting, pasta was the go-to carb of choice chez Fractured Amy. Some of my earliest experiments involved ersatz noodle substitutes, with predictably disastrous results. Anything that could go wrong with pasta pretty much did. Some of it turned to glue. Some of it turned to mush. Some of it disappeared out the ventilation fan and some down the kitchen sink. I have not tasted one piece of toothsome al dente deliciousness in almost six months.

But I had come to understand that there are many ways to enjoy flavorsome sauces and chewy textures without resorting to boxes of Barilla. Brown rice! Risotto! Polenta! Potatoes! I accepted my lot and reached - if not a state of contentment - at least a state of mental and emotional equilibrium where I no longer felt that a life without pasta was a life not worth living.

It was somewhat reluctantly, therefore, that I was sucked back into the melee by one of my mysterious gratis issues of Bon Appetit magazine. In a special supplement on gluten-free diets (they're all the rage, apparently - I am nothing if not a trendsetter) I came across a blurb shilling for Bionaturae pasta, which comes from Italy (where they know a thing or two about pasta) and not Canada (where, I'm sorry to say, they clearly don't). I decided I needed to get some post haste. Since Bionaturae products are not available locally, I had to wait for one of my infrequent expeditions to Whole Foods to secure a few crinkly fresh sacci. I had to wait even longer before trying the noodles, since the exigencies of cheese-making and jam fabrication precluded all other gluten-free experimentation for several weeks.

So it was with nerves tingling with anticipation (and not a little dread) that I finally addressed my last chance of happiness. During the elapsed time between discovery (some time in January, I think) and tasting I had somehow worked myself up into the belief that peerless pasta would soon be part of my life again. Visions of thick ragu, carbonara, puttanesca, and gremolata danced before me - a possible future tantalizingly within reach now that there was Bionaturae (recommended by the editors of Bon Appetit!)  in the house. My state of serene philosophical acceptance evaporated like so much super-heated cooling water.

Upon initial examination of Bionaturae's offering, I was not totally discouraged by what I found. The noodles were a reassuring wheat color - not the bright yellow of corn pasta or the muddy tones of brown rice and multi-grain varieties. Perusal of the ingredients list did less to reassure me, however: rice flour, rice starch, potato starch, and soy flour are all common in the brands I have learned to loathe. The fact that the product was billed as being free of genetically-engineered substances cheered me not at all.

I boiled up some water and cooked the recommended two ounces (Sir and the Kid Squid, having lost patience with my pasta preoccupation long ago, chose Barilla instead - and I can't really blame them, I suppose).

Do I need to tell you what happened next? Can you not guess?

Despite my watching the bubbling pot like a hawk and testing the rigatoni for doneness, like, every thirty seconds, I missed its window of al dente exquisiteness (if it ever achieved such a state, which I doubt). The final dish, dressed simply in tomato sauce with some freshly-grated parmigiano reggiano, was somehow soggy, spongy and powdery all at the same time: sort of like licking a damp plaster wall, I would imagine. I ate two bites, sighed deeply, and consigned the rest to the bin under the sink.

Serves me right for tempting fate, I suppose. But now it's a long road back to tranquility.

Looks like pasta.
Tastes like library paste laced with rice flour.
Thank you, Bon Appetit,
for another stunning recommendation.

A Mousse Bouche

This year I am thankful that Thursday's big dinner is somebody else's responsibility. What with all the gluten-free taste testing, macaron marathons, culinary experimentation, and general pandemonium chez Fractured Amy, it was music to my ears when DMR offered to host the feast this year. She has undertaken to manufacture as cereal-free a meal as she can muster, even going so far as to examine the labels on her cartons of chicken stock (yes, campers, some evil brands have gluten in them).

What a pal!

I offered to bring dessert. Originally, I had planned to do extensive pie-crust research for the occasion, but the exigencies of work and responsibilities on the home front (see above) have left me with too little time for the mandatory rigorous testing such innovation would require. My second thought was pumpkin macarons, but as I have written elsewhere, I am currently sick of the sight of them and I'm pretty sure everybody I know is equally sick of hearing about them. What to do, what to do? As always, I turned to Craig Claiborne, my go-to guy in times of culinary crisis. His popularization of Ed Giobbi's Pasta with Ricotta saved me many a time that crowds needed to be fed - in my dim and distant gluten-filled past, of course - and for that he long ago earned my undying confidence and admiration.

