what i eat is moving

After a lot of consideration, I have decided to roll my What I Eat blog into my life, travel, and fitness blog Where in the World Am I?. Fitness and food go together, as well as food and culture in the places we visit and live. It's becoming difficult to run more than one blog, especially deciding which posts should go with food and which should go with other parts of my life. They should all go together!

I'll be leaving this blog up for reference and over the next few weeks I'll be reposting some of my favorite posts and links at Where in the World Am I?. My gluten-free updates will still appear on Twitter and on my Facebook page.

So, if you are not yet a follower, please go to Where in the World Am I? and sign up for RSS or email updates. The food fun will continue!

what-i-ate wednesday

I'm going to start participating in What I Ate Wednesdays as a way to motivate my running and healthy eating. For those of you new to the blog, I'm gluten-free and I live in India. I'm training for a half marathon in August. (We do have a housekeeper here in India who does some wonderful cooking for us. But I also have her do a lot of the prep work -- like chopping the veggies -- and do the cooking myself, often with the help of my almost-two-year-old daughter.)

Here's a summary of my Tuesday.

Breakfast: Two banana-coconut muffins baked with the modified Pamela's gluten-free pancake mix banana bread recipe. Coffee with milk.

I took Muffin to school and then met the playgroup moms at our weekly breakfast date. I had two unsweetened iced coffees with milk and a small plate of bacon.

Lunch: A pizza bagel with half an Udi's gluten-free bagel, tomato sauce, and feta cheese (still sipping one of my previously mentioned iced coffees) and an apple.

Snack: Homemade baba ganoush (from the Moosewood Cookbook ) with Orgran quinoa crispibread.

Afternoon Running: About 3.25 miles pushing Muffin in the jogging stroller around the park.

Dinner: Boneless chicken breast with roasted tomatoes (from Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook ) and quinoa and a (not pictured) watermelon-feta salad (modified from a Martha Stewart recipe -- this is a super-refreshing post workout salad).

Dessert: Glass of chocolate milk.

Second Dessert: Glass of white wine.

For more running fun, follow me on dailymile and at my blog Where in the World Am I?.

(Some links are amazon affiliate links.)

what I eat while running

If you read Where in the World Am I? then you know that I'm running again, with goals and everything. I'm running a 10K in May and the Hyderabad Half Marathon in August. I have a training plan for the running, but despite all the nutritional articles I love to read I still feel like I'm not quite there with an eating plan. I know I eat too much sugar and salt. I know I need to eat more proteins and vegetables. I'm working on it.

Muffin doesn't eat any vegetables right now so it's been easy to slack off on preparing them. To inspire her and to force me, I am offering her one veggie per day, whether it's pepper slices on a pizza, chunky tomato sauce, carrot sticks, or steamed broccoli. She can say "No," and I won't force her but I'm making myself eat them. She watches me carefully and she tries a bite or two but she rarely asks for more. I know it's just a toddler phase but I can't use that excuse. Much like I read in Hungry Monkey, Muffin loves picking out the vegetables at the store and she loves to help prepare them, but she doesn't want to eat them.

I'm taking advantage of having a housekeeper to help prepare food. Surprisingly it's a lot of work to come up with meal plans and shopping lists and decide which foods I want my housekeeper to make and which I'll do myself. She washes the fruits and vegetables and I have her cut up the fruit so it's easier for me to make smoothies. She prepares meat rubs and marinades, then I pop the meat in the oven or onto the grill for cooking at dinner time.

In order to eat properly before and after running and to make sure Muffin is having wholesome meals as well, I've starting planning out my eating and running schedules a few days in advance. I don't stick to it strictly but it's a nice reminder of what leftovers are in the fridge and which meals needs to be prepared. It reminds me when I need to eat in order to be ready for a run and I plan certain snacks and meals to eat while Muffin is sleeping because I don't want to share every single bite that I eat. It sounds like a lot of work and it might even sound silly but if I don't do this I sit around eating chocolate all day behind Muffin's back and then I'm crabby and don't have the energy to make a healthy dinner so we end up eating macaroni and cheese.

I follow Anja's Food 4 Thought, the blog of a woman training for marathons in Saudi Arabia, for healthy, gluten-free, runner-friendly recipes and for inspiration for running in hot weather. All the recipes look yummy but I keep making the same chocolate-carrot muffins (another veggie for Muffin!) and apricot-pecan cake over and over again. They are great post-running treats with a glass of milk.

