#coeliacsafe

Nobody in this house appreciates me so I made this for myself

Decided if no one was going to notice my efforts around here, I was at least going to eat well.

Canned salmon. Mayo. Dijon. Lemon. Capers. Made twelve of them.

Dinner tonight: Asian chicken with coconut rice and grilled capsicum and onions! While we were making dinner LoML mentioned that it was too bad that we never made dinners this good when Baby Girl was little (granted, this dinner isn’t anything special). BG is all grown up now, with two baby girls of her own, and she’s SO much better at food than I am.

When BG was little, dinners were more like Boboli pizza or Kraft Mac-n-Cheese, or Rice-A-Roni. I had no imagination for food.

Once she was old enough to start to be able to take care of herself, we discovered Jamie Oliver. LoML started cooking some really great meals. He’d do the whole deal, protein, carbs and veggies, all plated nicely, just like on MasterChef. I might be able to do a nice main dish, but I always seem to forget about the rest of it.

Luckily, BG soaked up food love from other family members. She loves her veggies, she makes a mean three-layer dip, and always chips in with foodstuffs at family Thanksgiving. I’ve always been a bit envious of the ease she has with making good things to eat.

I read gluten free blogs, mostly Gluten Free Girl (@glutenfreegirl) and Gluten Dude (@glutendude).  I read the comments and questions that they get about  how to keep yourself safe when eating out with friends, or eating at someone else’s house, or (the scariest thing ever) when someone wants to COOK FOR YOU!!!!!

There are so many different experiences, and every time, I say a blessing for the friends and family that support me.

Case in point.  A few weeks ago, our group got together for dinner, and it happened to be Easter.  Our friend who was hosting it put up a lovely spread:  lots of wine and champagne, cheeses and spreads with crackers and bread, and chocolate Easter eggs.  Once everything had been set out, she brought my stuff over.  Gluten free crackers (she showed me the package), brie and other cheeses that she had taken off the main spread before serving, and kept aside for me (no cross contamination with knives there!)  The chocolate Easter eggs were even still in their original container so I could read the ingredients (as opposed to a classy glass candy dish).

Another friend brought baked goods for everyone, which happened to be gluten free cookies she had made.  She told everyone they were gluten free, and sat them next to me.  The group knows when it’s my food and they’re allowed to have some, they can’t use their gluten hands that have just touched bread!  So they use a napkin to grab a cookie from my plate.

Just to make sure I felt safe, my friend sat down on the couch next to me and went into her spiel.  “I cleaned all of the baking trays and utensils before I used them, and here is a picture of everything that I put in them.”  Then she showed me pictures of the packages she used, and a list of ingredients from each.

It has taken me years to become comfortable with my friends cooking for me.  I used to stand in the kitchen with them and watch them while they cooked.  Now there’s a few that I trust, and will pretty much eat whatever they put in front of me, or not eat anything they say, Oh, sorry Tracy, you can’t have that.

It’s the Friday before Easter, and all of the major grocery stores are closed.  LoML has run out of coffee, so we were out for a walk to 7-Eleven to get some. While there, he grabbed a cheap-o muffin.  Walking back home, we passed a bakery, and he commented that he should have gotten a real muffin from there instead.  I said, oh, there’s a bakery there?  (I never notice bakeries anymore, unless it has a green neon light that said “ALL GLUTEN FREE!!”). He said he always forgets about it, because he doesn't like to buy things there if he’ll be at home.  I said as long as there’s no gluten-y goodness flour in my house, you can bring in anything you want, you know that.

He does know that, but he still worries about me getting sick, as he’s had to come to work at least twice to collect me from the bathroom floor when a co-worker has called.  Pretty much the only thing that he brings into the house with gluten is his bread.  He keeps it on it’s own little area in the kitchen, and I have my completely GF AREA.

Since he has his bread, and he makes toast ALL the time, I haven’t really used a toaster in years.  If for some reason I had to have toast, I’ve done it on the oven broiler.  I know, we could have two toasters, we have two of almost everything else, but until this past year, we haven’t had enough counter space to store two toasters.  So I went without.  I figured it was my small payment to LoML in return for him eating gluten free pasta all the time.

Last week, I finally ordered those toaster bags you can get from Coeliac Victoria/Tasmania.  And for the first time in years, I had toast straight out of the toaster!  I’ll have to play around with the settings, and the top edge got toasted a bit more than the middle, but hey, who’s complaining!  

Growing up in California, I had Mexican food all the time, and LOVED it!  Mexican, Tex-Mex, fast food, fancy Mexican restaurants, I had them all, sometimes multiple times every week.

When we moved to Australia, we realised quickly that I would not be able to get my fix here.  We tried every Mexican food place we could find, but none of them were quite right.  We finally found our place in St Kilda, but as food is quite a bit more expensive here than in California, we only go as a special treat, less than once a week.

So instead, we have make-your-own-tostada nights at our house at least once a week.  It’s never anything fancy, just some meat, Mexe beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese.  LoML has to fry the corn tortillas up ‘cause I’m always afraid the oil will pop and burn me.  I’m a wuss.