Sorry it's been so long

It's been awhile, hasn't it? Well, I do have an excuse which may serve as good news for some of you: Sometimes I forget I have Celiac Disease. I've finally got this gluten-free thing down and life is near normal again.

That being said, I do still have some positive experiences and even some negative to share. I'll do my best to continue sharing on a more regular basis.

So here we go. Who misses pizza? I've never really loved pizza but there is something about the simplicity of all your food groups in one bite that's as easy as pizza. At first I just made some at home using Udi's shells. These shells are great! They are a thin crust though. If that's not your style, I have used Bob's Red Mill pizza crust mix which is a much thicker but equally delicious crust. These pizzas are great but I was still missing out on one of the big reasons people love pizza. How many times have you said "let's just order pizza"? I had been missing that phrase. I had heard about a few places around but nothing in the neighborhood until I heard about Lucci's having gluten-free pizza. They have one size (somewhere in between small and medium). The crust is made by the local gluten-free bakery. Overall my review is good though I do have a few concerns about their practices to avoid cross-contamination. For one of my orders, we noticed that they were using the same cutter. My suggestion would be to just explain your needs to them when ordering. The concern is only with the handling, which is easily fixed, not with the actual ingredients. Anyone else have suggestions on other gluten-free pizza in the area?

*Sneak peak*- Stay tuned for "Cheech and the Windy City- a gluten-free adventure"!

A Gluten Relapse

A month or so ago, I had my worst experiences at a restaurant yet. I've had some pretty bad experiences at other restaurants but as my mom always says "All is well that ends well". This experience, however, did not end well.

I was out to lunch with my brother at Mitchell's Restaurant downtown. When the waitress came to take our order, I gave my usual speech. "Do you know or if you don't could you ask the chef- blah blah- gluten-free yada yada". The waitress came back and said that the chef suggested grilled chicken and vegetables. I knew that they have sides of rice there so I told her I'd like the chicken, vegetables, and a side of rice if it was okay for me to have. Everything seemed to go pretty well. My brother and I were talking most of the lunch so I wasn't really studying my food, rather just enjoying it. It wasn't until I got back to my desk at work that I thought to myself, "What did I just eat? Was that rice pilaf? What is in rice pilaf? Isn't it orzo? Isn't that pasta?"

I realized that I should probably just call the restaurant to be sure rather than just convince myself it was orzo if it wasn't. When I called as ask the person on the other end of the phone if she could ask the chef what was in the rice. After talking to at least 5 different people and getting responses such as "what do you mean, it's just rice" and "is orzo
pasta?" and even someone suggesting that I drive straight to the ER to take care of my self rather than staying on the phone with them, we finally came to the conclusion that I had indeed consumed gluten during my lunch experience. I emailed the manager and he promptly responded and ensured me that he would talk with his waitstaff to explain them what a gluten free diet is and how to handle it.

Eat'n Park's the place for smiling celiacs (dah do do)

After Erin from Eat'n Park posted a comment on an earlier post about Eat'n Park having a celiac friendly menu, I grabbed a friend an tried it out for dinner this week. I was fairly impressed with the experience. On the back of the regular menu, they have a menu designated for their "celiac friendly" items (http://www.eatnpark.com/menuList.asp?CategoryID=4). When I went to order, my waiter informed me that he would alert his manager of my order. The manager came to our table and went over my order with me. During my entire experience, there was only one tiny complaint I had, and I'd barely call it a complaint. The manager said she had a few question to ask me about my "allergy". I corrected her and said it was an intolerance. Then she asked how severe my "allergy" was. I'm not sure why this was relevant. It seems to me everything should be handled with great care regardless of the severity.

I ordered a burger to try out their GF buns which were surprisingly not bad- one of the better that I've tried. The manager checked on me a few more times to ensure everything went well.

Overall great experience. As I said, the only small critique was that if your menu mentions the term "celiac" there's an assumption that you understand the disease and won't mislabel it as an allergy, but now I'm just being picky!

Subscribe and Save

My sister-in-law introduced me to Amazon.com's subscribe and save program. For many of their items that you use on a regular basis, you can sign up for a standing order to be automatically sent to your house. Not only is this program SUPER convenient, shipping is free and you even get a discount on your product! So how does this tie in to gluten-free? Well, amazon also offers loads of gluten-free products.

