Today was a baking day. An e-mail came from my son's residential placement, asking for more bread, pancakes and buckwheat cakes. The residence, with its large cafeteria, cannot handle his highly individualized diet.
Terry has been on a special diet for 12 years now. It is not a panacea, it does not remove his autistic symptoms. But it makes life smoother. It takes away the red ears and cheeks, the hysterical "Jekyll and Hyde" laughter, helps minimize the hyperactivity and aggression.
Baking day means mixing a large batch of bread flour -- white rice flour, brown rice flour, tapioca flour, potato starch -- and then mixing and baking loaves one at a time. A batch will make four loaves. Today I am lucky; I only have three to make. When the schedule is tight, I might make seven loaves in two days.
At times in life I have had romantic notions about getting back to a simpler time. And there is no denying that the smell of fresh bread has an atavistic quality that fulfills a deep yearning for the comforts of home and hearth -- even when the bread is gluten-free, casein-free, corn-free, sugar-free and soy-free. But the truth is that, for our ancestors, baking day was just plain work. And that's my experience, too. At least I have a Kitchen-aid mixer. Not to mention things like store-bought baking powder, which I learned recently is a relatively recent innovation that contributes much to the quality of the final product.
As with many things in life, I have decided this is another example of God's wonderful sense of irony.
Tomorrow I make pancakes and buckwheat cakes.
So glad to see you doing this. I will eagerly look forward to future entries. You've got so much to offer.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Denise. It's been coming on for a while.
ReplyDeleteI'd heard about special diets being helpful. Took a while to convince my mom that it might help my sister, who has a problem with psoriasis. My other sister and I try to be gluten- and lactose-free. She also watches corn and fructose (that one's really fun). I haven't tried going completely casein- or soy- free. My skin definitely reacts to gluten.
ReplyDeleteTerry's the one on the hard-core diet, but I've largely given up lactose (it gives me migraines)and stick to whole grains. And my daughter falls apart academically and emotionally on dairy. One friend of mine said he no longer met criteria for bipolar when he cut out all junk food.
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