No Gluten, No Problem

Restaurant Review: Gappy's Pizza, Kent, NY

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Given all the recent hubbub surrounding Domino's and the issue of gluten-free pizza, we thought it'd only be appropriate to do a pizzeria review today. I can assure you that the timing—though apropos—is purely coincidental. While the gluten-free world was debating the now-infamous Domino's Debacle, we were out for a hike.

This past Saturday we took the girls for a hike at Ninham Mountain, a modest, forested peak (more of a hill) near Carmel, NY, about halfway between where we live in the Hudson Valley and New York City. We were en route to southern Connecticut to visit friends, but couldn't resist getting out of the car for a walk in the woods.

From the trailhead, a dirt road—closed to vehicles—climbed gradually ... past some rocks on which we scrambled, past a stream and lush green forest, and past an old stone-and-earth shelter built into a hillside. The summit featured a fire tower from which we enjoyed 360-degree views of the surrounding hills and lakes.

By the time we returned to our car, it was after noon and everyone was ready for something more substantial to eat than the gluten-free trail snacks we'd brought in our backpack. We're new smart phone users, having enjoyed our first iPhone for just 2 months or so. But of the few apps we've downloaded to date, one of them is Find Me Gluten Free. It's a handy tool for locating restaurants with gluten-free dining options.

When I pressed the "find restaurants around me" button, Gappy's Pizza in nearby Kent, NY came up. We decided to drive over and see what it was all about.

Gappy's is your classic, family-run, Italian-American joint that serves up large pizzas, pasta, and other typical dishes. No frills here. Red-and-white check curtains. Wood tables. Though the restaurant has been open since 2002, the building's clearly been around much longer.

They're working on possibly expanding their gluten-free offerings, but for now, the main thing they offer is gluten-free pizza. Like many (MANY!) pizzerias, Gappy's is an out-sourced, par-baked, thin, rice-flour-based, small, 12-inch-diameter crust. They started offering the gluten-free pizza option about one year ago, and go through about one box of crusts per week. I don't know how many crusts come to a box, but it seems to be an indication that there's regular demand from the local gluten-free community.

Gappy's has a small kitchen, and they work with a lot of flour, so I had my concerns about cross-contamination. I asked them a number of questions about food preparation and minimizing cross-contamination before we took a seat. A few days later, I called back anonymously, asked slightly different questions, and still got the same answers, which gives me a bit greater confidence in their gluten-free procedures.

"Some of our customers are highly allergic," a women from Gappy's assured me over the phone.

(That said, I didn't stand in the kitchen with the pizzaiolo and watch him make our pizzas... There's certainly an element of risk eating at a place like this. I didn't get sick, but I also wouldn't eat here if I was in the two-week window leading up to an important race. The possibility of getting sick is not worth it. Always ask questions and decide for yourself if a restaurant is right for you.)

Here's how they handle gluten-free orders, as per my two conversations with Gappy's staff:

1. Gluten-free crusts are baked on aluminum trays to prevent contact with floured surfaces, and are baked away from regular pizzas in a large shared oven.
2. The pizza maker washes his or her hands before starting to prepare a gluten-free order.
3. Clean pizza cutters and other implements are used to prepare and slice the pie.

We ordered a plain cheese pizza and a pepperoni pizza. And how did they taste?

Overall, they were average. No better or worse than similar gluten-free pizzas we've had from places such as Uno's Chicago Grill.

The crust was pretty bland, as expected. However, unlike the crisp, cracker-like crusts we've had from other pizza places, the one at Gappy's was pretty soggy. The sauce tasted like it was based on tomato paste ... pretty thick, with concentrated flavor. Gappy's is very generous with the cheese. You can probably see from the pictures how cheesy the pizzas were (and our server confirmed that we didn't want the extra cheesy version!). The pepperoni was oily, such that Kelli and I both took to blotting up small puddles of oil with our napkins.

But having just finished a hike, and being hungry on a warm, sunny, summer-like early afternoon, the gluten-free pizzas at Gappy's satisfied. Still, I'd take one of our homemade grilled gluten-free pizzas over Gappy's anytime.

–Pete

A House Divided ... and Reunited?

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:13:00 +0000

In recent weeks you've almost certainly heard about what many have been calling the Domino's Debacle. If you've missed any of the crucial details, here's the need to know: Domino's launched a nationally-available gluten-free pizza crust. There was just one big problem—while the crust was made with gluten-free ingredients, Domino's took no precautions to prevent cross-contamination. The result was that the gluten-free pizza came with an important and prominent disclaimer, including in a video with Domino's CEO: it wasn't safe for those with celiac disease and other sensitive forms of gluten intolerance. Which, for many, then begged the question: then who is the pizza for?

Things got even more complicated when the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness got involved. They had just launched their revised and expanded GREAT Kitchens program, with more extensive training and education modules for restaurant staff and which now included a two-tiered certification. Those restaurants that underwent training, had their ingredients verified as gluten-free, and had their cross-contamination controls approved could earn a green rating. If a restaurant did the training and ingredient verification, but couldn't (or didn't) address cross-contamination, they'd earn an amber rating. Domino's earned the amber rating.

The gluten-free community, by and large, was up in arms. The NFCA had meant for the amber rating to help consumers by drawing distinctions between restaurants that did gluten-free the "right" way and those that perhaps fell short, where more caution was required if opting to dine there. Instead, it seemed to create confusion, frustration, and downright anger. Some effectively accused the NFCA of selling out, or overreaching its capacity, or otherwise failing to advocate on behalf of its core constituency: those with celiac disease.

While many were quick to note that this misstep did not diminish the previous excellent work of the NFCA, nor the excellent work it continues to do in other areas, the gluten-free community mobilized quickly and ferociously to voice their disapproval and call for change. "Ditch Amber" became their battle cry. Cynthia Kupper, executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group, wrote a pointed open letter to NFCA executive director Alice Bast calling for the abandonment of the amber designation. The folks at 1 in 133 organized a petition that quickly amassed more than 3,000 signatures. For one week, social media and the blogging world were ablaze with commentary and the #DitchAmber hashtag.

Meanwhile, the controversy bubbled up enough that the mainstream media began covering it in stories. The major celiac research centers (Chicago, Maryland, Beth Israel, and eventually, Columbia) weighed in, as did other national and regional celiac and gluten-free organizations. (Click here for a great summary over at Gluten-Free Fun.)

And then, at the end of the last week, NFCA announced that it was suspending the amber GREAT Kitchens certification while it re-evaluated the designation. There was much rejoicing, cries of victory, and at least one instance where a blogger friend of mine was moved to write a song about the whole thing. NFCA had listened to a chorus of voices and made the only move realistically left on the chess board.

For my own part, I've been sitting on the sidelines ... until now. Others have done a great job covering the events. I didn't want to add a redundant voice to an already saturated landscape of blogging. I wanted to wait to see how NFCA would respond, and how things would shake out, before I weighed in. I only wanted to enter the fray if I felt I had something new, meaningful, and constructive to offer, and I hope (and believe) that I do, which is why I'm writing today.

First, a disclaimer: As many of your know, I'm one of the NFCA's Athletes for Awareness. It's a volunteer position, but it's an affiliation none the less. I'm also in the midst of my 3rd Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge, which raises money for the NFCA, because I believe in the good work they do on behalf of the entire gluten-free community. However, I do not write this blog post on behalf of the NFCA. I write this blog post independently, without their consultation, and it expresses my personal opinions. Enough said about that.

What I do want to say more about are several points that I feel either a) haven't been addressed thus far in the dialogue, or b) have been said too quietly or by too few people. Here we go...

GIG and NFCA

I want to believe that GIG, NFCA, and the other major advocacy groups cooperate and play nice together for the greater good of the gluten-free community. And for the most part, they do. But it's also undeniable that to a certain extent they are also direct competitors. They compete for your donations. They compete for sponsors. And when it comes to GIG and NFCA, they also compete directly with their programs.

Both groups offer gluten-free product certifications and gluten-free restaurant certifications. For products, GIG has its highly-respected Gluten-Free Certification Organization, while NFCA has its gluten-free certification in partnership with Quality Assurance International. For restaurants, NFCA has the GREAT Kitchens program (the subject of so much scrutiny recently), while GIG has the Gluten-Free Restaurant Awareness Program. (Notably, GIG's GFRAP also is a tiered certification program with multiple levels, and all approved restaurants get to use the same logo, regardless of level of certification.)

It's unlikely that a product or restaurant would pursue certifications from both organizations. They're going to choose one. And so while GIG executive director Cynthia Kupper's open letter to the NFCA included some important and cogent points, it's also important to keep in mind that her letter also serves as a de facto "defense" of GIG's GFRAP.

Transparency and Disclosure

One thing we, the gluten-free community, have been asking for—especially in the context of the FDA's forthcoming gluten-free labeling standard—is transparency and disclosure. We want companies to tell us what's in our food, and we want them to be open and honest about their manufacturing processes, especially when a product isn't made in a dedicated gluten-free or allergen-free facility and there's a chance for cross-contamination. We expect the same of restaurants.

Domino's has given us just that—it's the openness we've been asking for—and now we're taking them over the coals for it. It pains me to say it, but we should perhaps be giving Domino's a pat on the back. Do I think they should have (and could have) done more to address cross-contamination issues and offer a pizza that more of us in the gluten-free community could enjoy? Absolutely. Do I think Domino's offers its disclaimer partly at the counsel of its lawyers to address issues of liability? Sure.

But let's also give a little credit where a little credit is due.

By the way, if you're looking for some stellar of examples of pizzerias that really seem to get how to do gluten-free well, check out Naked Pizza, Pizza Bistro in NY, and Garlic Jim's in CA, for just three examples. (But don't get me started on Chuck E. Cheese's frozen gluten-free pizza in a bag. There are pros and cons to that one. I'll save that for another blog post...)

Amber Alert

Based on the loud reaction in the gluten-free blogging and social media world, it seems people were pretty united in denouncing NFCA's amber designation. I think I'm one of the only people who didn't consider it a total bust. In my opinion, the amber designation has the potential for real value to the gluten-free community, but it needs to be re-oriented and re-branded ... not as a certification or endorsement, but as an advisory or warning.

As many of us have seen, restaurants are increasingly offering gluten-free menus. Some do so with a genuine interest in serving the needs of the gluten intolerant community, and are diligent in addressing kitchen practices and minimizing the potential for cross-contamination. But others are looking to capitalize on the fad/trend component of the gluten-free diet these days, and may be offering up a superficial gluten-free menu that lacks the kitchen controls to make ordering such food safe for celiacs and others with sensitivities to gluten.

The amber designation could be re-aligned to serve as an Amber Alert, a warning to take caution. This re-positioning achieves a double victory: 1) it educates consumers about potentially unsafe restaurants, and 2) it encourages restaurants to step up their game and earn the NFCA's green certification, because nobody wants to be branded with an amber alert.

There are, of course, challenges to implementation such an approach, but it's one worth considering. There's value in telling diners where they can eat (via the green certification). There's also potential value in warning them where they shouldn't eat (via an amber alert designation).

Sympathy for the NFCA's Circumstance

I must say that I feel for the NFCA and the tough situation the organization has found itself in. I was in a similar situation myself a while back.

In what feels like another life, I once upon a time worked as an ecologist—and later, as a program manager—for an environmental non-profit. We managed a number of tiered environmental certification programs (you could join the program, complete an environmental plan, or get fully certified). Certified properties could use a logo and designation in their marketing. One property type that we worked with—often surprising people—was golf courses, traditionally considered bad actors when it comes to the environment. Some joined the program and earned certification for altruistic reasons; they genuinely wanted to improve their environmental management and they did. But others merely joined the program and did a minimum of effort, arguably to benefit from the PR value. Our idea was to help improve their management practices (a noble cause for which we achieved great results). But some of our peer organizations in the environmental community cried foul, accusing us of working with the enemy. It strikes me that NFCA's recent time in the hot seat is quite similar.

Here's the real challenge: it was true of the work I did with the environmental group, and it's true of the NFCA's re-vamped GREAT Kitchens program. The certification is really addressing two different audiences ... the company and the consumer. On the one hand, you want to educate the company and help to improve their practices, and you want to reward progress made. On the other hand, you want to clearly communicate with the consumer via certification logos, designations, and what it all means. It can be difficult to do both simultaneously. There's a fine line to walk, and sometimes you have to pick an allegiance to the greater good. But is that greater good to educate the companies, or advocate on behalf of the consumer?

Moving Forward

As some astute bloggers have pointed out, somewhere in the foreseeable future, much of this discussion will become a moot point. Voluntary programs such as NFCA's and GIG's exist to fill a vacuum. In the absence of a gluten-free standard in the U.S., someone has to step up and help to define it, so that consumers know what they're getting. This applies to restaurants as much as to products you buy in the supermarket.

And once the FDA's gluten-free standard becomes official, it will apply to restaurants as well. When a restaurant makes a health claim about its food—and "gluten-free" qualifies as such a claim—that restaurant becomes beholden to the FDA standards for the claim.

This begs an obvious question: if this whole discussion will eventually become a moot point, what will happen to voluntary certification programs such as NFCA's and GIG's? From where I sit, one of three things will likely happen:

1. The NFCA, GIG, and others will phase out or abandon their programs, since the FDA's gluten-free standard will cover things. I don't believe this will happen.
2. The NFCA, GIG, and others will align their restaurant programs to match the forthcoming FDA standards, and will in essence become third-party verifiers to confirm restaurants' compliance with the regulations. This is a possibility. (And the FDA could certainly use the assistance, since they lack the capacity to routinely monitor compliance at all restaurants offering gluten-free items on the menu.)
3. The NFCA, GIG, and others will bolster their restaurant programs to exceed basic FDA gluten-free regulations, to help restaurants go above and beyond and distinguish themselves as superior actors. I think this is the most likely scenario.

