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Anyone who lives a gluten-free life or has a loved one faced with living this lifestyle knows how difficult it can be to find authentically delicious baked goods.  Bread aside, imagine living without home-baked cookies, birthday cakes, brownies or dessert bars?  It can be really tough.  When I was first diagnosed 4 or 5 years ago (it's all a blur) I will never forget hearing my doctor say, "If you have to have a disease, Celiac is the one you want.  All you have to do is eliminate gluten and you will be 100% healthy."  The first word that came to my mind was glucose aka sugar aka chocolate - to which I then replied in a very weak, soft voice, "So can I still have chocolate?"   

Later when it was explained to me that eliminating gluten meant all wheat and grains (not chocolate - whew!!) - the reality hit like a ton of bricks.  I come from a long line of bakers.  My family is eastern European and very traditional - we bake.  We eat dough.  We love it.  And now I could have none of it.  For 2 years I lived without any home-baked goods.  Even though there were cookbooks, none of them looked very enticing and all of the flour combinations seemed so overwhelming and, frankly, depressing.  One day something in me snapped and I decided I would have a chocolate chip cookie again dammit!!  And thus began the experiment and hunt for the right flour concoction.  I shared this one once before here - just scroll down and there it will be.  I make a large batch and substitute it cup for cup with regular flour.  It makes wonderful home made treats that are just like the regular stuff.  Everyone else living the non-gf life can use this recipe with regular flour for some of the best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins you will ever have!!

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients
4 eggs
2 cups sugar (I use evaporated cane sugar)
1 (16 ounce) can pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups grapeseed oil (you can use vegetable if you'd like)
3 cups gluten-free (or regular) flour 
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 12 oz bag of semi-sweet (or dark or milk) mini chocolate chips

1. In large mixing bowl beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, vanilla and oil until smooth. 
2. Mix dry ingredients together.  Sift together completely if you are using the gluten-free blend.
3. Whisk dry ingredients into wet ingredients - especially if you are gluten-free whisk and don't beat with traditional beaters.  Gluten-free flour is very sensitive so you don't want to over whisk - just until the mixture is smooth.  Then fold in chocolate chips.

There are many reasons I have long been referred to as a "free bird" by the people who know me best.  In a nutshell I'm basically a non-conformist (aka all over the place) - especially in the apparel area. What's the term?  Eclectic.  Yes, that's it.  One minute (or hour) I can be looking over a J.Crew catalogue sighing over everything I neeeeeeeed, then two minutes later you'll find me eyes glazed over contemplating the lack of boho chic in my life a la Free People (and don't even get me started on my evening "reading" of the Shopbop website.  eyeglasses anyone?) .  Olivia Palermo is one of my best girlfriends when it comes to style mentors - and Jackie O has been an icon of mine for as long as I can remember - but then I'll enter my closet and come out happy as a lark in a pair of harem pants tucked into knee high military boots with a beat-up chunky sweater coat thrown over circa my early 90's grunge phase.  Are you like this, too?  Do you stick to any one style or find yourself moving fluidly between several?

Yesterday's Tucker post made my heart sing because it was so unexpectedly, off-the-wall perfect.  When I was in Canada I wore this and honestly cannot wait to wear it again.  It is probably my favorite blog outfit post to date, however this one ranks right up there as well.  And yet all 3 are distinctly different.  I say all this to say...enter the opposite end of the spectrum.  I'm going to throw myself out there and say there's little chance of us spotting Olivia Palermo in yesterday's outfit, but today's?  Oh yes - it is Olivia P all the way.


With the exception of the shorts each of these items has lived in my closet for at least a year, and I'm really proud of that.  One of my current goals is to work my closet as much as possible and enjoy what I already have.  As for the shorts - one of my "must" stops when I go home is Aritzia.  I have scored some major finds in their stores - they carry everything from top contemporary brands to their own private label items and I was determined to lay hands on a pair of their faux leather shorts for fall...of course I arrived in Canada to discover they were entirely sold out nationwide.  The Manager of their downtown Calgary store was so kind and tracked down the last pair in the company (I was so excited and grateful!!  and they said they should restock in October) in - wait for it - NEW JERSEY.  I went all the way home to find my dream shorts on the other side of the country I just came from.  Gotta love kismet!!  Somethings are just meant to be.  I'm sure Olivia would agree.

This morning I got to enjoy this fall Cape May warbler as it passed through the side yard at Indigo Hill. We get so many more Cape Mays through southeastern Ohio in the fall than we do in the spring. Here it's mid-September and I'm enjoying a nice flock of warblers with the word May in their names.

Which prompted an additional thought—and three thoughts is a LOT for me in the morning with just half a cup of coffee down the gullet. That thought was: "I'm going to BE in Cape May in October!"

That's correct. I am the Saturday evening keynote speaker for the legendary Autumn Weekend hosted by Cape May Bird Observatory and New Jersey Audubon, also known as THE Bird Show. This year's Autumn Weekend is being held October 29–31, 2010. Details are available here.

Also speaking (on Friday night) is author/photographer Kevin Karlson. And there will be a plethora of authors on hand on Saturday for a big books signing, I hear. Of course in Cape May you can't swing your binocs by the strap without conking 8 book authors on the head, so it'll surely be fun to see who is there.

If you've never been to Cape May in fall before, the birding is just nutso, the hawks are pouring through, and you don't have to fight against the summer tourista tide quite as much.

Plan to come on down to the Cape for Halloween Weekend. I hope to see you there! I might even come in costume.

