Canterbury Boys Choir comes to town

Tonight and tomorrow night I am hosting two boys from the Canterbury Boys Choir and one of their adult chapterones. I was to pick them up at ten tonight at the church, but I had one of those three-o'clock thoughts: I can fit three people, two boys and an adult, in my car, but not with the luggage that must accompany a tour in the U.S. Another church member will deliver them, and I'll have to find someone to take them back to the church Friday morning for their flight to San Diego.
The two boys are both gluten free, so I've loaded the apartment with fruit, plain potato and corn chips, gluten-free crackers, peanut butter, and gluten-free chocolate brownie cookies. My good friend Weldon, himself gluten free, came over tonight to make gluten-free cheese-bacon biscuits--from a Bisquick mix oddly enough. They smell heavenly! Jeannie scrambled up on the top of the double bunk bed today to make it. I'm not that agile and would get too easily frustrated, but Jeannie said, "It's kind of cool up here. I like it."
I only feed them breakfast, so tomorrow it's eggs, bacon, biscuits, o.j.and milk--tea or coffee for the adult. Friday, when we'll be in more of a hurry, it's gluten-free oatmeal. I have this vision of ending up with a lot of gluten-free food that I guess I'll eat. Weldon assures me the biscuits aren't too fattening. But then, I'd slather butter on them.
Tomorrow the boys all tour the Fort Worth Historical Stockyards District and then eat lunch at The Star Cafe, owned by good friends Betty and Don Boles. Jeannie and I are going up to have lunch, just to be there. Should be fun. (Retirement is a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be all the time!)
Tomorrow night the boys' choir gives a concert at my church, co-sponsored by Trinity Episcopal, but I can't go. It's my class, and they've missed three weeks. I don't dare cancel on them, but I will kick them out the door fairly rapidly, so I can go collect my charges.
I'm looking forward to this experience. Should get me out of my rut--if indeed I'm in one.

Oh, the things you can do with Spam

I've frittered away the evening with one of my favorite occupations--looking through recipes. My friends Elizabeth and Weldon are coming for supper next Sunday night. They are on a gluten-free, dairy-free diet and both feel much better for it. I knew what I wanted to cook--a top sirloin beef roast with a recipe from Cooks' Illustrated--but I couldn't find it in my appalling collection. I have two folders: Entrees Tried and Entrees Never Tried. I got mixed up about which one I'd gone through and probably went through both twice, but I finally found it in the Entrees Tried, where it shouldn't have been because I've never tried it. Cook's Illustrated tries several cuts of meats cooked several ways and then reports on which is best. I subscribe to it off and on but really should take it all the time, because it's a reliable guide. In this case, they say for a less expensive roast use top sirloin; second choice is a blade roast; stay away from bottom round roast. Recipe calls for lots of garlic, so it should be good.
Then I switched my attention to Spam--yeah, the canned meat kind not what you get on your email. Beth and Weldon also have a blog, "From Cows to Quinoa," about GF/DF eating. The title is a little misleading because they eat meat with relish, as long as there's no wheat or dairy involved in the prepration. But they do eat a lot of quinoa. Recently Elizabeth challenged readers to report on their experiences with Spam. It just so happened I had a cooking column ready on the subject, though it had never been published. So I'm to be a guest blogger.
Hormel has a huge Web site for Spam, plus lots of recipes, some of them mind-boggling. I culled through them looking for GF/DF recipes and came up with a beans and Spam dish, Spam and eggs (now I love lox and eggs, but Spam--I don't know), a Spam salad, and a State Fair prize-winning grilled Spam with raspberry, soy, honey, mustard sauce.
Don't get me wrong. I ate Spam as a child and loved it, and I would probably eat it today, except the fat content scares me away. I liked it in a sandwich, made with mayo and lettuce. 
A cool, damp, dull day in North Texas today and it was good to stay in and clear my desk of stray things, read papers for my class tomorrow, and so on. Tomorrow I'll get out and about in the world. Meantime, I'm watching one of my favorite TV programs--"Diners, Dumps, and Drive-ins" on Food Network. Guy Fieri rocks.

Gluten Free diet

Today was one of those days when I did a couple of things that cause me anxiety, though I did them, I think, with fairly good grace and composure, which makes me proud of myself. Anticipation is the worst part of anxiety.But it was a good day--I went to the library, went by the office and found they were in the midst of a staff meeting so I listened quietly (well, okay, for the most part). Had lunch with Susan and Melinda, which was great fun because I've missed them. And then we went to get our new i.d. cards--that intimidated me because I'd never been in the new student center--it's called BLUU, though I can't remember what that acronym stands for. The building intimidated me, because I imagined soaring staircases out in space or escalators. I needn't have worried--it's really a beautiful building. We got our i.d. cards and were out of there within 15 minutes.
My friend Elizabeth (Beth to others) Knudson has started a new blog: http://www.cowstoquinoa.blogspot.com/ about restrictive diets because of food allergies. Her husband, Weldon, was diagnosed with celiac disease about seven months ago, and they've gone gluten-free. Elizabeth had seizures, though I didn't know it for the 15 years since she was a work-study student in my office. She recently tried an experiment going off gluten-free and eating half a cupcake. She quickly had a strong aura, though she fought her way through it and did not have a seizure. Then she did a lot of online research about the link between neurological disorders and gluten and found it's strong. So it seemed reasonable to me that there might also be a link to anxiety. I emailed her and instantly got back websites to check out. So I'm thinking I'll try gluten-free for a bit and see how I feel--not hard for me, because I'm not a bread eater, etc., though gluten lurks in places you wouldn't think about. She also found a neurologist who said dairy products are poison for people with neurological disorders but I'm not ready to give up those. As Elizabeth always says, start with baby steps. I've been encouraging Colin to go gluten-free because of his Crohn's, and he has said recently that the foods he handles best are chicken, fish, and rice.
Gluten-free may not be a cure for a long life filled with anxiety, but I'm more than willing to give it a try. Tonight I had tuna, tomatoes and avocado with a nicoise dressing (checked the anchovy paste label and it only has anchovies, olive oil, and salt). Hope I can keep this up!
Dairy free? Ooooh, hard. There's my morning cottage cheese, and the sour cream dips I love, although I'm not a milk drinker and in general don't eat a lot of dairy. But as I said, baby steps.