4/4/2006 - Ersatz dining

For those of us that wrestle with food allergies, there are two directions for our cullinary strategy: acceptance and defiance. Acceptance comes with an almost spiritual peace, eating food as some higher power intended. But defiance, when victorious, comes with its own benefits.

Tonight my eldest held up his fork and proclaimed "Macaroni and cheese!"

I went through the checklist:

• Macaroni? Rice-based
• Cheese? Soy-based
• Fork? At least something is real.

I find rice-based pasta quite edible. My wife and I have many favorite dishes that involve pasta and it's nice to know that there are reasonable ways to keep making them, but I can't help feeling that there are also plenty of lovely rice-based dishes out there.

We baked cookies tonight, using a lovely recipe while replacing both the butter and the flour. The cookies came out quite cookie-like, if there are any Grandma's out there looking for ideas...

10,000 s5bst3t5t2 st2ps t4d1y. Ch22rs,