The 10 year old in me just did a little jig.

When I get excited, I dance. It’s a ridiculous dance, and ok it’s not just when I am excited. I ridiculous dance all of the time. There’s music in my head that just needs to be danced to. But in addition to always, I dance when I am excited.

And this announcement made me happy. So I danced.

Chuck E Cheese’s is testing gluten free pizza options. BUT they’re being way awesome about it. (Unlike Domino’s, who was seemed to piss off a huge portion of Celiac folks. Lame-os.) According to the article:

To avoid cross contamination or accidental exposure to gluten ingredients in Chuck E. Cheese’s kitchens, the personal cheese pizza, manufactured by USDA/FDA-approved, gluten-free facility Conte’s Pasta, will arrive to stores in frozen, pre-sealed packaging. The bake-in-bag pizza will remain sealed while cooked and delivered and until opened and served with a personal pizza cutter at families’ tables by the adult in charge.

 

Say what? That is rockin’. Being diagnosed with Celiac disease at 24 was hard enough, yo. Can you imagine being a kid? Not understanding why you can’t eat what your friends are having. Or why you can’t go to their birthday parties? Ugh. It breaks my heart. It’s hard enough wanting to eat what my coworkers are having and I wear big girl panties. The idea of 10 year old Melissa crying at a birthday party because she doesn’t understand why pizza makes her sick but not the other kids – man, that sucks. So THIS? This is awesomeness. This announcement makes me so happy I want to fly to Minnesota to buy a gluten free pizza from the test bed just to vote with my dollars that I think this is a great idea. I really hope more companies follow suit – because let me tell you – I don’t even want kids, but this makes me want to have them just to have birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese’s. And if I end up having kids, I will have their birthday party every year at Chuck E Cheese’s if they’re the only ones that are offering something like this. Even when they’re 18. I love this idea that much.

Stupid Amazon, you get me every time.

I have an itty bitty Amazon problem. Perhaps because I have a prime membership and am sucked in by their free shipping. And also perhaps I under exaggerate my problem. It’s more than itty bitty. It’s a big problem.

But Amazon has gone and pissed me off.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re googling something that’s purchasable (google is also a verb according to wikipedia, which knows everything) Amazon always has a link to their store for said item. So when I googled “gluten free fortune cookies” I was STOKED to see that Amazon had some for purchase!

Until I clicked the link.

REALLY Amazon? You cut me deep, Amazon. You lied to me. I did search for them again once on the site and came across these babies:

Fake Fortune Cookies

And while those look tasty – THAT’S NOT WHAT I WANT. That is not a real fortune cookie! Never mind that they’re cookies. With a fortune inside. I want a perfectly shaped fortune cookie – not a coconutty toasty wannabe cookie.

But, I might buy them anyway. Even though they’re not prime eligible. And even though they’re imitation fortune cookies. Because I am a sucker.

A gluten free Cinco de Mayo

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo. It’s not particularly an important holiday to me, seeing as how I am a certified gringa, but I am fully supportive of the local culture here in Southern California. Especially when it comes to all things taco related. (See this post if you’ve forgotten my love of Mexican food.) Being Celiac, of course, I can’t celebrate with a Corona or Tecate. But that doesn’t mean one cannot fully enjoy the festivities without a beer.

Here are a few options -

1 – Grab a gluten free beer. Ok, they’re not as tasty as a REAL beer but they’ll hold you over just fine. (Just try something other than Redbridge, if you have any choices. You’ll thank me later.)
2 – Mix a margarita! There is something wonderful about a margarita. Maybe it’s that warm fuzzy feeling you get after you’re done, I don’t know. On the rocks, blended… however you like it, margaritas are always a good choice.
3 – my favorite idea yet: Spike the Jamaica. No – not Juh-may-kah. Huh-My-Kah. Or something like that. It’s a sweet drink made of hibiscus flowers, and I absolutely love going to a taco shop where they make that crap fo’real. None of that powdered mix for me. Here’s a recipe for a yummy Jamaica drink. Just go to your local Mexican market and pick up some flowers to boil. Though if you’re reading this somewhere that has no Mexican markets, be a little jealous. And I’ll let you know how it turns out. ;)

Jose Cuervo approves this message. (Ok, I didn’t really get their approval, but I imagine they would support it, anyway.)