I don't have a crystal ball to foresee what the future actually holds, but I can say this: Remember that, while our tactics and approaches may differ, at the end of the day we're all on the same team, motivated largely by altruism and shared circumstances, values, and needs. We all live under the very big tent that is the gluten-free community. For a brief period, we were a house divided. But we've reunited. Let's try to keep it that way.

–Pete

Recipe: Kriek Beer

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:50:00 +0000

Last week was American Craft Beer Week. This week, meanwhile, kicks off a number of regional beer weeks in cities around the country. In honor of the events, we're sharing the recipe for our latest homebrew, which I'm calling Up a Kriek Without a Plan.

Kriek (pronounced "creek") is a style of beer near and dear to my heart. It's a Belgian style (my maternal grandmother's side of the family is Belgian), and was perhaps my most favorite beer prior to going gluten-free.

Kriek is a lambic beer. Unlike "regular" beers brewed with the Saccharomyces genus of yeasts, lambics are brewed with S. plus the Brettanomyces genus of yeast. Brett—as brewers often refer to it—imparts a very distinctive flavor profile to lambic beers, including a subtle sourness. To counter-balance that sourness, lambics are often made with fruit puree, such as cherries (kriek) to add a subtle sweetness.

As you might guess, kriek is something of a specialty beer. I've known since going gluten-free in early 2007 more than five years ago that if I was ever going to drink a kriek again, I would have to brew it myself. This batch happened quite by accident (hence, Up a Kriek Without a Plan...). I had intended to brew a saison, but then decided to add Brett and make it a lambic. And if I was going to go through the trouble of making a lambic, I may as well go "all in" and make it a kriek. Right?

This was a first attempt. The beer is still quite young. Lambics can age in the bottle for 6 months or more before the flavors fully mature. But I can tell that this one missed the mark. It tastes just fine as a gluten-free beer, but does it have the classic flavor profile of a kriek that I was going for? No.

The alcohol content is way too high (in the ballpark of 9.5%), the Brett flavors are underdeveloped, the cherries are too weak, and the beer has approximately zero head retention. But it was an invaluable learning experience. As we've been enjoying the first bottles of Up a Kriek Without a Plan, I've been formulating just that ... a plan for round number two. Stay tuned.

Up a Kriek Without a Plan
Makes 2 cases (48 bottles)

Ingredients
5 1/2 gallons distilled water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp gypsum
12 lbs gluten-free brewer's sorghum syrup
2 oz US Goldings hops
1/2 oz crushed coriander seeds
Saccharomyces Belgian Saison gluten-free yeast blend
Brettanomyces Belgian Lambic gluten-free yeast blend
3 lbs sterile cherry puree
Dextrose (for carbonation priming during bottling)

Steps
1. Pour 2 gallons of water into a 6-gallon carboy.
2. Add 2 1/2 gallons water, plus the salt and gypsum, to your brew pot. Bring to a boil.
3. Add the sorghum syrup to your brew pot. Hold at a boil until well dissolved.
4. Add 1 oz hops and the coriander and boil for 20 minutes. (A fine-mesh hop bag is useful for this.)
5. Add 1/2 oz hops and boil for 5 more minutes.
6. Add the remaining 1/2 oz hops and turn off the flame.
7. Siphon the wort into your carboy.
8. When the wort has cooled to fermentation temperature (~70 deg F), pitch the Saccharomyces yeast. (Prepare a starter culture ahead of time, if necessary, depending on your strain.)
9. Add the remaining 1 gallon of distilled water, using it to wash any yeast and wort remnants from your funnel into the carboy.
10. Add an airlock and let ferment in a quiet location with stable temps away from direct light.
11. After one month and/or when you get stable gravity readings: Add the cherry puree to a second carboy, siphon the beer from primary to secondary, and pitch the Brett yeast.
12. Again add an airlock and let ferment in a quiet location with stable temps away from direct light.
13. After 1 additional month and/or when you get stable gravity readings: siphon the beer into your bottling bucket. Add an appropriate amount of dextrose dissolved in hot water for carbonation priming. (Homebrew books have plenty of info on calculating how much dextrose to use depending on how much wort you have...)
14. Bottle the beer and let bottle-condition for at least 2 weeks before sampling the first bottle. The longer you can wait the better!

Notes
This recipe assumes you take all the appropriate homebrewing steps to sanitize your equipment at various stages of the brewing process.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, dairy/lactose/casein-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, soy-free, vegetarian/vegan.

Nutrition Info
Per bottle: I have no idea. It's beer. Drink it. Or don't...

Enjoy!

–Pete

Product Review: Mom's Spaghetti Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:12:00 +0000

It's an exciting time of year for us. We've prepared our community garden plot, and our tomato plants—which have already been transferred once from seed starter trays into larger containers—are ready to go out into the field. Sadly, though, we've already exhausted the final tomatoes from last year's harvest. So what do you do when you're craving a marinara sauce to toss with your favorite gluten-free pasta?

Answer: go with a quality sauce you can get in a jar, the kind with ingredients you'd use to make the sauce yourself (if you hadn't already run out of your own garden-fresh pasta sauce, as we did...).

Back in September, we blogged about how we'd found just such a sauce in La Famiglia Del Grosso. Today, we're happy to report that we've found another: Mom's Spaghetti Sauce.

Mom's is made by parent company Fischer & Wieser, which offers an extensive line of gluten-free sauces. The company sent us a complimentary jar of the Garlic & Basil Pasta Sauce to try. This is our assessment.

The sauce is made with ingredients we like: tomatoes, fresh garlic, extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, sea salt, lemon juice, black pepper, citric acid, and vitamin E. That's it. They're simple, fresh ingredients, with no added sugar like you find in many tomato/marinara sauces. Our jar contained whole basil leaves and whole garlic cloves. No mistaking the authentic ingredients there.

One observation—and this is neither a positive nor a negative—is that the sauce is chunky. Really chunky. In fact, if it were any chunkier, you might be better off buying the whole vegetables in the produce section at your local supermarket. We took an immersion blender to our jar of sauce to make it into a smooth marinara. Easy enough.

The label includes advisory information noting that the sauce is made in a facility that also handles multiple allergens: wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, milk, fish, soy, and eggs. However, to the company's credit, they sent—in response to my inquiry—a detailed breakdown of their allergen handling procedures to minimize the potential for cross-contamination.

One curiosity: the label also included a declaration that the sauce contains soy. Nothing obvious jumped out at me from reading the ingredients. Follow up with the company revealed that the vitamin E, the final ingredient in the sauce, is derived from soy. If you're gluten-free and soy-free, take note.

As for the flavor, it was excellent. The garlic & basil pasta sauce makes for a great plain marinara on its own, with bright, fresh flavors and bold tomato. We also noted that it would work very well as a base. Add a splash of red wine, a dash of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of red pepper flakes, whatever you like to jazz it up.

At around $8 for a 24-ounce jar, it's toward the pricier end, comparable to Famiglia Del Grosso. But arguably, it's worth it. Wait for Mom's to go on sale, then stock up.

–Pete

Image courtesy Christie Communications

Recipe: Chicken Korma v2.0

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:57:00 +0000

Today is a big day in the life of the No Gluten, No Problem blog. It's our 500th blog post! We're also two scant months away from our four-year anniversary as gluten-free bloggers.

We're celebrating the best way we know how ... with food. Today we're revisiting our recipe for chicken korma with a new and improved version 2.0. (We posted the original version back on Leap Day on February 29...)

This version is what we were aiming for originally—a smoother texture to the sauce, with a better and more complex depth of flavor. We've made it several times recently, both with chicken breast meat and chicken thighs, and it's always a hit. It's restaurant-quality Indian cuisine. But to quote LeVar Burton in Reading Rainbow, "you don't have to take my word for it."

Chicken Korma v2.0
Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs diced chicken, boneless, skinless (breast or thigh meat)
Salt
Olive oil
1/4 cup raw cashews
2 tbsp blanched almonds
1/2 cup hot water
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp cayenne (optional)
3/4 cup diced tomato (or one 14.5-oz can no-salt-added tomatoes with juice)
1 head cauliflower, cut into small pieces (about 3 cups)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup GF chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream

Steps
1. Lightly season the chicken with salt. Saute the chicken in a tbsp or so of olive oil until cooked through, about 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of your cubes. Remove from the pan.
2. In a small bowl, soak the cashews and almonds in the 1/2 cup of hot water for at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour.
3. Melt the 1 tbsp each butter and olive oil in a pan over medium to medium-high heat. Saute the sliced onions, about 10 minutes, until very soft.
4. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook for one minute.
5. Add the spices, and cook for an additional minute.
6. In a blender, add the nuts, water, and diced tomatoes, and puree until smooth.
7. Add the onion-spice mix to the blender and puree again, until very smooth.
8. Meanwhile, in your pan add the last 1 tbsp olive oil and saute the cauliflower, about 4 minutes.
9. Pour the blender contents into the pan with the cauliflower. Add the chicken broth and heavy cream, and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for 10 minutes.
10. Add the cooked chicken back in, simmering for 10 to 15 minutes more, until the cauliflower is tender.
11. Serve with Basmati rice.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, peanut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, refined-sugar-free, corn-free, soy-free.

To make the recipe dairy/lactose/casein-free: 1) omit the butter and saute in an additional tbsp of olive oil, and 2) substitute coconut for the heavy cream.

Enjoy!

–Pete

A Pale Ale Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:18:00 +0000

Look who's hiding now!

Back in April we posted the results of a blind beer tasting that featured Bard's gluten-free beer "hidden" among a flight of six lagers, the balance of which were all barley-based beers. The results were quite interesting.

Today we're at it again, and this time we're focusing on pale ales. When Kelli and I hosted something of a mini-college reunion with our housemates (and their families) from college recently I saw a golden opportunity ... they were basically a pre-assembled (and willing) panel of beer tasters.

As with the previous lager tasting, I was curious how a quality gluten-free beer would stack up against barley-based beers brewed in a similar style when the tasting was blind and participants had no knowledge of which beer was gluten-free and what beers they were tasting.

The "rules" were identical to last time, with one important exception—this time I told them that 1 of the 5 beers in the tasting was gluten-free, and I asked them to pick which one they thought it was. Then, as usual, I asked them to rate the beers from most to least favorite (on a scale of 1, most favorite, to 5, least favorite).

The beers were:

Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA
Ithaca Flower Power IPA
New Planet Off Grid Pale Ale (the gluten-free beer in the bunch)
Full Sail IPA
Dogfish Continuously Hopped IPA

Pick the Gluten-Free Beer

So were people able to tell which of the 5 beers was gluten-free? In a word, yes. 5 out of 6 tasters correctly identified New Planet's Off Grid Pale Ale as the gluten-free brew.

I couldn't taste the other beers, of course, to compare for myself, but I'll admit that this result surprised me. Going in to the tasting, I expected New Planet to blend in more than it did. Given that the pale ales and IPAs are all pretty hoppy, I thought that the hoppiness of the beers would have been a common denominator, one that masked the underlying flavors of the grains with which they were brewed. It seems I was wrong about that one.

Rate the Beers

But how did New Planet rate? Well, despite correctly noting its gluten-free status, conventional beer drinkers still ranked it quite well against the barley-based competition. 2 out of 6 tasters in fact rated it their 2nd most favorite of the bunch.

All of the beers had a wide distribution of rankings. For example, 3 out of the 5 beers received votes for being both the most favorite beer and the least favorite beer. No clear "winner" emerged from the group. (I'm starting to think that beer drinking is so individualized as to make the value of these tastings questionable ... except that it's fun to bring a group of people together for official business that involves drinking beer.)

If you look at the number of votes each beer received for a Top Two ranking (being someone's 1st or 2nd favorite), New Planet was in a four-way tie with three barley beers. Similarly, if you took the average score for each beer, the results were surprisingly tight. All five beers scored within a 1 point range centered squarely on the median (2.5 to 3.5 average ranking), with New Planet "placing" ahead of Ithaca and just behind Dogfish.

Conclusion

Although this time around tasters were able to pick the gluten-free beer out of a blind tasting lineup, once again on the matter of taste a gluten-free brew held its own against a panel of barley beers, traditionally stereotyped as tasting "superior" to GF beers. Perhaps we can put such stereotypes to rest once and for all.

–Pete

Race Report: The North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain, 2012 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:35:00 +0000

4:00am, ready to take the shuttle to the race start.

My second ultramarathon of the 2012 season is complete, and it was one for the (personal) record books. More on that in a bit. First, for those of you not inclined to read the full race report, scroll to the bottom of this post for a) results and b) giveaway winners. But on with the recap:

The race was The North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain, a grueling 50-mile trail run with 7,000 vertical feet of ascent. In a way, the race started the day before ... we drove to NYC to pick up my race bib, timing chip, etc. so I wouldn't have to worry about that the morning of the event. Back at our home in the Hudson Valley, we baked fresh gluten-free banana muffins, peeled oranges, and sliced apples. I lined up all my nutrition on the dining room table, laid out changes of clothes on the bed, got several pairs of spare socks, and printed out driving directions to each aid station (for Kelli) and descriptions of each leg of the race (for me).

