PAULA WHYMAN

When the Pilgrims stepped onto Plymouth Rock, I wonder if they anticipated the traffic jams, family antipathy, and baking traumas their activities would eventually inspire?

My post from Thanksgivings past,The Pie Crust Debacle, says it all about why I now routinely avoid making my pie crusts from scratch and opt instead to merely make them look homemade.

This holiday, I'm continuing my tradition of passing off store-bought crust, though if anyone asks, I readily admit the source. And, just to be consistent, I'm passing this post off as a new one, while I take a short break from blogging to make the pie.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Introducing the Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger

The Machine Shed, a Wisconsin restaurant, expected to sell about 3,500 Krispy Kreme cheeseburgers in three days during the Wisconsin state fair. About a quarter of the customers have been paying an extra buck to add chocolate-covered bacon to this sandwich, which consists of exactly what it sounds like: A cheeseburger served on a Krispy Kreme donut instead of a bun. There are other things it sounds like, but we are too polite to say.

The response to my Washington Post article, When the Menu is a Minefield, has been huge and overwhelmingly positive.** Thank you to all who wrote and called with comments, suggestions, and further questions.

So many of you contacted me that I thought I'd post some of the great input that readers have provided, in the hope that it will help more people who struggle to find ways to enjoy dining out, without the unpleasant consequences.

I heard from people with much worse restrictions than my own, people who can't eat dairy, people who keep Kosher and also can't eat dairy, people who can't eat soy, people who are gluten-intolerant or have Celiac disease, people with allergies to onions and garlic, people with IBS or other GI ailments, people with multiple food sensitivities, and people with dietary restrictions that change over time. All of them told me they appreciated finally seeing this topic addressed in the newspaper.

If your primary problem is with dairy, a number of readers suggested trying lactase enzyme supplements of one kind or another, which can make lactose digestible (Lactaid chewable tablets, taken with dairy meals, and Digestive Advantage, which is taken once a day, are both popular options). This will only work if lactose is your problem--and even then, it doesn't work for all. None of the supplements work for me, but then again, my problem is unlikely to be lactose intolerance, since even completely lactose-free dairy products are off-limits.

In answer to some reader queries:

I've been asked what I substitute for milk. In cereal, I use rice milk. In cooking, I use soy milk. The latter is normally a one-for-one substitution. In baking, I use transfat-free vegetable shortening instead of butter. Or, if butter must be used, I watch everyone else eat what I baked. They're happy, I'm happy.

I have not found any palatable substitute for real dairy cheese. If you have, I would like to know about it. I've tried everything, and it all tastes like Glue Stick. So now, when I have a desire for cheese, I pour a cup of tea, and spread a little Glue Stick on my (nondairy) cracker. Then I throw the cracker in the garbage and drink the tea.

Do not assume that margarine is nondairy. To avoid dairy in spreads, either buy vegan, or Kosher-pareve/parve products. In my experience, the vegan version tastes better. Some of this can be used in baking to sub for butter; some cannot. Watch especially for salt content if you do that--you don't necessarily want salty baked desserts. YMMV.

The most difficult meal for me to eat out is breakfast. If I'm traveling, it's especially rare to have numerous options. Try going to a B&B or an inn and telling them you can't have dairy or eggs. You'll get half a grapefruit, and bacon. Oh, and I can't eat the grapefruit. And, gee, I'd rather not have bacon... Just coffee will be fine. Yes, black.

Readers recommend, and I agree:

A good way to ensure you are avoiding all dairy when dining out--if you have a choice as to where you dine--try a Kosher restaurant that serves meat. Meals served at certified Kosher meat restaurants will not contain any dairy products. It's challenging, for instance, to find a burger bun that doesn't contain dairy, unless you're at a Kosher restaurant. In our area, try Max's Deli in Wheaton, Md., Eli's in DC, and Pomegranate Bistro in Potomac, Md. You aren't limited to meat dishes at these places, but you are guaranteed a dairy-free meal. Max's has a great falafel bar.

Asian cuisine is also usually a reliable dairy-free option, but watch out for "fusion" restaurants--I have been hit with hidden dairy at such places.

The other way to go is vegan, especially if you want to avoid meat along with dairy. Great Sage, in Clarksville, Md., is a vegan restaurant that was mentioned to me by several readers. I look forward to giving it a try. Many nonvegan restaurants also offer vegan options, but as with any dietary restriction, the onus will be on the diner to ensure you're getting what you think you're getting.

A few people wrote touting their businesses, which offer vegan products. Here are two that look interesting--I haven't yet tried them myself, so this is not an endorsement, just information.

Abby's Table in Portland, OR, produces a line of vegan, gluten-free sauces, which they will mail nationwide, and they offer a weekly allergen-free dinner at their Portland location. I wish the latter were available here.