Restaurants, jerks, and feeling normal.

A few weeks ago I went to a shopping center that was in the middle of nowhere and had a terrible food court selection. I had brought some snacks with me, like always, but I figured I’d see if there was anything that I could have anyway as I was a little hungry and, let’s face it, totally bored of the snacks in my purse. I came across a smoothie stand. Smoothies are one of those things that in theory *should* be gluten free – fruit, juice, milk, ice, whatev… no gluten, right? Notsofast. Often times gluten is used in these kinds of things as a thickener. (Stupid, if you ask me.) So, I asked the guy behind the cash register if I could read the label for the mix that they use. I made sure there was no one behind me in line… and while annoyed about my request he humored me and showed me the bag. All was fine. Took about 90 seconds of time to hand over the bag and let me scan the ingredients label. No big deal, right? Except that silly cashier had to make the comment “If you get sick that easily, why don’t you just eat at home? I wouldn’t eat out if I was you.”

So naturally I said “Listen jerkwad, I realize that taking 90 seconds out of your day is a huge inconvenience to you. I mean, you probably had something better to do like stare at the ceiling. Just help a gluten free chick out, ok? And stop your whining.” Ok, so that’s not what I said at all. Just what I thought. I smiled at him and just said “Well where’s the fun in that?” But seriously – this is something I’ve come up against a lot recently. I have friends in the food service industry, and I’ve read blog rants about people with allergies showing up to eat and ask for accommodations. Oh my, the NERVE of us people that think maybe, just maybe it’s nice to eat out and feel normal sometimes. As normal as can be for a crazy like me, anyway. ;)

The reality is – ask me four years ago and I probably would have been one of the whiners. I used to work at a family fun center as a party hostess – had a party requested special accommodations for food allergies I may have internally rolled my eyes while smiling on the outside, just like many I’m sure. So I get it. I really do. It’s annoying that you have to go out of your way, take special care of us, and have the weight on you that if we get sick you may have had something to do with it. Most of us do eat at home a lot more than we may have before our diagnosis.

But can you imagine being told that you can’t ever eat out again? Boy howdy, that would downright suck for most of us, right? It was a huge change for me after diagnosis – I felt like suddenly my social life took a turn. People didn’t ask me out to eat as much. I didn’t go out to eat as much because I had anxiety about getting sick (and still do, actually). If I did go out, I’d consider eating beforehand and just go to get a drink, but then I spend way too much time explaining why I am not eating and have people try to convince me to get a salad or eat something that I’d really rather not risk. So when I find a gluten free menu, or a restaurant that is willing to cater to my diet, it brings me so much joy that it’s probably stupid to gluten eaters. Because when you’re a gluten eater, you don’t realize how nice it can be to just feel normal and eat like a regular person once in a while.

I’ve come up with a list of suggestions for both the food industry folks and the gluten free folks alike.

Gluten free restaurant goers, I’m talking to you. And I’m going to be a little snarky here. Surprise, surprise.

1 – Don’t be a jerk. When requesting a special accommodation, be kind and pleasant. Don’t act like you’re entitled. Your wait staff will be annoyed, will probably spit in your food, and you make the rest of us gluten free people look bad.
2 – Be considerate in your requests, both for the chef and the other guests. I tend to eat at places that already offer a gluten free menu – but if for some reason I was going somewhere I was unsure about, you can bet I wouldn’t be going during a Saturday night dinner rush without at least calling ahead. You’ll be slowing everyone down to understand the situation – try calling ahead when they’re not so busy and see what you can arrange. (I know this doesn’t always work, but I think it’s a good rule to try and abide by.)
3 – Tip well. So it sucks that we have Celiac Disease. And boo hoo we have to pay more to eat out. But if people are going above and beyond to ensure a good and safe meal for you – show them your appreciation. Wait staff always appreciates cold hard cash. Letters to the manager are also nice when someone does a great job.

