Food Allergies: The Musical

I've been living lactose free for a year. I planned on writing my thoughts about what I learned, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then I saw One Grain More and let their singing do my talking for me because while it is a parody, it is also mostly true.

Not to mention, it parodies One Day More from Les Miserables, Husband's and my favorite musical. We do lots of off the top the head song parodies on car trips, especially to Les Mis.This one takes the gluten/wheat/nut/dairy free cake.





While most of this is funny, they got one thing exactly right. Carob sucks. Give me real chocolate any day.

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Burn's Night Haggis

I never turn down an invitation to our Scottish friend's Burns Night party. For you not in the Scottish know, Burns Night is to Scotland kind of what Fourth of July is to America.

Haggis!

Burns Night (January 25th) is when Scotland celebrates the birthday of their national poet Robert Burns with a big dinner of nips and tatties, haggis, and plenty of Scottish food and drink. And if you are our friend Brian, eventually the guitars and instruments come out for music and every once in awhile they convince me to do a bit of Scottish Highland Dancing even though I'm a Scottish Country Dancer (Country Dancing is social dancing with a partner. Highland is one person for competition.)

My Highland Fling looks more like a cow flinging itself around the room while wearing a Scottish plaid (it's like a tartan shawl) but I get in touch with my Scottish roots on my mother's side and Husband plays the Honorary Scottish America Guest to the host's Scottish Ex Pat Host With The Mostness. We eat the food of our ancestors. The following day we revel in the fact we live in America where we cook with more than just salt and pepper unlike the UK.

5 Comforting Flu Foods

Lucky me! I rang in the New Year with a mild case of the flu. Instead of sipping champagne at a fancy party, I cuddled with a hot toddy on the sofa.

As the week wore on my flu didn't get better and it didn't get worse. I thought I might be having allergy issue from the live Christmas evergreen garlands I made (for free! Learn how here) as well as the I thought it was your turn to clean the reusable furnace filter? game Husband and I unintentionally play a little too often.

We took down the live greenery and washed the reusable super allergy sucking furnace filter in hydrogen peroxide (oxygen) based bleach (chlorine bleach will weekend and destroy the filter.) I stripped our bed and washed everything from the mattress pad up, deep dusted the room, and shampooed the bedroom carpet. That usually gets rid of any allergen or dust that gives me a super stuffy head or migraine or both.

Nope. In fact, I felt worse.

How to Froth Milk Without an Espresso Machine

I didn’t drink coffee until I lived in Miami and discovered Cuban coffee. Cuban coffee is a sweet espresso latte. It was a sad, sad day when I moved back to Ohio and couldn’t find it anywhere. I bought an espresso machine and learned how to make it myself.

I had a heck of a time trying to figure out how to use the steam frothing spout on my espresso machine to froth the milk for my latte. 10 years later I still can’t figure it out.

I gave up on the steam spout and bought an electric frothing wand. I have an Aerolatte Milk Frother. It works great. It also mixes a mean glass of chocolate milk. Well, unless the batteries die which happens almost every time I want to use it.

Then I discovered I can heat and froth milk using a small jar in a microwave oven. This is my favorite way to froth milk. I usually by pass the espresso machine attachment and frothing wand and grab a jar from the cupboard when I make a latte or want a cup of warm milk in the evening. This method works with cow’s milk as well as soy/almond/rice/coconut milk although the alternative milks may not be as frothy as cow’s milk.