My Vegan Baker is located in Fairfax, Virginia, and offers just what it sounds like--home-baked vegan (but not gluten-free!) desserts (dairy-free tarte tatin, someday?).

And here's a blog that focuses on eating out with food allergies in the New York area: Allergic Girl Recommends

And finally, why I can't eat pears, sweet potatoes, garbanzo beans, spinach...

In the Post article, I alluded to other dietary restrictions that I deal with. A number of readers were curious about that, and the simplest explanation is that I can't tolerate specific fruits, vegetables, and beans, because of another diagnosed disorder. This is probably a good topic for a health column on medical mysteries...since it was rather complicated to discover. When I was able to eat dairy, I ate a lot less meat, but with my other restrictions, it's almost impossible for me to get enough protein without eating meat. So that's one reason why I'm not attempting a vegan diet.

The other reason is, I like meat.


[**Except for a select few angry vegans (not representative of most people choosing to follow vegan diets, I might add), who apparently need a lesson in the difference between dietary choices based on philosophy and/or food aversions, and dietary restrictions that are based on medical need.]

With all those flames, there must be a burger, right? ;)
(joke!! it's a joke!!)

Are you secretly (or not-so-secretly) gluten-intolerant, lactose-intolerant, seafood-allergic, peanut-free or otherwise at risk anytime you sit down to a restaurant meal?

Check out my article in today's WASHINGTON POST Food section, CHECK PLEASE: WHEN THE MENU IS A MINEFIELD, about dining out with dietary restrictions and how successfully restaurants do (or do not) accommodate difficult folks like me.

WANNA CHAT? You can find me on FREE RANGE, the Washington Post food section's online discussion about everything foodie, today (3/31) from 1-2pm. I'll be joining Food section staff to answer questions related to the topic of my article.

You do need to log in to participate, or even lurk...so if you're not already signed up to read the Post online, register anytime; it's free. And how many worthwhile things can you say that about, these days?

Mark Furstenberg's letter to loyal customers:

I write to tell you that I am no longer connected to G Street Food.

I am pleased with what we did there – with the concept, the physical space, and the menu. I opened this restaurant as a consultant to its owners, excited about what we were doing and confident that the food would be well-received. It has been.

I have enjoyed creating the foods but I have had to leave G Street Food because of disagreements with the owners of the restaurant.

I look forward to doing something else and I will keep you informed of my plans.


The biggest question on my mind, and I'm sure the one on everyone else's is, What will become of the last great baguette in town??? Where will it land--or maybe it has to stay on, contractually, but absent that certain special je ne sais quoi...

The question after that would be, What's the deal? Details, I want details! Stop tantalizing me with mysterious "disagreements" and give me the dirt, please.

Why does this strike me as a story crying out for reality show treatment? Step aside DC Housewives: It's time for the Bread Wars.

And while we're at it, I was too busy baking pies to bake bread for Thanksgiving, so I served a whole sourdough rye for dinner that came from Pain Quotidien. This is a huge, round loaf of bread, by the way, easily 15" across.

I have one word for it: Meh.

Bitter. Dry inside. Burnt unpleasant flavor to crust. Crumb too tight, even for rye. No rye flavor discernible. In fact, other than the bitterness? Tasteless. Which is why they give you jams and chocolate spreads with the bread when you order a basket of it. They have to. All weekend, I toasted slices of the leftover bread--fully half the loaf remained--and slathered it in peanut butter in attempts to rescue it. Major fail. I stuck some of it in the freezer to get it out of my sight, and in a few months when I need the space, I will no doubt toss it.

Note to Pain Quot: Size doesn't matter. In spite of its pretendy Euro-aspirations, your bread's supersize is as American as a Super Big Gulp. Equally large is its ability to disappoint. The bread from Pain Quot is worse, even, than the faux-European bread baked by Whole Foods because it has the audacity to raise my hopes, only to kill them like a neglected starter. The bread at Whole Foods is still, after all, bread from a grocery store, and one can only expect so much.

Bethesda needs better bread. We all do.

(Mark, are you listening?)

I am a good baker, but for some reason I have a mental block involving pie crust. I wrote about my pie crust trials last Thanksgiving. This year, the apple pie went in the oven looking like it was patched together by Dr. Frankenstein. Luckily, it came out looking a bit better. I will call it "rustic." The bakeries charge more for that, because it looks like you did it yourself. Well, I did do it myself, so, dammit, it's rustic. I know there's a metaphor for fiction writing in there somewhere. I'll call my first drafts "rustic" from now on. And since adapting recipes usually means you've improved them in some material way that you may refuse to reveal, a revision will be a version that's adapted from...the rustic...first draft. Ugh.

Okay, never mind. Let's say we just eat the pie.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie
adapted from Bon Appetit,
made with dark molasses and other top secret adjustments...





