Monthly Archives: September 2014

Food

Beer can chicken

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Kay practised a lot of recipes from his Weber grill book this summer and our favourite by far was the beer can chicken.

Kay even wanted to buy this special wire beer can holder while we were in the States in April and an iGrill bluetooth thermometer so he could monitor grill temperatures from his iPhone and iPad. (Yes, he’s a dork like that.) 🙂

I threw a big shit when Kay wanted to use real beer the first time we made this. I didn’t want any gluten beer anywhere near my chicken. I’m not even really drinking the gluten free beer at the moment because it’s not 100% gluten free, but I consented that we could pour some of that into a can (GF beer only comes in glass bottles here) and use that instead.

I did suggest he use something like pineapple juice instead of beer, but Kay has been talking about making beer chicken since way before I was diagnosed with celiac, so we did the gluten free beer in a clean mini coke can and it was fine.

Look at this chicken, hamming it up. So sexy!

Not only was it fine, it was damn delicious! Like, mouth watering good.

It was moist and flavorful and everything you want in chicken.

We liked it so much that we made it again for our civil union anniversary because practically all of the restaurants in Zürich are closed on Sunday evenings.

When we made it again, we also paired it with some risotto from the Kenwood Chef. It was my first time really using it to cook something and it turned out wonderful!

Yes, I am already looking forward to when I can enjoy this chicken again. We save the bones so I can make gluten-free bouillon in the slow cooker and I’m just such a fan. 🙂

Go try this recipe if you eat meat! Beer can chicken.

Beauty

PWC

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Finally, a real post wedding chop almost three years after the wedding!

I thought about it for a long time and told Kay that I would chop my hair off at some point. I had told myself I’d wait for my bangs to grow out, but then I decided against that and went home after work one night and did this:

I relented and finally went to the hair dressers for the first time in 15 years to trim up the back, which is quite short. I told them I didn’t want a shampoo, just a trim, and they ended up doing the shampoo against my wishes.

I also just wanted a trim, not a whole haircut, but the hair dresser went a little nuts and cut off more than I wanted. I wanted to keep the front much longer and more dramatically angled and at the end of the haircut he snipped off one side… then I thought he had to even it out, but when he went for the other side he did even more, so now the hair is about 3/4″ longer on one side than the other.

Shampoo plus “real” haircut I didn’t want, plus blow drying to double check the cut when it was dry cost me 95CHF / $100.

…and that folks, is why I hate going to the hair dresser. They don’t do what you want, they cut more than you want and they charge you a shit ton. I was happier with the back, but upset about the front. I mean, it will grow again, but why did I have to pay 95 bucks for that? I can cut uneven hair myself.

Kay pretty much hated the haircut at first. He is sort of warming up to it, but he really likes it long. I’m getting used to having hair above my shoulders again. It’s been years!

Lots of people have been asking me if I’m happy how much faster it is to style now, but unless you do a super pixie haircut, this style actually takes much longer to do than long hair!

With long hair I would wash it twice a week and wear it twice down and once or twice up with dry shampoo. Pulling it up and keeping it out of my way at the gym was easy.

Now with short hair, the hair gets a lot sweatier at the gym and I need to wash it more often. Styling at the gym means a lot of blow drying, even if I didn’t shampoo it that day. After blow drying it I have to straighten it. So nope… it’s really a way more time-intensive haircut, but I knew that when I did it.

Hurrah for short hair!

Travel

Gluten Free Barcelona

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September has been another busy month with a long weekend the first week and now two wedding weekends in a row. Kay has a week more holiday than me, so we always try to go away the weekend in September when I get a local holiday for work.

Tickets that weekend were surprisingly expensive everywhere, so instead of going to Venice as I really hoped, we ended up booking a flight to leave for Barcelona on Friday at 10:30pm and arrive back home the following Monday evening.

Here’s a little teaser of our trip:

We had a great time enjoying some sun for once!

Kay was in charge of activity planning while I researched food and he cheekily asked his Spanish colleague to give him a city-guide and thought his work was done. So since neither of us had looked up transportation passes or info about attractions, we didn’t realize that instead of buying a 3-day transportation pass, we could have gotten a combination museum/attraction pass that we usually like to get when we do city trips. We also didn’t realize that booking tickets ahead of time to Sagrada Familia is almost a must and we didn’t realize the 3-day card started at 11:30pm counts 11:30pm to midnight as one day, and we couldn’t use it on Monday anymore. Darn you, Barcelona!

Overall it really was just a chilled weekend going to different Gaudi sights, churches and stopping here and there for sangria in between eating tasty food with wine. I was in heaven!

Sagrada Familia was out of this world. We ended up booking tickets online on Sunday for Monday and it was a really special experience to see a church of this caliber during the construction process. You can really appreciate how much work and money truly goes into buildings like this!

I again did my research about where to eat gluten free, complete with maps, directions and opening hours of several restaurants. Allergy Chef was a very helpful website!  I always over prepare and pick out 3X as many restaurants as we need, which was good because Baci D’Angelo Patisserie, the bakery we tried to go to on the first Saturday was closed… and both of us were quite hungry as we made our way to Copasetic instead.

Copasetic turned out to be ah-mazing.

The man running the restaurant was extremely friendly and helpful, with a great sense of humour. He told us that the chef eats gluten free, so I felt really safe ordering food and the food was delicious!

The options were great too. They offered English, French and Greek combo breakfasts with gluten free bread, pancakes, crepes (!) and more, often with organic ingredients.

We ordered combo breakfasts the first day and split a crepe because we were so hungry. It was a ton of food, as the guy warned, but sooo scrumptious! Seriously, I want to go eat there every weekend!

On Sunday we went back again and I ordered a savory crepe for my main and we split pancakes. They were some of the best gluten free pancakes I’ve ever had!

I would have even gone there for dinner, but we thought we should try to find some traditional tapas places. We ended up going to Bar Ramón on Saturday night because it was close to our hotel, but the tapas were kind of disappointing, especially when they said the ones we ordered would be gluten free and they came with a big bowl of bread.

We weren’t full, so we headed to Lolita Tapería and really enjoyed finishing the night there. It was such a fun little diner and the staff were very friendly.

On Sunday we went to Tapeo for dinner. It seemed a bit touristy to us, but I also didn’t care because they were very good about the gluten free food there as well.

We finished out the weekend going to Allium for breakfast on Monday, partly because Copasetic was closed, but the breakfast was not as celiac friendly as I had hoped and the partially uncooked eggs kind of made me feel sick all day.

After we saw Sagrada Familia on Sunday, I was starving and really wanted to find one of the Conesa sandwich locations I’d marked on the map. It was the kind of local food joint I would not expect to be able to eat at and Kay was worried about it when we went because they made sandwiches and looked like they all were toasted on the same grill, but they had a special grill for the gluten-free sandwiches (yay!) and I could even have some side dishes like brava, fried potatoes.

Conesa did not disappoint! It was a yes, yes, YES. It was such comforting greasy food that I really miss when salad is the only gluten-free dish on the menu.

We finished out the day sitting in a plaça enjoying one last pitcher of sangria. I would go again, maybe when Sagrada Familia is finally finished so I can see it in all its glory. 🙂