A quick trawl of the New York Times' recipe archives did not disappoint. Pumpkin mousse! Gluten-free, festive, simple and delicious. It will be served with brandied whipped cream, candied pecans, and foil-wrapped chocolate turkeys.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Craig Claiborne's Pumpkin Mousse

3 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt, if desired (I do desire it, thank you very much ~FA)

1/2 cup milk

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup cold water

1/2 cup heavy cream

Whip up the egg yolks and half the sugar: use a bowl that will later serve in a double boiler. Add the pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and milk and beat together until it's all nicely blended. Set the bowl in a basin of barely simmering water and beat constantly with a whisk (this could be done with a portable electric mixer, but it tends to splatter) until the mixture thickens and becomes custardlike. I don't know why Craig can't use a wooden spoon like everybody else.

Blend the gelatin with water and when it is softened, pour it into the pumpkin mixture. Pour and scrape the mixture into a mixing bowl. I waited until the custard was cool before doing this.

Beat the egg whites until they are partly stiff and add the remaining sugar, beating until the whites are stiff and glossy. Beat half of the whites into the pumpkin mousse. Add the remaining whites, folding them in gently. I know, I know. Raw egg whites. I used organic and hoped for the best. We'll see!

Beat the cream until it is stiff and fold it into the mousse. Chill until set. You'll get about six cups' worth. Yum!

Next up: heartened by exciting news from my FRiV (Field Researcher in Virginia) and having found a new model for cake conceptualization, I and my leftover pumpkin puree embark upon a thrilling baking experiment.

Just Desserts, Episode 9: The Old Battle Axe

The sun is shining chez Fractured Amy and it's glorious outside. I got my first bump from a real food-writer and Just Desserts was fun, fun, fun. Today, my enthusiasm is boundless! Maybe gluten-freedom is finally beginning to cure my Irritability Disease.  The Nutritionist said my life would miraculously improve in six to eight weeks: could it possibly be true?

It all started this morning when I found in my Inbox a lovely note from Andrew Scrivani, whom readers will know as the muse and mentor for yesterday's sushi gohan studies. He included in his missive a tempting link: upon subsequent clickage, what did I see but my own bowl of brown rice, confident as ever, eyeing me saucily from my hero's website! I admit, the moment was one of the more intoxicating I've experienced in my brief blogging career. Equally thrilling was the discovery that, by way of several more hyperlinks, I could navigate from The New York Times website (via the Diner's Journal blogroll and Making Sunday Sauce) all the way back to yesterday's post. My life was complete.

Moleskine was so proud!

It was with a spring in my step therefore that I sat down with my very early morning cup of coffee to catch up on the DVRd exploits of my favorite pastry cheftestants. My elation continued unabated as the quickfire was announced. The stars were truly aligned: a gluten-free challenge at last! Or as good as, since the remit was to create a box of four chocolates for the great Francois Payard (whose Lexington Ave. patisserie I visited on more than one occasion before its untimely demise). Our four gallant competitors were required to use their life stories as inspiration for their boites, which I thought was quite adorable. It was fun hearing them talk wistfully about their 'golden moments' in one breath then spit venom at the competition with the next. Flour, thankfully, is not a usual ingredient in ganaches and nougatines, although the gluten freedom-fighter must always be on the lookout for unwelcome crispy bits. Danielle failed the challenge miserably, in my book, by adding pretzels to her otherwise blameless chocs - although even that reckless adherence to gluten could not dull my euphoria.

On to the elimination round! This was pretty great, if only because there are so few chefs left these days we must necessarily spend more time looking at, talking about, poking, tasting, and judging their offerings. So we actually heard some useful discussion, which cheered me more than I would have thought possible. Sylvia Weinstock was the guest judge and her owl-like glasses filled me with unutterable joy.

