Gluten-Free surprise – British Beer Company in Manchester, NH

My husband and I were driving to our ultra-natural-super-organic-granola-hippie market on Saturday when all of a sudden he perked up as if some sort of hidden beer-radar had gone off inside his head.

“That’s a British Beer Company!!!” he exclaimed. Yes, he actually exclaimed. He was pumped. “I didn’t know they were putting one in!”

Neither did I. Keeping tabs on restaurants that feature British pub food isn’t necessarily a priority on my list of things to do. I imagine the entire place would be covered in gluten and barley, people happily eating pounds of bread and drinking endless vats of beer while watching a soccer match on the telly.

“Ah, what the hell,” I said to my husband. “Do you want to go for lunch tomor-”
“YES.”

The BBC

There was a time when I wouldn’t even consider going to place that had “Beer” in its title. Not being able to eat gluten usually relegates you to the sidelines at such places, picking at your lone lettuce leaf while everyone else enjoys actual food. Two things have happened since then: 1) I discovered GlutenEase (more on that later) and 2) I decided that I always have more options than I think that I have when it comes to eating. Most places these days have great gluten-free menus, and The British Beer Company is no exception. They offer everything from gluten-free pizza to hot dog rolls, plenty of appetizers and gluten-free beer.

The restaurant in Manchester, NH just opened last Friday, but they really had their stuff together when I went – I did a make-your-own gluten-free pizza (because I have to try every GF pizza that has ever been made), and it was pretty good. The husband got a Reuben that turned out to be fantastic. Their beer list is freaking awesome, too – I recommend checking it out if you’re in the area. They don’t seem to be suffering from new-restaurant-breakdown-syndrome, and the food and service were both great.

Also, if you are like me – not Celiac, but sensitive to gluten – I also recommend giving GlutenEase a try. It’s a pill with digestive enzymes that aid in the breakdown of gluten and casein. I haven’t pushed it too far – I use it only every so often, and I only use it to eat little bits of gluten (like a glass of beer or a piece of cake or a small bowl of pasta), but I’ve had really good results with it so far. If you are full-blown Celiac, however, I don’t think it’s good to take since it does nothing for the allergy. Hopefully they will one day have some kind of remedy for that, too.

Unsafe Dog Toys: Tips to avoid breaking your dog’s face

My poor Brady has had a rough couple of months. I took him to the vet for something fairly routine, and lo and behold, the vet discovered that he had a fractured tooth.

“No he doesn’t,” was my immediate reaction. What she was telling me simply would not compute. When the hell would my dog have BROKEN a TOOTH? The vet then showed me his back molar and, sure enough, there was a little chipped, pink spot. It was right there, staring me in the face. How could I have missed it?

Now you have to understand something. I am a…let’s say “highly-involved dog owner.” Like, probably a little crazy. I brush my dog’s teeth every night. He goes to daycare when I travel so his mind is occupied. I socialize him regularly. I’ve taken him to multiple training classes. I feed him high-quality food. I think hard about everything regarding his health, physical, dental and mental. So how in the SWEET HELL did my dog BREAK A GODDAMN TOOTH on MY WATCH?

The vet’s response: “Does he chew on Nylabones?“

Apparently, Nylabones are a definite source of cracked teeth. My vet (and the veterinary dentist we later saw) both say that they see countless numbers of broken teeth every year due to Nylabones. They advertise them as “safe and durable” but that unfortunately translates to “harder than teeth” in many instances. Needless to say, upon hearing this I broke down into a fit of tears and guilt, devastated that I had ruined my poor dog forever. That feeling only got intensified when the veterinary dentist found that he needed 3 more teeth extracted, two due to a severe malocclusion and another due to–you guessed it–gnawing on a Nylabone.

To get over the crushing guilt, I had several good conversations and read a friend’s valuable words of wisdom and got that I’m doing the best I can by this little pooch. He is no worse for wear, and now I know better having learned a few things along the way about what is safe and not safe for your dog.

