Eleven observations on my new gluten-free life

A few conclusions after a few weeks of living gluten-free:

1. The hardest things for me to give up were beer and soy sauce (or anything with soy sauce in it).
2. People can appear to be sensitive and aware of the importance of being gluten-free and still be completely clueless. And you still have to let it all go by and not get all worked up about it. Otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy.
3. A corollary: You must always be willing to send something back at a restaurant, or have alternatives on hand at group events. Best idea: call ahead if you need to know whether you have any options, so you can plan accordingly.
4. Garbanzo bean flour smells terrible in wet batter. As bad as wet dog.
5. It's really important to have snacks around that you can eat. There's nothing worse than looking around your kitchen and through your pantry and feeling that all this stuff is off limits.
6. You must always do the due diligence by reading every label, and by knowing what to avoid.
7. We are so lucky to be doing this now, when we can bike to a store two miles away that has all the new flours and substances we are experimenting with.
8. Some people on the internet who are gluten-free seem to enjoy making you use as many different kinds of flour as possible (you know who you are!).
9. It takes a fair amount of baking to figure out what your personal preferences are.
10. I no longer cut in half or two-thirds the amount of leavening a recipe for gluten-free baked goods call for, to adjust for high altitude. I use all the yeast and all the baking powder called for.
11. I expected to find lots of bread recipes using baking powder and baking soda, but instead find that lots of recipes for breads use yeast. Yum!

-rk