STARTING AGAIN

So, here we are, in France! More precisely in Fourqueux, France. Close to our son's school and a bus and a train ride from Paris.

It was a roller coaster ( I am listening to Rollercoaster from Everything But The Girl while I write this), moving ,waiting for our furniture, trying to fit American furniture in a French house, new language, new school, new job, new friends.

Things are moving a little easier now. 

We are leaving in the land of cheese, bread, dessert and wine what is great for me, but my husband has intolerance for gluten and dairy! ( Why did we move here?). At least he can drink wine. But while in US, I was used to bake gluten-free and dairy-free with pretty good results. After a lot of trials and errors I was able to set up on a gluten-free flour mix and some dairy free " butter". 

In French supermarkets I was able to find a good variety of good gluten-free baguettes, croissants, cookies and even some crackers. The gluten-free options are getting much better. When we go out to eat, I am happy to say that all the restaurants we went were very accommodating and showed him the menu options that would not have dairy and gluten.

But it took me a while to find all the ingredients for the gluten free flour mix that I like. It was easy to find brown rice flour but that was it. I finally found the rest - wine rice flour, sweet rice flour and tapioca flour - in the Korean/Japanese grocery store around Rue Sainte-Anne in Paris. I like the mix from artofglutenfreebaking.com as it works the best for me.

There are some restaurants opening in Paris too and one of the most well known is Noglu and they have a cookbook that I bought. He uses a combination of flours that was a little easy to find here, but I still like to have the other one in hand.

Well, life goes on, but I have to say that if you have gluten and dairy intolerances, and are coming to France, don't be discouraged. It is not easy to pop in a take out place and find things to eat, but it is a little easier than I first thought. Sometimes it is harder for me because I am vegetarian and the menus here are very heavy on animal products, but I can always find a salad or a cheese plate :).

I will start to post some recipes and ideas of what I have being cooking and baking for him and other finds.

À plus tard!