What not to give your dog:
Nylabones (or nylon bones of any kind)
Real marrow bones
Ice cubes
Tennis balls
Bananas (the sugar rots their teeth)
Sticks or stones
Cow hooves or pig hooves

Safe toys for your dogs teeth:
Toys made out of rubber, such as Kong or Go Dog
Pig’s tails (called “Swirlies” or “twirlies”)
Rawhide (only easily digestible rawhide as it’s not the best for all dogs -if you’re not sure, ask your vet which brands are good)
Rope toys (as long as the cores aren’t too dense)
Soft toys like stuffed animals (preferably without the stuffing)

Save your dogs some pain and yourself some grief (and some money), dog owners, and do your research before your dog needs teeth removed! And watch your dog when they chew – no toy is truly 100% “safe.”

Also, if you are in the New England area, Veterinary Dental Services in Acton, MA were knowledgeable, friendly, and very capable when it came to Brady’s surgery. I always felt very taken care of, and Brady was, too. Even if he did come out of the whole ordeal slightly more toothless.

On the road again…and again…and again: 4 tips for being a successful Road Warrior

I travel. A lot. I’m gone usually every other week, anywhere from 3-5 days at a time. Sometimes it’s a longer stint – soon I’ll be gone for two weeks straight, gallivanting along the eastern seaboard before crossing the pond to London for the first time in my life.

Don’t get me wrong – I kind of dig business travel. It’s let me see a lot of cool, new places. You eat good food and usually sleep in a nice hotel. I’ve even been able to spend a lot more quality time with friends that I work with, whether it’s traveling with them or staying with them while I visit headquarters (I work from home part of the time).

Plus, business class looks like this! …well, my ticket price says it should, at any rate.

But when you’re gone every other week, you kind of lose that isn’t-travel-awesome?! glow. Like, fast. Suddenly I can’t see one more plane, train or automobile without wanting to FREAK OUT about all the time I don’t have to be freaking gone ALL. OF. THE. TIME.

I’ve done this routine for over three years now, and I’ve learned a thing or two about being a Road Warrior without going off the deep end or lamenting about how hard my life is on a near-daily basis.

1. You choose to travel. Nobody’s making you do anything.
It REALLY doesn’t look like this is true – I mean, it’s my job! They say that travel is part of it! I don’t really have a choice about that! Except that’s bullshit. I signed up to be a consultant. If travel is really such an incredibly hard hardship, then I need to go find another job. Nobody is making me stay. Hell, most of the time I’m even asked if I’m available to go before I’m signed up on a project. I have to remind myself – I chose this. I can always choose something else if I’m that bent out of shape about it.

2. Don’t waste your weekend (or your Monday night, or your whatever-day-before-you-leave) upset that you have to leave.
Do you know how many weekends I’ve tanked due to a near-fatal case of the “I-don’t-wannaaaaas”? TOO MANY. I’ve even lost whole nights of sleep over the worry that I’m leaving. What I’ve discovered? This is useless. Crazy, even. You’re going to leave anyway. It’s not like the fact that you crapped all over your weekend or stayed awake until 20 minutes before your alarm goes off at 4 AM is going to change that. You might as well enjoy your time at home and get some damn rest (still working on this part for myself) before you’re off again.

3. Stay in-tune with your home life. You may leave, but don’t disappear.
If you have somebody at home with you – a spouse, a child, many children, a dog, a plant – take care of them when you travel. Call home often. Make sure that the travel set up works for everybody. It can be easy to just try to take care of yourself – especially if you are busting your ass working while on the road – but it’s just as hard for your family for you to be gone as it is for you to go.

4. You CAN have it all. You just have to think a little harder and try a little more.
Frequent travel means you’re going to miss some things at home. It means you’re going to sacrifice. But the sooner you can get point #1, the sooner you can start making choices and tackling how every little bit of your world is going to thrive, even if you don’t get to be at every single event or spend a ton of time on every thing or every person in your life. Quality over quantity, folks.

