Prisoner of Gluten

Los Angeles, California

I suffer from guilt. Seriously. I often feel guilty. I think guilt was installed in me when I was too young to resist. In spite of everything I am doing for my mom, which is providing all of the family care for her, I always feel I could do more. That I could spend more time with her, solve her ongoing problem with boredom, be that better kid that I always felt I should be for my mom. Inexplicably, I did not feel this in my relationship with my dad. I always felt that he enjoyed my company, and was proud of how I turned out, in spite of that brief incarceration which I wrote about in my last post (available here, while supplies last!).

I feel twinges of guilt about my blog as well. I often regret the complaining, the grousing, the bitching about things I see around me that I do not like one bit: reality TV; carpooling parents in SUVs who run stop signs; people subjecting you to their end of loud cellphone conversations, especially if they are using the words the production -- and lastly, those of you who proclaim that you eat clean but then I observe that you wash neither your fruits nor your vegetables. I'm just saying.

One thing I don't feel guilty about is my food. We eat well and good. Almost enough said, but not quite. I want to go on record as saying that I like tofu, when I run across it in miso soup or pad thai noodles. I like quinoa. I like kale. I just don't want to eat these things every day when there are so many yummy foods out there to eat. We like a variety of vegetables, and, while I can't speak for Billy (who, frankly, could use a twelve-step program to get that Fudgsicle monkey off his back), I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I don't get into trouble on that front. We are pretty much slow-food people, as we cook often, and we eat a minimum of foods that are considered to be processed.However, that doesn't stop us from the occasional Animal-style In-and-Out Burger; nor the occasional Dodger dog at a baseball game. And, if truth be told, I probably do have a chili burger every year or so. That, along with, say, a perfect loaf of french bread; and some terribly fine Camembert cheese, occasionally serve as reminders for why life is worth living -- at least on the food front.

I shouldn't go off on the whole GF (gluten-free) thing. Because whether you have a genuine health problem with gluten, or you just want to have a problem with gluten, that is your business. Trends become fads. But, I do get the white food thing, and we do moderate our intake of it -- sugar, flour, pasta, bread, etc. I do feel a bit sluggish if I overload on it; and I often cook whole-wheat pasta instead of white because I feel it is a bit more digestible. But, let's be honest, don't some of us occasionally imbibe things designed to make us feel a little logy and sluggish? And who doesn't feel a bit, well, bloated after a beer? Isn't that just what comes with the territory -- not a bad thing, unless overdone?

I happen to think that the idea of brown rice sushi is, well, silly. I want to eat authentically, and brown rice sushi, risotto, or paella just isn't right. So, again, I'm not planning to abstain from food, white and otherwise, as long as my weight and blood work continues to indicate that I don't have to. And for those of you who are now treating gluten like second-hand smoke, please be aware that if you invite me to your home for a meal, I am now XGF (Xanthan Gum Free). Xanthan gum, by the way, is what is used in GF bakery items to mimic gluten. It is created by the process of fermentation of glucose, sucrose, or lactose, and is frequently made from corn, soy, or wheat. It's also used in the process of oil drilling -- to thicken mud. And, in the creation of fake blood and slime. Whatever gets us through the night.

Now, having finished that rant, and, trust me I will feel guilty about it later as I always do, I want to share a recipe for something I think is really healthy, because it has yogurt in it. White yogurt.

Ubiquitous French Yogurt Cake

1 1/2 cups           WHITE flour
2        teaspoons baking powder
1/2    teaspoon   kosher salt
2        teaspoons grated zest of Meyer Lemon (two or three small)
1         cup            WHITE sugar
3/4    cup             whole-milk plain Greek yogurt
1/2     cup             vegetable oil
2                            eggs, large
1/2    teaspoon   vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a standard-sized loaf pan with nonstick vegetable oil. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in lemon zest. In a large bowl, whisk yogurt, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Yes, we're having lots of whisking. Add dry ingredients, and fold in until just blended. Pour into pan. Bake until cake is golden brown, and the toothpick test comes out clean -- about 40 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan for fifteen minutes, then turn out to cool completely.

I called this recipe Ubiquitous French Yogurt Cake because recently I've been running across it in cookbooks and food magazines just about everywhere I look. And I understand why. It's a good recipe, easy to make, with an almost pound cake-like texture, but without the pound of butter required to make pound cake. It caught my eye in Molly Wizenberg's food memoir, A Homemade Life. She is the author of the food blog, Orangette, which you can look at by clicking here. But that was not the recipe I initially used when baking this over the weekend for a sojourn to a Hollywood Bowl concert featuring Placido Domingo. I used a recipe from a recent Bon Appetit magazine. Since it was in a loaf, and was going to be served in slices, I sliced off the end to try. Not bad, a little dry, perhaps. Then I sliced off another couple of slices for dessert that night. What do you think? I asked Billy. It's a little dry, he said.

The next morning I baked another French-Style Lemon Yogurt Cake, this time varying both recipe and technique a la Molly's recipe. She uses less yogurt and an extra egg. She also offers the variation to replace 1/2 cup of the WHITE flour with almond meal. I did that. What I didn't do is bake it, as she directed, in a 9-inch cake pan. I went back to my trusty loaf pan. I presented both cakes last night at the Bowl and the consensus was that they were both good, but I think I liked the texture of the Bon Appetit one better. Plus, without the almonds, the Meyer lemon flavor came through more clearly. But my plan is to keep playing around with this. I think the next time I will be using lemon olive oil, or maybe tilting the whole thing towards autumn with orange zest. I will let you know how this turns out. Meanwhile, I thank you for reading my blog -- even you GF'ers. Really. Just lighten up a little . . .