Then it was time to turn in for bed. My head hit the pillow by 9:30pm, and I couldn't fall asleep soon enough, since the alarm was scheduled to go off at 2:30am. The plan was to be in the car and on the road by 3:00am, so we'd arrive at the race site by 4:00am in preparation for the race start at 5:00am. Such early starts are a hallmark of ultra running. Some sports kick off their events by day, or under the bright lights of a stadium packed full of people. Ultra races start quietly, in the wee, dark, quiet hours of the very early morning, with runners milling about, fiddling with headlamps, and some loyal, dedicated family members ready to cheer you off into the night.

The weather was a little less than ideal. It had rained in the several days leading up to the race, leaving the course pretty muddy, with standing water in some places and treacherous wet rocks in other places. Fog and mist shrouded the mountains and valleys. Plus, the overnight low temp never dipped below the low 60s. For me, that was a touch on the warm side. I'd prefer the high temp to be in the 60s for a race.

Looking around, there were a lot of very fit people. A 50-mile ultra tends to go that way. The distance is such that people self-select for the event. You don't find novices; couch-to-5k participants are in short supply. These are people who've either done this before and are experienced, or they've put in the training to get ready for it. When I used to race Xterra off-road triathlons I would find the same thing. I also found that racers tended to fall into one of three groups: people who looked the part, people who played the part, and people who did both. You don't really know who's who until the chips are down and the results are in. You just have to focus on yourself, run your own race, and have confidence that the training and other prepartion you've done will be enough.

5:00am, with 230+ runners ready to head off into the darkness.

As the 5:00am race start loomed, 230-plus runners migrated to the start line and the giant North Face red arch that would welcome us back many hours later. With a few words from the race director, we were off!

25 yards out, I saw Kelli standing with the girls along the side of the start/finish chute. I veered over to them, kissed each of the girls on the head, and then it was time to focus. The first leg of the race was short—just 3.9 miles—but it was an important one. I needed to focus on settling in to the right pace. For me, the target pace was 12 minute miles, which would have me finish the race in 10 hours.

When your adrenaline is going at the start of a race, and you're surrounded by other runners who are also amped up, it's hard to find your rhythm. It's all too easy to go out too hard. In a 50-mile ultramarathon, that can be a recipe for disaster later in the race; it catches up with you.

There's a fine line in ultra racing between staying conservative, so you race "within yourself" and don't blow up later, and pushing yourself to your limit, so you don't cross the finish line with too much left in the tank. That fine line can be a moving target: it's different from race to race, and it can vary even within the same race. I've gone out too hard in races before, and I was really focused on staying conservative in the first 20 miles or so of this race.

At the same time, I had another thing on my mind: position. Not in terms of being 1st or 3rd or 10th, but in terms of where I was in the grand scheme when we hit the trails. You see, the first 2.7 miles of the race were a double-wide gravel road. It was a chance for the racers to sort themselves out before hitting singletrack trail. Although I wanted to start the race conservatively, I also didn't want to hold back so much that I'd get "stuck" behind slower racers once we hit the tight trails. So I pushed the pace just a little bit. And I could tell that my body was feeling good.

In those first miles, several small packs of runners behind me chatted incessantly. They'd either started the race together, or bumped into someone they knew, and conversations ensued ... until we hit the singletrack, and all of the conversations abruptly stopped. It's as if everyone realized the race just got serious.

And they're off! I'm the white shirt in the foreground.

I arrived at Anthony Wayne—which served as the aid station at mile 3.9 and again at mile 40.3—in good time. Kelli was there waiting. I switched out my hydration bottle, grabbed some nutrition, and then it was back onto the trails.

The second leg of the race featured the first major climb, up onto a ridgeline, where the route followed the Appalachian Trail, and then a steep, semi-technical descent to the Silvermine aid station at mile 8.6.

Like the first leg of the race, I ran this one just a little fast. My body was feeling really good. I knew from having pre-run the next sections of the course weeks earlier that I'd dial back the pace through an upcoming section with several major climbs, so it was good to put a few fast miles in the bank.

Although I was still near many other runners, slowly but surely, the field was starting to spread out.

I stocked up extra on hydration and nutrition at the Silvermine aid station. I wouldn't see Kelli next until mile 20.7 (the next aid station at Arden Valley was for race staff only), and I had two hard legs of the race immediately ahead of me. Plus, as a gluten-free athlete, I don't like relying on aid station nutrition ... I like to be self-reliant. No need to worry about the GF status of the foods they offer.

Staying hydrated and keeping the nutrition going in was quickly becoming a focus of my race. With the warm temps I sweat plenty, and with the near-100% humidity I felt like I was a competitor in a wet T-shirt contest. I was drinking about 20 fluid ounces of First Endurance Electrolyte Fuel System every 6 miles. (By the end of the race, I'd be drinking 20 fl oz every 3 miles, and I'd consume a total of some 200 fluid ounces of liquids!)

The third leg of the race included a major climb up onto another ridge line, where the route then followed the Long Path. This was one of the best-marked courses I've ever run, but an experience on my way up to the Long Path was a good reminder of how challenging the race was and how much focus it demanded of racers.

At one point, I was running a few paces behind another guy. We were coming up on a hard turn, where the race course made a left off one trail and onto another at a more-than-90-degree angle. Three bright orange pieces of flagging hung from tree branches leading up to the turn, and then a large white sign with big black arrow indicated the turn. Yet, the guy ahead of me somehow missed it all and kept on running past the turn. I hollered to him, and he turned and fell in behind me.

Coming into the Silvermine aid station shortly after first light, mile 8.6.

Up on the ridge tops following the Long Path, it should have been one of the more scenic sections of the course, with beautiful views of the mountains around us from bald, rocky summits. As it were, everything was hidden in gray clouds. That was just as well, since with the wet rocks I needed to focus more than usual on my footing.

A few short sections of this leg of the race were steep enough and rocky enough that I had to use my hands to scramble up them.

Beyond the Arden Valley aid station, the course entered the Bald Rocks section of the Hudson Highlands. Here the route wound its way up and over and around a series of bald rocky dome summits. I want to say it was granite, though I wasn't paying close enough attention.

By now the runners had spread out enough that I was able to run stretches all by myself. This was a nice change from the previous leg, when I almost always saw someone in front of or behind me. With the frequent ascents and descents along the ridgelines and summits, we tended to compress and decompress like an accordion. On uphills, everyone's pace slowed and we'd come together. Then, on the downhills, each runner successfully took off while others behind were still finishing an ascent, and we'd all spread out. Now I could just enjoy the forest and the rocks and the streams.

And the mud and water. There was plenty of it. My feet were soaked, straight through to the bone. Eventually you stop trying to avoid it. Whereas earlier in the race you might rock-hop to avoid a puddle or a patch of deep mud, at some point you just run straight through it ... a) you stop caring, b) it's easier than trying to avoid it, which takes too much extra energy and thought, and c) the cold flush of water into your trail running sneakers actually feels pretty good on your feet.

Exiting the Bald Rocks section of the course, there was a steep descent down to the next aid station in the trailhead parking lot at Lake Skannatati. The girls—who'd been asleep in the car back at Silvermine—were wide awake and cheering me on with big smiles as I came into view. They greeted me with big hugs, which was a great boost to the morale. Again I swapped out my empty bottle for a fresh full one, and picked up more nutrition. I'd been eating about every 30 minutes on the trail, as well as coming through aid stations, and so far, that diligence was paying off. My energy levels were staying pretty high.

Arriving at the Camp Lanowa aid station, mile 27.7.

The next leg of the race—to Camp Lanowa—was one of only two legs I didn't have a chance to preview during my training in the month leading up to the race. It turned out to be a reprieve, surprisingly mellow, especially in contrast to the last two difficult legs. The respite was very much welcome. The more mellow terrain offered a chance to pick up the pace and make some decent time.

At the Lanowa aid station at mile 27.7, I took a longer break than usual. All of my aid station transitions had been under 1 minute 30 seconds. This one lasted three times as long, because I took the time to tape both of my pinky toes—which uncharacteristically had developed hot spots and were threatening to blister—and switch into a dry pair of socks.

Then it was on to the trails again. The next miles—up to the Tiorati aid station at mile 34.2—were the toughest mentally for me in the race. With the exception of a climb over Irish Mountain, it wasn't an especially difficult leg. But my body and mind were starting to feel tired. I hadn't yet crossed over to my second wind that always buoys me into the latter miles of an ultra of this distance.

But I kept to one of my mantras—relentless forward progress—borrowed from the title of an ultrarunning book by Bryon Powell, and kept on movin' on. By the time I arrived at Tiorati at mile 34.2, I was already starting to feel better. Plus, I was back to familiar territory. I knew what was coming next, and I knew that it wasn't too difficult: 6.1 miles with just a few mellow climbs.

Also along this next leg of the race, two other races converged with our route. 50K and marathon-distance trail races had started later in the morning, and for the first time I started seeing some of the 50k runners on the trail. Seeing my orange bib—which indicated that I was a 50-miler—they offered some welcome words of encouragement.

And then I was once again at Anthony Wayne, at mile 40.3. With just under 10 miles to go, I could start to taste the finish line approaching. Much to my delight, my body was starting to feel better and better, too. My second wind was in full effect.

Anthony Wayne aid station, mile 40.3.

Leaving Anthony Wayne, the race headed south, following a route originally taken by the British Army during the American Revolution. I made good time through this section, leap-frogging a number of times with several other 50-mile runners I'd been seeing off and on for the last 10 miles.

The crux of this leg was a surprisingly steep climb over The Pines Mountain. What surprised me even more was that the descent off the backside seemed even steeper. It was slow going. There was no moving fast on that descent. Mud, wet down-sloping rocks, leaves. It was no place to take a bad fall. As I made my way down, you could see the smooth, wet, polished trunks of trees—all at about shoulder height—where other runners had braced their sweaty hand against the tree to steady their descent. I did the same.

From the Queensboro aid station at mile 44.7, it was time to tackle the Big Daddy—the very steep, very sustained climb up and over Timp Pass. To have one of the race's toughest climbs come so close to the finish was a cruel twist. On the way up to Timp Pass, I first passed through an area that had burned in a 600-acre wildfire less than a month before. The mature trees and canopy were spared, but the understory, brush, and dead leaves on the ground were all turned into an expanse of black, charred earth. It smelled distinctly of ash in places.

Once at the height of Timp Pass, all the major climbs were behind me, but one last major difficulty remained: the descent of the Timp Pass Road. To call it a road is a bit of a misnomer, and a big one. Though at one point in the distant pass it may have provided passage for early pioneers or miners or whomever, today it provided some of the most miserable footing of the day for trail runners. Imagine baseball- to watermelon-size rocks. Make them irregularly shaped with sharp edges. Then douse them in water. There you have it. I passed a number of runners during this descent, and more than a few of them were spewing profanities at the rocks. I couldn't blame them.

No sooner had I reached the bottom of the Timp Pass Road that I reached the last aid station, 1777, at mile 47.2. Just 2.8 easier miles to the finish.

Team Bronski at the finish, mile 50!

With all the difficulties behind me, and with my body feeling surprisingly good, I pushed the pace in these last miles. Earlier in the day, I had felt myself slipping off my target pace of 12 minute miles. My hopes of running a sub-10-hour mountain 50-miler had turned into the more realistic likelihood of running a sub-11-hour 50-miler. Amazingly, though, I slowly clawed my way back, and though finishing inside of 10 hours still seemed hopelessly unrealistic, things were shaping up for me to have a pretty good race.

Inside the last mile, I found myself running hard in a pack of four 50-milers cruising down a mellow descent. I could tell the other three guys were laboring a bit. I knew there was a short but rocky uphill coming up, and that they'd most likely slow down to power-hike it. I decided to kick things into another gear (don't ask me where that gear came from). I sped up, left them behind, ran the uphill, and broke onto the grassy field of the finish line all by myself. I was running hard—probably my fastest pace of the day; fast enough that Kelli didn't think it was me coming in initially, because I was running so much faster than she expected.

As I neared the finish chute, I glanced over my shoulder to confirm that I was alone. Then I motioned to Marin and Charlotte to come join me. We'd cross the finish line together. I scooped up Charlotte, but Marin didn't immediately understand what was going on, so Kelli scooped her up and the whole Team Bronski crossed the finish line together. Then someone placed a finisher's medal around my neck.

Results

My time was 10 hours 17 minutes 23 seconds, with a 12:21 per mile pace. I came mighty close to my 10-hour time and 12-min-per-mile goals. Plus, I set a new 50-mile mountain PR (personal record) by a whopping 1 hour 26 minutes! The North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain was a resounding success.

My experience with ultra-distance trail running races is that they've gotten more competitive every year, and this North Face race was no different. In 2011, to finish in the Top 20 you had to run sub-10 hours. To finish in the Top 20 in 2012, you had to run sub-9:20. Talk about some competition!

In the final analysis, I finished 41st out of 232 starters (top 18%), and 38th out of 157 men. I'm very pleased with my performance.

Giveaway

And finally, let's announce the winners of the April giveaway for the 3rd Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge! For April we're giving away 2 books ... one for the monthly giveaway leading up to the race at the end of September, and another in honor of the North Face race.

Without further ado, those winners are:

Laura B. Russell
Leta Hall

Please email me and let me know your choice of book: Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking (1st or 2nd edition), Artisanal Gluten-Free Cupcakes, or The Gluten-Free Edge.

I'm delighted to report that we're at 35% of my goal of raising $5,000 for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Please consider making a donation today! For the month of May, we'll do a double giveaway again - one as usual for the GF Ultramarathon Challenge, and another in honor of May as Celiac Disease Awareness Month.

Thank you everyone for your support! My next ultra is a 50K on June 30 in Finger Lakes National Forest. I'm resting my body for another week or two, then it's back to training to prep for that race!

–Pete

Race Preview: The North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain, 2012 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:18:00 +0000

It's Friday, May 4. National Celiac Disease Awareness Month has been in full swing for four days, and tomorrow—Saturday—is Cinco de Mayo. The number 5 is significant tomorrow for another reason: I'm racing in my second major ultramarathon of the season, and the distance happens to be a multiple of 5 ... it's a 50-mile trail running race.

The race is the Bear Mountain edition of The North Face Endurance Challenge Series. Bear Mountain is the first of six major races taking place across the country this season, and it's known as the most challenging of the group. In the course of the last month, I've had occasion to pre-run about 2/3 of the route during training sessions. It covers some beautiful country in Bear Mountain and Harriman State Parks in the Hudson Highlands, a surprisingly rugged mountain range halfway between New York City and where we live in the Hudson Valley.

The 50-mile race is the marquee distance of a weekend that also includes 50k, marathon, half marathon, 10k, and 5k races. The route ascends a burly 7,000 vertical feet of elevation gain over the course of the 50-mile length, including at least one brief stretch so steep and rocky that I had to use my hands to scramble up it a few short weeks ago.

The race starts at 5:00am, which means we'll wake at 2:30am and be in the car and on the road at 3:00am. My goal is to finish in under 10 hours. Based on last year's race—for which I was registered but spent hooked up to an IV in the hospital with tick-borne ehrlichiosis—my target of a sub-10-hour time would be good for a top 20 finish out of 200+ racers.

If you want to follow my progress in the race, there are several options:

1. If you're personal friends with me on Facebook, my status will update in real time as I pass through race checkpoints.

2. If not (and this will be most of you, I suspect), follow me on Twitter. Kelli will tweet race status updates throughout the day as I pass through each support-crew-accessible aid station. (A handful of aid stations are for race staff only...)

3. Otherwise, check back here on No Gluten, No Problem next week, when I'll post a full race report!

This race is also part of the 2012 prelude to the 3rd Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge, which raises money for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. The main event is the Virgil Crest Ultramarathon at the end of September—it covers 50 trail miles with 10,000 vertical feet of elevation gain.

I'm proud to report that we're already 35% of the way toward my goal of raising $5,000. Thank you to everyone who has donated and shown your support! On behalf of the NFCA, I sincerely appreciate it!

I'll announce the winners of the April book giveaway on Monday. Remember: each month I'm giving away one signed copy of one of my books (your choice!) to a donor to the GF Ultra Challenge. This time around, I'm giving away a second book in honor of the Bear Mountain race. And if I succeed in cracking the top 10% in the race results, I'll give away a third book!

Finally, I thought I'd share my gluten-free race nutrition plan for tomorrow's event. Here's how my food and hydration will break down:

Dinner Tonight
Whole grain brown rice pasta, with turkey bolgnese, and lots of water to drink

Breakfast Tomorrow Morning
A banana, blueberry, chia smoothie, plus a bowl of Crunchy Vanilla Sunrise gluten-free cereal with homemade almond milk

During the Race
First Endurance Electrolyte Fuel System for hydration (and some nutrition)
GU energy gels
Homemade GF banana muffins
Chocolate
GF chocolate chip cookies
Fresh oranges
Apple slices with peanut butter
Bacon (yes, bacon ... for salt and fat ... seriously)

For Recovery Immediately Following the Race
First Endurance Ultragen
Fanta soda (one of the only times you'll see me with a drink like this...)
Gluten-free beer!!!

See you on the flip side of the race. Wish me luck!

–Pete

Gluten-Free Ratio Rally: Bagels

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday may have been May Day, but today is Gluten-Free Ratio Rally Day! It's that time of the month when we join with other bloggers to share the results of a themed challenge we've been tackling for the last month. As you can see, this month's theme was bagels, a subject near and dear to yours truly.

Creating an authentic boiled-then-baked Long Island bagel was something of a personal mission. It was one year ago—almost to the day—that we first posted our recipe here on the blog. Since then, we've taught how to make those bagels at the Gluten- and Allergen-Free Expo in Dallas and Chicago. And a similar recipe for Long Island bagels is included in the forthcoming second edition of our first cookbook, Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking.

When it came to this month's ratio rally, we once again—as we've done before—used the opportunity to challenge ourselves and push the recipe into new territory (at least for us). What does that mean in practice? For bagels, it means we've come up with a delectable faux pumpernickel.

Pumpernickel breads are often dark, and true pumpernickel is made using rye flour (one of the forbidden flours if you're gluten-free). North American-style pumpernickel breads often use a combination of wheat flour and rye flour, and also frequently incorporate cocoa powder, coffee, molasses, and/or caraway seeds.

For our version, we bet the farm and used cocoa powder, coffee, molasses, dark brown sugar, and caraway seeds. And the result? A moist, soft, chewy, tender bagel with a rich, balanced flavor that closely mirrors the pumpernickel of our memory. But you can decide for yourself.

And if you're looking for some extra bagel love this month, be sure to head over and visit Meals with Morri, this month's Ratio Rally host. There you'll find links to recipes for blueberry oat, sundried tomato parmesan, cinnamon raisin, and other delightful bagel recipes.

Pumpernickel Bagels
Makes 4 bagels

Ingredients
3/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp yeast
2 large egg whites (~60g)
2 tbsp molasses
4g instant coffee (~1 heaping tbsp)
350g Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend (~2 3/4 cups plus a touch extra)
7g salt
1g xanthan gum (~1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp)
2 tbsp cocoa powder (~10g)
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp caraway seeds
Olive oil

Steps
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, dissolve the sugar in the warm water, then add the yeast and let sit at least 5 minutes, until the yeast is well active.
2. Meanwhile, place a 9x9 baking pan (or similar) on the bottom rack of your oven, and bring a teakettle of water to a boil, then turn off the heat.
3. Add the egg whites, molasses, and instant coffee to the stand mixer, and using the paddle attachment, mix at medium-high speed until the coffee crystals are dissolved.
4. In a separate bowl, combine 125g (1 cup) flour, salt, xanthan gum, cocoa powder, and dark brown sugar, and whisk to mix well.
5. Add to the stand mixer and mix at medium speed until well-incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula if needed.
6. Add another 125g (1 cup) flour to the stand mixer, and again mix until well-incorporated.
7. Switch to the dough hook for your stand mixer. Add the caraway seeds, plus the remaining 100g (3/4 cup plus) flour, and mix until well-incorporated.
8. Drizzle the dough liberally with olive oil, toss to coat fully, and turn the dough out onto a smooth work surface. The dough will be very wet, on the verge of sticky.
9. Cut the dough into quarters. Coat your hands with a bit of olive oil, then roll each dough quarter into a smooth ball, like you're making a meatball.
10. Place the dough balls on a greased baking sheet, and pat them down to make thick hockey pucks.
11. Dip your index finger in olive oil, then punch down through the center of each hockey puck. Keeping your finger in contact with the baking sheet beneath, swirl it in a circular motion to enlarge the hole in the center of each bagel.
12. Place the bagels on the center rack of your oven, pour the teakettle of hot water into the baking pan, and shut the oven door. Let rise (no peeking!) for 45 minutes.
13. Remove the bagels from the oven, preheat the oven to 400 deg F, and bring a deep skillet of water to a boil on your stovetop. Season the water with 4 to 6 tbsp of sugar.
14. When your oven is to temperature, flash bake the bagels for 5 minutes. Then boil them for 2 minutes per side.
15. Return the bagels to the oven and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

Notes
If you find the dough too difficult to work with, add additional flour 1 tbsp at a time, until you're comfortable. As written in this recipe, the dough is on the verge of too wet to hold the rise—our bagels spread a bit, in addition to puffing up, during the rise. To combat this, we may add a smidgen more flour next time, though we were very happy with the final texture on this version.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, dairy/lactose/casein-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, vegetarian.

Nutrition Info
Per bagel: 375 calories, 2g fat, 80g carbs, 15g protein, 12g dietary fiber, 8g sugars.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Recipe nutrition info approximate, calculated using SparkRecipes.

Lager Lowdown

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Look who's hiding!

One of the common criticisms I often hear of gluten-free beer is that it doesn't taste like "real" beer. The continual quest of gluten-free brewers—using either gluten-free grains such as sorghum or barley stripped of its gluten—is to make a beer that tastes more like, well, beer.

But do gluten-free beers really taste all that different from their conventional counterparts? I wasn't so sure, which is why I organized a blind taste test. What would happen if you took a group of "regular" beer drinkers and served them 6 samples of beer all brewed in a similar style—one beer of which was gluten-free? Would the gluten-free beer really stand out as "different" from the rest of the lineup?

The results may surprise you.

For my experiment, I assembled a panel of six lager beers: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Budweiser, Brooklyn Lager, Yuengling Traditional Lager, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and for the gluten-free option, Bard's.

I similarly rounded up 7 beer tasters, some men, some women, some experienced beer drinkers, some not, all of them gluten-eating (and thus, none of them gluten-free).

The "rules" were simple. I told them that they'd be tasting a flight of 6 beers all brewed in a similar style. An unspecified number of those beers—from none to all or somewhere in between—were gluten-free. For each beer, they should take tasting notes, commenting on the color, nose, taste, finish, and mouthfeel of the beers. For each beer, they should also answer "yes" or "no"—Do they think the beer is gluten-free? Finally, I asked them to rank the beers from most to least favorite.

Then I sat back and watched, and things got interesting.

Is the beer gluten-free?

On the question of whether or not they thought individual beers were gluten-free, only one beer—Sam Adams—escaped any votes. No one thought Sam was gluten-free. Every other beer received at least 2 votes for gluten-free status. And here's the real kicker: Bard's was not the highest vote getter!

More tasters (5 of 7) thought Yuengling was a gluten-free beer. Bard's ended up in a three-way tie with Budweiser and PBR ... 4 of 7 tasters thought each of those three beers were gluten-free.

This should immediately shatter the myth that gluten-free beer tastes "different" than conventional beer. Bard's clearly did not stand out as "other." It was surrounded by barley beers, and yet gluten-eating-and-drinking tasters voted just as frequently for barley beers as they did for Bard's when it came to guessing a beer's gluten-free status. In a sense, they couldn't tell the difference.

I suspect the results would have been equally interesting if I had phrased the question slightly differently, and instead said, "1 of the 6 beers you're tasting is gluten-free. Please guess which one you think it is." Based on the results of the Lager Lowdown, my best guess is that many of the tasters would have gotten it wrong. Score one for Bard's.

But how did the gluten-free beer rate?

As for where Bard's fell in the rankings from most to least favorite, the result was a split decision. Some tasters placed it in their bottom half, including one who ranked Bard's last, declaring it "only worth getting drunk on." On the other hand, another taster—who was quite surprised when I revealed the identities of the beer—rated Bard's their 2nd most favorite, behind only Sam Adams. Bard's beat out perennially popular barley-based lagers including Yuengling and Brooklyn Lager! Praise for Bard's included comments such as "nice color and good solid taste," "good mouthfeel and finish," "nicely balanced," "great smell," "hoppy," and "bitter undertones."

It turns out that, when you remove knowledge of a beer's gluten-free status, beer drinkers can have some pretty nice things to say about gluten-free brews.

The barley-based beers also faced split decisions among the tasters. For example, only one person placed Budweiser in their top half. Every other taster placed Bud near or at the bottom of their list. Opinion of PBR was also split. One taster used "urine" to describe its taste, while another noted that they were using PBR "as a palate cleanser between tasting the other beers."

As with the gluten-free status question, Sam Adams was the only one to escape persecution. Every single taster rated it his or her favorite.

The frequent split decisions, with individual beers rating both highly and poorly among tasters, just goes to show how much variability in taste there is in the beer-drinking world. What tastes like liquid gold to one person may taste like swill to another.

Conclusion

And so what have we learned? Two major lessons come to the fore: a) good gluten-free beers don't inherently taste "different" than their conventional counterparts, despite a commonly held perception to the contrary, and b) in blind tastings, gluten-free beers can rate quite highly against their barley-based peers.

So, the next time you're drinking a bottle of your favorite gluten-free suds, don't dare think for a second that your beer is inferior or otherwise unworthy. It can—and does—hold its own. Bottoms up!

–Pete

Original image copyright Lodrakon | Dreamstime.com. Modified by Peter Bronski. Used with permission.

Recipe: Chicken Vesuvio

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:17:00 +0000

As promised late last week, we're kicking off this week with a recipe directly inspired by our recent trip to Chicago for the Nourished food blogger conference and the Gluten- and Allergen-Free Expo. For our last lunch—before teaching our Breads class and then zooming off to the airport—we ate at Harry Caray's, an "Italian steakhouse." Little did we know at the time that we were dining at a Chicago institution! (Chicagoans ... please tell us if we're wrong about that!)

Kelli ordered the Chicken Vesuvio, which the Chicago Tribune named the best CV in the city. Chicken Vesuvio is a Chicago-born Italian-American dish. The chicken is usually braised ... browned on the stovetop and before being finished in the oven. It's done with a sauce of white wine and spices, paired with roasted potato wedges, and frequently garnished with green peas.

The Chicken Vesuvio at Harry Caray's (which has a great gluten-free menu, by the way) was out-of-this-world good. Thank goodness the restaurant portion was large, so there was enough for Kelli to share with yours truly. My Caesar salad paled in comparison. When in Chicago ... order the Chicken Vesuvio. Lesson learned.

For our version, we simplified the preparation by foregoing the oven and doing the chicken entirely on the stovetop. Otherwise, we've tried to do justice to this Chicago classic.

Chicken Vesuvio
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

For the chicken
4 chicken breasts, flattened
1/4 cup Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
Salt
Pepper
Dried oregano
Garlic powder
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter

For the sauce
1 cup GF chicken broth
1 cup white wine (such as Pinot Grigio)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp butter

For the potatoes
2 large Russet potatoes
Olive oil
Salt
Lemon juice
Dried oregano
Garlic powder

Steps

To make the potatoes
1. Preheat your oven or toaster oven to 400 deg F.
2. Cut each large Russet potato into 6 long wedges and place in a baking tray.
3. Coat the wedges in olive oil and arrange them so they are wedge-side up.
4. Sprinkle lightly with salt, then a dash of lemon juice, then lightly with dried oregano and garlic powder.
5. Roast for 45 min to 1 hour, until golden brown and soft.

To cook the chicken
6. Meanwhile, in a bowl, season the flour with some salt, pepper, dried oregano, and garlic powder (about 1/2 tsp of each). Heat the olive oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Dredge the chicken breasts in the flour and cook about 5 minutes per side, to lightly brown the chicken and cook through. Remove the chicken. (If necessary, cook the chicken in batches, depending on the size of your skillet.)

To make the sauce
7. Add the chicken broth, white wine, garlic, and oregano to a skillet. Bring to a boil over high heat and reduce the sauce for 10 minutes.
8. Add the butter, turn the heat down to medium, and cook for 2 more minutes.
9. Remove from the heat and add back the chicken.

To finish the dish
10. Plate 1 chicken breast and 3 potato wedges per serving. Garnish with green peas.

Notes
For the flour dredge, you can use most any gluten-free flour or all-purpose GF blend.

For a saucier version, double the sauce quantities.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, yeast-free, refined-sugar-free.

Nutrition Info
Per serving: 570 calories, 15g fat, 37g carbs, 60g protein, 770mg sodium, 2g sugars, plus 1,470mg potassium and at least 140% RDA niacin, at least 90% RDA vitamin B-6, at least 60% RDA vitamin C and selenium, at least 50% RDA phosphorous, at least 30% RDA magnesium and manganese, at least 20% RDA iron and thiamin, and at least 10% RDA vitamin B-12, copper, folate, riboflavin, and zinc.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Nourished and GFAF Expo: The Recap

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:24:00 +0000

Kelli during Happy Hour at Nourished, a food blogger conference.

Today's post has been a week in the making, and as I sit down to write it, I lament the fact that I don't have better photos to do it justice. Last weekend Kelli and I traveled to Chicago for dual events—Nourished, a food blogger conference, and the annual Gluten- and Allergen-Free Expo.

In the interest of traveling light, I left behind our digital SLR camera (never again) and opted instead to just use our brand-spanking-new iPhone. Blech. What a mistake! Perhaps there is some secret I don't know yet, but as far as I can tell, iPhone cameras are good at taking low-quality, blurry photographs, and not much else.

I can't blame this post's lack of photography solely on the iPhone, however. I'm partly to blame, too. Frankly, I was so wrapped up with being "in the moment" of the weekend's events that I didn't pay much attention to photography. In part by design, I snapped relatively few photos. While other bloggers were dutifully snapping pictures with friends and colleagues, of expo vendors, of their plates of food, I left the phone in my pocket or in my computer bag.

Now I'm battling a tinge of photographer's remorse, wishing I'd snapped even a few more pictures, if for no other reason than to commemorate a truly memorable weekend. I hate to say it, but in some respects, you just had to be there, and if you weren't, you missed out on something special. It's true.

In trying to succinctly sum up the tenor of the weekend, two themes keep popping up in my mind: community and relationships. They are, in no small measure, part of what makes the gluten-free world go 'round. Amy (of Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free) eloquently said as much in her closing remarks to the Nourished half of the weekend.

The Crave ladies, Jamie and Kyra (left and middle), with celiac and Mrs. Alaska International Brandy Wendler.

Attending events like those of last weekend results in a kind of "all the planets are aligning" sort of intersection of the myriad corners of our own gluten-free world. We reconnect with friends and colleagues; meet fellow cookbook authors and bloggers; meet readers of this blog (some of who are wonderful bloggers in their own right, such as Alison of A Girl ... Defloured); chat with folks who've owned and used our cookbooks for years ... and sign copies of our cookbooks for newly gluten-free folks who'll be making our recipes for the very first time in the days and weeks following the event; network with the established as well as up-and-coming gluten-free product companies (I'm thinking of you, Bard's, New Planet, Gluten-Free Living, Living Without, Rudi's, Mary's Gone Crackers, and others!); and so much more. It's an incredible form of one-stop shopping.

At Nourished on Friday morning, I teamed up with Kim (of Gluten-Free Passport) to give a presentation about publishing. She covered ebooks and apps, while I covered traditional book publishing—the pros and cons of finding a publisher versus self-publishing; do you need a literary agent; the elements of building a strong book proposal; the ins and outs of publishing contracts; etc. Meanwhile, Mary Fran (of Frannycakes) gave a concurrent and popular session on building your blog's brand. (She's launching a series of short e-cookbooks starting in May ... check out her blog for more!)

Later in the day, Silvana (of Easy Eats) and Cybele (of The Allergy-Friendly Cook) shared their thoughts on attracting media attention. As always, they were as engaging and entertaining as they were insightful. Other sessions included the topics of food photography, food writing, recipe development, and much more.

Preparing samples for our Breads class at the GFAF Expo. Kelli (right) in the kitchen with Beth Hillson (red), a volunteer, and Denise San Filippo (black hat).

Saturday was the main Expo day, and Kelli and I spent most of the time at the Author's Row, shakin' hands and kissin' babies. (OK, so maybe we were actually smiling at passersby, selling cookbooks, and chatting with lots of friendly folks.) We shared the row with a number of other authors who are likely already familiar to you: Laura (of The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen), Karen (of Blackbird Bakery), and Robert (of The Gluten-Free Chef), among several others.

We spent our share of quality time with Jen (of So Simple Gluten Free), Amie (of The Healthy Apple), Tess (of Healthy Blender Recipes), Cheryl (of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness) and many others who I've invariably neglected to mention but who completely deserve to be in this blog post. Please forgive the omission!

Of course, the weekend was filled with much food. Saturday night, for example, we paired up with Andrea (of Rockin' Gluten-Free), Jamie and Kyra (of Food Network's Cupcake Wars-winning Crave Bake Shop), and Brandy Wendler (of Mrs. Alaska International fame) to head to a local P.F. Chang's for some tasty gluten-free eats.

Also, coming Monday, we'll share our recipe for a gluten-free version of a Chicago classic—Chicken Vesuvio—inspired by Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse & Bar. Stay tuned!

Gluten-free bagels fresh out of the industrial-size convection oven.

Sunday for us was spent largely in the kitchen, preparing samples for our Breads class that afternoon. Beth Hillson (of Gluten-Free Makeovers) tackled the first hour-plus of the class, before handing the reins over to Kelli and me. We demonstrated our Rosemary Focaccia, Baguette, and Long Island Bagels. Huge thanks to Denise, Cece, Jen, and all their generous volunteers who gave their time to help our session happen!

Although we've done it before, it's always an adventure to make your own recipes in someone else's kitchen with unfamiliar trappings. For example, the hotel kitchen's massive convection ovens browned our breads very quickly ... even when we baked them at 50 deg F lower temperatures for only a fraction of the normal time. Crazy!

And then, seemingly all too soon, the weekend came to a close. We said our incremental good byes, as different people migrated to the airport for their respective flights. We boarded our flight, too, and at last pulled into the driveway at our home in the Hudson Valley at 1:00am Monday morning.

Already later that morning, we were thinking, When can we do that again?

–Pete

Recipe: Irish Soda Bread

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:09:00 +0000

Yes, St. Patrick's Day was a few weeks ago, but we wanted to share this delectable recipe today for another reason—this upcoming weekend (April 14-15) Kelli and I will be at the Gluten & Allergen Free Expo in Chicago where we're co-teaching (along with Beth Hillson) the Bread & Beyond class on Sunday.

Making delicious gluten-free breads at home isn't nearly as difficult as some people think. In the class we'll teach bagels, baguettes, and focaccia. Today's recipe for Irish soda bread is a great example, too. It's flakey, moist, very tender, and subtly sweet. It's sort of like a huge scone, except that it's Irish soda bread.

The next time you're looking to make a yeast-free quick bread (where the buttermilk and baking soda/powder react to form carbon dioxide), put this recipe near the top of your list!

Irish Soda Bread
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
375g (3 cups) Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (8 tbsp, aka 1 stick) cold butter
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg

Steps
1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3. Cut the butter into the flour mixture to make pea-size crumbs, then add the golden raisins and toss to combine.
4. Mix together the buttermilk and eggs, then add to the flour-butter mixture. Use your hands to mix together to form a wet dough.
5. Place a little melted butter on your hands (to prevent the dough from sticking), form the dough into a large ball, and place on a greased cookie sheet.
6. In a separate bowl, mix together 1 tbsp melted butter and 1 tbsp room temperature buttermilk. Brush the mixture onto the loaf, then cut an "X" into the top of the bread loaf.
7. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until golden brown.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, yeast-free, vegetarian.

Nutrition Info
Per 1/16 wedge of bread loaf: 166 calories, 7g fat, 25g carbs, 4g protein, 300mg sodium, 4g sugars, 3g dietary fiber, plus at least 40% RDA manganese, at least 20% RDA selenium, and at least 10% RDA phosphorous.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Recipe: Jelly Bean Jubilee Cupcakes

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Spring is here and Easter is around the corner. To celebrate the dual occasion, we wanted to share our recipe for this Jelly Bean Jubilee Cupcake. Did you know it's an award-winning cupcake? It's true!

Surf Sweets recently invited us and 15 other gluten- and allergen-free bloggers to participate in a baking competition. The theme was to use their new Spring Mix of organic jelly beans. Lo and behold, we won Second Prize! Here's the story behind the recipe:

A jubilee is a time of celebration or rejoicing. This recipe was a celebration of Surf Sweets’ new jelly beans. Each cupcake is topped with a bright, flavorful jelly bean. We also endeavored to repurpose and incorporate jelly beans into the cupcake in creative ways—chopped jelly beans offer sweet surprises in the cupcake batter; melted jelly beans help to create a sweet, slightly fruity buttercream frosting; and pink jelly bean powder is dusted on the frosting for an extra pop of flavor and visual interest. Lemon juice in the cake batter complements the natural fruit flavors of the jelly beans.

Jelly Bean Jubilee Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

One 8-ounce bag Surf Sweets Spring Mix Jelly Beans

For the cupcakes:
6 tablespoons salted butter (3/4 stick), room temperature
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon GF pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, room temperature
1 large egg white, room temperature
2 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh squeezed preferable)
3 tablespoons buttermilk, room temperature
1 1/2 cups Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 1/4 teaspoons GF baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup Surf Sweets Spring Mix Jelly Beans, chopped

For the frosting:
1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup + 1/2 cup Surf Sweets Spring Mix Jelly Beans, divided
1/4 cup water
2 large egg whites
Pinch salt
3/4 cup salted butter (1 1/2 sticks), removed from the refrigerator when you start the buttercream
1/2 teaspoon GF pure vanilla extract

Steps

1. Set aside 12 jelly beans, one to top each cupcake. You should have about 1 cup of jelly beans remaining.

To make the cupcakes:
2. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Line a standard cupcake tin with paper liners.
3. Measure 1/4 cup jelly beans. Slice the jelly beans in half. Set aside.
4. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the vanilla.
5. Add the egg and the egg white, one at a time, mixing to incorporate after each addition.
6. Add the lemon juice and buttermilk, and mix until combined.
7. In a separate bowl, combine the flours, starches, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix well with a whisk.
8. Add the dry ingredients all at once to the sugar mixture and mix for about 10 seconds at medium-low speed to incorporate.
9. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the chopped jelly beans, and mix at high speed for about 5 seconds, just until the batter is completely mixed and smooth.
10. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 paper-lined cups on your cupcake tin. Make the top of the batter as smooth as you can.
11. Bake for 25 minutes.
12. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove from the tins and let cool completely on a wire rack.
13. While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting.

To make the frosting:
14. Add 1/4 cup jelly beans to a spice grinder and grind until the flavorful, colored candy shell becomes a fine powder and you’re left with the clear, jelly centers. Separately reserve the pink powder and the jelly centers.
15. Add the jelly centers, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup whole jelly beans, and 1/4 cup water to a heavy saucepan.
16. Put a candy thermometer in the mixture and heat to 245 deg F. Hold at 245 deg F for at least 5 minutes.
17. Meanwhile, in a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites and salt at medium-high speed until frothy.
18. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar to the egg whites and whisk until soft peaks form. Turn the mixer off and let the egg whites sit until the sugar mixture comes up to temperature.
19. After the sugar mixture has been at 245 deg F for 5 minutes, you’ll need to remove any undissolved jelly centers. Use a slotted spoon, or strain the sugar mixture through a fine metal mesh. Either way, be very careful—the sugar it hot!
20. With the mixer at medium speed, slowly drizzle the hot sugar mixture into the beaten egg whites.
21. After all the sugar is added, continue whisking the mixture until cool, about 10 minutes.
22. While the sugar-egg mixture is whisking for those 10 minutes, cut the butter into tablespoon-size pieces.
23. When the sugar-egg mixture is cool, leave the mixer running at medium speed and add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, allowing enough time for each tablespoon of butter to incorporate after each addition, until all the butter is added.
24. Add the vanilla and mix to combine.
25. Switch to the paddle attachment and mix for an additional 1 to 2 minutes at medium-high speed until the air bubbles are out of the frosting and the frosting is silky smooth.

To finish the cupcakes:
26. Use a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip to pipe a Dairy Queen-type spiral of buttercream on the cupcakes.
27. Sprinkle each cupcake with the reserved pink jelly bean powder.
28. Top each cupcake with a whole jelly bean.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, vegetarian.

Nutrition Info
Since this recipe uses Surf Sweets products, we didn't go through the trouble of figuring out adding their nutrition info to the other ingredients in the recipe. Sorry!

Enjoy!

–Pete

Gluten-Free Ratio Rally: Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:35:00 +0000

Another month, another Gluten-Free Ratio Rally!

Last month the theme was crepes. Did you see our mini stacks of key lime crepes? If not, go check 'em out!

This time around, we're tackling everyone's perennial favorite: brownies!

As usual, Kelli and I wanted to challenge ourselves and make a brownie with a twist. (When I told a coworker that we were working on making "special brownies" he wisely cautioned me to be careful with how I describe our project, lest I give the impression that we were making ... ahem ... brownies fortified with a certain variety of cannabis.)

But how do you reinvent the classic brownie?

When Kelli and I sat down to brainstorm, we came to the table with different ideas that were surprisingly compatible. She thought to make brownies using Mexican chocolate, which is flavored with cinnamon. My idea was to incorporate some mesquite flour into our brownies. Coincidentally, mesquite flour also often has notes of cinnamon in its flavor profile.

We decided to marry the two ideas and make Mexican chocolate mesquite brownies, with an easy caramel sauce to tie it all together.

To see what delicious brownies other Rally-ers baked up this month, be sure to check out Frannycakes, our host this time around.

And what about our ratio? We ended up darn near 1 part flour : 2 parts egg : 2 parts sugar : 2 parts butter : 2 parts chocolate. Pretty neat and tidy. Bada bing, bada boom, as they say.

Without further ado, on to the recipe:

Caramel Mexican Chocolate Mesquite Brownies
Makes one 8x8 pan, 16 two-inch squares

Ingredients

For the brownies:
100g salted butter
100g Mexican chocolate
100g dark brown sugar
100g eggs (2 large)
50g Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
15g mesquite flour
1/4 tsp GF baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

For the caramel:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp corn syrup (optional)
2 tbsp water
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp GF pure vanilla extract

Steps

To make the caramel:
1. In a heavy saucepan, stir together the sugar, water, and corn syrup (if using).
2. Place over high heat and let the sugar mixture cook without stirring until golden brown. (Swirl the pan if needed to mix for even browning, but don't use a spoon.)
3. As soon as the mixture is golden brown, add the cream all at once. (Pull your hand back and be cautious of spattering.)
4. Stir vigorously and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the sugar and cream melt together and create a smooth texture.
5. Remove from the heat, add the vanilla, stir, and let cool.

To make the brownies:
6. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Grease an 8x8-inch baking pan.
7. Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a whisk to combine.
8. Remove from the heat and stir in all remaining ingredients.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Drizzle with half the caramel sauce.
10. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the brownies are set around the edges.
11. Cool completely. Then cut and serve, drizzling brownies with the remaining caramel sauce.

Notes
Caramel sauce can sometimes turn grainy when cooled completely. To prevent this crystallization, use 1 tsp corn syrup. However, if you're averse to using corn syrup, simply omit it. Also, when drizzling the finished brownies with the remaining caramel, you may need to re-warm the caramel slightly to achieve a "drizzle-able" consistency.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, vegetarian.

To make this recipe corn-free, omit the corn syrup, and use an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend that does not include cornstarch.

Nutrition Info
Sorry ... the recipe calculator we use doesn't have info for ingredients such as mesquite flour, so no nutrition info for this recipe.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Destination Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:10:00 +0000

Highlighted in red, the course route for the Finger Lakes Fifties trail 50k.

I absolutely love trail maps. They are on the one hand deterministic and defined, and on the other filled with unknown opportunity and adventure.

Looking over the trail map for a place I've never been, a trail system offers a discrete set of options of where to go and what you'll see. The details contained with the map—contour lines, rivers and streams, summits and valleys—help to set expectations.

At the same time, those expectations can run wild, if you let them. What will you see along the trail? What kind of forest will it be? What wildlife might you see? What's in the blank spots on a map in between the trails?

The result is a beautiful tension between the known and the unknown, the what's possible and the what will actually be, between what's stored in memory and what the imagination is allowed to concoct.

Such was my experience this past Saturday. Kelli, the girls, and I were in Ithaca, New York visiting family. I took the opportunity to do my long Saturday morning trail run over at Finger Lakes National Forest, between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. FLNF is the site of the Finger Lakes Fifties ultramarathons, in which I'm competing at the end of June. I've never been to FLNF, and I figured it would pay off to preview the race course by running the trails now.

There was just one problem: the weather handed out rain the night before and the morning of my trail run and air temps hovering right around freezing, which would make for interesting trail and running conditions. I knew things would be pretty nasty, but I was determined to do my run regardless. What I discovered was even worse:

Half an inch of slushy snow on the ground. Shoe-sucking mud. 32-degree standing water ankle- to calf-deep. Fog. Light rain and mist with air temps of 35 to 40 degrees F. It wasn't exactly what I would call ideal conditions. Pretty much the exact opposite.

My plan was to run a single clockwise loop of the course (highlighted in red in the map above). Each lap is 16.5 miles. (And so, for the 50k, I'll be running two laps, totaling 32.9 miles.)

I ended up running just over 19 miles.

As you might imagine, the extra mileage was the result of a wrong turn or two. I was running south along the Burnt Hill Trail when the trail took me out of the forest, through a Forest Service gate, and into a meadow that turned into a cow pasture. Surrounded by thick fog, and in the absence of subsequent trail markers, I couldn't tell which way to go.

I took to following a barbed wire fence line. The fence line made a hard right turn, and so I did, too. Eventually, I came to another Forest Service gate, and another marked trail, so I started running that way. At last I came to a signed trail junction, at which point I was able to reconcile my new position with a basic map I'd brought with me tucked in my lumbar water bottle pack. I planned a re-route to get back on track and finish the intended loop, but by then the extra miles had been added. No problem... just a diversion to Destination Unknown.

Ultra distance trail running, especially in a racing context, is another good example of this tension between the determined and undetermined. When I'm running a trail I've never run before, every stride is a step into the unknown, a step into new territory. Where will the trail go next? What's around the next bend? (On a handful of occasions, the answer to that question has literally been a bear...) Even when I've run a trail before, there are still subtle surprises, chance wildlife encounters, a forgotten vista.

When racing on a difficult course, this lack of knowledge of what lies ahead can be both a blessing and a curse. For example, if don't know that a major climb is coming up, you won't fear it. Then again, since you don't know it's coming up, you also may not judiciously reserve the energy that's about to be needed...

That's one reason why I wanted to pre-run the Finger Lakes Fifties course. I wanted to become familiar with it. I wanted to learn it.

Now I know that after the Burnt Hill Trail there's a section of sustained downhill that offers a chance to open up the stride and make good time. And that the downhill section is immediately followed by the Gorge Trail, which has a few short but steep uphill sections that will offer an opportunity to get some nutrition in.

And what does any of this have to do with the gluten-free lifestyle? In my eyes, plenty. Because for many, standing on the precipice of going gluten-free is like embarking on a journey to Destination Unknown. And maybe you don't have a map to consult for reference. And maybe even if you do, you'll still make a wrong turn here or there and need to navigate your way back on track.

Fear and uncertainty may creep in. Can I still eat my favorite foods? What foods can I no longer eat? What foods can I eat? How am I going to do this?

But uncertainty can also give rise to joyous discovery. Maybe you'll "discover" quinoa for the first time. Or try your hand at baking with gluten-free flours. Or overhaul your diet to eliminate many processed foods.

Eventually the strange and unknown will become familiar. You'll put some miles behind you, find your flow, get into your groove. You'll remember where you've been, and you'll also know where you're going. In short, you'll be empowered. The gluten-free lifestyle will be familiar, not foreign. Embrace it, and enjoy the journey ... for the long haul. It's a great ride.

Giveaway winners!

But enough of me waxing philosophical about the intersection of trail running and the gluten-free lifestyle. It's time to announce some giveaway winners!

First, back on March 22 we reviewed Halfpops. The winner of our Halfpops giveaway is Lori-Ann! Lori-ann, please email us with your mailing address and we'll get your bags of Halfpops mailed to you ASAP.

Second, we've just concluded the first month of fundraising for the National Foundation of Celiac Awareness via the 3rd Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge. Thank you to everyone who donated this past month. We're already almost 10% of the way toward our goal, thanks to you! Special congrats to the giveaway winner: Lisa Simon. Lisa, please email us and we'll get in touch about your choice of book for the giveaway.

Plus, our next giveaway!

We're now launching the second month of fundraising for the Challenge. As with last month, anyone who donates at least $20 to the NFCA through our fundraising page is eligible to win a signed copy of one of our books (and you get to choose which book you want!).

And for April, I'm sweetening the pot. My next race—The North Face Bear Mountain Endurance Challenge 50 miler—is less than five weeks away, the first weekend in May. As such, April is a pretty big month of focused training for me. In honor of this next race coming up on the calendar, this month we're going to give away one book as usual, a second book in honor of the race, and we'll give out a third book if I finish the race in the top 10% overall.

That means that you have at least two chances to win a book this month, and possibly a third chance for a book if I race well. And remember ... these giveaways are all incentives to entice you to help support the great work of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, which benefits the entire gluten-free community. Donate today!

Thanks again for your support.

–Pete

Image courtesy United States Forest Service, amended by Peter Bronski.

Athlete Insight: Shelby Kaho

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:04:00 +0000

In The Gluten-Free Edge, Melissa (Gluten Free for Good) and I interview and profile dozens of amazing gluten-free athletes. One of the wonderful challenges of writing the book was that we discovered many more gluten-free athletes than we could ever hope to fit within the book's pages. And so, we're featuring more athletes here on No Gluten, No Problem in "Athlete Insight," a recurring series. Learn from them. Be inspired by them. And see that—whether you're gluten-free for medical reasons or voluntarily to gain a performance edge—gluten-free athletes are out there, living an active gluten-free life to the fullest.

Shelby Kaho
Collegiate hurdler

Born: 1993
Lives: Ohio
Gluten-free since: 2005/2006

If you're familiar with Wendy of Celiacs in the House, then you already know one member of the Kaho clan. Today, meet her daughter, Shelby.

Shelby was home schooled until the 7th grade, when she switched into public school in order to play sports. "In middle school, I tried everything: basketball, volleyball, track," she says. "Track was just it. It came naturally to me. I was always fast and could jump high." As she transitioned into high school, track remained her athletic focus.

By then, however, the Kaho family had been uncovering their long-standing but as yet undiagnosed problem with gluten. Shelby's brother had been hospitalized with severe anemia. That eventually led to a celiac disease diagnosis. Shelby, meanwhile, had been having her own health challenges. "I'd been diagnosed with IBS, gastric reflux," she says. "I had a weak immune system, bad allergies, fatigue. And I had stomach problems—there was something at least every day ... cramps, nausea." Testing revealed that she, too, had celiac disease. (As it turned out, their mom Wendy had celiac as well, and genealogy research has revealed a number of ancestors who likely had it, though they didn't know it.)

For Shelby, some symptoms resolved quickly on the gluten-free diet. Calcium and vitamin D deficiencies resulted in shin splints that bordered on stress fractures (a situation common to many athletes with undiagnosed celiac disease). Once gluten-free, her bone density rebounded and she had a major growth spurt.

Others symptoms took more time to resolve. "This year, after being gluten-free for more than five years, is the first time my immune system feels a lot better," she explains. "I'm the healthiest I've been; I'm a lot stronger."

Stronger is definitely the operative word. Shelby, a freshman at Ohio's Wittenberg University, earned a spot on the track and field team as a walk-on. She runs the 60- and 100-m dash, though the 60-m hurdles is her true specialty. Earlier this month, she won the 60-m hurdle individual championship at the North Coast Athletic Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships.

Staying safely gluten-free while a college athlete has involved a multi-pronged strategy. Her teammates are supportive. "Everyone is great about it; they look out for me," Shelby says. She travels to meets with a cooler full of gluten-free foods. The team stays at accommodations with mini-fridges and microwaves in the rooms. Back on campus, she's been working with the executive chef and the manager of dining services to ensure that she has good options. And her dorm room is always stocked with plenty of tasty gluten-free fare.

The effort is paying off ... for her health and her athletics. "I'm continuing to improve and get stronger," Shelby says. Gluten—once a major health hurdle—is now in her rear view mirror, and looking to the future, it's full speed ahead.

Favorite gluten-free foods: Steak. Gluten-free pizzas on Udi's crust. Rice for carbs, though sometimes potatoes. Lots of fruits and vegetables.

P.S. Shelby blogs about her experience as a gluten-free college athlete over at One Hurdle at a Time.

–Pete

Photos courtesy Wittenberg Athletics, by Kim Johnson and Drew Casey / Wabash Sports Information.

Recipe: Cranberry-Pecan Quinoa Salad

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Quinoa is a versatile pseudo-grain that's naturally gluten-free and packed with nutrition. It's been a part of our cooking regularly ever since a 2007 mountaineering expedition to Bolivia. (Quinoa is native to South America's Andes.) We often make a cold quinoa salad with green onions, red bell pepper, and a red wine vinaigrette. We've also been known to use quinoa in lieu of bread crumbs in a turkey meatloaf.

But we're always looking to incorporate quinoa into our diet in new ways, and today's recipe—Cranberry-Pecan Quinoa Salad—absolutely fits the bill. It's simple to make, yet rich in flavor. It could easily be the star of a lunch or dinner meal, or serve equally well as a side to an entree.

Cranberry-Pecan Quinoa Salad
Makes 4 side servings, 2 as a main dish

Ingredients
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup Craisins
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 tbsp minced fresh basil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder

Steps
1. Combine the quinoa and water in a pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Then remove from heat, remove the lid, and fluff.
2. Add the chopped pecans, Craisins, and basil.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Add a dash each of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Mix well.
4. Add the vinaigrette to the quinoa salad and toss to mix. Serve warm or cold.

Notes
To make a cold version of the salad, you could cook the quinoa ahead of time and chill it in the fridge, then proceed with the remaining steps of the recipe.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, dairy/casein/lactose-free, peanut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, corn-free, vegetarian.

To make the recipe refined-sugar-free, substitute raisins or similar for the Craisins (dried cranberries sweetened with sugar).

Nutrition Info
Per side serving: 224 calories, 14g fat, 24g carbs, 4g protein, 41mg sodium, 7g sugars, plus at least 40% RDA riboflavin, at least 20% RDA phosphorous, and at least 10% RDA iron and manganese.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Recipe nutrition info approximate, calculated using SparkRecipes.

Product Review: Dogfish Head Tweason'ale

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:38:00 +0000

In late January 2012, the beer-drinking gluten-free world was abuzz with the news of a new brew coming to market: Tweason'ale from Dogfish Head. Dogfish is a highly respected Delaware-based craft brewery known not only for their "standard" styles, but also for their unique brews, such as a chicha, based on traditional Andean corn beer, and Midas Touch, based on the ingredients found in 2,700-year-old drinking vessels found in the tomb of King Midas. Pretty cool, huh?

Now, they're adding a gluten-free offering to their lineup. Since it was first brewed and released in between traditional beer seasons, it was named "Tweason'ale" (as opposed to being a seasonal). Dogfish plans to brew it four times per year.

Since its initial release in late January, we've patiently been waiting for it to arrive in our neck of the woods here in the Hudson Valley. Every two weeks, or so it seemed, we'd stop in at our local beer distributor and check, only to walk out empty-handed. Until this past weekend. Tweason'ale was in stock!

It's sold in four packs of 12-ounce bottles. For us, the base cost of the four pack, plus state taxes and bottle deposits, resulted in a price tag of just over $12. Very steep for a four pack of beer. We just hoped Tweason'ale would be worth it, lest it become an occasional tweasonal indulgence at best.

First, major kudos to Dogfish Head for earning GFCO gluten-free certification. It's not cheap or easy to do, but I know that the trusted seal of approval will put many gluten-free minds to rest who'd otherwise be concerned about drinking a gluten-free beer from a brewery that also brews traditional barley-based suds.

Tweason'ale is brewed from water, sorghum syrup, strawberries, buckwheat honey, hops, and yeast. As you can see from the pics, it has a beautiful amber color. Unfortunately, it also has approximately zero head retention.

There are gentle hops in the nose, and it has a subtle but distinct beer-like aroma.

As for taste, with the use of strawberries and honey, we worried that the beer would taste too sweet or fruity. It is in fact somewhat sweet, though not overly so, and the strawberries—while present—were surprisingly subtle. Unfortunately, it lacks any hint of malted barley character when you actually drink it. (Yes, I know it contains no actual malted barley, but that still tends to be the flavor profile against which all beers, including GF offerings, are based...) At 6% alcohol by volume, it's stiffer than many other GF beers, and you feel it ever so slightly in the back of the palate, but it's well within an acceptable range for craft beers.

The lack of barley-like beer taste in the mouth was disappointing because the nose was so inviting. That said, it's still a refreshing beer that would taste especially good cold on a hot day.

We love the simple, straightforward ingredients, not to mention the GF certification, and we had high expectations for this new beer from Dogfish Head. Though we were initially underwhelmed by the taste (especially compared to the beer's inviting nose) and somewhat put off by the expensive price, this is a worthy addition to the GF beer market. After taking careful notes while tasting the first two bottles, we quite happily knocked back the remaining two bottles with no trouble.

In the end, I'd put Tweason'ale in the same lineup as New Planet's Tread Lightly Ale and 3R Raspberry Ale. If you like lighter, sweeter beers, Tweason'ale will be right up your alley. But if you're looking for more malted character, look to a brew such as Bard's, and if you're looking for more hops, look to New Planet's Off Grid Pale Ale.

–Pete

Recipe: Island BBQ Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:24:00 +0000

We're year 'round outdoor grillers. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail keep us from firing up the grill, whether it's to cook meat, or fish, or veggies, or pizza, or even—in the case of our oven going kaput the night before Marin's 3-year birthday party this past winter—a tray of gluten-free baked ziti. Seriously.

But with spring officially here now (and the temperatures to match), we're thinking even more about grillin' and outdoor livin'. In fact, we've even broken out the deck furniture and umbrella. The woodchucks that lived under the deck last spring are back again this year. And this time around we've augmented the backyard with a small soccer net for the girls.

Of course, we can't manage to grill for any length of time without doing up some good ol' barbeque. From our standard BBQ sauce, to a chipotle-spiced version, to many other variations, we're suckers for a good sauce.

Remember when we went head over heels for the bbq ribs at The Buccaneer in St. Croix? Well, the sauce was one of the main selling points. And you know us ... we couldn't resist coming home, heading straight into the kitchen, and not coming back out again until we'd come up with our own version. The result—Island BBQ Sauce—has a distinctly Caribbean flair, with pineapple and guava. But it's still undeniably a well-balanced bbq sauce that's finger-lickin' good.

Island BBQ Sauce
Makes about 2.5 cups sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup freshly pureed pineapple
1 cup guava juice (such as Ceres brand)
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tbsp GF Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp distilled white vinegar
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp chipotle powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Steps
1. Whisk together all ingredients until well-mixed.
2. Use 1 1/2 cups of the sauce to marinate your chosen protein. Reserve the remaining 1 cup to make a thicker sauce.
3. While your protein is marinating, preheat your grill to medium. Then grill your protein, brushing with the marinade throughout grilling.
4. Meanwhile, whisk 1 tsp cornstarch into the 1 cup reserved sauce. Bring to an easy boil over the stovetop, just until the cornstarch clears and the sauce thickens. Let cool.
5. When your protein is done grilling, toss in the thickened bbq sauce to coat.

Notes
2.5 cups of Island BBQ Sauce is enough for about 12 to 15 ribs. You could easily use the sauce for bone-in ribs, country-style boneless ribs, chicken breasts, tofu ... let your taste buds run wild.

You can also mix up a batch of the sauce, and then use only as much as needed for the quantity of protein you're grilling, keeping the rest in the fridge for later. For example, we recently made just half a dozen country-style ribs, so we made a full batch of sauce, but marinated in 3/4 cup sauce, thickened 1/2 cup sauce to coat, and reserved another 1.25 cups sauce in the fridge for later in the week.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, dairy/casein/lactose-free, egg-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free.

Depending on your ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, it may or may not also be refined-sugar-free, soy-free, and vegetarian.

Nutritional Info
Per tbsp: 12.5 calories, 0g fat, 3g carbs, 0g protein, 2.5g sugars, 57mg sodium.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Recipe: Easy "Tempura" Tofu

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:17:00 +0000

This past November, Kelli and I celebrated our 8-year wedding anniversary. As we wrote later that month, we did dinner that night at The Artist's Palate in Poughkeepsie. One of our appetizers was crispy tofu. The tofu was lightly battered in rice flour and deep fried. It was very similar to a true tempura, when vegetables (and other foods) are dipped in a wet batter (often made with water and wheat flour, though just as easily made with rice flour or another gluten-free flour) and deep fried. It was dee-licious, and since then, I've had that tofu preparation in the back of my mind.

Fast forward to this past week, when I was whipping together an Asian-inspired vegetable and noodle dish for dinner one night. There was half a brick of tofu in our fridge that needed to be used up, and I seized the opportunity. As you'll see in the recipe below, I didn't make a proper tempura. But the result was equally delicious, easier to make, and arguably healthier.

The resulting tofu cubes are delicious on their own as a snack—they're like tofu versions of popcorn shrimp or popcorn chicken. Pair them with an Asian dipping sauce as an appetizer. Add them at the last minute to Asian-inspired entrees. Or even place them over salad in lieu of croutons. The opportunities are many!

Easy "Tempura" Tofu
Makes about 3 servings (when added to an entree)

Ingredients
8 ounces extra firm tofu
1/4 cup Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
Salt
Pepper
Ground ginger
Garlic Powder
Olive oil (extra light)

Steps
1. Using a paper towel or clean kitchen towel, squeeze the tofu of excess water. Then cut into cubes. (The cubes will still be moist ... this is a good thing!)
2. In a bowl, add the flour, then season with salt, pepper, ground ginger, and garlic powder (about 1 tsp of each). Mix.
3. Add the tofu cubes to the bowl, and toss to coat well.
4. Transfer the tofu to a colander/strainer, and shake lightly to remove excess flour.
5. Add enough olive oil to your skillet so that the oil depth is 1/4 inch or 1/2 cm. Heat over medium-high heat. Test the temperature with one tofu cube—it should sizzle well when added to the oil, but the oil should be kept below its smoke point.
6. Pan fry the tofu, in batches if necessary, turning occasionally until lightly browned on all sides.
7. Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate. Serve warm.

Notes
Though we used our signature flour blend for this recipe, you could substitute most any all-purpose gluten-free flour blend or GF flour.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, dairy/lactose/casein-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, refined-sugar-free, vegetarian.

Nutrition Info
Per serving: 213 calories, 18g fat, 6g carbs, 9g protein, 395mg sodium, 1g dietary fiber, 0g sugars, plus at least 50% RDA manganese, and at least 10% RDA magnesium, phosphorous, and selenium.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Recipe nutrition info approximate, calculated using SparkRecipes.

Product Review: Halfpops

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:53:00 +0000

For as long as we've been together, Kelli and I have been fond of road tripping. In the early days of our relationship, that meant making the 4-hour drive to her hometown of Ithaca, NY; or the 5-hour drive to the Adirondack Mountains; or the even longer drive to the Presidential Range in northern New Hampshire. When we moved to Colorado, it took the form of long drives across Wyoming's Red Desert; or out I-70 to Grand Junction and Colorado's Western Slope; or even 2,000 miles back to New York one year, when a blizzard shut Denver International Airport days before Christmas, and we didn't want to miss the holiday with family.

Back then, snacks on such road trips tended to be defined by foods that otherwise weren't a part of our diet. We ate them exclusively on road trips. It eventually became a strong association. Take Corn Nuts. It's been years since I've had them. We tend not to eat that type of snack food these days.

But I can't tell you how many small bags of Corn Nuts we went through on drives to and from our then-home in New Jersey and Kelli's hometown in upstate New York. These days, when we gas up the car, if the stop happens to require popping in to the station's mini-mart, seeing the ubiquitous racks of Corn Nuts recalls those days way back when.

And what do Corn Nuts have to do with today's product review? All will be revealed in a moment.

A new company called Halfpops recently contacted us, offering to send gratis samples for us to review. Described as partially popped popcorn (hence, half-popped), we were willing to give it a try. Though we don't eat Corn Nuts these days the way we used to, we're known to pop a fresh batch of popcorn from time to time, and sometimes even make it with a little sugar in the Belgian style (which tastes remarkably like kettle corn). How would we like these Halfpops, we wondered?

For now, the company offers two flavors: Natural Butter & Pure Ocean Sea Salt and Natural Aged White Cheddar. (New flavors are currently in development, and they're asking consumers to vote! The options are Natural Kettle Corn, Natural Chipotle & Lime, and Natural Jalapeno Aged Cheddar Cheese. Kettle Corn currently holds a sizeable lead over the other flavor options.)

Halfpops are certified gluten-free by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization, which gives a comforting and stringent third-party verification of the products' GF status. Yeah for Halfpops earning GFCO certification!

Another plus is the simple ingredients labels on the two Halfpops flavors we sampled. The Natural Butter & Pure Ocean Sea Salt flavor contains just popcorn, canola oil, butter, and sea salt. That's it. Similarly, the Natural Aged White Cheddar contains popcorn, canola oil, cheddar cheese, whey, dry buttermilk, and sea salt.

Given that the popcorn is air-popped, I was a bit dismayed to see canola oil as the second ingredient. I'd prefer to see no oil, or at least an oil other than canola. I suspect they might use some oil to help the salt and other flavorings stick to the Halfpops. The flavors also tend to be just a touch too salty for my taste. The first bites are delicious, but after eating enough, it tends to saturate the palate.

But Halfpops are undoubtedly tasty. And their texture? That's where the Corn Nuts come in. If true light, fluffy popcorn and hard crunchy Corn Nuts had a love child, Halfpops would be their hybrid offspring. Halfpops are both chewy and crunchy. Because they're harder to chew, we've found they're unsuitable for Charlotte, who's still waiting on some of her molars, and who tends to choke on the Halfpops. But Marin and Kelli and I all enjoy them.

If you're looking for a new twist on a familiar gluten-free snack (popcorn), Halfpops are worth a look.

And, you can do just that in today's giveaway! As I've said in previous posts, our review policy is to only accept as much complimentary product samples as we need to do a review. Surplus gets passed along to you, our beloved readers! Halfpops sent us way more product than we need, so we're going to give away 4 bags (two 2-ounce bags of each flavor) to one lucky blog reader. Just leave your name and a tidbit about your favorite popcorn snack in the comments. We'll choose one winner at random and let you know who that person is at the end of next week!

–Pete

Images courtesy Halfpops.

Wheat Belly, Busted

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:00:00 +0000

When Wheat Belly, by William Davis, M.D., came out in August 2011, it was an instant hit. It became a New York Times bestseller. Praise far outweighed criticism. Especially in the gluten-free community, it enjoyed rave reviews. The book was received essentially as gospel. Why?

In my opinion, there are three main reasons:

It's written by an M.D., which adds a patina of credibility to the book's claims,
It's filled with endnotes of citations that reference scientific peer-reviewed publications, and
Its message—to "lose the wheat, lose the weight, and find your path back to health"—already agrees with the world view of many in the GF community (that wheat and gluten equals bad).

But as you'll see, those three factors are dangerous. They build a facade of trust and credibility. They cause us to let down our guard; to cease being the critically-thinking readers that we ought to be. And sometimes, that means we fail to question information that is suspect; we unknowingly accept and perpetuate a myth; we fall victim to false information.

I didn't set out to write a review of Wheat Belly. I had been heavily researching another unrelated project. Coincidental timing then played a key role. After reading a number of prominent medical studies involving wheat, gluten, weight loss, and celiac disease, I found myself reading Wheat Belly, in which Davis cites some of those exact same studies.

Except that there was one major problem: Davis' claims—and his conclusions based on the research studies he cites—were exactly the opposite of what I'd been reading in those very studies. Here are several important examples:

Consider Chapter 3, Wheat Deconstructed, page 36 of the hardcover edition. Davis writes "if we look only at overweight people who are not severely malnourished at the time of diagnosis who remove wheat from their diet, it becomes clear that this enables them to lose a substantial amount of weight." He supposedly backs up this claim in the very next sentence by continuing, "A Mayo Clinic/University of Iowa study of 215 obese celiac patients showed 27.5 pounds of weight loss in the first six months of a wheat-free diet." Sounds pretty impressive and compelling ... until you realize he's wrong.

First of all, the study didn't examine 215 obese patients. Body Mass Index for study participants ranged from underweight to normal to overweight to obese. Secondly, only 25 of those 215 patients lost weight, and the weight loss was not restricted to the obese subset of participants. (Further, 91 of the 215 patients gained weight, but I'll return to the issue of weight gain among obese celiacs in a moment.) You can read the full text of the study as reported in the original American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article here.

Next consider Chapter 5, The Wheat/Obesity Connection, page 66 of the hardcover edition. Here Davis invokes a study reported in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. He claims that of newly diagnosed celiac disease patients, 39 percent start overweight and 13 percent start obese. Next Davis writes that "by this estimate, more than half the people now diagnosed with celiac disease are therefore overweight or obese."

Not quite. Actually, the study noted that overweight and obese patients together accounted for 39 percent of diagnoses. The 13 percent obese patients were a subset of the overweight group. By Davis' questionable math, underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese celiac disease patients would account for 114% of diagnoses, which is impossible.

At the start of the very next paragraph, he invokes a familiar line nearly identical to that from Chapter 3: "If we focus only on overweight people who are not severely malnourished at the time of diagnosis, celiac sufferers actually lose a substantial quantity of weight when they eliminate wheat gluten."

I call B.S. You know that study Davis just cited in the previous paragraph of his book to build his case? The same study from which he errantly claimed more than half of newly diagnosed celiacs are overweight? Here is what researchers actually found, and I quote directly: "Of patients compliant with a gluten-free diet, 81 percent had gained weight after 2 years, including 82% of initially overweight patients" (emphasis mine).

This finding is not buried deep in the report somewhere. It's important enough that researchers also call it out directly in the top-level abstract. When Davis claims that initially overweight celiac disease patients lose a significant amount of weight on a gluten-free diet, how does he explain the fact that 82% of those patients gained weight ... in one of the very studies he uses to back up his questionable claim?

To me this appears to be more than an innocent, but careless, oversight; it is more than a case of blissful ignorance. Those results are front and center in the study, and they directly contradict his claim. It would take an act of willful omission to leave it out; it's audacious that he cites the study to bolster his claim.

For a third and final example, consider Chapter 4, The Addictive Properties of Wheat, page 50 of the hardcover edition. Here, Davis writes about gluten exorphins, opiate-like compounds created when stomach enzymes take a crack at partially digesting gluten. Researchers are continuing to study how they impact the human body in myriad ways. One branch of such studies uses the drug naloxone, an opiate blocker, to cancel the potential effect of gluten exorphins and other related compounds.

Davis makes the claim that gluten exorphins are addictive like morphine (another opiate), and that those addictive properties cause you to eat more calories and gain weight. As the theory goes, block the gluten exorphins with naloxone, and you block the addictive properties of wheat-based foods. To back up his boast, he then cites a study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in which binge eaters were left in a room filled with a variety of foods for one hour. Davis writes "participants consumed 28 percent less wheat crackers, bread sticks, and pretzels with the administration of naloxone." And there you have it! See? Naloxone blocked the evil action of gluten exorphins, and those binge eaters ate fewer calories as a result! Except that's not what happened.

Here's the truth: While naloxone appeared to have an impact on the consumption of high fat and high sugar foods, it had no effect that correlated with gluten. In fact, while Davis claims that participants consumed 28 percent fewer wheat crackers, bread sticks, and pretzels, they actually consumed 40 percent more gluten-containing bread sticks.

The three examples I've noted are hardly the sum total of the problems I found with the book. There are many others, though I've already made my point.

Those of us in the gluten-free community want to agree with Wheat Belly because Davis' message resonates with us. But it's an overly simplified message, at times built on tenuous claims. And how would we ever know? He's an M.D. He's the expert, right? And he cites all those sexy research studies.

If I had read this book at another time in my life, I likely would have been none the wiser. I would have read the book, peeked at the citations, and been satisfied. But perhaps serendipity of a certain sort is at work here ... that I read this book at precisely that moment in my life when I was best equipped with the knowledge I needed to critically evaluate it. I now pass that evaluation along to you.

For certain, some of what Davis writes is valid. And I have some GF blogging colleagues/friends who know Davis personally. They say he's a very nice man, which may indeed be true.

But I'm more than disappointed with Davis and Wheat Belly; I'm downright angry. This book can and should be better. We, the gluten-free community, deserve as much. It does an injustice to the very legitimate case against wheat and gluten, and it is insulting to us, the readers. Sadly, Wheat Belly looks polished from a distance, but upon closer inspection it goes belly up. Sections of the book amount to propaganda, fallacies, and unsubstantiated claims. For me, Wheat Belly is a bust.

Are wheat and gluten a health problem? For many of us, undoubtedly. But there's much more to the story than meets the eye, and you're not always getting the straight story in Wheat Belly.

–Pete

Image of wheat field courtesy Stock.Xchng / Oeil De Nuit.

Recipe: Chicken Cacciatore

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:45:00 +0000

I can't believe that as I type these words it's still technically winter and yet the mercury reads in the mid 70s Fahrenheit. Talk about a season getting flipped on its head. It feels like the final nails in the coffin of the winter that never was.

That hasn't stopped us from making hearty—and in this case—rustic dishes in the kitchen, however. We open the shutters, let the light pour in, open the double-hung window, and enjoy a light breeze and some fresh air in the otherwise dark, cramped space that comprises the kitchen in the house we're renting at the moment.

Maybe it's my Sicilian heritage speaking, or perhaps just a simple food craving, but in recent weeks Italian has figured prominently in our weekly meal planning. Most recently, we made this bright, flavorful, and classic chicken cacciatore.

"Cacciatore" means "hunter" in Italian, and in cooking often—though not always—refers to a meal made with braised chicken. Some versions use white wine, others red. Some have capers, some not. Our version combines braised chicken thighs with tomato, pepper, onion, white wine, and dried and fresh herbs. The result is a dish layered with complex flavors that sing on the tongue.

Chicken Cacciatore
Makes 3 servings

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
6 chicken thighs, trimmed of most fat
1/4 cup Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
Salt and pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup white wine (such as pinot grigio)
1 1/2 cups diced tomatoes with liquid (one 14.5-ounce can)
1 cup GF chickenbroth
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried rosemary pulsed in a spice grinder
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp nonpareilles capers
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil

Steps
1. In a bowl, season the flour with some salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Dredge the chicken thighs in the flour and cook about 5 minutes per side, to lightly brown the chicken and cook most of the way. Remove the chicken.
2. Add the garlic to the pan and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
3. Add the pepper and onion and saute until soft, about 4 minutes.
4. Add the white wine and simmer, about 4 more minutes.
5. Add the chicken broth, tomatoes, and dried herbs (oregano, rosemary, bay leaf) and bring to a simmer.
6. Add the capers and chicken, reduce the heat to medium, and cook the chicken until done, about 10 minutes.
7. Remove the bay leaf. Garnish with fresh basil. Serve with rice.

Notes
Though we used our signature flour blend to dredge the chicken, you could substitute most any GF flour or flour blend to do the job.

Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, egg-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, tree-nut-free, peanut-free, soy-free, refined-sugar-free.

To make the recipe dairy-free, omit the 1 tbsp butter and use additional olive oil.

Nutrition Info
Per serving (excludes rice): 351 calories, 15g fat, 31g protein, 19g carbs, 325mg sodium, 4g dietary fiber, 0g sugars, plus 750mg potassium and at least 140% RDA vitamin C, at least 60% RDA vitamin A, at least 40% RDA manganese, at least 30% RDA vitamin B6, phosphorous, and selenium, at least 20% RDA riboflavin and zinc, and at least 10% RDA copper, folate, iron, magnesium, and thiamin.

Enjoy!

–Pete

Recipe nutrition info approximate, calculated using SparkRecipes.

Progress

noreply@blogger.com (peterbronski) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:36:00 +0000

What has life been like for you since going gluten-free? It's a seemingly simple question, one you can answer from a variety of perspectives. Talk about the food. Talk about health. Talk about community.

Me? I can talk about my shoes. My trail running sneakers, to be exact. Carrie Bradshaw had her Manolo Blahniks, her Jimmy Choos, her Christian Laboutins. I have my La Sportivas, my Montrails, my Inov-8s. Peek in my closet, and a pile of dirty, worn trail running sneakers will tell you what I've been up to since going gluten-free in early 2007.

Those yellow sneakers in the back of the photo? Those are La Sportiva Fireblades. Three consecutive pairs of those shoes got me through adventure racing and off-road triathlons, right up to the Xterra U.S. national championship at the end of the 2009 race season.

Next up came Brooks Cascadias (two consecutive pairs, in fact), which I wore as I transitioned into ultramarathon trail running and competed in my first Virgil Crest Ultra—and the 1st Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge—in 2010.

Second from the front you'll find my Montrail Mountain Masochist trail runners, which I started using late last year. They're supportive shoes with a full rockplate underfoot, for times when the trail gets really rough and my feet need a little something extra.

And right in the front of the photo? Those are my Inov-8 RocLite 295s, my go-to trail runner. I just wore those for a 10-mile run (technically, it was 9.8 miles, but who's counting?) on Wednesday night. Love them.

What do all those shoes have to do with the gluten-free life? For me, one word: progress.

Because there, in that photo at the top of this blog post, is a picture that encapsulates so much of what has happened since I went gluten-free: I regained my health. I regained and built upon my athleticism and passion for endurance sports. I found community—in family, in friends, in blogging colleagues, in you, our readers, in fellow athletes. And I found food—food that fuels my body and my soul, and sustains me in ultra endurance racing as in life. That's what I call progress.

Progress has figured prominently lately in other ways, as well.

We're just a few months away from the release of two new book titles: the revised and expanded 2nd Edition of Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking (with Kelli) and the new The Gluten-Free Edge: A Nutrition and Training Guide for Peak Athletic Performance and an Active Gluten-Free Life (with Melissa of Gluten-Free for Good). I'm sure I don't have to tell you just how much progress we've made to get to this point where the books are in layout and going through final review before heading off to the printer soon.

And then there was our January trip to St. Croix, which we wrote about extensively this week (part I, part II, and part III). That trip was all about recovery for me—physical, psychological, emotional. Since then, in roughly 8.5 weeks of training, I've lost 12 pounds and logged nearly 250 miles of trail running, including an auspicious start to the race season at the Febapple Frozen 50k. I'd call that progress, too. And I'm making more progress week by week, as I prepare for my second race of the season: the North Face Bear Mountain Endurance Challenge 50-miler the first weekend in May, which is just 7 weeks away!

Lastly, progress also comes to mind with the 3rd Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge, to raise money for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Two weeks in, the first donations have come in and we're on our way to reaching my goal of raising at least $5,000 to benefit the gluten-free community. Our progress thus far is modest—we're 4% of the way to the grand goal—but like running an ultramarathon, this is about slow, relentless, forward progress. It takes time, and it takes patience, but progress will be made. Won't you help me take the next step? Click on the image logo or link in the upper right of the blog to go to the fundraising page. (Plus, you might win a book!) Thank you for your support!

How about you? What has life been like for you since going gluten-free? How have you measured progress? I'd love to know!

–Pete