The flight worked out okay.  I have to say that the catering company that United uses out of Dulles airport seems to really get what a gluten free airplane meal is.  I got grilled chicken, rice and broccoli with a butter sauce, salad with lemon (guess they don’t have *any* gf dressings!), applesauce and jelly beans!  Not too bad.  I had my own rice crackers so I could give my pretzels to the college student next to me.  The breakfast snack, on the other hand, was quite interesting.  I got the fruit cup like everyone else but instead of the little muffin thing in the regular snack box, I got…. a rice cake!  A plain, stale rice cake.  Woo hoo!  Thank goodness for my stash of Lara bars and gf granola!

The bad news for this particular flight is that I seem to have gotten glutened earlier in the day.  I had an attack of “gastrointestinal distress”  (read:  gas!) like I used to get before I went gluten-free.  It was uncomfortable and pretty unpleasant and lasted pretty much the entire trip. So I apologize the college student from Florida on his way to Nice then Italy who was stuck sitting next to me during the whole episode.  Giving you my pretzels was the least I could do!

So now I have to figure out what caused it.  Since I ate only food from my kitchen, I’m a little confused.  The only thing I can think of is the “Cinnamon splendor” trail mix that I got at Whole Foods to pack for this trip.  I thought I checked the ingredient list pretty carefully but the only other thing that I had that was different were the new FoodShouldTasteGood chips that I tried.  I’d hate to think that was it though since the bags say “Certified Gluten Free” on the front.  I wonder who does the certifying!

So now I have several snack bags full of the suspicious trail mix in my suitcase (along with a few GF bagels, crackers and my beloved Mesa Sunrise cereal) and I’m afraid to eat it since I really can’t afford to have another attack while representing the US at an international conference!  I know that many Europeans think we Americans are big wind bags as it is – I don’t want to give them any hard evidence!

Now, one of the reasons I became enamored of heartier and often multigrain breads before my diagnoses was my need to follow a high fiber diet. Of course, this was the recommended treatment for my IBS which was the most current misdiagnoses of my celiac disease. Now I know I don’t have to get 40 to 50 grams of fiber a day to keep symptoms at bay but at the same time, a large selection of naturally fiber-rich foods are now off limits. What’s a girl to do? There’s a wealth of fiber supplements available on the market now, many of which are gluten free, but they tend to consist of large quantities of powdered substances to add to other foods. But if you follow the recommendations on the packages for these products, you can get (at most) about 9 or 10 grams of fiber per day in 3 servings. So you need to spoon this stuff into your quinoa cereal or coffee or yogurt or whatever several times per day to get a reasonable fiber boost for the day. Not my idea of fun!

Therefore, I was thrilled to see the new trend of adding needed supplements to water extend to fiber as well as vitamins and protein. Kelloggs now has a fiber drink mix that they are marketing under their All Bran trade name. You add a pouch to a bottle of water and get a serving of either pink lemonade or ice tea flavored beverage with 10 grams of fiber. One drink, 20 calories and 10 grams of fiber! Yeah!

But (and you knew there had to be one!), is it gluten free? Looking at the admittedly frightening list of ingredients doesn’t reveal anything obvious except for the possibly-gluten-concealing phrase “natural flavors.” An email to the company was finally answered and had the following good news:

M. Cannon,

Thank you for contacting us regarding Kellogg’s™ All-Bran™ Fiber Drink Mix.

The product does not have any gluten ingredients.

We appreciate your interest in our company and products.

Of course there’s no mention of processing so there’s still the potential for cross-contamination and someone who is very sensitive to gluten may be able to say whether that is an issue but I’m not that sensitive and am therefore very happy to drink my daily lemonade to keep things working well.

I called a few days ago to make reservations for my daughter’s 13th birthday dinner – she fell in love with schnitzel when we were in Germany last summer – and asked about the possibility of accommodating my dietary restrictions. I was politely referred to Catherine, the manager, who was very friendly and accommodating. She told me that they’ve seen an increase in enquiries like mine and she would have the chef prepare a menu for me.

