I Cooked my first Christmas Dinner last Night
I’m sixty-two and last night I cooked my first Christmas Dinner.
Because of the snow and travel problems, I had bought a Marks and Spencer Turkey Breast Joint, in case I have to spend Christmas alone. But with last night’s snow, I had two extra mouths to feed, so I decided to cook the turkey.
I was aided by some broccoli and parsnips donated by a farmer and luckily I had potatoes and some ready-prepared Schwatz gravy. Note that that gravy is gluten-free, so it’s fine for coeliacs like me. My guests don’t like sprouts, so they stayed in the fridge.
It was very passable. All my guests enjoyed it.
I even enjoyed the parsnips, which my mother used to cook so badly with the potatoes. I just followed the rules on the BBC web site. This must be the font of all knowledge for novice cooks like me.
Hopefully, the weather will relent by Christmas Day.
Sometimes I Go Over the Top
Friends sometimes accuse me of being a bit boring as I keep banging on about gluten.
But then I read this at Gluten Connection, which advertises a new book. This is an extract.
Millions of Americans are enduring painful and chronic conditions. Most doctors are mystified. Drugs usually offer little help. Most of these conditions have one thing in common… It’s called gluten sensitivity. It’s caused by a widely used food ingredient. It can lead to a wide range of serious health conditions and…it can affect up to 81% OF ALL AMERICANS!
If you are gluten sensitive, your body does not have the ability to break down and digest gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. Your body reacts to gluten as if it were a virus. It launches an immune reaction that can cause or worsen a wide range of chronic health problems.
So perhaps I’m a bit understated.
Being a Coeliac in Holland
I travel to Holland quite a bit and to Den Haag in particular. In fact, I’ve just come back from a few days in the Dutch capital.
So how do I manage as a coeliac in Holland?
On last Friday, I went for lunch in a cafe in Amsterdam called Puccini. It’s in the Staalstraat fairly close to the Amstel River and the Town Hall and the new Music Theatre. Most of the food was the usual bread offering, but they gave me a delicious salmon salad with no problems. Just remember that gluten-free is gluten-frij or gluten-fry! At least if they know about gluten, you will get food without a problem.
I would say that the level of knowledge in restaurants and cafes in major cities is about the same as in London or Cambridge.
But the biggest help is Albert Heijn. This is the Dutch equivalent of Waitrose or an upmarket Tesco Metro. You don’t have to know your Dutch, as every one of their own label products is labeled with the gluten-free symbol, if that what it is. If you’re still not sure, you can usually check the ingredients, even if they are in Dutch, as food names seem to be similar, even if the spelling is unpronounceable.
Woolpack, Ipswich
The Woolpack is a pub which is within walking distance of the town centre of Ipswich.
I was having a drink in the pub before the football on Tuesday and the landlady informed me that her husband, the chef, cooked everything from scratch and knew all about gluten-free food.
I think I’ll try the pub next time I’m in the town for a meal.
Marks and Spencer’s Financial Services Leaflets
They have just started a series of leaflets advertising their financial services, where they compare them to food.
The one for foreign currency says ‘Gluten-free. GM-free. Now try commission-free.’
I would never get my foreign currency from M & S, as I usually use a cash point abroad for convenience, but I find that now gluten-free is rather heartening.
The sooner gluten-free food becomes mainstream the better!
Michael Obiora
It helps me and many other coeliacs, when a celebrity, an actor or anybody in the public eye, says that they are coeliac.
So three cheers for Michael Obiora, who has said he’s a coeliac.
He actually seems to have suffered from a multitude of problems, that I didn’t have. So I’ve been lucky! I wish him all the best.
Chinese Food at the Phoenix, Histon
This is one of my favourite restaurants, so much so that when I took the pictures of the busway, I included a picture.
Phoenix Chinese Restaurant, Histon
I went last night and had an excellent meal.
As a coeliac I sometimes fear restaurants, as I’m not sure about how things are cooked. The waiter explained that most dishes are cooked with potato flour, which surprised me and that soy sauce was a problem.
For a starter, I had crispy lamb wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Note that lettuce leaves are a great alternative to pancakes and totally gluten-free.
I followed it with beef and lemon chicken. That incidentally uses custard powder, which I wasn’t sure about, but I have had no reaction today.
So if you’re travelling down the A14, visit the Phoenix, which is about two kilometres from the road on the B1049 going north.
Aspall Cyder in Greene King Pubs
My local pubs, which are Greene King, have now started serving Aspall Cyder on draught. I’m not sure whether this is Greene King policy, but I suspect that as Aspall is a Suffolk brand and we tend to be parochial, you can’t sell Strongbow against a proper local cyder. So I suspect that Greene King have had to allow their landlords to stock a rival product, as Aspall is distributed by Adnams.
If you haven’t tried it yet, draught Aspall Cyder has made me forget all about trying to find any decent gluten-free beer.
Was Robert Enke a Coeliac?
When I heard of the sad death of Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper, I wondered if his depression was caused by being a coeliac. Note that one of the symptoms of coeliac disease is depression, because your brain doesn’t get all the vitamins it needs. All top class sportsmen are fit and extremely well-monitored for any small health problem. They also often take high-pasta diets to improve stamina.
There have been several cases of top-class sportsman suffering depression and other similar problems, when they appear to have everything going for them.
I would never have posted this question, but someone found this blog, by typing “Robert Enke Coeliac” into a search engine. So I’m not the only person who thinks that this might possibly have been his problem. Note that I said might and I’m only speculating.
It should also be said, that if one in a hundred of the UK population is a coeliac, why is Hayley Turner, the very successful jockey, the only known coeliac?
Comments to easyJet
I was asked to comment on my latest flight by easyJet. Here’s my main comment.
I took the one flight home from Amsterdam and although you’ve called it outbound it was inbound for me, as I live half-an-hour north of Stansted.
I try to avoid Schipol, despite visiting Den Haag fairly often.
Lately though, I have been driving using Norfolk Line, as I usually go for four to five days and bring all sorts of goodies that Holland doesn’t have. I’m also a coeliac and stock up with things like Dr. Schar’s bread-mix which are unavailable in the UK. This is much easier in a car.
But it is Schipol that really annoys me. The easyJet gate at Schipol is a long walk and is distinctly unfriendly with no seats. I also always take a laptop and find the security annoying.
So there is nothing wrong with easyJet, it is just Schipol, which compared to Stansted is distinctly passenger unfriendly. Especially for people like me, who never buy anything in the shops.
I should also add, that your new big box crisps looked nice, but nowhere in the guide did it say whether they were gluten free or not. If you said what was, you might sell more. As it is I only just buy a coffee and no food.
Looking at my travel folder, I notice that I haven’t used easyJet from Schipol since April the eleventh. I think in that time, I’ve perhaps driven about four times, so the flight experience must be bad. But I have flown easyJet elsewhere for a holiday.
The Anonymous Widower 