Gluten eating restaurant staff:

1 – Please understand that my request for a gluten free meal isn’t intended to make your job more difficult. In fact it means that I have faith in you and your job, and that you’d be able to provide me with a pleasant meal.
2 – Please know that your efforts are greatly appreciated. I know it sucks to have to spend extra time going out of your normal routine to accommodate me, but it doesn’t go unnoticed. (And see my point #3 above. I’ll make it known that you’re appreciated!)
3 – I say this in the nicest way possible: Try and have some compassion. If I was able to eat gluten, I would. I didn’t choose this life. The best I can do is try and make the most of a crappy (no pun intended) situation. Read this post if you want a little bit of insight to the mindset change that someone goes through with a diagnosis like Celiac disease. Your effort in making a gluten free meal for me helps make my life a little bit more fun, a little bit less annoying, and makes me have hope and feel better about the future for all of my fellow gluten free peeps.

*Please note – I don’t expect everyone to accommodate me and my ‘high maintenance’ diet. It’s always safest to prepare food yourself at home. And as always, I understand eating out is always a risk and it’s solely my responsibility to take control of my health. It’s just nice sometimes to have other people on your team, too. :)

One of my very favorite things.

Is to stalk the stats to my blogs. (Both this one and my photography blog.) I don’t know why but it brings me great pleasure to see some of the things people use to find their way to me. Did you know apparently Emmy Rossum having Celiac disease is of great interest to people that find me on google? Well that and “Emmy Rossum is hot” seems to turn people this direction, too. So thanks Emmy for helping my blog stats!

But I saw this one today:

First of all – I feel for you, Thailand googler.
Second of all – I *really* feel you when I consider that you went through 40 links before getting to me, clearly you hadn’t found the answer yet and were still desperate to find some pepto bismol in Bangkok.
Thirdly – I do not have the answer to this question, because I carry an obscene amount of pepto bismol when I travel.
Fourthly – if you’re desperate for some pepto, email me and I will be happy to drop it in the mail to you. FO’real, I’ll go to the store and get you whatever kind of pepto bismol your heart desires if you send me an email and prove you are from that IP address. ;)

Celiac, the great leg workout.

Oh. Hi squatty potty.
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I’d forgotten about you. You see, I have a bad experience in past with a squatty potty. When I was 15 I took a train from Hong Kong to Beijing. The toilet on the train was a squatty potty – with a direct exit route to the train tracks below. I wore flip flops in – you wouldn’t dare go in barefoot (imagine people on a bumpy train SQUATTING over a hole? If you thought men’s bathrooms were gross on stable land, try checking out a bumpy train hole. Gross.) Anyway – upon exiting the restroom, as I lifted my left foot over the hole in the floor, my flip flop fell off. 1 – how does that happen? 2 – OMG now I had to hop out of the bathroom on one foot because otherwise my other foot might have fallen off from disease had it touched the ground and 3 – well, I just really hope some child in China was looking for a left shoe. Maybe they were missing their left shoe, or perhaps there was a child with only one left foot. I don’t know. I can only hope my $1.99 Old Navy flip flop didn’t go to waste.

Anyway. As much as I love to travel, I’ll admit that these days it freaks me out a little. Not enough to NOT travel, of course. But not only is finding food is hard – dealing with the aftermath of getting sick downright sucks in a foreign country. Because I’m just freaking convinced that the founder of the squatty potty NEVER had diarrhea. Or maybe he never even pooped. Dude (I’m convinced it was a dude – no woman would create something so ridiculous and uncomfortable) must have had regular bowel movements every day of his life and never thought about the people that spend a little extra time on the toilet. I mean seriously.

One night we went to dinner and it was pretty good. Until I realized that they gave me the wrong dish – the dish that was meant for my gluten eating friend. Oops. All I have to say is all hail the pepto bismol. I walked my fastest walk back to the hotel and was thankful that at least the hotel had real toilets for us that prefer to sit while spending time in the restroom. (While playing Draw Something or Words With Friends on our iPhone. And now all of my friends are going to have the awesome vision of me on the toilet every time a notification pops up that they have a new drawing. Muahaha.)

The good news is about those squatty potties? They’re great for your thighs and butt. It’s like a mini workout every time you go to the bathroom. Because you can’t use a squatty potty without squatting… my personal trainer Linda would be so proud! ;)

So, China airlines reads my blog.

Well, that’s what I am going to tell myself since on my flights home from Thailand I didn’t get *any* rice cakes. Not one on all three meals. On my gluNten free meals. Ah, Asia, I love you.

