Sample Recipe

Mix 3

You can get these flours from Bobs Red Mill. They are certified Gluten Free by Elisa testing. You can cut the amounts if you like. I actually prefer baking by weight. I will give those values as well

                                            Small batch

4 cups amaranth flour  480g         144g
4 cups tapioca flour     480g         144g
3 cups arrowroot flour 384g         115g


Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2/3 c shortening           105g
1/2 c sugar                  105g
1/2 c brown sugar         81g
1 TBSP water               24g
1 large egg                     53g                 
1 tsp vanilla                      2g
1 1/2 c mix 3                207g
1/2 tsp baking soda           3g
1/2 tsp salt                        3g
6 0z or 604g Enjoy Life dairy, nut and soy free Mega Chunks Semi Sweet

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cover cookie sheets with  parchment.

Cream shortening, sugars, and water. Add egg and vanill and mix intil smooth. Add dry ingredients except for chocolate chunks. Mix until smooth. Blend in chocolate chunks.  Drop by heaping teaspoons on cookie sheets. You may form into balls by hand for more even cookies. Bake about 10 minutes or until light brown. Cool two minutes on cookies sheets and transfer to cooling racks. You should have 3-4 dozen cookies.

Hints:
For flours: bobsredmill.com
You can get the chocolate chunks on Amazon.
Try to make your cookie sheets full, cookies are less likely to burn.

Fandom, The Saving Grace of Nerds, Geeks, and Aspies

                                                                              Chapter 3

Off I went to college. No Young Mensa there. I was actually disappointed that they deemed the Bio book I had used in HS too difficult. The microscopes weren't as good either. But I had Torina, I had Star Trek, if I used the TV in the dorm lounge, and I met some interesting people including AW who rapidly became my best friend. She collected Marvel comics and was also a talented artist. I even learned a bit about how to draw characters from her.

My first roommate was a theater major. She knew when open tryouts were, and I rapidly got involved. I had a genuine coup, landing the role of Doreen in Tartuffe. OK, I kind of cheated. I overheard Keith, the director saying to someone that he wanted the scene to be almost balletic. Sooo, I ran back to my dorm room, got my ballet slippers and played it that way. I used ballet hands and made my movements slow and graceful. Seeing as I'm a geek and a nerd, it might be surprising that I could do this, but I'm not physically clumsy. I've had multiple forms of dance, studied some choreography, had gymnastics and yoga. I had at this point, two years of radio workshop and a year of drama complete with Stanislavsky and directing. I had acted and directed in an outside group as well. So why wasn't I a drama major? I wish I could have been. I was at least as good as most of the girls in the theater department and better than many. I was even enlisted as a coach to help a fellow cast member to lose a regional accent. But I had neither the face nor the body to be an ingenue. Even my own mother never thought I was pretty. In fact, my husband never did either. My body was very trim but I had practically no bust line. In fact, for Doreen we had to use make-up and stuffing to make it appear that I did. There is a line where Tartuffe tells Doreen to “Cover that bosom.” It had to appear that I had one to cover. I was too young for character roles and looked even younger. Coming from New York I knew that at any given time 85% of actors were unemployed. My neighborhood was full of them. Actors were the people I would work the Christmas rush with at Gimbels. As fun as being a theater major would have been, if I wanted to earn a living, I was better off in the sciences. That did not mean, however that I would stay away from the theater.

I can't say that I made a favorable impression on some of my cast mates. I read very quickly and memorized even more quickly. Almost immediately I knew not only my lines but everyone else's and I would throw them their lines at rehearsals. They found that annoying. I was trying to be helpful but it was perceived as arrogance. For a while I was pretty unpopular. That did change somewhat after they got to know me a bit, but it took a while. This is 20-20 hindsight. Back then I had no idea what was going on.

