This year I turned 30 in a big way and while I asked for no gifts, a few persistent folks managed to tuck a new item into my life here and there. One of my favorites is a slick new waffle iron--a waffle iron without all the extra things like electrical cords, heating elements, lights or feet. Its slim form sits elegantly over the gas range, needs to be flipped after filling it with batter, and as I learned this Saturday morning, doesn't drip as much as you'd think.

But whatever will we fill it with when our doc suggests that we avoid gluten for a few months? I'm game for diet changes, if only for the exercise of it, but I'm not about to cut out brunch.

Also, I'm impatient. I didn't want to wait for pre-made gluten free waffle mixes (or xanthan gum, cornstarch or potato starch for that matter) to make their way into my life before waffles could happen. I admit, I'd been stocking up on odd flours in case a gluten-free pastry would be called for--a girl's gotta be prepared. So with my sweetie in front of the internet, reading aloud gluten free waffle ingredient lists, and I in front of my cupboard, and finding no good match, we settled on a plan, a good, old-fashioned, cross-your-fingers plan.

And it worked! The waffles turned out moist, substantive but not dense with an enjoyable crunch to the crispy parts. Also, they liked holding together more than they liked holding to the waffle iron, which is important. These puppies are gluten free and accidentally lactose free too!

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites with the vanilla until stiff peaks form. Combine milk, egg yolks and oil with the dry ingredients, then gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

I belong to a short but charmingly similar-looking line of women who pride ourselves, deeply, in our pie crust. It's flaky, buttery and melt-in-your-mouthy. This crust of ours is the only reason we make pies--the filling is just a formality, and the cut scraps of our rolled pie dough survive only a few moments after a short stint in the oven on a cookie sheet.

I'm not claiming that we make the best pie crust in the world, but we just don't understand how a crust could be any better. Or maybe we just make the best possible pie crust for our particular, genetically-similar food-enjoying apparatuses.

So I embark on all pastry crust related endeavors with a crazy, possibly unfounded confidence.

Over winter break, I thought I would make handpies for myself for the upcoming term. Handpies are handy. Warm and savory, you can eat them with one hand and take notes with the other. Also, I wanted to relive a lovely, frigid fall weekend visiting friends in Boston a few years ago, when we made a butternut squash and carmelized onion galette.* (The galette was amazing, but I also won't forget serving up a beet that I had found that day, forlorn and frozen on the street several blocks away from an outdoor market.)

So the galette was recreated, with a combover of pastry to cover its bald top, and a little more crimping than galettes are used to. (I also filled a few rogue pies with some roasted winter veggies and reduced bone broth.)

I'm happy to admit that these handpies turned out to be several handfuls of delicious, messy, failure. The anticipation of eating them mostly just distracts me from schoolwork, and the pastry is way to delicate to hold anything inside it. As a handpie: not so much; as a belly filler, and smile-provider: two thumbs up, A+, high five! They should be served at dinner to friends who have access to forks.

Want our pastry recipe? It's too simple to have any special secrets about it. Just promise you'll use it for good only.

The Graphic Designer and Daughters' Pastry

2 cups flour
2 sticks butter, room temperature (I mean, like a drafty house in the wintertime room temperature)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-3 tablespoons cold water

Cut butter into the flour and salt with a pastry cutter or by slicing through the butter with a couple of opposing table knives. Once the grains of butter are all smaller than the tip of your pinky, add 1 tablespoon of the water, making an effort to distribute it as evenly as possible. Gently, bring the mixture together with your hands, aiming to form a ball, but try to handle it as little as possible. If needed add another 1-2 tablespoons of water, distributing it where the mixture is crumbliest, until the mixture becomes a dough. Divide the dough in two, roll, place, primp, fill, bake, beam. This amount will make two crusts--a top and a bottom or two bottoms for open pies--or several handpie crusts.

Next time on Pastry Crust Snobbery: homemade gluten free pie crust! Just for kicks!

*Awesomely, the charming Deb of Smitten Kitchen who provided the original galette recipe, also admits to her filling being merely a vehicle for her pastry. Sigh...blog crush!

My cohort is in the middle of a four-part class series called Pathology. It's exciting and interesting if you're into pictures of malformed tissues and details of aberrant cytokine patterns.

We have such packed schedules that I often try to eat lunch during Pathology lecture. Every time, though, I'm rudely reminded that the projected images can be disturbing. They're gross--sometimes stomach-wrenching gross--until I remember that these are people's bodies, and then, actually, it's heart-wrenching and sad.

I bring it up because this is an important, and I think affirming, distinction. It is the difference between thinking of disease states as being:

• pathology--the body doing something wrong, versus

• adaptive physiology--the body doing the best it can considering its setbacks and resources.

So when we see a slide of something gross like lung hepatization or aortic atherosclerosis, we're really just viewing the aftermath of the body's heart-wrenching struggle to make do. And heart-wrenching isn't more pleasant than stomach-wrenching, but at least I can eat.

Sometimes it surprises me that garlic is medicinal because it's so tasty and ubiquitous. That's the defining grace of herbal medicine, though: it works gently. Apparently, garlic has a long history as a medicine, ancient even. According to Matthew Wood and other herbalists, garlic

• supports beneficial gut flora and kills unhelpful bacteria
• supports metabolism and is also nutritive (so it helps the body replace old worn out tissues with healthy new ones),
• supports digestion for most constitutions,
• can be used reliably to alleviate hypertension, and
• dissolves and expels toxins.

And this is just a summary of its main uses as a medicine.

But it's also a food! What if all the food we ate were laden with supportive, friendly, delicious medicines like garlic? Each meal could be a boost to our bodies, like a splashy, quenching cup of sports drink to a marathon runner.

Sounds delicious.

Hey friends! I know it's been a while, but I'm back! And at my new digs here at SweetAllium as you've discovered.

I've been up to lots, and I'm so excited to be blogging again. It's appropriate that my first post is about an herbal medicine that helps people with their voice: herbal throat lozenges! My sweetheart and I put these together--one of the herbs, Calamus Root, is one of our mutual favorites. We punched holes in them to create an air hole in case anyone should accidentally get them stuck in their throat.

Some of my family members found these tasty suckers in their stockings this past Christmas. They may look a little rough but they are very soothing and slightly sweet.