March 31st

Wednesday was an exciting day for me since our friend Teresa, who I've known since I was very young, was coming in from Guelph to play a part in the movie. She is a natural, and of course a great sport as well, watching me spin around like a top in the kitchen. Iris was practically jumping up and down when she brought some bread and other goodies to us from Portions in Guelph. Portions is a bakery that has very good gluten-free bread. She had specifically contacted them to see if they would help us out, because she had never forgotten their caraway pumpernickel loaf. I sampled a bit of their bread and was very impressed indeed, it seems like gluten-free bread is usually crumbly and lacking in flavour as well as texture. I'm not sure how long it took the people at Portions, but they got it down! It's absolutely the best gluten-free bread going. I could see hearts in the eyes of the other three gluten-intolerant eaters when I told them they were going to have gluten-free muffins for breakfast.

Having the bread there was great for me, too, because that meant that everyone could have sandwiches together fairly soon, instead of me having to make something different for the gluten-free people, and watching them stare longingly at the bread everyone else was eating.
Wednesday was a bit of a bigger day, since I thought there were some producers coming by to check out the set and have dinner (and the last minute schedule changes messing this up totally). I marinated some chicken pieces in garlic, salt, oil and some spices and barbecued it for lunch with some garlic bread and salads. I decided to try out the chicken on the barbeque, which was a good reminder to always have a spray bottle of water handy while barbequeing.

I don't think it got too burnt, but the amount of flames was certainly giving observers pause. It's actually satisfying in a way, if you are extremely frantic when you are cooking, to actually see huge flames licking up from the food. It actually makes the food look like how you feel that it should look. At least, your last-minute kitchen scramblings look more serious to others if it looks like you are just borderline keeping things from catching fire. The chicken was a hit, and so having tamed the barbeque I settled on burgers for dinner, so straightforward, so universally popular. Some marinated grilled tofu as well, and the gluten-free bread, and everyone was satisfied.

I had also sneakily baked a carrot cake ahead of time, which I iced with the usual cream cheese icing (what else). I decorated the top of it with some candied carrot slices, a different twist on the decoration on top. I also made a vegan cake which is gluten free, and happened to turn out very nicely with the addition of some almond flour. For both cakes I put the layers together with a fruit glaze, which is really just a thrifty way of using up some near-empty jars of jam in the fridge. You heat the jam with a bit of water to thin it out in a pan on the stovetop. Let it cool slightly again and brush it onto the cake, letting it soak in. It adds moisture and flavour without complicating things too much. I'll post the vegan cake recipe soon.

-DEIRDRE