I was living by the Torinian calendar. I had it up on my wall. I also had some Star Trek audio tapes to play when I really needed them. I played regular records. Remember those? I played my favorite songs over and over and over. I can't say that sat well with my roommate or my neighbors. Again, I was pretty oblivious.

With every play came a crush. These usually started at auditions or callbacks and ended with the striking of the set. In most cases everything was in my head and the other person was totally unaware. That was fun, but with one exception, not serious. I was desperate for a boyfriend but still really still in love with CF. If that makes no sense to you, it doesn't make any to me either. But it was the case. The harder I tried, the less successful I was. Keeping my head on the Enterprise or in the clouds of Torina made things a bit more bearable.

On my first Christmas break I actually saw CF. He had agreed to give me three hours but he got stuck standing in line for tickets to something, so he was two hours late. I had been crying solidly for the second hour, so I was a total mess. He called to ask if he should still come and of course I said yes. There is nothing like having no self respect. We talked about our respective forays onto the stage. He actually acted some things out for me. It was nice and he graciously granted me an extra fifteen minutes. I was obscenely grateful. On my next break home from school I talked to him on the phone. He told me who he was sleeping with. Well that did it! It was a knife straight to the heart – twisted. I shook for about 45 minutes. Then I really knew that I would have to fall in love with someone else.

I had to go back to school early for play rehearsals. The dorms were closed and I stayed in a house off campus with some cast and crew. In the house was TM. He had an older brother who was also there, although neither cast nor crew. His brother was getting all the attention. He had just come back from the Peace Corps. He wanted to be a performer. He was playing his guitar and singing and garnering praise. There was TM sitting against a wall in the living room, occasionally strumming on his own guitar, and totally ignored – except by me. He was part of the crew, building the set. He was there, I was on the rebound, this was more than a play crush. We had a lot of fun. I wanted more. He let me know on the way home from the cast party that he wanted fun and making out but nothing more. That was not what I had in mind. Strangely enough we actually stayed friends. He played some of the best jazz piano I have ever heard. Whenever I heard it, I knew instantly who was playing. He left school after 2 years and became the manager of an auto parts store. Sigh!

And then there was E. He was at least as socially inept as I was. He was also interested in drama and music, but a science major. The attraction was inevitable. The problems were also inevitable. We were of different religions and religion was extremely important to both of us. We agreed on a lot and had some great discussions but we had great differences as well. He was tactile defensive. Now, I would know exactly what that entailed and what to do about it. Then, I was clueless. I desperately wanted to touch him, but I couldn't. We did our best when we were at least 300 miles apart. Letters were a great form of communication. This gave us a great summer between my junior and senior years. He wrote long letters with stories and drawings and maps. They could by no stretch of the imagination be called love letters, at least not on his part, but they were wonderful. My letters were serial, written at about the same time each night and sent off about twice a week. I would have loved to use the “L” word, but I knew that it would not go over well.

That was also the summer I discovered Comicon in NY. Back then it was neither big nor glitzy nor expensive. If you wanted an autograph all you had to do was ask. There were no autograph tables or VIP passes. I still have an autograph from Bob Kane, creator of Batman. I was there because DC was recruiting for their Junior Bullpen and I thought it would be great to write comics. I submitted a portfolio. Eventually I got their evaluation: “You sure can write, but your stories are too violent.” Back then comics had to be suitable for seven-year-olds. How times have changed. I met some wonderful nerds, one of whom now draws cover art. I also bought everything Star Trek that I could afford. They showed the first sneak peak of the animated Star Trek series. I was in heaven. AW came to join me and unfortunately got her purse stolen. Well it was NY. It was a good thing that DC didn't take me. If they had I would have quit school. That would have been very unwise.

When the summer was over, I returned to school. I was sitting on the bare mattress in E's room waiting for him. When he came through the door he handed me a story he had written. It was about a merman and the closest thing to a love story I had ever seen him write. It filled me with hope. It turned out that it was false hope. We were not to be. I still have the letters, though. When my older son started writing stories and making drawings and maps, I pulled them out to show him that he was not alone. Don't get the wrong idea. They are totally unrelated. As I said, no touching.