AND I got a piece of gluten free bread with my dinner. On one of my posts previously, someone asked how I knew the difference between regular & GF bread on a plane (from this post here)… let me tell you. If you have had gluten free bread EVER in your life – you’d know the difference with the piece they gave me. When 2 pieces weigh a lb combined, are not fluffy at all, and are packaged in plastic… you just know. When all else fails – have a gluten eating travel partner try it. If they spit it out – you’re golden. One day maybe Udi’s will be available on board but until that day… it’s not hard to tell GF bread from the gluten filled stuff.

Ok but seriously, I love Asia. I visited Hong Kong & Beijing when I was a teen and was itching to get back. Thailand… how can you even describe it? We stayed in central Thailand and I so want to go back to both the north & south – darn the vacation time required! I wasn’t entirely sure how traveling in Asia would be with my Celiac, though – both international trips I’d done since my diagnosis were in Europe where I never found someone that didn’t speak English. While the Thai diet is heavily rice centered, that darn pesky soy sauce finds it’s way in pretty often. So I printed out a travel card written in Thai from here:
http://www.celiactravel.com/cards/
More like I printed out a few dozen – 4 to a page – just in case. I smiled stupidly at every Thai waiter and handed them this card. Most of the time they took a minute to read it and then pointed at one or two items on the menu to suggest what was already gluten free – some took the cards back to the chef… and overall I had a great experience. Yes, I got sick a few times. That happens when eating out so often for me, anyway, due to the cross contamination factor. Boo – and only once did I have a mix up with my food (I’ll blog about that one in a separate post. Because you all want to hear about me getting sick in more detail, right?)

Here’s a little proof that I really did order and eat some pretty darn tasty stuff while I was there:

Chicken in a coconut curry sauce. Cost? Around $2.

Chicken in a coconut soup. Hey, I like coconut.

Thai iced coffee. Less than $1 to buy off the street vendors. Mmm I want to go back right now and buy some more Thai iced tea. So good!

Ice cream. A fully balanced meal.

And alcohol. Because that’s all that really matters on vacation. Give me some rice, ice cream, and mixed drinks and I’m a happy vacationer. In fact, for this featured meal, that’s all I had. Ha!

And ok, it might almost be embarrassing how many self portraits I take with my iphone. But, I tell myself it’s for my blog. So these photos are for you, dear readers. All 3 of you. ;)

Rice cakes, the things nightmares are made of.

So right now I’m sitting in Bangkok. I should be sleeping, it’s only 730am and I got about three hours of sleep under my belt. But instead I woke up with low blood sugar and a need to EAT. Lame!

So I thought I’d blog. About plane food. When I was going on my first long plane ride post Celiac diagnosis I googled all over to see what kind of food I’d be eating. I was one of those people that loved plane food. In all of it’s gross and blandness, it signified I was getting the heck away from California and what could be better than that? Ok California is pretty awesome, but I do have a travel bug.

Having Celiac gets you special treatment on flights. You get your meals before anyone else! Yay. I usually am finished before people in my row even get their chicken or mystery meat meals.

I flew China Airlines and they did a decent job handling my gluten free mess.

And of course I took photos. Who do you think I am??

Lemon chicken. And a rice cake marked GFML.

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Eggs for breakfast. And a rice cake marked GFML.

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And the only gluten free meal on an international flight I have ever had that did NOT have a rice cake (marked GFML of course). It was also the most bland chicken I’ve ever had. Yum.

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After all of these flights, I kind of have this recurring nightmare where I’ll go to a restaurant and order dessert, and then they bring me this bland rice cake marked GFML instead of the tasty stuff everyone else is having. I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s scary stuff.

Anyway, airplane food? Boring as heck. But so glad to have a safe option… Maybe one day it won’t taste so bland but then, hey, it wouldn’t be airplane food if it tasted great, right?

I wish I had Celiac disease so I could lose weight.

I can’t tell you how many times some stupid well meaning person has made a comment about how nice it must be to eat gluten free – because that means it must be so easy to lose weight/stay thin while eating gluten free. I’m sure you’re a nice person who’s just trying to look at the bright side – but NO – it’s not exactly like that. I’ve even had someone say “I wish I had Celiac disease. That would force me to eat healthier!” Ok, I want this to be a fairly clean blog, so just use your imagination and put your favorite expletive right about here.

