The Little List of 21st century Irritables

1. Facebook applications. (And the social taboo of ignoring them.) (And the fact that they always, invariably, do something terribly obnoxious to my computer.)

2. Text messaging. Yes, I understand its convenience. But does one have to text all the time: during rehearsal, in the middle of conversations, at the dinner table? What would Miss Manners say? I'm tempted to take the next texting phone that gets between me and the conversation/dinner/project/lecture I'm working on and throw it out the window.

3. American politics. Okay, so the American body politic is not an exclusively 21st century annoyance, but our government (including our eloquent, dashing president) can go suck the text message that just went flying out the window. War in Afghanistan? Increasing funding for the Pakistani government? Letting GM declare bankruptcy after giving the company billions of dollars in tax-payer funds? Refusing to close Guantanamo because heaven forbid a "suspected terrorist" acquire a cell in a Colorado maximum security prison? (Apparently we're okay with American born terrorists; we only break the Constitution for Muslims.) Paying attention to that gargoyle Dick Cheney, and running ads accusing Sotomayor of racism for suggesting--gasp!--that a judge might approach the bench with individual biases? Insinuating that North Korea behave or we'll kick the country's ass? And yet, somehow, despite all of this, today's top news story is about the government's new commission against computer hacking?

COME ON PEOPLE! This is making Mussolini's War Against the Mosquitoes look well-considered.

Nothings.

You know those days when you're just very glum, and you yell at your husband for nothing in particular (and yet for everything: never making the bed or doing his lunch dishes or making money); when you desperately need a vacation, and looking in the mirror makes you feel like committing hari kari?

I'm having one of those days. My naturopathic regimen is doing a great job of keeping arthritis at bay, and an equally good job of giving me tremendous acne. I'm beginning to look like someone ate Elmo, had indigestion, and then threw up all over my face. And I'm just cranky, too. I finally have 2 entire, consecutive days off--a first since Christmas--and I'm too embarrassed to leave the house, which needs cleaning, anyway.

I did meet our new neighbors (well, one of them), whom I am determined to be friends with. T and I are both tired of having polite but superficial relations with our neighbors. It would be so nice to come home and share a beer out back, and feel comfortable asking someone to look after our cat and vice versa. Jennifer and John seem like really friendly people, so we may be in luck. They're also closer to our age; for too long we've been surrounded by silly college students who are in the dramatic throes of living together for the first time. I teach the fools. I don't want to live with them. Anyway, I'm going to invite the newbies over for a slamtastic wheat-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free dinner. Maybe we'll all develop moderate acne from dietary asceticism and form a club.

I do intend to leave the house to go to the gym in an hour or so, and to take a hike and have a BBQ with some friends tomorrow afternoon. One can't hide one's face forever--it's vain, and of all the seven sins I could commit today, I'd much rather indulge in gluttony and sloth.

So, I suppose that's all. If I was a songwriter or novelist I could write an angsty and yet emotionally accessible and literarily genius piece about my acne and become a millionaire. Alas, I am neither of those things, and so must content myself with some red bush tea and a rice flour scone, and the sunshine, which is quite nice despite one's unhappiness.

Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Yum

Even the most skeptical gourmands will fall in love with the vegan gluten-free banana muffins I made this evening. The muffins are so good that I'm posting the recipe now, in the hopes that someone else will make them and be surprised by their spicy, moist homeyness.

As you know, I'm new to the gluten-free world, and as an avid baker I've been casting around for recipes that not only approximate the flavor and toothsome qualities of wheat products, but actually taste good, as well. Too many gluten-free breads and pastries crumble at the slightest touch, taste oddly beany or ricey, are prohibitively expensive, or require eight zillion obscure flours and additives to rise or bond ingredients. Thanks to my friend Abby I've found Annalise Roberts, who has a great gluten-free baking book titled Gluten-Free Baking Classics. Ms. Roberts provided the foundation and inspiration for tonight's banana muffins.

The original recipe is for pumpkin bread, and so the first substitution I made was to use 4 bananas in the place of 1 C of pumpkin puree (I do this switch-up all the time with quick breads: sweet potatoes, yams, bananas, squash, and pumpkin are all interchangeable). The second change I made was to swap 1/3 C + 2 Tb virgin coconut oil for the canola oil that Ms. Roberts calls for. I've been doing a lot of reading on coconut oil lately, and though it is high in saturated fats, not all saturated fats are made equal. Once consumed, the fat in coconut oil quickly converts into energy, and is not stored in the heart or arteries. It's a favorite with serious athletes and dieters. It lowers bad cholesterol, has antimicrobial and antifungal properties, aids in digestion, and helps boost immunity. A surprising number of people use it to treat acne. It also tastes amazing (in the muffins, at least) and feels very good as a facial moisturizer. The third change I made was to substitute cardamom for nutmeg, though to be honest this was a substitution borne of necessity rather than experimental verve. The fourth and final change was to use brown sugar in place of granulated white sugar. I just like the taste better.