• Morgan produced, with minimum fuss, a very plain cake covered in white buttercream. I was admiring of its Zen simplicity until the judges pointed out the uneven piping and gaps between layers. Morgan, apparently, broke the cardinal rule that 'if it's simple, it must be perfect.' This is just the sort of thing we need to hear about, I think, and I welcomed being able to eavesdrop on some expert criticism. Now I, too, will know what to look for when I examine the birthday cakes at our local supermarket. I can only inspect them visually, of course, but I'm sure the bakery employees will welcome and benefit from my freely-expressed opinions.
• Yigit offered one of his usual complicated, multi-layered, excessive, 'look at me I used to work for Daniel Boulud' creations. It promptly fell apart when he tried to excavate slices for the expectant crowd. Was that a scoop of sorbet unceremoniously dumped on top? Really? And we've seen those artfully scraped chocolate flowers before. Next!
• Danielle's grey-covered cake demonstrated only that she ignored Sally Field's advice in Steel Magnolias. The judges declared the cake delicious but my favorite part was the egg laid by the Pompadour during the judges' tasting, when a description of the icing as 'battleship grey' prompted a free association with Sylvia's sixty-one years of marriage. Oh, Johnny, no you didn't!
• Zac, poor Zac - his cake was one big hot mess. Sadly, his fate was sealed the second he threw caution to the wind and brought out the disco dust and blue food coloring. The judges declared it tasted like cocoa powder and The Owl said it looked like a bar mitzvah cake. More damning censure, I gather, cannot be experienced and survived.

So, I bid Zac a fond adieu and prepared to face my day with a light heart and a song on my lips. Could my delight have been any greater, my exuberance any more annoying to those around me?

There was one final treat in store: the news that Top Chef All Stars debuts in just nineteen days!

Next up: my cup runneth over

More on the Xanthan Conundrum

Xanthan gum, the bane of the gluten-freedom fighter's existence - or my existence, anyway - has had a lot of press lately. I'm sorry to report that very little of this publicity has been of the positive kind. I'm not unduly astonished by this negative attention, since my own relationship with the substance is, shall we say, highly ambivalent. Widely regarded as necessary for all gluten-free bakers, the dreaded Xg has nonetheless caused me quite a bit of grief in three-quarters of my experiments to date. I am deeply gratified to discover I am not alone in my pain.

The first occasion of Xg ballyhoo was during this past Sunday's episode of the Food Network's Next Iron Chef. Poor Mary Dumont, eager to flex her 'resourcefulness' muscles, stupefied the judges with the pineapple sauce for her scorpion fish tartare. 'I put just a little xanthan gum in it,' she explained, rather defensively I thought. She added it as a thickener, presumably, since enhancing viscosity is one of the things xanthan gum does best. Alton Brown's incredulous, 'A little?!' could only be appreciated by one such as myself, who has experienced first-hand - and on multiple occasions - the throat-coating metallic awfulness that an excess of Xg perpetrates on the unwary diner. Much as I admire Chef Dumont, in my opinion her overuse of xanthan gum was far too egregious an error to overlook and the judges agreed. I admit I felt a twinge of schadenfreude as she exited through the Chairman's black Curtain of Doom, a great chef brought down by the evil with which I have been struggling for weeks.

The second time xanthan gum came bobbing into my consciousness was when my dear friend Toad forwarded me an excellent article from that source of all knowledge and wisdom, The New York Times. The piece was all about a new Harvard undergraduate science course that teaches the basics of physics and chemistry through food science and molecular gastronomy. Visiting professors like Wylie Dufresne and Grant Achatz drop by the lab to give guest lectures on Parmesan noodles, fruit gelees, and olive oil jelly. Now that is an educational initiative I can really get behind! Toad and I are planning to enroll tout de suite.

One comment leapt from the page, however. During experiments on the aforementioned olive oil jelly (an invention of Carlos Tejedor from - where else? - Barcelona), instructors substituted guar gum for Xg, the original choice. Why? A postdoctoral researcher described the problem:

'At high concentrations, [xanthan gum] has strange properties we couldn't explain.'

Wait a minute. Did I hear that right? Are Harvard chemists telling us that xanthan gum behaves in ways unknown to science? Xanthan gum has defeated some of the best minds of our generation. This was one of my biggest 'AHA' moments of the last five weeks! Suddenly it all became clear, all my trials and tribulations: why xanthan gum was clearly required in some circumstances but not in others, seemingly identical; why even a pinch can be too much, despite the recommended dose of a half-teaspoon per cup of flour. The answer is so simple.

We're not supposed to understand. It's a mystery. Inexplicable. Defying all logic and scientific explanation.

Mind you, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised.