Western Research into Chinese Medicine and Food Reactions

I happened to catch Terri Gross interview with Dr. Hugh Sampson who serves as director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute. Pretty standard info about allergy and celiac disease but towards the middle of the interview the good Dr. talks about studies that he is involved with that are taking a hard look at why certain Chinese medicine practices actually block the problematic immune system freak outs…. Interesting.

8te

Ok, felt like cereal, as we have fresh blueberries in the house and nicely ripe bananas.

So, mixed up some Mesa Sunrise (GF) cereal, with corn flake cereal (GF) and vanilla silk soy milk. Super breakfast meal….I often crave the blueberry cereal mix for lunch or late night snack. Been eating this mix for years. A staple.

I will have to write a formal review of Mesa Sunrise soon…

Patricia’s Gluten Free & Wheat Free Pizza

There was considerable discussion concerning the proper name for the Gluten-Free Cookie Federation. We almost had a Gluten-Free Pizza Federation, and even a Gluten-Free Donut Federation, but the universal appeal of cookies won out.

So, we now turn to one of the runners up: pizza. And our first entry is perhaps the most “real” gluten-free frozen pizza encountered to-date. What makes Patricia’s 10″ so real is that it has the doughy, greasy appeal of your better thin wheat crust Italian pizza. This is a big deal. Over the last eight years spent eating gluten-free pizzas, nothing has come close to hitting the mark of a real pizza—any pizza—as Patricia’s.

It is crucial to understand the following sentence: You must cook this pizza on a solid sheet. Turn a plate upside down if you have nothing else. If you cook it directly on the oven rack you will have the worst monstrosity, massicured all over your oven. The thing will melt completely through. Completely. This is what happend to me the first time. Fortunately, some pizza drippings remained clinging to the metal rack. When I slurped the dangling tangles (hey, it’s pizza!), it was clear Patricia had promise. I bought another pie and this time read and followed the cooking instructions.

MAKER: Patricia’s Pizza & More (phone 1.203.606.5053)

TASTE: Doughy. Light on the tomato sauce. Sweat yeast. Greasy thin cheese, in a good way. Cheese covers the entire pizza.

TEXTURE: Chewy, gooey, fun like Hong Kong Phooey.

SIZE: 7″, 10″, 14″. Have only encountered the 10″. The Cookie Federation would be super interested in coming across the 14″ which would be even more pizza jointy.

SWEETS & FATS: Average sweetness. Fats unknown.

PRICE: For the size, the most expensive out there. I paid $11 for the 10″.

NOTES: Never eat the whole pizza with beans or Mexican food or you may be spending lots of time in the bathroom the next day. The pizza crust is made from, as the label says, “nutritious bean flours!”

Copyright 2007 P.L. Frederick. All rights reserved worldwide.