In a few hours I will be attending the wedding of a friend who has Celiac Disease. Her wedding will be a gluten-free picnic and all the guests will bring something in this theme.

I know very little, almost nothing about what I call "alternative baking." Luckily for me crisp topping is not really considered baking. There are no eggs, no chemical leaveners, no attempt at expecting something to rise in the oven, no faerie-dust finesse needed in the mixer. I need to put a bunch of gluten free flours together with various sugars and spices and butter, and hopefully, voila! Crisp topping baked onto glorious Pacific Northwest berries galore.

"Alternative Baking" is tricky business. Little has been written about the properties of these new flours as they relate or translate to what we know of wheat flour. Although wheat has not always been a year-round crop, almost all American and European baked goods start with it.

Celiac Disease is not the only major food allergy gaining momentum today. With the prevalence of soy and corn and wheat in almost everything consume, whether we know it's there or not, we are developing allergies to ingredients we are eating far too much of. Baking, cooking and eating that is considered "alternative" today may well be considered normal/standard/conventional in a dozen years or less.

Books like Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking have helped me to understand new flours like Mesquite, Teff, Sorghum. In her beginning chapters, she gently and thoroughly explains the nutritional, taste and baking properties of many of these almost mysterious new things.

But, like all new ingredients, one must experiment until one gets what tastes good to them. Because crisp topping has no dangerous raw ingredients you can taste it, and adjust according to taste when it looks ready.

Follow instructions for the crisp topping I made last year near this time. It is exactly the same.

Here is what I put together for today's gluten free challenge. I used a scale so I could check proportions better. And I wrote it all down as I went along, tasting a tiny bit of each flour first to check texture and flavor. All these flours are ground to a different consistency, so measuring them in cups would have been dangerous. Some are heavier than others. (All Purpose unbleached (white) wheat flour generally weighs 5-6 oz. per cup)

2.5 oz Teff flour
4 oz. Sorghum flour
5 oz. Sushi rice flour
1.25 oz. Tapioca flour
1.75 ounces Mesquite flour
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamon seeds*
1.75 sugar
3 oz. raw sugar
8 oz. Dark brown sugar
1 pound unsalted butter
*optional

All of these flours can be found at Rainbow Grocery. If you have a friend who is gluten-free, I hope you get the chance to make this for them!

Whenever I am out of town or away from Bloglines for an extended period of time, as has been the case over the past couple of weeks, I go through a bit of triage reading in order to make sure I check in on my favorite people in the most efficient way. As I am doing this, a lot of the reading involves clicking and skimming to get the general gist of what's happening in the blog world. But every once in a while, a post stops me in my tracks and I read it carefully, savoring every word. This was the case this week when I read Tea's post entitled "Panforte, with Memories". You can be sure that I will be lining up to buy some panforte from Della Fattoria Bakery this week.

I'm not in San Francisco much these days, so unless I want to make panforte on my own I'll be bringing it to Seattle with me. While I'm curious to try my hand, I fear I would never come up with anything as perfect as the Della Fattoria version (and why bother, when they've done all the hard work for me?). If the knights of the crusade were able to carry panforte with them on horseback to the holy lands, mine should have no problem surviving the trip to Seattle. And carry it with me I will, for one taste of this sweet and spicy confection brings back so many memories.

We have a couple of notable new blogs in the Bay Area blogosphere these days. It's already been established that Todd at Bourbon and Branch is mixing up some of the most delicious cocktails around. And now he has started a blog called Straight Up to keep us apprised of happenings at the bar: "I hope to cover a variety of subjects including; what's happening at Bourbon & Branch and other bars around town, new cocktails & spirits and what's coming in the future at Bourbon & Branch." (via Tablehopper.

Another blog that started up last month is a blog by Nigel Walker, the farmer of Eatwell Farm. Keep an eye on his new site for news about the farm and general input about what it's like to run a small organic farm in California.

Since the moment I received Heidi Swanson's new book Super Natural Cooking in the mail, I have been consuming it at every opportunity. It's already been discussed here, so I won't go too much into it. It's a fantastic book, and you should check it out as soon as possible. But if you'd like a preview, check out one of my favorite recipes by Heidi that is also in her new book: Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies.

This week marks the season beginning of three reality TV shows that focus on food. Top Chef starts this Wednesday, Hell's Kitchen started last night, and The Next Food Network Star started on Sunday. My money is on Top Chef for being the most entertaining. As luck would have it, Bay Area Bites' own Stephanie is recapping Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef for Television without Pity and I look forward to reading a season's worth of her insights about these shows. Even if you don't watch the shows, it's worth reading Stephanie's recaps for hiliarious insights like this from last night's episode of Hell's Kitchen:

Ramsay wildly clutches his head when he discovers that that Vinnie is using water instead of stock in the risotto. Vinnie tries to argues that they ran out of stock, but Ramsay, who samples the risotto water, announces that it tastes like "gnat's piss." Awesome. I mean, I didn't know gnats peed in large enough volumes to allow anyone to sample the flavor, but I defer to Ramsay. Because of the gnat's piss risotto, Vinnie is sent to wash dishes while Brad takes over his station.