When we got to the restaurant and I mentioned my gluten free status to the waitress, she promptly got Catherine who presented me with a hand written menu with 2 GF appetizer options and 3 GF entrees. She
then apologized for not having it printed for me! These weren’t simply variations on regular menu items, although I suspect that they could have done that too, but a completely different menu designed to be gluten free.

I opted for the asparagus with Westphalia ham starter – yummy – followed by the chicken kiev (no breading but didn’t need it), zucchini pancakes that were unbelievable and steamed vegetables. The whole meal and experience was wonderful and I would highly reccommend a visit. They are thinking of advertising their
ability/willingness to cater to special diets – not just gluten free – on the website.

Here’s the website if anyone’s interested: http://www.zumrheingarten.com/

Next I’m going to tackle the Melting Pot for my mom’s birthday.  I know they can do the cheese with no flour so as long as they don’t mind me bringing my own gluten free bread and beef broth, they’ll have a customer for life!

First stop, the Williamsburg Winery. Of course, it wouldn’t be advisable to tour a winery without something to absorb the wine so we opted for lunch first. On the winery grounds is the Gabriel Archer Tavern which serves sandwiches and salads and the like at lunch. This was amenable to the entire group so we settled in. I explained my gluten-free status to the waitress – adding the obligatory “no wheat, no flour” explanation for clarity – and asked for the ingredients of the vinegarette dressing which she promptly rattled off: olive oil, their red dessert wine mustard seed, garlic, salt and pepper. Great! No problems there. So I ordered a salad…

Which eventually came with a small loaf of bread on the plate! When I pointed out that I can’t have the bread, she apologized profusely and said “I thought you couldn’t have wheat” – what do people think bread is made from!!! My plate returned sans bread but I suspect that the offending loaf was merely removed rather than the salad remade as I had some “issues” later on.

Nevertheless, we had a wonderful tour of the winery and tasted 7 different wines, including the red dessert wine from the salad dressing. It was a most enjoyable afternoon although next time I’ll bring my own crackers to nibble between tastings: the Pepperidge Farm selection on the bar wasn’t an option for me.

Thus fortified, we hit the outlet mall. Ostensibly to appease my mother-in-law, who did purchase several things, I think we were actually there to make my spouse happy as we coincidentally parked very close to the Oakley outlet from which he emerged with a silver shopping bag. I confess to indulging in a pair of comfy shoes from the Bass Outlet but it didn’t take long for me to be shopped out…

We checked in to the hotel and left the grandmothers with the kids while we tended to the business of securing tickets and such for the next day. It turns out that to get a senior ticket for Colonial Williamsburg, you need to be somewhat immobile: cane, crutches or wheelchair. Neither of the grannies qualify for that on a full time basis….but…. you can rent a wheelchair for $7 a day which then entitles you to the senior admission ticket which is half price or $19 less than the regular adult ticket! So we saved $12 each and had wheelchairs to help the ladies cover some distances (which we needed but that’s tomorrow’s entry!)

Then it was off to dinner – the Seafarer was affilated with our hotel and we stopped by to have a chat with folks to see if they could accommodate my dietary restrictions. The front end manager seemed very knowledgeable and assured me that they could handle things. So we rounded up the rest of the gang and headed off to dinner. The server took everything in stride and answered all my questions about sauce contents – no flour or thickeners in the Hollendaise sauce which there shouldn’t be but you never know… So I had grilled swordfish with crab meat and Hollendaise sauce and a baked potato and veggies (steamed and no spices!) As part of the meal, they bring out a small dish of sherbet for “cleansing the palate” – even though we didn’t have a first course! When I asked about possible gluten ingredients, she went back to the kitchen to check. She confessed that there were lots of words she didn’t understand in the list (isn’t that the truth!) and there didn’t seem to be anything wheat, barley or rye related, there was a mysterious “carbohydrate gum” which she had never heard of and didn’t sound promising. So I skipped the sherbet and tipped her well for being so helpful.

