Hitting the Books

What’s to Eat? The Milk-Free, Egg-Free, Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook Linda Marienhoff Coss

Good question. Certainly nothing from this extremely unhelpful food allergy cookbook.

Out of 151 recipes, there are a mere 24 that my daughter might touch. Thirty-five if I include those with veggies or potatoes, but since she refuses to let either enter her mouth (except sweet potatoes for some reason), they really don’t count.

Of those 24, there are:

• 2 kinds of tabouleh (not too many American toddlers are all that interested in tabouleh. Though the Punkin does like Ethiopian-style spiced lentils…)
• 4 different sauces (Dilled mustard? Oriental dressing? Sunflower pesto? Tofu and spinich dip? Actually, she might eat that one–she loves tofu)
• 3 kinds of biscuits (the Punkin can’t even eat the pancakes and waffles as written–they call for vanilla soy milk, and she’s allergic to vanilla.)
• 3 desserts (including pie crust and frozen fruit. Like I needed a cookbook to tell me that frozen fruit was a good dessert. Sigh)
• 1 pasta dish (basically spaghetti. Again, duh.)
• 2 cookies
• 5 rice dishes (apricot, basil, bell pepper, “second-time around,” and Burgundy wild rice pilaf. Yeah, that’s it. Let’s give the toddler some Burgundy (I know, the alcohol is mostly cooked off. Still…).)

And a few other odds and ends.

Other than the spinich dip, I think I might be able to adapt the lemon poppyseed muffins. Those are the only two recipes I’m planning on trying. I might not even use the muffin one, as I’ve had better luck adapting Betty Crocker for baked goods than using special “allergy-free” recipes.

I paid $16.95 for this cookbook. That’s what I get for buying cookbooks off of Amazon–you can’t flip through the recipes beforehand. Yes, it’s milk-free, egg-free, and nut-free, and if those are the only allergies you’re dealing with, this is an okay cookbook. I suppose. Personally, I think the dishes are rather upscale for a household with kids. Burgundy wild rice pilaf? Dilled cucumber and bay shrimp salad (I was shocked to see that one, as shrimp allergies are fairly common, and usually pretty nasty)?

Supposedly the recipes are kid-tested, but I’m dealing with a toddler. You know, the type that won’t touch anything green (I was ecstatic when she willingly put a green bean in her mouth this week. She spit it right back out, but I didn’t have to fight her to get it in there in the first place). Or will only eat brown foods this week and only liquids the next.

I’ve been mostly on my own, figuring out stuff to make the Punkin, and she seems to be doing just fine. Perhaps I should write my own cookbook, “The Neutral-colored, Wheat-only, Soy-only Cookbook for Discriminating Toddlers.”

We bought a DVD player for our minivan. I’m not a big fan of the Boob-Tube as it is (I watch, on the average, about 10 hours of TV a month…if that), and I swore a might oath that I would never let my child rot her brain (and fatten her body) sitting in front of one. Especially not in the car.

But it’s for educational reasons!!! I promise!

We’ve got series of Spanish language DVDs coming. The car is where we’ve started listening to a bunch of different language CDs, so watching the DVDs in the car when there’s nothing else to look at sounded like an efficient use of time (not to mention keeping the Punkin’s attention whilst on the 3.5 hour trip to Memere’s, or the 9 hour trip to Grandma’s).

No, we’re not expecting the Punkin to be speaking fluent anything before she hits kindergarten (although at the rate she’s picking up vocabulary, she might surprise us). We’re just trying to keep her language pathways open to as many different sounds as possible. That way when the time comes to learn a foreign language, she’ll not struggle as badly as her parents did/do.

I love languages. Always have. But I have absolutely no ear for them. I struggled through 3 semesters of Russian, squeaking by on my written work since I usually did quite poorly on the oral exams. I can speak decent German, mostly because it’s so close to English.

Memere (my mother) tries to speak French to the Punkin (though the patois of Quebec certainly isn’t your typical classroom French.)

My hubby can handle a bit of French and German, but he is insistent that the Punkin learn Spanish. Says it’s the most useful language to have in the U.S. It’ll be real interesting trying to teach a language neither of us can speak. Maybe we’ll learn by osmosis.

But what I really want to learn is Welsh (Do you know how many Welsh albums you can download off of iTunes? I was surprised.). Or Gaelic. Perfectly useless over here in the colonies, but extremely high on the cool factor.

Or we could get some Sign Language DVDs. Just so long as I don’t try to practice while driving….

Almost forgot one of my coolest finds–a 5-volume illustrated set of Jane Austen’s works, published in 1924.

Persuasion, The Watsons (never heard of that one; it looks more like a short story or novella), Emma, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, and, of course, Sense and Sensiblility (which is one of the very, very few “chick” flicks I’ll watch willingly. The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain is another, but that has nothing to do with this post).

The books have obviously seen better days, but there’s just something about an old book. Especially one with illustrations.

And I got them for somewhere around $1 apiece

Our library system has a biannual booksale, where all the discarded and donated books from the previous six months are sold at marvelously cheap prices. It’s a real zoo (especially on Opening Night, which you have to be a Friend of the Library to get in. We used to do that, but don’t anymore–too much hassle with a Punkin on board). 1200+ square feet of books piled on tables, under tables, in boxes, on top of other books. Definitely a hunt for buried treasure.

What I found today:

• Riverdance on VHS (with Colin Dunne, not the oh-so-arrogant Michael Flatley)
• “Muzzy” (the BBC’s excellent language system for children) French addition
• Some books for the Punkin
• Japanese dictionary
• Spanish dictionary
• The Story Behind the Word (word origins)
• Names & Nicknames of Places & Things
• An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English
• The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
• Writing Books for Children by Jane Yolen
• The Craft of Revision
• A Short History of Australia
• Parallel Universes (non-fiction, written by a physicist. Also covers time travel)
• Wild at Heart by John Eldredge (we just did Captivating at our women’s retreat, so I was curious as to what he has to say about the male side of things.)

I don’t think I got any “pleasure” reading books, except Ben and Me by Robert Lawson, a kiddie book, but an old favorite of mine. Oh yeah, and Dave Barry Does Japan

It’s almost NaNoWriMo time again.

The question is, is it even worth attempting? I can barely find time to keep up with my paltry blog posts, let alone complete a 50,000 word novel in one month.

Last year I got a mere chapter’s worth of work done on WidowWalk. Something came up. Don’t remember what it was. But I did start writing the book, so now I can’t work on that one again: NaNoWriMo requires you to start from scratch (other than plotting and outlining and character sketches, etc.)

I do have a book mostly outlined and ready to work on, this time more sci/fi than historical (although half the book does take place in the past…during the American Civil War, which I’ve plenty of experience writing about).

But I’m neck-deep in rewriting An Uncivilized Yankee.

And there are 3-almost-4 fantasy novels wanting out of my head and on to paper. Books 1 and 2 are sitting at about 20,000 words apiece. Book 3 is mostly outlined plus about 3600 words and Book 4 is little more than a plot idea rolling around the back of my brain.

To top it all off the hubby is going to be out of town the first week in November–he’s going to Auctioneering School. Isn’t that cool? But that does leave me all alone with the Punkin again.

So. Do I? Or Don’t I?