Heidi Swanson the San Francisco blogger behind 101 Cookbooks, has just written her second cookbook, Super Natural Cooking.

1. How does Super Natural Cooking differ from your first book, Cook 1.0?
Super Natural Cooking attempts to convince people that cooking with a palette of minimally processed ingredients can be inspiring, delicious, and better for your health than cooking with processed alternatives. My first book had a lot of recipes that highlighted fresh/farmer's market ingredients, but Super Natural Cooking builds on this and delves into a rich realm of underutilized ingredients by encouraging people to explore whole grains like millet, barley, and wheat berries. I also talk about the benefits of cooking with colorful ingredients, why you should utilize super foods, and how to use natural sweeteners. I did my best to include recipes that even the biggest skeptics might love (or at least like a lot).

2. What was the most fun part of working on this book and what was most challenging?
I work independently on a lot of projects, but producing a book is very different - there are many people involved. The collaborative potential of making a book was exciting to me and I wanted to make the most of it. I knew
I was going to contribute the writing, recipes, and photography, but I wanted the right people around to bounce ideas back and forth and explore all the possibilities on the editorial and creative front. I was fortunate to have Ten Speed Press as my publisher - they're located in Berkeley which meant that all the people working on my book were nearby. We could spend time in person, hang out, get to know each other. It's not always like that in publishing, I lucked out - we had a lot of fun. The most challenging aspect? Constantly running out of room in my refrigerator.

3. What makes something a "super food"?
When I think of "super foods" I think of all-natural, straight from the source ingredients that are brimming with vitamins and minerals. They offer nourishment, health benefits, and protection from disease. Luckily, many delicious whole foods fit this description, I think we just need to remember to keep working them into our daily cooking routine.

4. You use some familiar grains like brown rice and some very esoteric ones. What is mesquite flour and how did you ever discover it?
You know, I read about it long before I actually tasted it. I knew there were people excited about it's nutritional properties (gluten-free, rich in certain nutrients, and low on the GI-index). When I finally came across a jar of it in a natural foods store one afternoon, I was very curious about how it would taste.

To back up a bit, mesquite flour (or mesquite meal as it is sometimes called) comes from ground mesquite pods. If you grew up around California or the Southwest, you might recognize these pods. After the pods are ground up you can use it in a few ways. It adds a wonderfully unique flavor to baked goods, imparting a fragrant, warming, soft-edged spiciness. I use it in cookies, lots of people use it in cornbread, I'll add some to my spice loafs during the holidays next year. You can also sprinkle it over foods as a seasoning.

5. Where are your favorite places to shop in the Bay Area?
On the food and wine front...

Boulettes Larder
I can't get enough of Boulettes. From the handwritten kraft-paper menus, to the aromas spilling out of the open kitchen, the place appeals to every one of my senses. I love to taste what they're doing with the various heirloom grains, rices, and flours they stock. A couple weeks back I went in and they were selling grass peas with chopped olives and parsley. Do you know what grass peas are? Neither did I, but they were delicious and I've been thinking about all the ways I can use them now in my own cooking. For me Boulettes is the best combination of take-out served up with a side order of inspiration.

Farmers Markets:
I pick up fresh fruits and vegetables at the farmer's market -- usually once a week. The Ferry Building is most convenient for me, but I'll occasionally cross the bridge and go to Marin Civic Center on Sundays, particularly if the weather is nice. An added bonus is being able to look at the Frank Lloyd Wright building there.

Rainbow Grocery
My go-to grocery store. They have an amazing spectrum of ingredients - I'm not just talking about the bins full of grains, flours, pastas, and granolas either. They have depth within certain categories that you aren't going to find elsewhere. For example, they carry dozens of honeys (both single-varietals and blends), a whole section of nut butters (I've seen peanut, cashew, pistachio, walnut, almond), there is a nice cheese counter with helpful staff, and their wine section features producers making wine from grapes that have been grown organically or bio-dynamically. The buyers do a great job there and you can feel pretty confident that the food (or ingredients) you are buying aren't packed with hydrogenated oils or GMOs.

Biondivino
Biondivino recently took over the space PRIZE used to occupy at Polk and Green Streets in the Russian Hill neighborhood. It is a fantastic, petite boutique wine shop that focuses on regional Italian wines -- many coming from small producers. Italian wine can be intimidating in part because there are so many different producers producing so many different varietals. Biondivino is a fantastic portal into the world of Italian wines and the owner Ceri Smith is always happy to help customers navigate the selection which includes plenty of quality bottles for under $15-$20.

La Palma Mexicatessan (24th Street in general)
The Mexican grocery stores along 24th street in San Francisco are another fun place to explore. A whole spectrum of chiles, salsas, moles, dried beans, fresh masa and other ingredients awaits you.

To read a review of Super Natural Cooking, head over to Cooking with Amy