So where did a son come from? Actually I have two. They come from the guy I met 3 days after I got to grad school. I invited him up to my place to listen to Star Trek tapes. We've been married for 38 years. Star Trek triumphs again!

Fandom, The Saving Grace of Nerds, Geeks, and Aspies

Chapter 1

One characteristic of people on the autism spectrum, like aspies, is obsession with interests that nobody else cares a wit about. One great thing about being a fan is that there are plenty of people who are just as obsessive as you are – and they want to talk about it. They want to talk about it a lot. Even the geekiest geek can have friends if they all geek out over the same thing. It can, however, take some time to build interests into real relationships. That was especially true pre-internet.

Being born in 1952, I had a lot of pre-internet time. I started with Roy Rogers at a very young age. He might have been a bit of a father surrogate, but not entirely. I was definitely jealous of his wife Dale Evans. When I was about eleven I wrote a letter to Roy asking how I could start a fan club. I eventually got a letter from his agent's secretary saying that since his show was off the air, they no longer had active fan clubs. I was over the moon to get any answer at all. I would still be over the moon if I got an answer tweeting a celebrity now. However, it seemed a bit of an end. I moved on.

My next object of my affection was David McCallum who was playing Illya Kuryakin in “Man from U.N.C.L.E.”. I had a huge poster over may bed that I would kiss goodnight. I added an extra kiss every night. After a while, the ritual got pretty long. I dressed my dolls every week to reflect what went on in the U.N.C.L.E. Episode. David made instrumental albums. I saved up and bought them. I bought U.N.C.L.E. board games and U.N.C.L.E. Books. I still own all the U.N.C.L.E. Books. I bought U.N.C.L.E. comic books. I still own those too. I remember that when Kennedy was shot, the show was not aired. I was very inappropriately furious. When I was twelve, I wrote a novella where a character remarkably like me rescued Illya after he was taken down in an alley. Nothing makes writing go so fast as wish fulfillment! Of course, I was more realistic than the TV show, or any TV show. When my hero was clobbered he didn't wake up and immediately spring into action. He was sick. Having had a serious conk on the head myself, I knew how things actually worked and wrote accordingly. David had my heart for quite a while, surviving a move to New York City. My new room was christened “McCallum Palace.” And then at age thirteen came a fateful day in ninth grade. I heard about Star Trek!

Chapter 2

I was working with a boy I had never talked to before on the NY Times crossword puzzle. We were not doing well. Conversation turned to TV. He told me about Star Trek, which had just started its first year. I watched once and was hooked. I was especially taken with Mr. Spock. I can't say that I particularly liked Captain Kirk.

Normally we kids had to wait outside of school until it was time for homeroom. On days when there was inclement weather, we were allowed to sit in the auditorium. I sat next to a girl named Janie. We struck up a conversation and found that we were both into Star Trek. She asked me who my favorite character was. If I had said that it was Captain Kirk, the conversation would have been over. By saying that it was Mr. Spock, a wonderful friendship was formed.

My friendship with Janie led to becoming part of a Star Trek fan club. It was not a fan club in the classic sense, but more of an improvisational acting group. We picked characters that we wanted to play opposite as a love interest, bu Janie already had Mr. Spock and usually Scotty as well, so I picked Dr. McCoy and fell in love as fast as I could. Eventually I ended up as one of less than 300 members of DeForest Kelley's Yeomanry. I still have the card, which I imagine is a bit of a collector's item.

My character was Salinda Sonevar. She was a doctor, but also a hereditary high priestess and heir to the ruler of the planet Torina Torina was hot, although humid, not dry like Vulcan. Salinda tended to fall unconscious if it got too cold, but was, of course, quite tolerant to heat. Unlike me, she was beautiful with startling green eyes. She also had some telepathic powers but they didn't factor much into the stories we did or the ones that I wrote.

