TBB and the dissapearance of gluten.

When I was living by myself in downtown Portland, I used to take trips to the Whole Foods on Burnside to scope out the cute boys that worked the olive bar, and chat with the bombshells in the bakery. While walking down the aisles looking for vegan treats, things labeled "gluten free" would pop out at me. And even though I had no idea at the time what gluten was, I used to think about how special I'd feel if I had a food restriction like that. It fascinated me. I sometimes wished I had no choice but to eat everything organic. A rule that I could never eat fast food again. A reason to be healthy. Self control wasn't enough. In the summer of 2004, my good friend Jenny and I had been sharing a night of 40's and long thin cigarettes in fancy holders. Come 4 in the morning, we decided we wanted crunch wraps. So we poured ourselves into my shiny silver Kia Sportage convertible, and I took us down to the Taco Bell on Burnside. The Taco Bell was maybe a mile or 2 down from the Whole foods. I was obviously drunk (and driving?! shame on me), and shouting into the talk box like only drunk stupids do. He replied to everything I said with a monotone voice. I could tell he hated me already. When we pulled up to the window, there he was, my monotone dream. He was wearing a black button up shirt with a red tie, Alkaline Trio style. He had a big messy curly afro. He continued to talk to me like he hated me, and for the first time in my life, I hit on a boy. I got defensive and demanded he take my phone number. Rather than writing it down on a piece of paper and tossing it in the trash as soon as I drove away, he went into the back of the store and got his cell phone. He made an entry for me, gave us free coke's, and we drove away labeling him as "Taco Bell Boyfriend". Keep in mind at that time in my life, I had an everything-boyfriend. Gas Station Boyfriend. Sears Customer Service Boyfriend. Whole Foods Olive Bar Boyfriend. You get the point. The difference between those boyfriends, and Taco Bell Boyfriend, is that I had actually talked to TBB. Like how I did that right there? I got sick of typing out Taco Bell Boyfriend. To my surprise, TBB called me a few days later, and we set up our first date. And now we're married (awww). After our daughter Eleanore was born in August of 2006, I started to get sick. After finding no help from doctors (lets hear it for military medical! sarcasm heavy), I took things into my own hands, and figured out that I was gluten intolerant. There was that word again! "Gluten". What the hell was this gluten stuff and why couldn't I have it anymore?! I remember seeing it years ago on those boxes back at Whole Foods. For those of you who are still clueless to the g-word, gluten is a fancy way of saying wheat-barley-rye. The stuff is in everything. Most of your boxed foods, flour, envelope glue ...everything. So while I thought this would be difficult, I remembered back to the day when I actually wanted this, in my curious way, and accepted the challenge. Like I had a choice, haha. Over the last year, I've discovered that not only am I intolerant to gluten, but I'm also intolerant to soy, dairy, eggs, caffeine, fructose (fruit juice and cooked fruit), seaweed, sorbitol, corn, potato, oats, amaranth, pine nuts, meat, and beans. So what does that leave? Seafood, most vegetables, most nuts, fruit, and rice. Its a hard knock life, for us. Christopher, my then TBB, my now partner in crime, has been a dear, and cut all of the above things out of his diet as well. I've just re-introduced chocolate back into my diet. I know that I'm caffeine intolerant, but chocolate seems to have reconciled with my stomach, so I'm not going to question it. When I came home from work the other night, Christopher had set up a cute dinner date for us. We ate a rice pasta with homemade organic spaghetti sauce, followed by chocolate ice cream (yes, ice cream!!!) and The Notebook. One thing I miss the most, is ice cream. Since I can't have soy or rice dream, store bought ice cream has been long gone. So I'm going to share Christopher's chocolate ice cream recipe with y'all.

Christopher's Allergen Free Chocolate Ice Cream:

*Lots and lots of ice. Fill a blender almost to the top with ice.

*Unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Fill about 1/3 of the blender.

*2 bananas.

*1 large scoop peanut butter (this can obviously be left out).

*2 large spoonfuls of cocoa.

*5 large spoonfuls of turbinado (can sub honey or agave nectar, or whatever else you crazy folks use).

*Blend like crazy!!

*After its all blended, stick the entire blender in the freezer. When you're ready to eat the ice cream, take it out of the freezer and re-blend.

*Serve and enjoy!

If any of y'all make this, we'd love to hear about any alterations, and we'd love to know how it turned out :)

From top to bottom:

-"Raindrops Keep Falling on My Bread", by Krystan, $15.00.

-"Felt Taco", by beemiceelf, $5.00.

-"Reusable Produce Bags", by remarket, $7.50.

-"Pistachio Ice Cream Studs", by stuckinthemud, $4.00.