i challenged

This post has absolutely nothing at all to do with being, or not being, gluten free but it has everything to do with why I haven't been blogging lately.
As this week draws blissfully to a close, all of my 'i' problems that have plagued me for the past two weeks seem to be closing as well. As my dependency on all things beginning with the letter 'i' increases, so does my awareness of how utterly ridiculous this is. I am speaking of my iPhone, iMac and iPad. All things 'i'. Two weeks ago my iMac began doing things it shouldn't. Things I definitely did not want it to be doing. I panicked and fretted (right Honey??!!) ) because I had never (yep, never!) backed up my hard drive and I have over 22,000 photos in iPhoto. See... another 'i'!  Every photo of the girls EVER taken... all in danger of 'poof!' going going gone! Around this time, my iPhone decided that it had had enough of being dropped, watered, gamed and texted to death and would just shut off whenever it was tired. Or angry? Thankfully my iPad is still happy and cooperating but I find the virtual keyboard just too annoyingly constraining  to use if you are long winded like I am.  And because I don't have an eternal connection to wifi (too cheap) I have to find a free spot to sit and blog. My two blogging attempts last week were coffee houses (but of course they were) but once i had ordered and squeezed into a table between two slightly smelly don't-talk-to-me-i'm-on-my-computer/phone comrades, I found out their wifi connection was down.  So I just sat and drank my espresso and wondered what the hell to do!  Walk, read, cook... no, I better sit and brood about what communications I was missing out on!

Hugh (above said 'Honey') whisked the iMac off to 'a guy' who said my hard drive was kaput  but that he could 'probably' save my photos. Probably????   Boy was it was a long week at our house!   The guy called one day and said I now had a new healthy hard drive and that my photos were comin' home!  Yippee!  Then a long lecture about backing this baby up. 'yeah yeah... i'm not stupid you know.  Oh wait, I'm sorry...what was that?  Not backing up in the first place was stupid.  Right.  Thank you.'

So apparently learning absolutely nothing from the past two weeks, I sit here in Cafe Calabria, drinking the best mocha in town and  blogging on my iPad with a still less than healthy iPhone at the ready and about to hit 'save' so i can rush home and tweak this post making it 'blog ready' on my big screen iMac.

Did i mention that i walked over here from my yoga class this morning?  Yep,  that's right!  Walked and yoga!  I'm finding a balance.  And as you would expect, I do not take any device, beyond a yoga mat, into the class.  So for one hour I am free, sane and wondering who's trying to reach me!

Trendy

A fairly seemless morning. Kids somewhat easily whisked off to school by hubby. Dog fed. Kitties fed. Fish fed. I'm pretty sure kids were fed. I grab my second cup of wonderfully strong coffee and pick up the morning's paper. So excited to see in the UT's Dining Out section of the Night + Day a full page article entitled Going Gluten Free. So far so good! Refill my cup, throw both legs up on the couch and read... Wait, what???? Re-read it. MUST be here somewhere. Where is the mention of cross-contamination in this article? I look again. Nothing! How can they print this without asking each restaurant how they handle cross contamination in their kitchens? But they did, and they didn't. Cross-contamination can be the difference between being truly gluten free or not. Safe or not safe. A separate grill? Colander? New pasta water in a GF only pot? Designated cutting boards, utensils and even possibly a separate prep area? These are all the basic, but crucial, elements to offering gluten free safe choices. This is obviously and understandably not possible in some, maybe even most, restaurants due to space restrictions, cost and a lack of honest interest to provide to a limited (but growing!) audience. It's tough. I get that. But please do not say 'gluten free' if you cannot go the extra mile it takes to avoid cross-contamination! It is simply not safe, or worth it. This author's intro states that 'since May is Celiac Awareness Month, here are some of our picks in San Diego.' Now that would lead a reasonable person to assume that these 'picks' are safe for Celiacs. Right? Well... I do know that one of the vendors listed in this article states on her labels that her products are GF. Presumably true. But she also states clearly on her labels that her products are made on either equipment that is shared with wheat or in a facility that processes wheat. I found this so surprising and disappointing. I actually stood in front of the owner at a farmer's market and introduced her to Libby and told her of her Celiac diagnosis. She never once disclosed the possible cross-contamination issue. She said her products were made for Libby! We bought some, only to read the label after we got home. I threw them away. Not worth the risk. For someone with Celiacs, shared equipment/facility is not a good or safe choice usually. As the doctors say, 'when in doubt, go without.' Celiacs is not trendy. It is not the next diet fad. It is a pain in the ass and not a choice. Restaurants are unfortunately jumping on the GF bandwagon way too quickly without doing the proper homework. Do YOUR homework before eating at any restaurant. Some do go the extra mile... most don't. Not yet anyway. Call, request, ask, ask again... about their safe practices. And please don't assume that someone who writes about 'Celiac Awareness Month' knows anything more about it than you do. I would venture a guess it's much less! Every restaurant we go to, with or without Libby, I ask the waitperson and then the manager about their GF options. I ask in detail. I wait for the key words. I wait to see what their attention to the conversation is. I will post a list of such restaurants in the coming weeks.

