Gluten-Free Feast

I spent the holiday weekend upstate with my best friend Tony. Buddies since college, we now share similar food restrictions so it was great to see the very many options to change up my one note menu.  He cooked his heart out and I was his sous chef for one or two recipes.  We had homemade vegetarian Indian food which included Mooli Koftas (shredded radishes) with a green sauce, Raita, Dhal where we substituted tomatoes with red bell peppers, Chickpeas in a spicy sauce, brown basmati rice…I know I’m forgetting something but it’ll come back to me.  He showed me how to change up and substitute ingredients to get a similar taste and texture from original recipes.  The biggest one was substituting red bell peppers for tomatoes and adding a little lemon juice/citric acid to give it a bite.  I made a lentil dish that’s so delish that I need to make it again as soon as possible.  

BiBamBop-November 2013
Pic taken by Antony Galbraith, Stolen by Lily

 On another night, T cooked up a host of Korean-style side dishes to make BiBamBop.  It included pickled jalapenos, spinach with garlic and sesame seeds, hijiki, cooked pea shoots, fresh bean sprouts, cooked mushrooms, pickled radishes, kimchi that he made from scratch the week before and rice.  He reminded me how easy it is to cook with food restrictions in mind that doesn’t include breads or pastas.  I sometimes get stuck eating one or two meals over and over again because it’s easy and quick to make.  The problem is the lack of variety makes me fall of the horse, reach for a slice of pizza which only causes my symptoms to flare up and pain to hook in.  A slice is just not worth it. 

He even made a modified Thanksgiving feast that included a tasty pumpkin pie without crust topped off with a dairy-free whipped cream made out of coconut milk, yum! We had squash with a mushroom gravy, a bread stuffing made with gluten-free breadcrumbs and parsnip mash. Ooo and a faux wine made with berries, grapes and celery that he juiced...YUMMY!  I did have a freak out moment when the stuffing came out of the oven and it was sitting on the stove and I saw the chunks of bread peeking out it.  I said, “Oh my god, I can’t eat that, it has bread in it.”  T just laughed at me and it occurred to me that it had to be gluten free bread.  His food allergies are a bit more extreme than mine. 

I went home with a small jar of kimchi and a loaf freshly baked bread made from bean flour. I had a cashew butter and jam sandwich last night and it was delish.   I know this whole blog entry revolves around the food that I ate but for the past couple of months I’ve been living in a bubble of all the foods that I am not supposed to / allowed to eat. [No gluten, no dairy, no tomatoes, no potatoes, no peanuts and no alcohol.] So to have a little leeway, to see other possibilities of what this new diet entails helped LOADS!!  A big shout out to Tony for being such a great friend, for cooking up such a feast, and for playing board games until we were cross-eyed. I'll include a pic of our Korean banquet when I get home tonight. 

Peace,

L~

 

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2013 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

A New Day

I am starting my own business.  There is much to do but I am working up a business plan and some real workable and substantial goals to make it happen.  By next spring, I am going to open up my very own Editorial Service for Creative Writers.  I have both the education and the work experience in publishing to copyedit, proofread and give creative writers feedback.  [The only genre I won’t be able to work in is science-fiction.  Unfortunately, it’s too close to the genre that I currently write in.] I am still in the early stages of working up a plan but I wanted to get the ball rolling and let folks know what’s coming down the pipeline. 

The next five months will be about writing up my business plan, setting up the website, setting down some standard rates, getting the word out, and test piloting the plan. I’ve been doing research on my down time and making lots of notes for myself.  I am also using a couple of resources to help me plan things out. [I love this part.]  I’m sure I’ll also send some updates via my blog and social media to keep everyone up-to-date on how things are moving along. I am very excited about this new endeavor. 

*****

In the meantime, I am also still writing.  I spent Veteran’s Day working on my novel for about five hours. I enjoyed it and felt some satisfaction on the changes that I have made with this revision. It’s an excruciatingly slow process when in the midst of creating while revising but can't seem to do it any other way.  Mostly, I just want to make sure that the intention of the sentence is in line with the intention of the characters, without trying to be too precious with the language.

I wanted to mention this odd thing that inspired me recently.  Edward Burns has a commercial where he talks about his first movie and how he had a stack of rejections from Hollywood.  He talked to his dad because he was bummed out over the many rejections and his dad reminded Burns that he made the movie because he enjoyed the process. 

For whatever reason, that story gently reminded me that despite all my complaints and whinging in the past that I really do love to write. I write all the time.  In my journal, on my blog, I write to my friends long meandering emails about what’s going on with me and then I write notes to myself reminding me about something that happened in the past, something that bubbles up from the depths of my psyche.  I enjoy the feel of language beneath my pen and under my key strokes, on the page and in my head, always in the midst of trying to transmit and articulate.  I feel incredibly blessed that I have the freedom to do so in this time.  I am loving life on this cold November day.   

Peace,

L~

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2013 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.

A Decent Writing Jag

Hmmm, I had a pretty decent writing jag today.  I wrote the backstory for one of my characters to get a better sense of who she is and what motivates her. I had started on this some weeks ago but I stopped once I became sick.  I picked up where I left off and I was able to keep the story going until she meets the main character in the novel and then I took a break.  Five and a half, single-spaced pages. Sweet!  I'm not sure if I'll use any of these pages in the final novel but I definitely got to know her much better.

When I got back from my break, I took a look at some of the most recent pages I had worked on and started going over it with a fine tooth comb in order to fix typos, misspelled words, grammar, etc. It's the nit-picky work that I've been letting slide little-by-little every time I broached the page. I've been so intent on figuring out the story that this is the first chance that I've had to cross out lines that don't work and fix the language.  It felt grounding to get back to my work.  It's been awhile and it feels amazing.

More again soon,

L~

All artwork, photos, and text © Copyright 2008-2013 Liliana Almendarez unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Liliana Almendarez.