For the past few weeks, my youngest son has had a tummy ache of the mysterious kind. Knee jerk psychologists: this ailment is not psychosomatic. I know this kid. He isn’t being bullied or abused.

This is physiological but as of today, medical science hasn’t reached the root of the trouble. The standard tests turned up nothing . When the children’s gastroenterologist told me to send him back to school tummy ache or no tummy ache, I did what any self respecting 21st century Yiddishe Mama would do, I took my son to an alternative healer.

Of course the alternative healer offered a both a diagnosis and a cure.. Youve got to hand it to these guys. From canker sores to cancer, they cure it all-or so they claim. Our healer blamed my son’s problem on faulty peristalisis, a word I remembered from two semesters of college biology as mysterious movement of food through the gut, a slow motion akin to a caterpillars wiggle .

He put my son on a diet eliminating most anything a ten year old normally eats. No dairy, tomatoes, wheat, sugar or nightshade vegetables, also no barley. So what is left? Spelt , honey, chicken, eggs, fish, fresh fruit and vegetables barring nightshades.

Anyway on Friday I baked up a batch of spelt and rye challah rolls. I substituted honey for sugar and the egg I used was organic. I thought I’d deserved some kind of prize, but the next day my sweet son lay in his bed with a sore stomach. How could that be. After considerable contemplation I recalled that I’d baked with yeast a no no on this diet. I froze the remaining batch of rolls and ordered a loaf of sourdough spelt bread .

So much for my efforts.

Maybe I’ll get brave and learn to make it myself but for now here’s a recipe for spelt and rye rolls for those blessed with sturdier stomachs

Dissolve one tablespoon of instant yeast in 2 and 1/2 cups of lukewarm water. Add 1/3 cup of honey or 1/3 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of oil and 1 egg.

Now add seven cups of spelt flour and then as much other flour as required to create a workable dough. Whole wheat is nice if your system can handle it. Add one tablespoon of salt. Let rise till doubles. Braid or form into rolls. Let it rise again and bake at 350 or 180 C for 35 -40 mnutes. Enjoy.