I’ll admit, I’ve been known to say something wholly inappropriate when getting glutened such as “Well, I might as well have something tasty with lots of calories right now since it’s not going to stay around”. (For those that aren’t Celiac – let’s just say that my toilet and I share a very intimate relationship after I am glutened. And I might as well own stock in Pepto Bismol.) But that’s not a healthy mindset. I know that. It’s called sarcasm.

But seriously – what is WITH the trend of going gluten free these days? Yes – a good portion is that people that are suffering from things like Celiac disease and gluten intolerance are *finally* getting the answers they need to help them feel better. For them I say ROCK ON! But how many others are out there that are doing it because Gwenyth Paltrow told them it would help them lose weight or have clear skin? I’ve gone back and forth on how I feel about this. At first I wanted to punch them all because they annoyed me – I mean seriously why eat a gluten free diet if you really don’t need to? Just eat clean & healthy folks, it’s easier for everyone! Then I figured, well heck at least their demand for gluten free products helps me get better options, too. Win-win, right? But now my pendulum has swung back the other direction.

There’s a girl at my work who is really quite nice and I like her well enough, but recently she’s jumped on the gluten free diet bandwagon. I asked her why and she said “Oh, my mom suggested it so I figured it couldn’t hurt.” Ooook then. I mean, whatever floats your boat… but then at our next catered lunch she was eating and asked me why I wasn’t. I kind of looked at her dumbfounded for a second and said “Because I don’t know what’s in it. Or how it’s cooked. I can’t risk getting sick.” And that was the moment that made me swing back to the “don’t eat “gluten free” if you don’t really need to” mindset.

People that don’t need to eat gluten free actually make my plight more difficult. Sure, some more options may become available because of their helping with demand. But I actually get sick when I ingest even a little bit of gluten. And bandwagon jumpers don’t. So they don’t care if something is cross contaminated. And most people will hear “gluten free” and assume that she and I are the same – they won’t realize that one freaking crumb can make me sick… Let’s use this example. Let’s pretend she and I go out to a restaurant separately. We both specify to the waiter that we’re eating gluten free (after of course doing my homework and checking the place out beforehand). And she orders a meal and it arrives with bread on the plate, touching the rest of her food. She would just not eat the bread and continue like everything is fine. I, however, would not eat the food. I’d ask for the food to be remade and I’d mention why cross contamination matters to me. But – the girl before me didn’t have that problem, so why do I? Now it’s an uphill battle for me to fight against bandwagon jumpers because many people won’t believe the seriousness of my disease. And that sucks.

So sure, if you really have health issues and it’s recommended by your doctor to eat gluten free, or you feel human only when eating gluten free, rock on with your gluten free self. If you are doing it just because you want to lose weight – I’d suggest you try eating clean. But trying fad diets rarely works and that weight loss usually doesn’t stick, anyway. (Not to mention, just because something is gluten free doesn’t mean it’s low calorie or healthy!) Just leave the official “gluten free diet” eating for the people that actually need it to be healthy and feel good – k?

How to make Valentine’s day dinner.

When you are diagnosed with Celiac disease – you suddenly realize that your social life that previously was centered around food and eating out must be redefined. Oh – it’s Valentine’s day – let’s NOT eat out and pretend we did, mmkay? Because who really wants to hear “I got glutened, so instead of spending sweet romantic time with you, husband, I’ll be spending it with the bathroom instead. See ya tomorrow!”

And this year – I shared a very sweet gift with this man – I gave him the flu. Hot. So I am stuck with managing my own dinner today. And after a full day of not eating yesterday, I decided to make up for the calories by settling upon a cinnamon roll.

So, without further ado, here’s my V-day post… how to make V-day dinner:

Buy a pack of Cinnamon rolls. In this case, I went with Udi’s:

Put your cinnamon roll on a plate, and then spread the frosting all over.

Lick your fingers when your done, because you don’t want any frosting to go to waste!

Put it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so:

And then eat your sweet delicious cinnamon roll. Ok, so it looks like I’m trying to make out with it here. Can you blame me? I had to get some from somewhere today – it’s Valentine’s day!

But in other news, how cute is this shirt that husband bought me?

So I had to take a photo with the most handsome pug around. It’s Stinky. <3

And with that? Happy Valentine’s Day. From this Celiac to you. :)