Cheddar-Artichoke-Gluten-Free Quiche

I’m writing from the Acela right now, express to Philadelphia from South Station in Boston. I feel totally blogger chic right now. World traveler, writing about her exotic travels up and down the eastern seaboard…or whatever. While I would love to write you something poetic and observant about being on the road, I think that would require a bit more coherence than I actually have at the moment. Go figure. Instead, have a gluten-free recipe. It’s been awhile since I shared one, anyway.

Cheddar-Artichoke Quiche cups – recipe courtesy of my mom.

2 jars (7 oz each) of marinated artichoke hearts
1 garlic clove, minced
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup of gluten-free Italian breadcrumbs. I use Gillian’s.
4 eggs, beaten
1/4 teaspoon of ground mustard
1/8 teaspoon of oregano
1/8 teaspoon of pepper
1/8 teaspoon of hot pepper sauce
2 cups (8 oz) of shredded cheddar cheese

Chop the artichoke hearts, reserving 1 jar’s worth of marinade.
Sautee the garlic and onion in the marinade, 5 minutes or until tender. Set aside.

Combine the eggs, breadcrumbs, mustard, oregano, pepper, and hot pepper sauce. Mix until blended. Add the artichokes, cheese and onion and garlic mix. Mix to coat.

Pour mixture into mini muffin tins, 3/4 full in each cup. Bake at 325, 13-15 minutes or until set. Let sit for a few moments when you take them out before transferring them to a plate to cool. Enjoy hot or cold!

My week in pictures, Philly and back again

Tuesday

A rest at the airport with my red shoes. The airports were so crazy last week that I got told many times I should have clicked my heels and gotten to where I needed to be THAT way instead of waiting in security.

Tuesday night’s babysitting gig and dinner companion and cuteness factor 12.

Wednesday

Dinner at Parc in Philadelphia. I had the privilege of eating with a nun, a former nun, her daughter and her granddaughter.

Ambiance

Spring in Philadelphia. My favorite.

Thursday

A view of my office, from my desk.

Saturday

Breakfast at Ant’s Pants. I got a cheddar-apple-bacon scramble and sweet potato fries. I was also out-eaten by a 19-month-old. It was a proud day.

Our breakfast atmosphere. The weather was perfect.

A stroll through Fitler Square

Dinner at Garces Trading Company – the best meal I’ve had…maybe ever. 40$ got you a 5 course meal of the most AMAZING food. The company, however, was better than the meal.

Beer Garden Birthday – Frankford Hall, A Stephen Starr joint. There may or may not have been a lot of drinking.

Cool place

Wednesday

Spring has (finally) come to New Hampshire, too.

Thursday

A boy and his girlfriend’s sister’s dog.

Transformation and other cakewalks

I never used to actively take on working through stuff about me that I didn’t like, or got in the way of me being happy. Over the past few years, I have been doing it constantly.

It’s not easy.

It’s like looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing a huge zit, realizing that it looks way worse to you than it does to the rest of the world, and then fighting yourself tooth and nail to not pick, poke or prod it. And then loving that damn zit with every ounce of might that you have until eventually you can’t quite make it out anymore.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not go there. Ever. But the more I try to tell myself that I don’t really want to tackle the bigger things that get in the way of me being all the way good with myself, the more they tend to creep in and color the way I look at life. I end up more anxious, or flat-lined, or restless, or sad for myself. And it gets harder to move through those things quickly.

Some things that I’ve learned when you’re wanting to turn over a new leaf:

1. Talk until you can hear your story
Share whatever is going on in your head. Share it with someone you trust. Preferably, share it with a lot of different people, like family and those that you consider friends. Even if it’s embarrassing, or upsetting, or you think they don’t want to hear. If they love you, they will. The point of sharing your thoughts is not necessarily to get advice or to have them give you sympathy. The point is to share until you can hear your own story about the situation. The emotional sting can lessen. The edge can soften. The hurt can dull. The more you share, the more it can get outside of yourself, and you can deal with it instead of being IN it.

