My Gluten-Free Diet
I think it is true to say that as time has gone on, I’ve cut out more and more manufactured gluten-free foods.
Take tonight after a trip to London to look over my new house, I needed a quick supper, so I warmed through a Moroccan chicken casserole and cooked some rice. None of the ingredients are specifically processed to be gluten-free and most of the basic ingredients can be obtained in most good food stores. So I did use rice. chicken and apricots that were organic from Waitrose, but that has nothing to do with being a coeliac.
I got to thinking today, about obtaining my gluten-free supplies, when I move. The nearest shops to where I will be living are in Kingsland Road in Dalston.
So what specific gluten-free food do I buy?
- Genius bread
- Greens gluten-free beer.
- Doves farm pasta and flour.
- Waitrose gluten-free cakes and biscuits.
- Life free-from Worcester sauce.
I suppose you can include St. Helen’s Farm goats milk and yoghurt, Wilkins jams, marmalades and tomato sauce, and Aspall cyder, but these are a matter of personal taste rather than a strict diet.
In a quick recce of Sainsburys in the Kingsland Road, I found that they had a free-from section, that was even selling the Greens beer, which is something my local one in Haverhill doesn’t. So for some products, I may need to go on an expedition to Waitrose in the Holloway Road or at the Angel, but it will be nice to have some basic products within ten minutes walk. I haven’t lived close to a supermarket, since we lived in St. John’s Wood in the early 1970s. Although we were close to Whitecross Street Market when we lived in the Barbican.
Farewell Bernard Matthews
It has been announced today that Bernard Matthews has died at the age of 80 on Thanksgiving Day. Rather appropriate in that his company is one of the largest producers of turkeys in Europe. I think it is true to say, that we’ll never see another like him, which is a pity! His company may have sold the infamous turkey twizzlers, but that is more than offset many times by his charity work.
A Solution to Binge Drinking?
Nick Sheron is a doctor, who specialises in liver disease. So when he makes a proposal about how alcohol should be taxed, we should take notice.
Read what he says in the Daily Telegraph. As a control engineer by training, I like his solution which optimses the reduction of alcohol intake against the Government tax take.
Let’s hope the Government listens, as his proposal might cut problem drinking and help to save pubs with landlords who want to provide customers with good beer and cider and a relaxed atmosphere.
.
An Edinburgher Makes Peace with Glasgow
Gavin Mackay successfully makes sausages in South Korea. He had a bit of a problem with the seasoning and eventually found one in Glasgow. This he admitted is very unusual for a man from Edinburgh, as ne’er the twain shall agree!
Designer Spirits from Suffolk
I suppose if you’re going to launch a new product in the midst of a recession, gin, vodka and whiskey might be a place to start.
But these are not cheap products, but top of the range ones from Adnams.
When I started drinking in the 1960s. the brewery from Southwold had only a dozen or so pubs. Now over forty years later, Adnams has cemented its place in drinking fokelore as probably the best pint in the civilised world. I just hope that in the next few years, they try to create the first gluten-free real ale. If anybody could do it, then they probably can, as they are a company that when it has an idea, does it in style with the best technology available.
Carliuccio’s Gluten-Free Offering Gets Wider
I had to go to Addenbrooke’s today and as no-one could bring me home as it was a late appointment, I decided to go to Carluccio’s in Cambridge before and have a decent lunch.
They have added some good soups to the menu, by making the standard ones gluten-free and deleting the bread. In other words they hit both markets. I followed it with veal with a caper and tuna mayonnaise. It wasn’t on the gluten-free menu but it was on the specials and gluten-free. Veal may not be to everyone’s taste, but it was very good.
So they seem to be making a statement about how to serve coeliacs.
Tiptree Tomato Sauce
I found this sauce from Wilkin and Sons, the jam makers in Waitrose. It isn’t cheap, but you wouldn’t expect that from a quality company.
On the other hand it is rather addictive and goes well with the potato-topped pies I have in the freezer.
It doesn’t say it’s gluten-free on the bottle, but then it doesn’t say that on the jams or marmalade. But none of the ingredients contain gluten.
Living Alone
This is not a moan, but today, I’m having supper from the freezer, as the fridge is getting empty. The reason is that the weather is so awful, that I really didn’t want to go into the shops today. I will have to tomorrow, as I’ll be out of bread and milk by lunchtime. As it happens, I won’t be here then, as I’m going to London, unless the weather is really bad again, in which case I’ll go to Cambridge and then take the train from there to the football.
It will be so much better in London, as I can walk to a couple of decent pubs and if it was raining, I can even take a bus somewhere warm and nice. Not that my kitchen isn’t warm and nice. It’s just that it’s lonely and I have to do the cooking.
But that is not really cooking tonight, as I’m just putting a Waitrose Indian meal in the oven.
Sheffield United 1 Ipswich 2
Yesterday, I went to see Ipswich play at Sheffield United and they duly obligued with a reasonably tidy win, that puts them sixth in the Championship.
It was a good trip as I went up by train from St. Pancras with a friend and his son, who support the Blades. It took just over two hours to get up and we had a sensible lunch in a Greek cafe called Hellas close to the ground.
I had a ra
Hellas Cafe near Bramall Lane, Sheffield
ther nice bean soup with some salami and home-made humous. I wouldn’t recommend the cafe to super-sensitive coeliacs, but I had no reaction at all. The toliets were also very smart and had that important accessory of a coat hook. Why should I try to prop my coat on the door handle or put it on the floor.
I’ve been to Bramall Lane three times now and it seems to get better every time, which is something you can’t say about all stadia in the Championship.
Bramall Lane
As I’ve said in other posts, at some places the security is rather over top, but it is best to say that at Bramall Lane, it was sensible and fair, which can’t be said for every ground.
It was a short walk back to the station from the ground and then another two hour train ride back to London. We were in one of the Meridians and I managed an hour’s sleep or so. i’ll be glad when I finally move to London, as I’ll be able to do more trips like these without the inconvenience of going cross-country from Suffolk.
A Unique Place in the History of European Fascism
That was the said in Private Eye as they detailed how the senior figures in the odious British National Party might be bankrupted by Unilever for breaching Unilever’s copyright on a Marmite advert.
They finish the article by saying that they could be the first neo-Nazi party destroyed by the makers of a yeast extract sandwich spread.
C used to love her Marmite, but I don’t!
The Anonymous Widower 