I wound up with almost exactly one cup of brown rice leftover after dinner last night (red beans and rice – another yum!) and decided to combine it with an egg (well 1/4 cup of egg substitute), milk, rice bran, cinnamon, raisins and brown sugar. I plopped the whole thing in a mini loaf pan, sprinkled gluten free oats on top and baked for 30 minutes at 350. Drizzle with a little maple syrup and I was in heaven! Here’s something that looks like a recipe:

Breakfast Rice Pudding

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1/4 cup egg substitute
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 2 tablespoons rice bran
• 3 tablespoons raisins
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients and pour into a mini loaf pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until set in center. Serve warm with a drizzle of maple syrup. Serves 1.

I think I ‘ll need to double the recipe next time:  my teenage son had a taste and was eyeing me throughout breakfast – probably waiting for me to pour another cup of tea so he could have another “taste”!

/san/

So it’s really not that hard, unless you screw it up! Apparently, I have a demented sense of what “toasted” is; I mixed my gluten-free oats, almonds and rice bran with the brown sugar/oil/honey/cinnamon mixture and popped it in the oven, and then lost my ability to sense when it was “done”! I’m not sure what I was waiting for but I kept checking on the toasting and it wasn’t until I realized that there was a large quantity of small black specks throughout the mixture and that it was actually burnt rice bran that I finally declared it done! Needless to say, you really have to like TOASTED oats to really appreciate this concoction! Adding a copious amount of raisins helps! It is edible though – I had some sprinkled on my yogurt and fruit this morning – and I refuse to waste so I’ll eat all 5 cups or so (!?!?!) before trying again with a goal to not have black anything in my homemade granola. I’ll let you know when I get it right!

And for the surprise success: a gluten free bagel that was actually quite tasty! I have to admit when I pulled the plain bagel by Glutino out of the freezer last night to defrost in the fridge, I was not convinced that my breakfast would be enjoyable (especially since I had already declared the granola a minor disaster!) But my darling hubby sliced it and popped half in the toaster for me this morning; I didn’t want to commit to eating the whole thing in case it was awful and I can’t knowingly consume a 400 CALORIE bagel all in one sitting. I’m sure that’s how many calories the ones I used to get at Einstein’s had but I didn’t know that so I devoured them in blissful ignorance (before the gastrointestinal distress set in of course!)

But I was almost sorry I hadn’t toasted the whole thing. It was pretty yummy! It got toasty (not granola toasty mind you) and crispy and was nice and light. Very pleasant. Not like a wheat bagel but definitely a suitable substitute, at least for my non-connoisseur taste buds! And definitely an improvement on my first GF bagel purchase: the odd donut-shaped cinnamon raisin bagel-like substance from Eat for Life – not a good choice! I have to figure out what to do with the other 3 in my freezer!

So I’m well fortified for today – let’s see what kind of adventure this Tuesday holds!

/san/

I was diagnosed on January 22, 2008 and immediately cut out all the gluten in my diet. Well, I’m in the process of doing so. I’m finding out that it is an ongoing process as I find it hidden in places I never would have thought of (cold medicine? Come on!) But for the last 6 weeks, the stomach problems I have had for the last 15 year or so have been at bay and I am adjusting to my new diet and life quite well.

I have found solace, inspiration and some great recipes on some of the Gluten Free blogs I’ve been reading. I’m not sure I’ll be able to provide the same but at least I’ll have somewhere to jot down things to keep track of them. Like, I can make a note of the fact the Hunan West restaurant in Burke, VA is my new favorite Chinese place because they have wheat free soy sauce! I can have fried rice again! Woo hoo! Contrast this with the response of my previous favorite place to my phone call enquiry:

Me: “What dishes can you prepare that would not contain wheat?” (I couldn’t make her understand Gluten – I thought wheat was a good start.)

Response: “Lots of things. [edited discussion concerning wheat in soy sauce] Even our egg rolls would be okay because we don’t use wheat flour.”

Me: “Oh! (excitedly!) Do you use rice flour then?”

Response: “No, we use regular flour.”

Me: Sigh…..

So using “wheat” as a substitute for “gluten” doesn’t always help but until I can figure out how to say it in Mandarin…..

/san/ (who is going home to make her first batch of gluten free spinach and cheese ravioli with tomato cream sauce…. yum!)