Speaking of hot weather, coconut water is my new best friend. I've heard it's a trendy, expensive sports drink in the United States. Here, I can walk about a quarter of a mile to a guy who sells coconuts on the side of the road, chops it open with a machete for you, and gives you a straw -- for about twenty-five cents per coconut. Despite that, I prefer the convenience of a little plastic bottle -- for about fifty cents -- that I can put in my gym bag to drink as soon as I hop off the treadmill.

Knowing the right things to eat and actually eating them are two different issues. I'm integrating small changes into my daily routine. One step at a time, just like running.
 

*I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on the Hungry Monkey link and ultimately decide to buy it, I will receive a few cents. I was not paid for this post; the book was purchased by me for personal reading.

headlines, giveaways, and sales this week

What We’re (Not) Eating: A Potential Danger Of Gluten-Free, Forbes

Pasta Prima Introduces First Gluten Free Refrigerated Ravioli on the Market, Press Release


Gluten Free Tennis, Boston Herald

Pizzeria Offers Gluten-Free Option, Messenger Post

Cheeseburger in Paradise Adds Gluten-Free Bun to Menu and Continues to Raise Awareness for Gluten Intolerant Efforts, Press Release

Gluten-Free Labeling and the FDA: We Are Watching (and so is Monty), Celiac.com

Will A Gluten-Free Diet Prevent Childhood Diabetes?, The Stir

From Want Not: Search for gluten-free restaurants near you and use the 80% off code FLAG at Restaurant.com to make them affordable. Read the fine print and restaurant descriptions carefully to make sure they have food that suits you!

The Be Free For Me blog is giving away Rudi's products this week. "Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, I am so thrilled that Rudi’s Gluten-Free Bakery will be sponsoring the next two week’s Win-it-Wednesday’s on BeFreeForMe.com! A total of FOUR (Yes… 4!) BeFreeForMe members will be selected to win a gift pack of Rudi’s Gluten-Free Breads and Rolls. Two winners will be randomly selected from the entries received before Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST, and two more winners will be randomly selected to win from the entries received between Wednesday, June 1st and Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 11:59PM. SO – make sure you enter to win two times!" Check out the blog post here for all the entry details.

Delightfully Gluten-Free is giving away a copy of Living Gluten-Free for Dummies. You have until June 1 to enter.

Bob's Red Mill has several gluten-free products up on the Monthly Specials page, including all-purpose baking flour, pizza crust mix, quick-cooking oats, bread mix, and brownie mix. Please note that not all products on the Monthly Specials page are gluten-free, so read the product descriptions carefully.

It's not too late to take advantage of some yummy Celiac Awareness Month sales at Amazon.com Groceries.

headlines, giveaways, and sales this week

Alice Best Wants to Teach You All About Celiac Disease, Philadelphia Daily News

Gluten-Free Food Fair May 21 at Bellingham Public Market, Bellingham Herald

Kellogg's Rice Krispies Joins the Gluten-Free Brigade as FDA Drags Feet on Definition, BrandChannel.com

Gluten Sensitivity Talk in Edwards Wednesday, Vail Daily

Mouthwatering Gluten-Free Recipes from French Meadow Bakery, Marketwire.com

Gluten-Free Diet Said To Be Behind Djokovic's Success, Times of India

The Diet That Shook Up Tennis? Starch Madness: Novak Djokovic's Domination of the Sport Has Coincided With His Gluten-Free Turn, Wall Street Journal

Gluten-Free Guide Published for Caterers, Eat Out

Gluten Allergy? Park City Pizza to the Rescue, Park Record

THE FAMILY TABLE: Gluten-Free Isn't the End of the World, San Angelo Standard Times

Eating Out Gets Easier for Celiac Patients, New York Times

Delightfully Gluten-Free is giving away a copy of Living Gluten-Free for Dummies. You have until June 1 to enter.

Courtesy of Gluten Freeville, "Sprouts Farmers Market Grocery Stores is offering 25% off more than 2,000 specially signed gluten-free products around the store including Gluten Free grocery and frozen grocery items, plus select items in other departments, between now and May 25." Sprouts stores are located in California, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas. The sale, unfortunately, does not include Henry's and Sun Harvest at this time. Visit the Sprouts website to find a store near you.

Also from Gluten Freeville, a special from Jules Gluten Free, makers of the world's largest gluten-free cake. You'll find the recipe and a sale on the flour used to make the cake. There's also a special on shipping.