The club met as often as possible after school at the apartment where Janie lived with her mother. I usually played Spock and/or Kirk and/or Scotty along with my Salinda character. I still do a pretty good Shatner cadence. We called what we did playing a game. Even though we never did anything wrong or even remotely racy, we never did it within adult earshot. I think that adult presence would have had a very inhibitory effect on our imaginations.

Star Trek started out on Thursday nights. It became my habit to start writing a Star Trek story, featuring our club characters, as soon as each episode was over. These usually ran about 25-26 pages longhand and I finished them before I went to bed. Sometimes I brought them to school for Janie or other kids to see. One day, one of these stories was intercepted by my core (English and Social Studies)

teacher. She started reading it to the class but did not have time to finish before the bell rang. Captain Kirk had just collapsed unconscious. To my surprise, kids who normally never talked to me came up to me to find out what happened. Being a Star Trek story, the captain survived, of course. You might imagine that I might have gotten in trouble for bringing my story to school. I didn't. I assume that the theory was that spontaneous writing should be encouraged. I got the English medal that year.

My fan Nirvana continued through the year. Then I graduated from ninth grade to go to The Bronx H.S. Of Science. Janie was an eighth grader, so we were separated to an extent. Science High is one of the special high schools in New York City. Enrollment is free, but by exam only. Graduation required almost twice as many credits as a normal high school. I really loved the program, but it was a lot of work. I got up at 5:20 A.M., got in some studying, got on the subway, went through nine periods and got on the train home. I usually stayed up doing homework until 11:00 P.M. to get up early and start all over. There were also many clubs and activities, including the Science Fiction Club of which I was secretary. There was a lot less time for game playing. I did keep writing and expanded the amount of detail regarding Torina. By senior year, Torina had geography, a calendar, a religion, a language with its own alphabet, and music. I made pictures and paintings and even paper dolls of the clothing Salinda wore. I sang and prayed in Torinian. Salinda wore a particular dress when off duty. It was gathered at the neck, sleeveless and draped softly down in assorted lengths. I bought remnants and made several Salinda gowns.

Right at the beginning of the Star Trek years, I took the Mensa test. This was a matter of self defense. My mother and sister were both members and if I had not made it I would have been eternally humiliated. At the time, one could take test at age fourteen and I took it three weeks past my fourteenth birthday. Aside from being a great place to be a freak or a geek, the gender ratio in Mensa was terrific for a girl. Officially there were three males for every female, but for those of us in the younger age group, it was even better. The first time I went to a meeting I had six boys in a circle around me. It was heady stuff. In addition, many of the boys either went to Bronx Science or had done so. I had a ready made gang, separate from my original Star Trek group but interested in science fiction nonetheless.

The Young Mensa gang was not privy to much of my Torinian stuff, other than being somewhat aware of its existence. That was saved for the boy I fell head over heels for at Bronx Science. CAF and I were in many ways the same kind of crazy. We both opted for creative writing and drama English and AP biology, strange as the combination may have been. I first saw him in my creative writing class. It was an amazing class, taught by a professional writer who was married to a really famous professional writer. I spent a lot of my time there staring across the room at CAF. It took a long time for CAF to show real interest in me. He went for a much prettier girl first and I can't say that I blamed him. She was both pretty and nice. While the two of them were together, the three of us linked arms and went dancing down the street singing “We're Off to See the Wizard”. It was her idea. Eventually that relationship fizzled and CAF did ask me to go out with him. My heart was so firmly on my sleeve that I was hugged by every girl at my lunch table. He wrote my phone number on the inside front cover of his copy of Hamlet. Some years later I told him that it was there and he was quite surprised to find that I was correct.