options

The option button on snacks and snacking got stuck in the OFF position when we went gluten free.  I say 'we' and I feel like an ass.   Because for me it IS an option.  For Libby, not so much!

They are always 'starving' when i pick them up at 3:00 and my stomach is always in knots.  I feel it coming at about 2:40.  The uneasiness and slight panic.  Then the anger at the overall inconvenience and then just the ever so slight sadness that creeps in at the very end.   Because now we must bypass our pre-celiac after school haunts... Con Pane, Bread & Cie and Bronx Pizza.  No more fish tacos at El Zarape or egg rolls from Saffron.  We now pass them by at breakneck speed because I mommy-hope that she won't notice.  She does of course.  And only sometimes now, she is sad and says how unfair it all is.  I drive faster.   

The option of course is to BYOS (bring your own snacks) for the car ride home, or on the way to ballet, or to Girls On The Run.  You can hear the groans, and if you look in the rearview really fast, see the eye rolls ~ BIG fan of those! ~  when I hand them that oh-so exciting bag of Glutino pretzels.  An apple... oh yay!   Rice cakes with almond butter...again?  Wow!  Ice cream?  Well okay but I have to check every last ingredient on the not so complete allergy-card they have.  Oh yeah, and I’ll have to be sure the 16 year old working behind the counter understands that they have to wash their hands BEFORE serving my daughter the sample.  Oh and clean scoops.  Must have clean scoops.  Oh but wait there’s more!  I’ll need you to mix that ice cream on a clean try as well.  Oh look, the 16 year old is super good at eye rolls too!

To end this on a more upbeat note ~ there are options and maybe not everyday, but every so often, we come across one more to add to our growing list.  I will put together a list of what we have found so far and would love to hear from you as to your GF options!

Egg Salad and beyond

My kids happen to love egg salad. It is a great GF food.  Now there are probably hundreds of ways to make egg salad and everyone you ask will have their own 'recipe' and they will swear it is the best. The kind their grandmother made, their mother, the corner deli. Some like it plain and some like it fancy. With relish (me!) With celery (not me!)  Dill pickled. Curried. Herbs (tarragon was made for eggs salad!) Mustard? Let your imaginations run free! You notice that I stay away from saying sandwich. For the obvious reasons we don't eat a lot of sandwiches anymore even though there are some pretty great GF breads out there now. Udi's and a local San Diego North County company called Johann's Bakery are the best of the bunch, in my opinion. But more on GF foods later.

 Here is our version of 'the best' egg salad unsandwich~

 Egg Salad Williams' style

Hard boiled eggs (4)
Organic mayonnaise (2 spoonfuls or to your liking)
Relish (1 teaspoon)
Avocado (1)
Course sea salt (to mix in and a grind more to finish on avo)
Rice THINS rice cakes (Wholefoods usually)

~Mash eggs coarsely
~Mix with mayo/relish
~Season with salt, and pepper if you like (I do, kids don't. So we don't add pepper!)
~Scoop onto rice thins
~Top with avocado slices
~Sprinkle with a bit of course salt and here is where I add my pepper

Really great lunch and so versatile, and as long as you go easy on the mayo... a healthy GF food.

off to a great start...

Have been trying to organize my thoughts on GF living for this blog and thinking of what to write (oops~BLOG) about and this morning I had to share something not at all related to food.  Maybe food for the soul?  As Hugh was driving the girls off to school this morning, Eleri, our 8 year old,  rolled down her window, started blowing kisses (Christina Aguilera style- fans of  The Voice?  Anyone?) and yelled out to me 'i'm overjoyed with love!'  And off they drove... and my day just got a whole lot brighter!