Readers of Cool Mom Picks can get free candy from  JJ's Sweets at Foodzie. "The first 100 CMP readers who sign up for the Foodize Tasting Box subscription (which is so awesome if you're a foodie type) will get a free bonus of 4 assorted cocomels from JJ Sweets in your May order. Just sign up through this link." Note that not all Foodzie products are gluten-free, although the JJ's Sweets candies are. Read product descriptions carefully before ordering.

Bob's Red Mill has several gluten-free products up on the Monthly Specials page, including all-purpose baking flour, pizza crust mix, quick-cooking oats, bread mix, and brownie mix. Please note that not all products on the Monthly Specials page are gluten-free, so read the product descriptions carefully.

It's not too late to take advantage of some yummy Celiac Awareness Month sales at Amazon.com Groceries.

At the Steak House

Yes, you heard me correctly. Steak in Hyderabad. Tender, juicy, perfectly seasoned grilled tenderloin. Decent, and even passable, steak is difficult to find here. Hindus and Muslims don't eat a lot of beef and the cows aren't raised for eating purposes. The few times we've bought beef to roast or grill ourselves it's been tough and no amount of pounding or marinating has made it tender enough to be enjoyable. And for some reason I always think of buying a steak for Friday night dinner, but you can't buy beef on Fridays (all the Muslim butcher shops are closed).

Since we arrived our driver has been pointing out Chef Inam's Steak House to me every time we pass it and one night Mike and our neighbor stopped there on the way home from work to pick up some take-away. Mike met Chef Inam, tried the steak, and has been insisting we get back there right away. Inam lived in the United States and took culinary classes at Johnson and Whales (Yay Rhode Island!) and has brought his American steak-grilling skills back to India. On Friday night I packed up Muffin, we went to pick up Mike at work, and we went at Chef Inam's for a steak.

This is not a steak house like you'll find in the United States and I can see why so many expats get their steak for take-away. It's a little hole-in-the-wall with a couple tables and plastic chairs. Inam grills on the street in front of the facade. There's a cooler full of sodas and water. It's a dive. But we pulled out our hand sanitizer and ate there anyway.

It was worth it. Mike got a French-style peppercorn-encrusted steak and I had what Inam calls his Boston steak, covered with herbs and English mustard. They were perfectly cooked (rare for Mike, medium rare for me), tender, and deliciously seasoned.

We took Muffin outside to watch the grilling. She was fascinated. We even gave her a few bits of meat to chew on. She loved it until she got a peppercorn. She was getting tired by then, so instead of her spitting-out yucky face, she screamed. Luckily the place was getting full of men talking and laughing loudly so no one else could hear her. We paid the bill and made a quick getaway.

Speaking of the bill, the steaks were about five or six dollars each and the serving was big enough to fill Mike and for me to eat half and bring the rest home.

Don't let Muffin's reaction deter you from Chef Inam's Steak House. She's just a baby. And we're the stupid parents who gave her spicy peppercorns, then stopped to take a picture of it.

Cross-posted from Where in the World Am I?

Our Dinner Guest of Honor

(First published at Where in the World Am I? on 26 December 2010.)

After Thanksgiving Mike read the Facebook status of one of our friends who had enjoyed a succulent duck for dinner (We've had her duck. It's amazing.) and Mike wondered if we could get duck here. Well, with the help of our driver, Mohammed, my Christmas present to Mike was a duck for dinner.

On Tuesday Muffin and I went to the bird market in the Old City, where there are all sorts of live birds for both dinners and pets. We were surrounded by blue and green parakeets (budgies), geese, turkeys, blackbirds, guinea hens, and chickens. Ducks were scarce but Mohammed assured me we'd find some. First I was offered geese. They looked good, but they weren't what I wanted. And they looked too big to fit into our tiny oven. (I'd been instructed to buy the biggest duck I could find, but I was thinking of the biggest duck that would fit in our small oven and small selection of cooking pans.) The first ducks I found were mallards. They were cheap, but covered in flies. In an outdoor market like this, there are going to be some flies, but I wanted to shop around see what my other options were.

We walked down the street, peeking into every storefront. The parrots and parakeets where beautiful and I wanted a cage full of little blue ones to bring home for our terrace. There were also some beautiful ornamental hens and I wish I had a yard for keeping some in. I saw two of the biggest turkeys I've ever seen in my life. Mohammed said that if Americans want a big turkey they must wait for Christmas; at Thanksgiving time only small turkeys are available. There are enough Christians in the city to demand big Christmas turkeys, but not enough Americans to warrant big Thanksgiving turkeys. (Not that the big ones would fit in our oven anyway.) We passed by dozens and dozens of guinea hens, small turkeys, and geese but after several storefronts we still hadn't seen any other ducks.