Here's an example of how this works for me. I'm a total breakfast person. There's two things I need within 20 minutes of waking up: food and coffee. I might as well go back to bed and try again if I fail. I had several easy breakfast meals before. Bagels oatmeal, cereal, granola-- also read gluten, gluten, gluten, gluten... So I was on the hunt for a "normal" gluten-free cereal and found Chex. Chex are awesome and normal people (my husband) eat them too! A box of Chex in the local Giant Eagle is about 4 bucks. With subscribe and save, I get 6 boxes of chocolate Chex delivered once a month for under $15 without having to go to the store! Yeah. For reals.

I also get some hard to find products like gluten-free flours and whatnot. What a great idea, both for Amazon and me! Check it out.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-save/details/index.html

PS- I also use it for normal things like deodorant.

On a positive note

Though there have been quite a few bad experiences, there's also been a few great experiences locally.

Yokoso: The Waterfront- All of the hibachi can be prepared gluten-free, and of course a lot of the sushi already is. Only thing to be aware of is they have the kikoman soy sauce so bring your own or go without.

Chioppino: Strip District- As is common with a lot of contemporary American places many of the menu items are already gluten-free. The wait staff was very kind and checked on everything for me.

Sababa Grill: Squirrel Hill- Though the gluten-free menu options are few, they are delicious! They were also very accommodating. We ordered hummus and they served me carrots for dipping in place of the pita.

P.F. Changs: The Waterfront- P.F. Changs has a fairly large designated gluten-free menu and they evenhave the GF soy sauce for you.

I'm sure there are other great places out there. Here's just a few I've had good experiences with. Please feel free to share any great experiences you've has as well!

3 Strikes for Au Bon Pain

I work in downtown Pittsburgh and am finding that gluten-free lunch options are very limited. I was doing some research to see if any downtown restaurants published a gluten-free menu. I was pleasantly surprised to see that on Au Bon Pain's website their menu includes allergy warnings for each item. I reviewed the menu before venturing to my nearest location to decide what I wanted to order. Soup weather is extremely common in Pittsburgh and I noted that there were several gluten-free soups on the menu. I headed to Au Bon Pain and ended up in a "3 Strikes You're Out" situation.

Strike 1- Of the 8 soup choices they were offering that day, only one was labeled gluten-free. The gluten-free Tuscan Bean soup seemed to be featuring pasta. Gluten-free pasta?? Possibly, but unlikely I'd say. I asked the nearest worker if there was really supposed pasta in the Tuscan Bean. He left to talk to the chef, and came back with a different label for the soup. Now, out of the 8 soups zero were gluten-free. Glad I asked. Hope no one was actually depending on the labels to be correct.

Strike 2- I went to the salad bar to order a salad that I had found in my research to be ok. I mentioned to the chef that I needed her to be careful because I needed the salad to be gluten free. "I don't even know what gluten is", she replied. I explained to her what gluten was, and said that I already checked and the salad was gluten-free as long as she didn't deviate from the recipe and was careful of cross-contamination by mixing it in a clean bowl. She seemed almost offended by what I had said and snapped back "I don't changed the recipe unless someone tells me to, and we always use clean bowls." I told her that was great and to just make the salad. As her manager walked by she threw my order slip and said "Will you make this salad, she said she wants it to be gluten-free and I don't even know what gluten is."

Strike 3- I wrote an email to Au Bon Pain stating that if they are going to advertise gluten-free products, they should #1 actually serve them when they are labeling them gluten-free and #2 make sure their employees know what gluten is. The current status of that email- no response from Au Bon Pain.

Perhaps this was just a bad experience at one location, but their disinterest in giving me the courtesy of an email response back was my 3rd strike.

Celiac Sprue Disease

In January of this year, I was diagnosed with Celiac Sprue disease. Celiac disease is a gluten intolerance in which the only cure is a strict gluten-free diet. I've been on a gluten-free diet since February 4th and have since had some great experiences and some horrible experiences that have all been part of my gluten-free adventure. Through this blog I hope to help raise awareness about what being gluten-free really means as well as provide some reviews and tips that I hope will be of help to other people struggling to maintain a gluten-free diet. Please feel free to leave any feedback or ask any questions. I'd love to do some research to help people out.