Bake and eat these, because they will warm your soul. A word to the wise, though: these are not diet muffins. Just because they lack dairy and wheat, are whole-grain, and use a healthy fat does not mean that they are a health food. Treat them as you would any muffin, and at least eat a big bowl of fruit alongside one at breakfast. One more word: you could probably substitute regular flour for the mix as long as you keep the batter wet-thick and omit the xanthan gum.

Little Chef's Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Yum Muffins (inspired by Annalise Roberts)

1 3/4 C brown rice flour mix (see below)
1 C brown sugar, not packed
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp xanthan gum (Bob's Red Mill makes this and it lasts forever)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp each cinnamon, ground ginger & cardamom or nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
2 large eggs
1/4 C water
1/3 C + 2 tsp coconut or canola oil
2 Tb molasses (I use blackstrap for its health benefits--potassium, magnesium, iron--and very rich flavor, but any molasses will do)
4 mushy bananas

(To make the brown rice flour mix: combine 6 C finely ground brown rice flour, 2 C potato starch--not flour!--and 1 C tapioca flour. Mix in a bag or Tupperware container and store in the pantry for easy access.)

It's just occurring to me now that I may have used only 1 1/4 C flour mix, in which case the muffins still turned out beautifully. They'll be a bit less moist with the proper flour amount, so I suggest adjusting the flour:ingredient ratio to meet your tastes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the dry ingredients (including the sugar) in one bowl. In an second bowl, combine the eggs, water, molasses, bananas and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until well combined. Do not over-mix. Add the batter to muffin tins, filling them up almost to the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into one of the muffins comes out clean. Let the muffins cool completely (well, you can eat one lukewarm if you like, I did) and store in a Tupperware or wrap well in plastic and tuck in the freezer. Enjoy!

Moral Reasoning and the Great Acne Adventure

I've just now finished writing my lesson plan on moral reasoning for Monday. I'm tired and shouldn't be blogging. I should be in bed reading the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. But I feel like discussing my ridiculous travels through the limited diet world, because food is weighing on my mind.

For at least two months now I have abstained from eating dairy because I was beginning to get rheumatoid arthritis in my little finger, and dairy can aggravate arthritis. Cutting out the dairy has really helped, and I don't miss it that much. I eat lots of dark leafy greens and fortified rice milk to get my calcium.

Then T told me that wheat can aggravate acne, which I have in spades lately, the really lovely kind that sits in huge lumps under the skin looking and acting for all the world like underwater volcanoes. So I decided to abstain from wheat as well, and have been getting progressively better at baking with gluten-free flours. Unfortunately, my gluten orthodoxy has yielded nothing but a longing for my baking stone and a taste for brown rice flour scones; the acne remains, uglier by the day.

I think I can deduce that neither dairy nor wheat cause my acne. I'm still abstaining just in case, and because--to be honest--I feel more energetic with less wheat in my system. But I'll probably reintegrate some bread after seeing my naturopath.

So I'm down to the remaining dietary culprits for acne: soy, sugar, corn, caffeine.

I can live without milk, cheese and yogurt.

I can live without corn.

I can even live without wheat.

And I don't drink a lot of coffee.

But no sugar?

Do you know all of the delicious dishes made possible by a dash of brown sugar or honey?

Sauteed greens with tamari and sugar; Thai peanut sauce; tomato sauce; coleslaw; vinaigrette; every conceivable baked good, including bread and gluten-free goodies; dark chocolate; orange chicken; Vietnamese chicken and beef salads. Coconut curry.

I like sugar. Sugar is delicious. And it's not as though I can replace the maple syrup on my oatmeal with something savory like Parmesan cheese, because cheese is off limits.

I'm an epicurean trapped in the frustrated, pimply, arthritic body of a 28-year old book clerk. Yuck! I sound like an unlikeable character in one of Dostoevsky's short stories.

I don't know. There's really no point to this blog, other than catharsis. I will get to the bottom of my skin troubles one way or another, and I intend to enlist my naturopath in the hunt for a solution. Until then, though, I'm a little bit hungry and a lot bit zitty.

And I don't like either condition one bit.

The Recession in my Wallet

Well, the inevitable has occurred: the greedy bastard who runs the book company I work for has reduced our hours. I'll be losing close to $100/month, which isn't pennies, especially as they just raised our health care premium. I'm lucky, I know, that this is as far as the recession's tentacles have reached into my life (thus far). But it is nevertheless frustrating and scary to know that the security of our financial future lies in one man's determination of how well books are selling.

I'm trying to look at this with a glass is half-full attitude. For example, I'll have a little more time now to research gluten-free baking, which I'm really enjoying. Sometimes I think I would be much happier if I'd studied baking instead of English and Jewish Studies. Mixing and shaping wheat breads, and doing all of the food science necessary for gluten-free baking, is really physically and emotionally satisfying--even when gluten-free pastries emerge from the oven and spontaneously deconstruct into sorry crumbles. (Damn you, rice flour!) Besides, I like getting up early in the morning and having my afternoons off. I like fussing around the kitchen and wrapping myself in cooking smells. Baking probably pays as well as what I do now, and the physical labor can't be much worse. And people will always need bread; books are a luxury, but bread is forever.

But instead I was seduced by academia, and here I am: bedraggled adjunct professor and bookstore peon, now on a temporarily reduced schedule due to the American consumer's new found fiscal responsibility. Which reminds me of one last thing, before I get ready for my day at the warehouse. Us bookstore employees listen to a lot of NPR, and I'm getting really tired of Nancy Pelosi's shrill and disingenuous appeals to the American public. Perhaps if the Democrats and Republicans took a day off from bullying each other, they might have the time to focus on real problems like unemployment numbers and, oh I don't know, the national budget. Or the fact that our new president, who I like immensely, but am in intense disagreement with, is ramping up another never-ending war in a Muslim country. I don't understand why our politicians are engaging in party assassinations at a time when they absolutely have to work together to help their constituents; how do they justify this behavior to themselves as they go to sleep each night?

I teach my students--and I will go to my grave believing fervently in the truth of this--that argument is for the purpose of reconciliation and solution. We don't argue to be assholes. We exchange conflicting ideas in the hope of salvaging peace, and establishing well being.

Our Congress needs to remember that its job is to reestablish well being in an ailing nation. So that we can all get this recession out of our wallets, and start living up to our potential.

Chekhov's Three Sisters at ART

(Disclaimer: My husband is in this show.)

Just when I was satisfied with the excellent work of the ladies in NWCTC'S Richard II, I had to go and spoil my bliss with the tremendously charming Three Sisters at ART. A typical Chekhovian piece about the landed gentry's inability to find happiness in their emotionally and physically indulgent lives, Three Sisters focuses on--who else?--three sisters struggling for personal emancipation in a claustrophobic society crowded by suitors and soldiers and dead-end jobs. The youngest, Irina, imbues the far-off city of Moscow with all of the romance and possibility lacking in their small town; Masha, the middle sister, longs to escape her suffocating marriage to a kind, but weak-foolish, school teacher; and Olga, the eldest, just seems existentially unhappy, like she carries all of the historical weight of a fading Russian aristocracy. Olga is a premonition of the responsibility and fatigue of the new proletariat.

The actresses steal the show. I've always been lucky to see excellent Chekhov--I saw Vanessa Redgrave in The Cherry Orchard and a wonderful Uncle Vanya in Ashland--but I don't think that those productions eclipse the work being done by the three sisters in ART's cast. Amaya Villazan, Luisa Sermol, and Andrea Frankle slip into the lives of their characters so gracefully; there is no artifice in their acting. Their skill in establishing a naturalistic environment on stage is especially highlighted--and disrupted--by Marjorie Tatum's cartoonish performance as Natasha, the sisters' gold digging sister-in-law. Ms. Tatum's performance is dynamic and focused, but so campy as to be distracting. Natasha is vulgar enough without the yelling, charging, and sneering that this production emphasizes.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the actor playing Vershinin lacks the dynamism and charm needed to convince Masha (and the audience!) that he is worthy of passionate, illicit love. Luckily, his is the only genuinely weak performance in a cast of stunning actors, and Ms. Sermol's Masha provides enough pathos to compensate for Vershinin's dullness. My one critique of Ms. Sermol--and this is really a directorial critique--is that she is too old to play the middle daughter. Ms. Frankle and Ms. Villazan are obviously much younger actresses, and the physical contrasts can be distracting.

The supporting cast is vibrant and varied, providing an exciting diversity of personalities and physical features. It is impossible to be bored by this production, which clips along at a perfect pace, pausing for moments of emotional intensity and highlighting much-needed moments of levity and satire. Design-wise it is lovely, with strands of birch trees mingling with house pieces like a piano and chairs. The characters drift in and out in choreographed movements, making the production visually arresting, and reminding the audience of the paradoxically highly structured and aimless lives of the characters.

ART's Cherry Orchard is a must-see production for anyone with a yen for a really professional show: tight, gorgeous, big budget. It is a genuine pleasure and indulgence, even while you cry your eyes out.