Just when I was resigning myself to the possibility of guinea hens instead of duck we came to one of the last vendors on the block, the one Mohammed buys the Americans' Thanksgiving turkeys from. He happened to have two big ducks as well. They were pricier than the first ducks I'd seen, but the conditions seemed cleaner. No flies, less smelly. And the right size -- the biggest I could find and the biggest that would fit in our oven. We made a deal for the three kilo male duck, the larger of the two, for 1200 rupees (about $26). It was a little more than I wanted to spend, but honestly I have no idea how much a duck should cost. He tried to sell me the pair for a bargain price and it didn't occur to me until the ride home that I could have bought them both and put one in the freezer.

Many Americans get excited over buying fresh meat but then make a mistake, only once, about delivery of the animal. After seeing friends have live turkeys and other live animals dropped off at their houses, I knew to ask for the duck to be prepared for us. Plucked, cleaned, no neck, take out the organs, for an additional 100 rupees ($2 -- probably the best $2 I've ever spent).

On Thursday Mohammed went back to the market with a cooler full of ice, picked up our prepared duck, and brought it home. Our housekeeper cleaned it off and wrapped it up to sit in the refrigerator. Mike had his Christmas duck.

Mike did all the cooking yesterday. I'm not confident in my meat-roasting skills, but I was able to stock the kitchen with all the groceries he needed, plus keep Muffin out of the way, tidy up the presents-opening mess, and set the table while Mike went to work with his bird.

Muffin helped a little.

It was delicious. It wasn't perfect, but that's due to us still figuring out the nuances of the oven and the toughness of the bird had to do with the life it led before it met me. But it was tasty and something we'd like to do again. The potatoes and carrots roasted in duck fat were amazing and if duck fat is readily available to you I highly suggest you try it. With some seasoned rice and a cranberry log our friends brought over, dinner was complete.

Note the cranberry log standing upright on the plate...

We had a great dinner with some of our new friends and we couldn't have asked for a better day. I hope everyone else celebrating yesterday had as happy a Christmas as we did.

breakfast is served. in india

For those of you who don't follow my other blog, Where in the World Am I?, here's a summary of the last few months. We moved from Burundi in June and had the baby in August in the United States (a little girl named Sophie, who goes by Muffin in the blogosphere). Last week we moved to Hyderabad, India.

We are temporarily living in a furnished, "full-service" apartment. One of the services provided is breakfast. We have a choice of Western, which is an omelette and toast, or South Asian, which is idli (steamed rice pancakes) with savory sauces. I don't like eggs and can't eat the toast, so I get a plate of idli with fresh fruit. And I yank a little of the sweet red jelly from Mike's tray because my stomach isn't ready for savory sauces early in the morning. They don't go well with coffee.

Wait, let me be more precise here. On the weekends I get a plate of idli and fresh fruit. Because on the weekends we request breakfast at eight o'clock. But during the week we request breakfast at seven o'clock and they can't source their idli that early in the morning. So despite our protests that we have plenty of fresh fruit, Mike's Western breakfast is served with an additional plate of fruit for me. (I can't wait until our blender arrives and we can go back to making smoothies, which is an excellent way to consume all the freakin' fruit that gets hoisted upon us.)

gluten-free fitness

Hey, I've been profiled as a gluten-free athlete! Check it out at the Gluten-Free Fitness blog. Thanks Erin!

Be sure to bookmark Erin's blog for lots of gluten-free fitness information.

what I eat while running

I’m toying with the idea of combining What I Eat with how my running is going. I feel like I need an outlet for some running thoughts and everyone knows that food and fitness go hand in hand. So for the time being, this is What I Eat While Running. I have a backlog of product reviews and many notes on how my eating habits have changed with my recent return to running. Please bear with me while I find the time to write all this stuff. I have an exam coming up in a week and after that I’ll be back to the blog.

lunch in a box forums

I've been a long-time reader of the Lunch in a Box blog. It's more than just bento blogging. It's practical food packing advice for kid and grown-up lunches. Time-saving tips. Food recommendations--what works best as leftovers and how to care for them for optimum freshness.

Now Biggie and fans have a place to chat: the Lunch in a Box forums. I've had so much fun the last few weeks "meeting" food bloggers and the lunch-packing obsessed. Check it out if you're looking for fun new ways to pack lunch for your kid or yourself, or if you're just a foodie like me.