Alternative Flours Are Nothing New + Buckwheat Millet Pancake Recipe

A parsnip onion blue cheese tart made with
gluten free flours

Usually as part of the gluten free 'craze', which often gets a bad rap as a new fad diet and I have debunked here, you see more and more alternatives to wheat flour available. Americans almost seem to take it as an offense, some new war against social norms that people would even think about replacing wheat in their traditional recipes, but the truth is around the world there are many similar foods baked or made with different flours.

While its easy to credit the increase and awareness of living gluten free as the impetus to replace wheat in recipes like pasta, bread and other bakery, other sources of flour have been around for centuries especially in non-European cultures, but yes also in many European traditional recipes. For example, rice and buckwheat noodles are common in Asian fare, of course corn flour is used in South American fare, almond flour is used in a lot of Euro baking (like one of my favorite sweets: macaroons), chickpea flour is common for flatbreads in different regions, and more. 

Besides avoiding wheat, there are other reasons to look at other options. There may be specific vitamins or other nutrients you want to add to your diet, even if you are simply trying to limit your carbs, there are good alternatives. Of course each of them has its own qualities and none, not even a combination, will ever fully duplicate the final product of wheat recipes, but if you aren't looking for an identical replacement and open to new flavors, textures, and nutritional value you may want to take a look at the wide variety of flours.

Pet MicroChips Are Only As Good As You Make Them

To help return a lost pet, make sure it is microchipped.
But also make sure you keep its registration updated.

One of the saddest thins for me to see is a Lost Dog or Cat sign, post or other communication. As a pet owner, and a foster home for pets, luckily I have never 'lost' one but I also am not holier than thou blaming other owners or thinking it can't happen. If your pet does get out, one way to help ensure they get back to you is to microchip your pet.

Microchips allow animal control and other organizations to scan your pet and get your information from it. But note: the information isn't stored in the chip, its just an ID that is used to get information from a database elsewhere. So make sure you keep the registration up to date, and allow access to your information, to ensure quick identification and return.

West Side Pride - Wauwatosa & Nearby Restaurants

Bartolotta's - icon of Milwaukee food scene - started
in the Village of Wauwatosa

Cities and neighborhoods always like to brag about their amenities and put others down. But I like to bring people together and seeing as this is about 'Greater Milwaukee', not just the City of Milwaukee, I like to promote all that the area has to offer. The food scene, especially now - with foodies, food shows, food blogs, etc. - is especially competitive. Though I love what's happening in Milwaukee with food, I live in Wauwatosa - a city that often gets overlooked, or even worse demeaned - and feel it in some ways needs defending - or promoting - depending how you look at it.

Among my friends there is a running joke that Wauwatosa has no original food scene, that the recent influx of restaurants from Milwaukee owners is proof. Sometimes its not even a joke, there are people who seriously think just because its a 'suburb' or they know of a few specific businesses, that it's an unoriginal spot with chain restaurants & imports. Sure there are a lot of hand-me-downs, or in food vernacular 'leftovers' - new places opened as sister businesses to those elsewhere, but if you take just a second to think you will remember many long-standing pillars of the industry and if you look a bit you will see we have many new homegrown businesses that are not just cast-offs.

It's Mo Time Again 2017 MIlwaukee Movember

I'll keep it short and sweet. It's the end of October. That means November is almost upon us. And November is the month of Movember the only charity tackling men’s health on a global scale, year round. They address some of the biggest health issues faced by men: prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health and suicide prevention. Movember is continuing their promotion of general health with their MOVE initiative along with the moustache awareness & fundraising efforts. Get involved here.

For years Milwaukee has had and continues to have some of the coolest man-friendly socially responsible events around as organized by the guys at Movember MKE,  our very own ambassadors for men's health issues.

As always, we are happy to help promote Movember and all the events associated, check out our calendar of compiled events here.

If you are looking for inspiration for your moustache, check out the new style guide.

What Word Will Open The Conversation

Image Source: Getty / David Becker

Ironically, last night I was watching the news about the Las Vegas mass shooting when a commercial came on for a law firm advertising to sue if injured by someone texting and driving.

In 2015, 3,477 lives were lost to distracted driving according to the NHTSA. 3,500 people and we jumped on passing laws to reduce that. Will the laws stop it from happening altogether? No. But lobbyists and lawmakers thought that was enough people to try to do something that would save even one life if not hundreds or thousands.

Do cars kill people? No. The person driving it does - whether from texting, or drinking, or otherwise operating impaired. Sound familiar? Did that stop people from putting controls on the use of vehicles? No. Are safety regulations on sale, ownership, licensing, insurance (‘controls’) bans on automobiles? No.

But one individual can kill dozens and injure hundreds, every year, in addition to so many other useless deaths through the use of guns whether suicide, accidental or purposeful, and we do nothing. One man injured almost 1/6 as many as the distracted driving deaths in minutes, killing close to 60 as of this writing (and the number could still increase.) But to so many the word 'control' has been warped to mean 'ban' and 'seizure'. What word can we use so we can reasonably discuss options?

An entire city was virtually shut down for a day or more, because of one man - an American - with dozens of guns. Will we do something? Anything?