I showed all my precious creations to CAF. He took my English to Torinian glossary and started to build one that was Torinian to English. We sat next to each other as well as being lab partners in AP Bio. I wrote to him in the margins of my class notes, sometimes in Torinian. I dissected a fetal pig while sitting on his lap. I think that kind of behavior in the lab was tolerated because the teachers thought we were cute. It was also a perfect dissection. Never was the laboratory so much fun.

CAF and I sang together. We learned music for an audition together. We put on a play for an outside organization together. Unfortunately, the shards of my heart ended up all over the floor of the AP Bio lab. CAF broke up with me while the two of us were leaning over a stereo microscope together. In a room full of people, almost no one had a clue that anything was going on. I couldn't even cry until I got to the subway train afterward.

I was devastated. Cry I did, once I could. It was a nice slow local train. I cried all the way home. I cried most of the night. I put on a Salinda gown. I sang prayers to the Torinian god Partentheles. When morning came, I sat in an auditorium chair of the drama homeroom with my legs pulled up under me. The walls seemed to waver as if someone had put LSD in my morning tea.

I suppose that I had learned my acting lessons well. In economics class one of the girls told me that I seemed to be a pretty happy person. That was truly incredible because I was contemplating suicide at the time. When I finally made it to AP Bio, I still had to be next to CAF. He also asked me why I was smiling. I told him that I had to do something to dry out the upholstery. I don't know if he believed me. He did try his best to be kind, but I was truly wrecked, whether it showed on my face or not. What was left to me was Star Trek, Torina, and the Young Mensa gang.

Peanut Butter Cookies

I've been baking peanut butter cookies using the same mix as for the chocolate chip cookies. They are light as a feather. You can actually substitue for flour in a regular recipe. Since you will probably be using shortening instead of butter, remember to use a Tblsp of water for each half cup. This compensates for the fact that butter is 19% water and shortening isn't.

In the beginning

I've raised two sons with autism. One would probably be called an Aspie. He works for the DOD on supercomputers. The other one is pretty classical. He is almost 32 now. When he was young and not so young, he was quite violent. Some dietary modifications really helped to turn that around. Although I was otherwise heavily involved in autism advocacy, leading at various times support groups, a disabilities ministry, a local chapter of ASA, a state chapter of ASA and even the national organization, I discovered a passion for special needs cooking and baking. I have shared recipes over the years, including a cookbook distributed by the Autism Research Institute. Now I'm going to try something new. I'll be posting recipes, techniques and resources. To make things simple, I've figured out mixes that can be used to make a lot of different things. My favorite is MIX 3.

So here we go, Chocolate Chunk Cookies with MIX 3

Mix 3

You can get these flours from Bobs Red Mill. They are certified Gluten Free by Elisa testing. You can cut the amounts if you like. I actually prefer baking by weight. I will give those values as well

                                            Small batch

4 cups amaranth flour  480g         144g
4 cups tapioca flour     480g         144g
3 cups arrowroot flour 384g         115g


Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2/3 c shortening           105g
1/2 c sugar                  105g
1/2 c brown sugar         81g
1 TBSP water               24g
1 large egg                     53g                
1 tsp vanilla                      2g
1 1/2 c mix 3                207g
1/2 tsp baking soda           3g
1/2 tsp salt                        3g
6 0z or 604g Enjoy Life dairy, nut and soy free Mega Chunks Semi Sweet

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cover cookie sheets with  parchment.

Cream shortening, sugars, and water. Add egg and vanill and mix intil smooth. Add dry ingredients except for chocolate chunks. Mix until smooth. Blend in chocolate chunks.  Drop by heaping teaspoons on cookie sheets. You may form into balls by hand for more even cookies. Bake about 10 minutes or until light brown. Cool two minutes on cookies sheets and transfer to cooling racks. You should have 3-4 dozen cookies.

Hints:
For flours: bobsredmill.com
You can get the chocolate chunks on Amazon.
Try to make your cookie sheets full, cookies are less likely to burn.

Check back for other recipes!