I was going to spend the day cleaning, but it's gorgeous out and it's supposed to start raining tomorrow, so I think that first I am going to make a quick TJs run, then drive out to Half Moon Bay, and walk on the beach for a bit, and stop at Popeyes for lunch, and then clean.

I have several cookbooks with Quick and Healthy in the title that I use a few recipes out of each pretty regularly (when I'm i cooking mode, anyway), but I don't know that they have much to recommend them over anything else with Quick and Healthy in the title.

If I like Bjork's 11-year-old music, should I give her mature work a listen? I doubr I've ever heard anything that wasn't on the radio or in a soundtrack.

Brenda, thanks so much for posting about your change in eating habits! (You posted it and then we had to run out the door and were out late and I'm just now getting around to Internetting.) What you say makes a lot of sense -- it reminds me of mindful eating. Thich Nhat Hanh has a new book (co-authored) about mindful eating, which I have waiting for me at the library, since I could use more of both eating and living mindfully.

I've got to say, the roasted veggies are da bomb. Cauliflower is probably my favorite. Broccoli heads taste best when they get all ugly and brown. I stopped cooking them together though because Broccoli likes to suck up salt.

I make this recipe with roasted broccoli, and I tweak it by adding parmesan or some other strong stinky foot cheese, and serve it over pasta. Sooooo good.

Slow roasted lamb with chard leaves and stems, garum, and rosemary, paired with Bonny Doon "Le Cigare Volant" California 2004. OH MY GOD. Oh my god! So good.

I have two bottles of Le Cigare Volant left over from a case I bought a couple of years ago. It's the reason I am a member of Bonny Doon.

That is a DAMN GOOD wine. Nom.

I think amych is right, it's all about the love shown in growing the vegetable and in preparing it.

I never liked brussels sprouts until my brother roasted them for me, and I think that part of why I liked them so much is how it's so clear that he loves cooking for people.

AND I think that our culture is predisposed to think of fruit as worse for you than veg.

Which I don't get, either. My basic "rule" is that I try to get at least 5 servings of veggies and/OR fruit a day. And some days all 5 are fruit. It happens. But fruit has fiber, which I need in large amounts, and it's full of vitamins, and is really fucking tasty.

And I could totally eat a pound of bing or Ranier cherries if I let myself. Which I think would qualify as my 5 fruit servings for the day.

Relatedly, I'm suspecting that I might be gluten-intolerant instead of having IBS. (Or, more complexly, it's possible that 2 years of IBS has fucked up my GI tract to the point where gluten is being interpreted as a toxin, and my body can't tolerate it. The difference between "just" being gluten-intolerant and this more complex possibility is that in the latter scenario, I'm wondering if I lay off gluten for a while, if my innards will heal and I can resume eating gluten.)

Anyway, I don't know that gluten is necessarily a culprit; I'm really just going on the fact that, in the past week, there were 2 instances where I ate dinner and was then bloated like a blimp within 30 minutes. And the only thing that the 2 meals had in common was a large amount of bread.

So I'm going to cut out gluten for a couple of weeks and then (1) see how I feel and (2) eat a bagel or something after that couple of weeks and see what happens.

I'm not crazy about giving up wheaty things, but I'm tired of stomach pain and getting all insanely bloaty.

So of course we went to some friends' place last night, and they made fondue. But we knew this ahead of time, so we stopped at Whole Paycheck and got me some gluten-free rolls that worked fantastically for fondue dipping. (Yes, I realize that since the other 3 of them were dipping real bread in the fondue, I probably got some gluten, but I didn't have a bad reaction, so at least I know I'm not massively gluten-sensitive.)

I may go back to Whole Foods today, since we didn't have time to really look around, and grab some GF cookies or cookie mix, and maybe some GF pizza dough.

Oh, sweet. Thich Nhat Hanh is my favorite.

Steph, were you guys using straight cheese in your fondue, because fondue cheese often has flour in it?

I tried an experiment wiht Oz today to see if I could let him out, keep in contact with him, see if he would still go all feral. And it ended in him attacking me. Which is fine, since he doesn't have claws, and I was still wearing my gardening gloves anyway. Inside he went. But as I was lugging all my gardening tools in, he escaped. That cat is now in the dog house.

I'm wondering if I lay off gluten for a while, if my innards will heal and I can resume eating gluten

This seems to be what's happened with me. I couldn't eat bread at all without getting sick, run-to-the-john-getouttatheway sick, but after I was "off" bread entirely for about a year (losing weight in the process), I was able to slowly re-introduce gluten into my diet without bad side effects. I still shouldn't eat a whole lot in a day, but I can have, like, a sandwich and pie.

Trudy, I've heard that Iceland's naming convention makes genealogy a snap. I would be Zenkitty Thomasdottir. Or, since they split when I was little, maybe I'd use my mom's name and be Zenkitty Marilynsdottir, which is pretty much what the townsfolk called me anyway.

Steph, were you guys using straight cheese in your fondue, because fondue cheese often has flour in it?

Straight cheese and kirsch and...is that it? Our friend was making the fondue, so I didn't really interfere. But I do know it was a few different cheeses that she grated.

t edit And man, it was good! Melted cheese on bread -- what's not to love? She also made tabouli, which made me laugh (tabouli is cracked wheat, among other nummy things). I picked one hell of a time to give up gluten. I did, however, bring hummus and pita crackers and rice crackers (rice crackers for me; I've been buying them from TJs for a while now just because I like them, not b/c of any GF thing). So I was well-fed.

What's interesting in the past few days is how NOT ravenous I am; normally I eat a meal and think "Oh my god, I hope there's more because I must EAT IT ALL!" And in the past couple of days, I've just had my meal and been done. Weird.

As Seen on TV - a tribute to doing it wrong. A montage of infomercial clips set to "Help!" It's pretty great.

Steph, whenever my DH has major allergy problems we shift away from overly refined products, go easy on sugary stuff and lay off the white flour and white rice in favor of whole grains. It always helps. In fact, I now cook with a lot of whole grains most of the time, but white flour and sugar are by no means banished. Which I guess is my way of agreeing that perhaps avoiding the gluten for a short while might fix things.