Since starting my videography business Dom and I have been able to spend a lot more time together. Whilst before we would be working crazy hours quite separately with me being away in a theatre somewhere and Dom editing away in the studio, now most of the time we’re both just working crazy hours in the studio. And whilst it would be nice if it was proper quality time we were spending together rather than simply working in the same place it’s great to see her so much more. However there are two things since spending all this added time together that I’ve really missed, namely Wheat and Gluten.
You see my dear wife is a Coeliac, a condition that means she is intolerant of Wheat and Gluten, and it turns out that if you marry someone who doesn’t eat wheat or gluten you pretty much also don’t eat wheat or gluten either. Now I’d like to think that that’s because I’m a good and loyal husband who is sympathetic to his wife’s needs and, in some noble attempt to make her feel better and help her along the difficult path that is a gluten free life, has decided to also give up these two most common ingredients, yes that’s me: gallant, noble and self-sacrificing. The truth however is that I just can’t be arsed buying and cooking two separate meals… one’s bad enough thank you very much, particularly as oddly by removing two ingredients everything we eat seems to cost at least a fiver more than it’s glutenous counterpart.
Interestingly many people actually adopt a gluten free diet as a route to weight-loss, and whilst the fact that most eateries have practically nothing on the menu that doesn’t contain wheat or gluten means you may indeed skip a few meals out of sheer absence of available food, I can assure you that the moment you decide to eat something with gluten again you’ll put that weight straight back on from sheer joy of experiencing food that doesn’t taste like cardboard. Indeed for the past couple of weeks where I have been stuck at the studio every night whilst Dom has been working elsewhere I have basically gorged myself on fish n’ chips, pizzas, burgers, in fact I almost decided to have done with it and base myself in a bakery for a couple of weeks feasting readily on bags of flour and gnawing on grains of wheat.
There is however one rather joyous side effect of being around someone who has spent most of their life unable to eat food containing gluten, and that is that every now and then someone will produce a gluten free version of a food type that most of us take for granted but that Dom has never experienced, and it’s frankly a joy to watch her reaction upon eating it for the first time. A year or so ago I took her to the Magpie Cafe in Whitby where she experienced proper seaside fish & chips for the first time (that I have to say were equally as good as the gluten-filled version) and despite fish & chips being my personal favourite meal I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone happier to be munching on a nice bit of battered haddock. It’s only in the last couple of years that suddenly gluten free bread that tastes a bit like… well, bread has come out rather than the worse than cardboard tasting versions that preceded them. This weekend however was perhaps the ultimate new experience.
Having gone down to the local supermarket to buy some more gluten-free cardboard I spotted a chocolatey treat on the single 2ft shelf that forms the free-from section and figured I would earn some brownie points taking back any form of chocolate after a hard working week. What I didn’t realise is that this was about to be a complete first for the lifetime gluten-freer and an experience that would allow her to foray for the first time into one of the great philosophical questions that has plagued mankind for generations… Jaffa cakes: cake or biscuit?
Do you remember the Jaffa cake adverts? Full Moon, Half Moon, Total Eclipse? Well between figuring out how indeed she does eat hers whilst simultaneously working on the paradox that is the cake/biscuit debate was a joy to behold, and one I never expected to witness in a grown adult. So maybe this gluten-free thing isn’t all bad… but just to be on the safe side I’m gonna go buy myself some sausage rolls before she gets back! In the meantime though fun little Monday poll: Jaffa Cake – Cake or Biscuit? Place your votes below!
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