2. Be willing to look at the stuff you don’t want to deal with
A friend of mine recently called me out on my adamant refusal to have kids, and wanted to know why that was beyond ‘I just don’t want them.’ I didn’t want to look at it. Absolutely didn’t want to touch that one. Why would I? I don’t want kids. She mentioned that it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want kids that she was curious about, but rather the level of intensity with which I protested. Turns out there’s quite a lot going on there with me. I didn’t even really know, and it’s kind of a blessing to be working it out, as much as it sucks. I couldn’t have tackled it, though, if I wasn’t willing to be curious about it.

3. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You won’t change overnight.
When people talk about transforming themselves, I think they think it means they will wake up a different person the moment they have an insight, or a breakthrough thought. You won’t. You’ll go back to being the same you pretty immediately. You’ll have to practice a new pattern of thought and behavior. I always get frustrated with myself – I should know better, I should be over this by now, what’s wrong with me? But I’m just being the me I’ve been for 27 years. That doesn’t just up and change. You have to work at it, slowly over time.

4. Give yourself a damn break.
Seriously, will you just get that you are a human being doing the best you can and love yourself a little bit, already?

On the House Hunt

Once the husband and I decided that we were sticking around New England, we immediately set out to get ourselves a house. What can I say? We’re ready for the thousands and thousands of dollars in debt and the agonizing stress of closing, repairs, lawn care and the need to purchase many pieces of furniture we don’t currently have. It’s a special time in any person’s life.

We’ve only been looking for about three weeks now, and I’m already dangerously close to throwing my hands up in the air with a giant TO HELL WITH THIS. It’s not that I don’t enjoy looking at houses – I do! I love real estate, actually. I like thinking through what a house could be, seeing myself living there, getting into the potential of each property.

The problem is, I have ridiculous standards for what’s livable. Basically, I want every house to look like this:

parahe.com

And this:

And also this:

And mostly what I’m seeing is this:

all from uglyhousephotos.com

So, yes…I may need to temper my expectations a smidgen. It’s not that I expect to have a baller house (I really don’t…I don’t want to pay for one) but I DO think about remodeling things that don’t work, things that don’t make me feel comfortable, or clean (I am a total germaphobe) – like that bathroom that absolutely SUCKS, the wood paneling that HAS GOT to come down (AND WHY IS IT IN EVERY ROOM?!?!), or the linoleum flooring that is so dirty that it looks like someone took a dump and let it rot there…oh wait, maybe that’s the pattern. Sooner or later, the house that was reasonable before is now starting to become unreasonably expensive.

And I don’t know what the hell anybody is talking about with this being a “buyer’s market.” If by that, people mean a bunch of boring and/or crappy houses on the market for cheap. Anything even remotely nice (again, we’re talking “nice” here, not ridiculously perfect) is gone within 10 seconds. And everything else is starting to look the same to me. Buyer’s market. Right.

I also am having trouble balancing what’s important to me and what’s important to my husband in a house – and I don’t think that either one of us should have to compromise. He wants a garage, and a nice, level lot, and a location that doesn’t totally suck for his commute and I think he should have those things. I also want a kitchen and a bathroom that are workable for me. So far, it seems like one component out of those critical factors is always missing in every house we look at. So maybe I’m being unrealistic. But I don’t want to settle, either!

Patience has never been one of my virtues (surprise!), so I’m striving to just get into the fun of it (because it is a lot of fun), and not get bent out of shape that it’s not happening immediately, or exactly how I want it to go. Maybe it’s happening just exactly as it should. Our house will reveal itself in time.

But I swear, if I see one more room with wood paneling, I can’t be held accountable for my impending meltdown.