Rustic (!) Five-Spice Apple Pie
adapted from Saveur




Happy Thanksgiving!

There Will Be Bread.

So we're promised, at Mark Furstenberg's new venture, G Street Food. That tells you all you need to know, almost. Here's the rest, in a letter from Furstenberg:

G Street Food is open. It’s a new restaurant in Washington for which I developed the concept, menu and the food. Located between the White House and the World Bank on G Street NW just beyond 17th Street, it offers foods from around the world: breakfasts, lunches, desserts and breads inspired by the food found at carts, stands and stalls lining the streets and tucked into the corners of cities and towns worldwide. Montreal-style bagels, Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwiches, noodle soups from Southeast Asia and flat breads and salads from the Middle East are examples of the world's street fare that you can find at G Street Food.

The restaurant’s commitment to a varied, globally-inspired menu is accompanied by a commitment to the use of seasonal produce, local ingredients and to the environment. Produce, whenever possible, will come from local farmers. Sausages are made by Simply Sausage in Maryland, and pork and beef will come as much as possible from local farms. When reaching beyond the local area, the menu will include ingredients such as pork products from Flying Pigs Farm in New York and organic maple syrup from Mt. Cabot Maple in Vermont.

I hope you will come to see the new place and taste our food. If you would like to receive an occasional irreverent note from me about the food business, you may visit the G Street Food website. I hope to see you soon. I will try hard not to be cranky.

Mark Furstenberg

Would it be the same if he weren't cranky? Just checking...

See my baking day with Mark Furstenberg and my comments on baking and the creative process on the Baking for Writers page, and learn more in the Washington Post Chef-on-Call story.

What happened to the Good Humor man? I don't mean, why is he sometimes a woman; what I mean is, what happened to the Good and especially the Humor? Not long ago at the pool, the ice cream truck came. (In fact, it came every hour, until I wanted to throttle someone with the nearest SpongeBobsicle. Mark my words: There will be an ice cream truck-rage incident if this continues.)

No doubt driving one of these trucks is a thankless job (a job I'm sure I wanted when I was seven, because I thought one of the benefits was unlimited access), although the kids are always happy and remember...when prodded...to say thank you. The parents of the youngest kids wait in line with the hangdog expression that says it's too dang hot to have the argument, again, and when will they start carrying beer on that truck, anyway? The parents of the older kids hand out soggy bills and run for cover.

The other day, the woman behind the wheel reminded me of the witch from the Hansel and Gretel story AFTER she reveals her true colors and threatens to bake the kids in the oven. Has this always been the case, and I just didn't notice when I was a kid? Did the music warning of the truck's imminent arrival always sound disturbingly off-key, like the music they play in horror flicks over scenes with children in them, to let you know that SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY WRONG?

Wasn't the truck clean and tidy in the olden days? When the door slid open, you'd move as close as possible to feel the frosty air that was inside.

I mean, the last thing you want when you're handed your Nutty Buddy is a tight shot of the female purveyor's thick, sweaty armpit hair. (And this is not armpit hair that is making a political or life style statement. Trust me on that.)

Even the ice cream is different, now that red dye #2 is no longer allowed. But I have a feeling that even if it were all exactly the same, it wouldn't be.

The Dreamsicle of my youth is, after all, only a dream.

Some of you know that I can't eat cheese at the moment. While this is lamentable, it's not the end of the world. Not yet. But I think I wasn't aware of just how important cheese is to me. Of course, we don't appreciate things like this until they're gone, that's always how it is. It's been almost 4 weeks, and if and when I get the go-ahead, I'm going to eat an entire wheel of Epoisse at one sitting.



My search for what I hope is only a temporary replacement has led me to the product known as soy cheese. After trying a few brands, I can only wonder what the point is in calling it "cheese," when it's actually tofu, flattened and compressed into something that looks like a slice of Kraft American, which is, itself, decidedly NOT cheese. I have nothing against tofu; I like it in a stir fry, but...



Maybe there is some delectable soy cheese out there that mimics Ste. Nectaire or aged goat cheese or Vermont white cheddar. Maybe, but I doubt it. So, okay, I say to myself, perhaps this stuff is better cooked, when the flavor is less important. But trust me, if you're making grilled soy cheese sandwiches, you're not going to be happy with the outcome. And soy cheese pizza? Bleah.



I suppose my findings shouldn't surprise me. I so hoped it would be otherwise. Soy cheese is for when you can't avoid it, when something that looks like cheese is all that will do, but the real thing is out.



It reminds me a little bit of the time I learned that when they film ice cream commercials, they use mashed potatoes as a stand-in for the ice cream, because otherwise the product melts during the numerous takes. So the actors are making joyous, "isn't this delicious" faces, while eating scoops of mashed potatoes, apparently.



Mmmm! Soy cheese!

(Was that convincing?)