Gluten free

I don't want to crow prematurely but this, my first gluten-free day, was easy. Cottage cheese for breakfast (I may have to change that, since it's high sodium and dairy). Then a luncheon at TCU for our new book, Grace & Gumption: The Cookbook,--I worried about the food and since the first chapter, on pioneer times, gives directions for cooking squirrel, everyone in the office was joking that the entree would be chicken-fried squirrel. It wasn't. Tossed salad, chicken strips (with onion and bell pepper which I ignored), guacamole, and corn chips. I bypassed the peach pudding dessert. The luncheon had the best attendance of any of the "What's On Your Book Shelf?" luncheons sponsored monthly by Human Resources--82 people and 35 books sold.  And it was a lot of fun, with lots of laughter.
The book was, I think, my idea, because I love to cook and I love cookbooks, thought it would be interesting to see what the women of Grace & Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women, cooked. And besides, we'd had such good luck with that book that I thought a cookbook would sell well. There was some conceern that the original book had been trying to draw attention to women's roles beyond being housewives and here we were putting them right back in the kitchen. But we got past that and general editor Katie Sherrod dealt with it nicely in her preface. Let's face it, for all of the 20th Century, women were expected to do the cooking and feed their families--though some welcomed the advent of fast food, frozen dinners, and the like. The book is much more than a cookbook--it's social history and in that sense it extends beyond Fort Worth. There are some recipes I might cook--and some I never will, like the squirrel or the most bizarre hollandaise sauce mixture I've every heard of.
Tonight I had still more tuna and stir-fried mushrooms, green beans, and cherub tomatoes. I think I can get the hang of this gluten-free thing. Otherwise it was an unremarkable day--working on my chapter on Wolf Brand Chili and tonight writing a piece for my writing class on adoption. It's fun to write when the words just seem to flow--as opposed to cases when you have to squeeze each one out.
I've joined yet another Sisters in Crime sub-group, so my email is crammed every day. May have to do something about that. But I sure am busy from dawn to dark these days.