Happy Halloween

Halloween is so much fun. What better time of the year to go out in public dressed up as a character, act like the character, and not have people think you're weird. Well, they might still think you're weird, but at least it's socially acceptable, at least it's mostly socially acceptable.

 

This Halloween I wanted to be Deanna Troi from Star Trek the Next Generation. I searched high and low for an appropriate costume, but wasn't able to find one. Instead of wasting more time and risking not having the costume in time, I ended up coming up with my own costume.

 

In order to make a costume of Deanna Troi, first I decided that I wanted to go as the Season 7 Deanna Troi that wore a standard blue Star Fleet uniform. Next I went and bought a mock turtle-neck shirt in blue, some black felt material, and off I went to design my own costume. This is what I came up with.

 

 

Not bad for someone who is at the most a beginner seamstress, and beginning seamstress is probably not the correct term, it's probably more like aspiring seamstress, or desperately hoping to be able to sew, or better yet, a person who owns a sewing machine and a pair of scissors. By the way, in case you were wondering, I'm the one on the left. I'm just saying.

 

Luckily, I already owned a Star Trek Communicator badge, and I was able to find some pins in the jewelry section of JoAnn Fabrics that looked like Star Trek rank insignia, or pips as they’re known by any serious Trekkie, which I’m getting close to approximate. I was also able to find a phaser at the local costume store. That's right, they had phasers in stock, but not any Deanna Troi costumes, and they call themselves a costume store?

 

With my brand new facsimile of a Starfleet science officer costume, a group of us went to a big Halloween street party in our town and had a great time.

 

Here we are getting ready to leave.

 

 

By the way, the guy dressed as a toilet man was the most popular person in the entire place. Everyone stopped to get a picture with the toilet man, or John, or any number of names that will not be mentioned in my PG rated blog.

 

 

I met a lot of other Star Trek characters and even ran into one of my biggest fans, who told me a lengthy story about how he grew up watching me on T.V., how I was his childhood crush, and how the show shaped his world view. And like a good ship's counselor, I politely listened to him. Here are some of my new Star Fleet friends.

 

 

Now off to get some candy. It's Halloween, in case you didn't hear.

It's a Thing!

 

As if life around here isn't complicated enough, now I have a new challenge: finding delicious gluten free and dairy free recipes.

I just recently learned that Bubba is gluten intolerant. We were already dealing with his casein allergy (a milk protein), and his peanut allergy, and my soy allergy. Yes, with each additional allergy, entire food categories are eliminated.

If you have ever been quoted as saying: "I just love pizza. I can't live without it, " watch out, you just might find yourself having to cut gluten (pizza crust has that) and dairy (um, hopefully I don't have to mention that cheese is a dairy food item) from your diet.

But I digress. What in the world is xanthan gum? That is the question. At our house, we spend a lot of time reading food labels, ingredient lists, nutritional information, recipes, and we do a lot of cooking from scratch. It's partly because we're concerned with eating a healthful diet, but mostly because we need to watch out for allergens in our food. While reading food labels we frequently would encounter xanthan gum. We would laugh about it, wonder what it was, joked about how delicious it was and about how we were all out of it and needed to add it to our shopping list. Little did we know that it was "a thing." Yes, you can walk into a store and actually buy xanthan gum.

And how do I know this? Because I found myself in the position of having to bake gluten free/dairy free brownies, and I learned that you need to use xanthan gum when you bake with wheat flour substitutes. It has something to do with having to make up for the elasticity that is lost when gluten is taken out of a recipe. Now, I can't speak for other recipes, but the first gluten free/dairy free brownie recipe I tried did not turn out too well. The brownies ended up being dense, crunchy, and not very chocolaty. And since I used oat flour, they sort of tasted like really bad oatmeal cookies.

However; being one to not give up so easily, the adventure will continue. I will explore strange new ways of baking, I will seek out new recipes and new ingredients, I will boldly bake what I have  never baked before.

Let's hope that it's yummy!