Sunday, September 02, 2007

Moved-in round-up.

Time to start blooging regularly again.  I have mostly-completed moving my fanily from the Midwestern United States to Western Canada to take a Faculty Postiion at Home Town College (HTC), Canada, where, incidentally, I did not attend school.  Aside from the customs and immigration issues that were both more complicated and easier than expected, moving to another country entails a lot of adjustment, diet-wise.
 
It turns out that basing your entire food system around one grain doesn't work very well if you move to a place where no one else eats that food.  You'll have a hard time continuing to eat Putine everyday if you move to Texas, for example.  In my case, I discovered that Canada has, in general, not discovered the joys of baking with sorghum flour.  At the very least, I expected to find Soem small bags of Bob's Red Mill Sorghum flour at some of the more snobbish grocery stores.  But no, it was nowhere to be seen.  Since the last time I bought Jowar flour from the Indian Grocery, it smelled like wheat flour, I have been hesitant to go that route.  I finally make it to a hippy foods-type store on the west side of the city and found that they sell bulk sorghum flour for a pretty decent price.  I have ordered a 25 kilo bag of it, which they tell me should come in next week.
 
The interesting thing about this sorghum flour is that it appears to NOT be the sweet white sorghum that Bob's Red Mill and Twin Valley Mills Uses.  They couldn't tell me what kind it was, or where it came from except the assure me that it was a Canadian Source, and not from China.  Instead of a pale amber, this type is more reddish.  It is curious that in the mid-west I had amber soghum flour and purple millet flour, and here I have amber millet flour and red sorghum flour.  Wikipedia lists over 30 varieties of sorghum, so who knows.  This kind tastes a little more bitter than what I am used to, but it bakes the same, otherwise.
 
The other big news is that Canada has other types of rice pasta than I have ever seen before.  Obviously, the U.S. wouldn't have had President's Choice , but a third company, Rizopia, is in competition with Tinkyada.  I've tried them both, and they appear to be similar to Tinkyada, with the main advantage being that they are both cheaper.  I've been stocking up on Rizopia products since they went on sale, 4/$5 for the past two weeks.  That is simply unheard of with Tinkyada, which I have NEVER seen go on sale.
 
So I think we're set, food wise.  With the bulk Sorghum, the sale on noodles, with the 2.99/gallon Soy Milk, being Gluten and Dairy Free here shouldn't be so tough.  The last thing I need to find but haven't has been the Maestro's favourite Cheerios knock-off, the Apple-Cinnamon Perky-O's.  I saw a box at the other hippy food-type store, but it was approximately ONE MILLION DOLLARS, so I didn't buy it.
 
I have something to say about Egg Substitutes (bad news, sorry) and a book review that I hope to get to this week.  We'll see how it goes.  Classes start on Tuesday, and I jost got my office and a teimporary computer on Friday.  That's another post, though.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:19 AM

    ah well, if you aren't prepared to spend a cool mil, or $7 plus shipping you may be outta luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:20 AM

    Oh, and Welcome to Canada!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can get Bob's Red Mill sorghum flour pretty dang cheap through a natural food source. I can only get an order delivered once a month, but if you want, I can buy in bulk and send you some :-)
    Red sorghum flour. You will definitely have to let us know how it tastes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2:21 PM

    if you are in Toronto, try the Big Carrot grocery store on the Danforth (at Chester station). They have a reasonable bulk section with a somewhat reasonable variety of gluten-free flours. don't know about sorghum but they might order it special for you...they're generally nice there.

    ReplyDelete