This is not a gluten free pancake…nor is it made of sodding cauliflower
As a starting point, let’s assume no one in their right mind would choose a gluten-free diet if they didn’t have to. Why would anyone go out of their way to avoid lovely pasta and opt instead for high sugar, high wanker-factor, carb-loaded, sawdust-filled products for seven times the price?
No one wants to see the servers eyes roll back in their head or make the Subway guy go and defrost a special brick just for you while exchanging knowing looks with his staff. No one would choose a flip-flop over a real pizza base.
Unless you can order something that is stealth gluten-free the only thing to do is to cook at home.
We are told we can do wonders with a cauliflower pizza crust but basically if you take anything, cardboard for instance, and dice it with cheese and garlic and roast it with olive oil you will have a passable crust.
The truth is, even when you make a cauliflower look a lot like a pizza the sheer stubborn essence and cloying cauliflowerness makes its brooding presence known by scattering tiny gratings into every kitchen crevice, hanging in the kitchen like a sulfurous cloud and generally going on to taste exactly like cauliflower.
But this isn’t 2010 and it has already been discovered that if you don’t mind paying over the odds from boutique grocery stores you can have flour that almost acts like real flour.
But there comes a time in every celiac/gf household when all the rice flour and one-for-one brands have run dry and you are left with the helpful bulk barn purchases of your father-in-law.
Rather than go and buy one-for-one I had a run at making pancakes and waffles with the various dregs in bags around the house. Here are the results:
Tapioca flour
The hellish summoning that spawned from tapioca flour in the waffle iron produced an enduring matter that will outlive humanity
Almond flour
It was an alarming discovery when setting about to make a almond flour pancake I accidentally discovered the Almighty’s code to manifest a sea urchin
Coconut flour
I cannot bring myself to show you the travesty that was a coconut pancake. It looked like demented mashed potato and had no structure or self respect. Here’s a coconut in happier times instead
Soy flour
Soy flour can look like a pancake on the outside but it’s inside remains a churning bubble bath of seeping soppy slime waiting for one bite to release it’s sickening centre
The Digital Detox yoga weekend in the picturesque English countryside was a bit of a sham on my part. Despite promising to turn off my phone I kept skulking upstairs past lounging Millennials to check and see if my kids had texted or Facetimed, which morphed into looking at Twitter, which then morphed into reading articles about “Why we need to tune off and drop out” … or something. But I can’t say I was completely unaffected by by nature during the yoga retreat at Oxfordshire’s shabby chic manor Braziers Park. In fact something struck me hard in the middle of the night.
It was a painting of mountains that fell on my head at 3:30 am.
Ironic poltergeists aside, Braziers Park is an inspired background for a yoga retreat with Nova Milesko 1. The daily trials and tribulations of running a communal house and “integrated learning centre” provided fascinating colour. I don’t know if you’ve seen that interactive play Tony and Tina’s wedding but the gist is you are a wedding guest and the storyline spins out around you. It felt like a low-key version of that.
Yoga stage set
I’m sure the set of Braziers Park is no stranger to drama. During the welcome speech our resident host urged us to do our own washing up, be careful what we flush and note that the western patio is a terrible place for a private conversation as you can be easily overheard. I love that he had to mention this as one of three items in the welcome speech. It must have been a lesson learned the hard way … more that once.
The house is a communal endeavour that sees a mix of residents and volunteers taking on the running of the estate. As the website puts it:
“Braziers is a conscious experiment in living together. It was founded to explore how a group could develop more harmonious relationships and more effective group structures.”
The gothic stone building dates back to 1688 and remained an aristocratic setting until it became the commune and school it is today in the 1950s. Apparently along with playing host to many artists and writers over the years Marianne Faithful brought Mick Jagger there in 1967 declaring it to be “mixture of high utopian thoughts and randy sex.” I saw neither but, really, watching for one weekend is no way to form binding opinions or make sweeping statements.
No randy sex a la Marianne Faithfull currently taking place during break in yoga and meditation
I’m sure the daily life of Braziers Park has all manner of time to experience both as the community hosts courses, retreats, weddings and seminars; providing the food, accommodations and grounds for events like the Supernormal Festival, Sweat Lodge, Utopias Seminar along with introductions to game theory and permaculture. They also provide a few authentic individuals or damn fine character actors dressed from the BBC sitcom closet of 1975.
The promise of an intact commune seems to draw in interesting old guard characters along with a number of international bright young things passing through. One of the full time residents Hugh 2 says he came to Braziers after a Cornwall-based commune imploded under the weight of personality conflicts. Braziers is still going strong well into its 60th year so they must have figured out a formula for getting along.
One of my favourite edicts from a paper list of suggestions on harmonious living pinned to the cork board outside the kitchen suggested that if you are feeling cross it would be best not to take on any jobs unless they are mechanized.
That’s ideal advice. You would never find yourself fighting tooth and nail with venetian blinds if you had the wherewithal to recognize “now is not going to be a good time for a fiddly project.”
Residents wearing clothes
The course kept us busy and exhausted but food was always on hand at the end of each class, even if we did overhear at a meeting that someone one had forgotten to start the oatmeal that morning. It was dealt with so kindly.
“This is no ones fault, we are all over worked.”
It seems with a run of weddings and other events the community has become worn bare, a victim of its own success. But in actual fact the oatmeal was still delicious, the food was great and they managed to make a delicious, vegetarian, organic, gluten-free Sunday lunch that didn’t look like sick which should lead anyone anywhere to basically mic drop and rest on their laurels.
I hope after their guests left and the curtains closed they got back to nature, utopian or otherwise and found their harmonious balance … and sturdy picture hanging nails.
1 Full disclosure we are talking about my sister here so really anything I say is unreliable and open to scrutiny! But it was still awesome and you should go!
2 Hugh was dressed under duress in deference to the visitors. As an adult child of hippies I am more than familiar with the naked male hippie body and as beautiful as we all are I was super grateful he remained clothed, even if that did hinder his spirit a little. I also wish him luck in growing a sustainable roof on his A-frame cottage on the grounds, even by alpine standards that seems a very steep pitch.
oonawoods 