Anyone following me on twitter knows I am a huge fan of Nancy Grace (and Dateline and 20/20 as evidenced here and here but that's another story).  Very seldom does a day go by when I am not found, at 4:58pm, skidding across the livingroom to get the perfect spot on the couch just in time to hear Nancy scream out, "THIS JUST IN...".  She advocates for missing persons, victims and victims families more than anyone else out there.  (Speaking of which did you catch last week when she dropped the bomb that Beth Holloway Twitty snuck into Castro Castro in Peru to go face-to-face with Joran Van der Sloot and let him know she won't rest until she finds out what he did with Natalee's body?!?!?!  And did you hear when Nancy divulged the news that sicko VdS  has been getting conjugal visits from random women and having big ol' parties while in there too?!?!?  I was so ENRAGED I took to the phone lines to see if I could get through to Nancy and have her send me on location with Jean Casarez.  At least send me out to speak with Beth Holloway Twitty, Nancy!! I think I missed my calling.  How I would love to be a reporter!  Beth are you out there?? We need to talk - no more prison visits where you could be killed lady!!  One day you will testify against urine Joran...).

Anyway.  I digress.

But speaking of victims...BOMBSHELL TONIGHT!  A crime has been committed in shoeville and Inspector Shoeseau (aka me) is on the case bringing you all the latest.

Let me tell you - doing nothing is not getting enough attention.  It seems to me that everywhere I turn it's go, go, go - and the next thing you  know I'm going, going, gone.  In the past year or so I seem to have been swept away in a flow of activity that hasn't added a single thing to my life.  By the time I do find a second to do something I'd like *read:  Friday night on the town* all that happens is me passed out in bed fully clothed by 8pm.  I mean seriously, I can't even stay awake during a movie anymore and that is not okay.  This state of chaos is something that's been bothering me a lot lately.  I get that a person has to work and be productive and contribute - really I get that.  However it appears that's not enough anymore and I'm getting pulled in 14 directions by people who are just trying to suck as much out of me as they can get for themselves without any thought of how their behavior might be affecting me.  Wait.  Did you hear that screeeeeeeech? 

That was me putting on the brakes.  Because this is stopping now.

By the time this past Friday hit I was so exhausted I actually felt nauseous - and lemme tell ya it was not fun.  Just before noon I shut my telephone off, was finished work by 2:58pm and bawling my head off by 3:15pm watching Oprah fulfill a gaggle of Wildest Dreams (still not sure how she managed to steal my life?!?).  Next thing I knew my eyes opened and it was after 7pm, the Chef was in the kitchen and Chance Chancellor (Y&R people - get there!!) wasn't dead after all.  Miracles always happen on Fridays in Soap Opera land!!  How do I get there?? 

You know doing nothing really is an art form to be perfected.  It means making zero plans, potentially lying around in a vegetative state with or without television, in clean or not so clean clothes, eating out of a chip bag all day or maybe making a slough of food - doing nothing means whatever you want it to.  And so it was.  An entire weekend of nothing.  Now if it could just last for 3 more consecutive days I might actually be nearing the stage of "rested". 

Here's just a little of what doing nothing consisted of for me this weekend.

Nope that's not apple pie AND ice cream - it's apple pie ice cream!  Woop woop!

This summer we were essentially robbed of summer weather in Southern California.  Instead we got sand up our noses at the beach while the wind blew like crazy, Christmas weather at the Fourth of July, and a bunch of overcast days where I wore a coat.  We waited patiently for sunny days while eating all kinds of warm treats sitting by the heating vents.  A couple of times we thought of making homemade ice cream (the Chef is a whiz with creative varieties!), but the weather was so disagreeable that we mowed down ebelskivers instead.  No major complaints here.

When we got home from Canada last week and visited the grocery store the apples looked amazing.  Suddenly I was all about apple turnovers and ice cream.  Then I had an idea!  Apple Pie Ice Cream....why not make it a best of both worlds?  And so we did.  It was my first time really getting involved in the entire process and I have to say it was painless.  I'm looking forward to experimenting a little more, but in the meantime please enjoy a summery fall treat that will keep you coming back for more.  We've divided it into 4 sections:  Crust, Apples, Cream Mix, and Churn...you prepare each step, dump it into the ice cream maker and churn away to your finished result.  *I swear the two remaining scoops I rationed throughout the week are the only thing that have gotten me through to Friday with a shred of sanity intact.*

Apple Pie Ice Cream
Ingredients

*Cream mix
1pt    half and half
1/2C brown sugar
1/4t   nutmeg
1/2t   cinnamon
4       egg yolks
1t      salt

*Apples
2T     butter
2ea    Granny Smith apple - peeled and medium diced
1/4C  brown sugar

*Crust
1/2C  flour
1/4C  butter
1/4t    salt
1t       cold water

Method
Crust:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
You can use a bought pie crust if you'd like, but you won't need all of it.  I quickly whipped up some homemade crust using my gluten-free flour blend and it was easy and awesome.  For the sake of ease, we just stuck to regular flour for the recipe.

Place the dough into the refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes.  Once chilled roll flat onto cookie sheet. You don't have to roll it out perfect since you will be crumbling it.  Place it into the oven for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Apples:
Begin by peeling, coring and dicing your apples into medium sized bites.  Melt butter in saute pan over medium heat. 

Cream:
-Begin by bringing half and half to a boil; add cinnamon and nutmeg and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
-In a separate bowl mix yolks, sugar and salt - whisk until smooth.
-Next you will temper the hot cream into the yolks.


Churn: