$8 Gluten Free Meal on American Airlines

Here is the $8 Gluten Free Meal on our American Airlines flight yesterday from Dallas to LA. All items but 1 were gluten free. The box clearly lists that the wheat crackers are not gluten free. A few of the items are produced on shared lines. This box looks to be a custom box created by Go Picnic.

[Click this image to see contents of boxed meal.]

Monterey, California

We extended a work trip into a weekend family vacation. This was by far the biggest challenge I have had in planning food for a vacation. I though there would be lots of gluten free options in Monterey. My pre-trip research did not turn up much but Whole Foods, Chipolte & PF Changs. However, once we got there there proved to be several more options.


Hotel
Best Western Beach Resort - We had a room with a beach view. The hotel was the right price, clean and one could not beat the view or the daily greetings of the sea lions. We will treasure our memories of jumping rope with kelp washed ashore, flying a kit on the beach and building sand castles. We had a fridge in the room to hold our purchased from Whole foods so we did not eat at the hotel but we were told they could accommodate our needs.

Grocery Stores
Whole Foods - 800 Del Monte Center - Nice selection of the usual gluten free foods and deli options.
Trader Joes - 570 Munras Avenue

Restaurants
First Awakenings Diner - 125 Oceanview Blvd. (in the American Tin Cannery outlet Center near the Aquarium). We loved this place. You can get omelets, breakfast potatoes bccause they are made in dedicated skillets or on a dedicated grill! Mon-Fri 7:00am til 2:00pm Sat and Sun 7:00am til 2:30.

Tillie Gort's Cafe - 111 Central Ave, Pacific Grove - We did not have the chance to eat here. They were closed when we were in the area. We did have a look at their menu and they had several "tofu" breakfast dishes and also had a gluten free cake. They are located a very short walk from Cannery Row, a block away from the American Tin Cannery Outlet Mall.

Bubba Gump's - Not much for a vegetarian here other than rice and a salad but they do have a GF menu for meat eaters and the outdoor dining on the pier at Cannery Row is nice.

PF Changs - 1200 Del Monte Center (The same shopping center as Whole Foods) Nice outdoor seating around a fire pit.

Entertainment
Monterey Bay Kayaks - We took the family tour offered on Saturdays. This may be one of our best family travel memories ever! We say sea lions, star fish, and sea otters up close.

Monterey Bay Aquarium - This is one of our favorite aquariums. We have taken the behind the scenes tours and the morning rounds tours. We even touched dead fish and squid to feed the sharks and penguins! that is dedication!

Mirror Maze and Laser Heist - Pretend you are a jewel thief and work your way through the maze of lasers like Chuck or Catherine Zeta Jones!

Family Photographer
We had a family portrait session with Jessica Riggle of Sweet Pea Photography on Pebble Beach. We will treasure the photos forever! If youa re visiting the Monterey area and want some family photos done, look her up.

Gluten Free Baseball

(This is a guest post from "The Dad" a.k.a DrunkenPM)

When I asked my wife if I could write this blog post, there were some very specific conditions. The first was that I had to clearly identify myself (with great shame) as being a non-vegetarian. The second was that I not advocate the ingestion of animal products. I will do my best. I love my wife very dearly, and I did manage to go meat free for a while several years ago, but I am a weak man. Perhaps someday there will be a 12 step program for people with a bacon dependency… until then, I yam what I yam.

The reason I wanted to post this is that I had a hard time finding consistent information on what I (gluten intolerant non vegetarian) could eat/drink at baseball games this summer at a few of the parks I got to visit. Here is my review:

Citizen’s Bank Park (Philadelphia Phillies)

This park is famous not only for being home to the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, but also for being the most vegetarian friendly park in all of MLB (according to PETA). Pretty much any ball park will serve you the standard GF fare of cracker jacks and peanuts. But ever since I found out I was gluten intolerant and had to give up the beer, going to ball games has been a little bit sour grapes for me. Well, those days are over! If you’re at a Phillies game in Citizen’s Bank Park, go find the Schmitter stand. You’ll know it when you find it beause, if you are vegetarian, the smell will make you physically recoil. If you are not vegetarian, but are GF, tears will slowly well up in your eyes. Fear not! There is goodness close at hand. The beer stand right next to the Schmitter stand sells Redbridge beer. (Which is gluten free). The line is pretty long, so I’d recommend picking up two.

A short ways down from there is the hotdog stand where they sell GF hotdogs. Now, even if you are a vegetarian, they’ve got GF hotdog buns. So if you were the type to smuggle in a few soy dogs, and forgot the buns, you could score them here. When I stopped by, I asked the kind, elderly woman at the counter for two GF dogs. She looked back and said, “Hon, it’s gowna take like 10 minutes!”. I replied, “Hon, I been waiting 10 years – go make my hotdogs.” She was a very nice woman, and we made small talk while I waited. Totally worth it. For more on the GF options at Citizen’s Bank Park, look here: http://www.mlb.com/phi/ballpark/concessions.jsp. The only catch is, if you bring your Dad, and he’s not GF, he may come back from a lengthy Yuengling run and say “You’ll never believe how incredibly long it took find beer with gluten in it.”

Citi Field (NY Mets)

I spent most of the summer working in NYC and my Dad was kind enough to make the trip up and take me to a few games. The Mets park is new and very well done. It has a great open feel to it. I saw notices about GF beer online, but that was about it. However, when we got off the subway, I sent an email from my phone to the info address on the park site, asking what I could eat. By the end of the 2^nd inning, I had a reply. At the Field Level, near the beer garden, they have a stand that sells Redbridge. There was no line this time, but I figured there was probably a line somewhere, so I went with two again. Then, I got in line for Box Frites! Awesome! GF French Fries that come with dipping sauce, most of which were GF. It was great food, at a great park, and did I mention that there was beer?

For more on the Mets Ballpark, click here:
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/guide.jsp#guide_c

NY Yankees

Well, whaddaya gonna do. I haven’t been able to like the Yankees since Arod left the Rangers to join them. But, I’m in NYC and no matter what, they are an awesome thing to watch – plus, it was a chance to spend more time with my Dad watching baseball. So, knowing I was going to be at the game I got busy with the research. I poured over the sites about the new Yankees park. Eventually, I realized that there was literally nothing I could find to confirm whether or not I’d be able to eat. So, I emailed the contact link on the site. I explained to the Yankees that I was gluten free, and that I’d be at their park. I told them how I’d been through their whole site and begged them to tell me if there would be anything I could eat or drink there. A week went by… two weeks. Finally – the NY Yankees responded to my email. They recommended I look at their web site and pointed me to the page I used to contact them when I couldn’t find any info.

So, its cracker jacks if you are going to Yankees. But on the plus side, the do have Redbridge if you look around for it.

I can’t promise it will help, but here is the page on Yankees Stadium
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ballpark/index.jsp

Trenton Thunder

Trenton Thunder are a AA ball team for the Yankees. The park is small, but fun. It is a good, relatively inexpensive way to see a game. However, don’t expect to eat or drink anything because even eough I asked about 10 people, none of them knew if they served anything that was GF.

Still, it was a pretty good game… even if it was in Trenton.

For more info, click here:
http://www.trentonthunder.com

NYC - Gluten Free Options Near Tourist Sites

We were in NYC several times this summer. KT was born in NYC but this is the first time back that she will remember. So we did all of the touristy things again.

This is a guide of gluten free options we found near tourist sites that we visited, starting from the most southern point of the island.Statue of Liberty
The cafe at Liberty island is a certified "green restaurant."
We were able to eat the french fries, grapes, and organic lemonade.
We did not have the same luck at Ellis Island, I am not sure if it was just miss communication with the staff or if the fries are indeed cooked in shared fryers there, we did not take the chance.
Be sure to read the info about reserving tickets.

Coney Island
We had lots of fun but the only safe things for a GF vegetarian was the fresh mango sold on the boardwalk. Take your own food!


South Street Seaport
This is a mall on the Pier, also called Pier 17. Here you will find shops, restaurants, street shows and exhibits. There is also an outdoor market on the weekends in the summer months. Visit the website for a directory of offerings: SouthStreetSeaport.com.

• Haagen Dazs Ice Cream - Gluten Info - Allergy List (jpg file)
• Uno Chicago Grill - Extensive Gluten Free Menu
  

Battery Park City & World Financial Center
We lived in Battery Park City pre-GF diet. We were happy to find so many great options have developed there.

• Pizza Bolla - Awesome Gluten free pizza, pasta, lasagna, garlic bread, & Red bridge. Prices seemed a little high when we looked at the menu but the portion sizes made up for it. It is located in the same building as the Embassy Suites. 102 North End Ave. Check out the CelicChicks blog on PizzaBolla with lots of great photos.
• Whole Foods - 200 Greenwich Street with all that Whole Foods offers GF- frozen, deli, packaged goods...
• Sprout Craft - An amazing find for a vegetarian celiac, this is a raw foods place with a glutenfree buffet from 11 - 2. Located at Maiden lane and Broadway inside the "health Exchange" deli.
  

West Village
Our FAVORITE place of the whole summer was Petite Cafe's Gluten Free French Toast on Saturday mornings. 70 Greenwich Ave between 11th Street and 7th Ave. (212) 229-0804 See Celiac Chick's review with great pictures.

SOHO
Check out the free childrens events at Scholastic Store the children's art workshops at Children's Museum of Arts.

• Hampton Chutney - One of our favorites! South Indian dosa with a variety of fillings, all gluten free!
• Baby Cakes - A vegan and gluten free bakery.

Chelsea Market

• Friedman's Lunch - This place is so good it makes you feel normal. (It is totally worth the trek into the meat-packing district!) Mouth-watering soups, salads, lentil dishes, sandwiches, bread, fries. Located in the back of the Chelsea Market at 15th Street and 9th Ave. (The Apple Store is right next door.)

Empire State Building
There is not much that is really close to here, but if you take the M2,3,or5 Bus down 5th Ave to 23rd Street there are some options.

• Asia De Cuba @ 237 Madison Avenue @ 37th has a gluten free menu
• Cup Cake Stop- A van that offers Gluten Free Cupcakes on Tuesdays when they park at 5th Ave and 23rd Street.
• Mozarelli's Pizza offers gluten free cookies, pizza and cakes everyday. 38 E 23rd St Between Park and Madison.
  

Grand Central Station
Don't miss the MTA Transit Museum and store located inside the terminal.
Also many free children's events at the NY Library

• Hale & Hearty Soups - Located in the dining concourse. They have at least 10 gluten free soups each day, just ask the server to look at the card attached to each pot lid to see if the soup is marked gluten free. Most dressings are also gluten free, the server can give you the list. You can also have a salad mixed to order.
  
• Blooms Deli @ 40th and Lexington Avenue has GF french fries, diner foods, sandwiches, slaw, pickles, pancakes...

Times Square

• Ruby Foos - Located next to the M&M Store. This was just right for our vegetarian gluten free crew, however we spoke to a couple other gf families dining there and they felt there was very little for their kids to eat here. Take a look at their GF menu online. Reservations are recommended. On Sunday afternoon they do have origami activities for kids.
  

Rockefeller Center
American Girl, Build A Bear Workshop, The Disney Store and FAO Schwartz are all on the 5th Ave side of Rockefeller Center. There is not any good options for food in this immediate area so plan accordingly.

• American Girl Cafe - 609 5th Ave @ 49th Street. Be sure to call ahead and get reservations and tell them you require gluten free. We have been to all of the American Girl Cafe's and this one was not great with the GF options, there were no GF baked goods, no cup cakes, no pizzas available. But they will work to accommodate the regular menu minus the bread.
  
• Hale & Hearty Soups - Located in the underground shopping area.
  
• Farmer's Market - In the summer there was a neat little farmer's market here, we bought dried and fresh fruit to snack on.
• Lilli 57 - Located across the street from Carnegie Hall. They had a couple nice gf vegetarian dishes including a raw summer roll. GF menu is online.
  

Central Park

• Ice Cream Carts- There were several things on the ice cream cart that were gluten free.
• Wollman Ice Rink - Only a couple options here: garden salad with Kraft dressing, fruit cup, lays potato chips and fresh squeezed OJ.
• Lilli & Lo0 - a few blocks away at 61st and Lex, a similar GF menu to Lilli 57.
  

Museum of Natural History
The food court offers a couple options. They had french fries that were fine, salad bar and organic GF salad dressing. There may have been other options at the other restaurants.

Upper West Side
Children's Museum of Manhattan is located at at 83rd & Broadway. Save your ticket/sticker and you can come and go all day.

• Hale & Hearty Soups - 81st & Broadway
  
• Nice Matin is an organic "Green Restaurant" in the area. We did not eat there but were told they have several options.79th and Amsterdam
• Hampton Chutney - One of our favorites! South Indian Dosa with a variety of fillings, all gluten free!
• Peacefood Cafe - Located just down the block from Hampton Chutney. They have raw foods, smoothies and several gf desserts.
  

Museum Row (Art Museums)
Be sure to ask for the family activity guides at the information desks of the museums.

• Peter's Cafe - Located at 83rd Street and First Ave. You can take a nice walk or a bus on 86th street from the 86th and Lex subway station near the museums.
  

New York Botanical Garden
Only options we found at the cafe was potato chips or fruit. However, KT picked a bag full of produce in the Children's Garden and we made a great salad at home that night! Mesculin, cherry tomatoes and lemon basil... Pack a lunch before you make the trip, then Bloom's Deli when you get back to Grand Central.

Bronx Zoo
All we found to be safe here was, Dirty Chips, Terra Chips, fresh watermelon, fresh mixed fruit, Snapple. Recommend taking your own food.


Resources for NYC:

• CeliacTable.org - A great resource to look up the closest GF place to dine. Directory is reviewed and also divided geographically.
• Celiac Chick's Blog - this is our favorite blog to follow about GF living in NYC. Lots of great reviews and tips.
• GlutenFreed iphone app, this is how we found Hampton Chutney- we are forever grateful!
• Gluten Free NYC - a new app that has great potential, lists verified gf options at many non-gf restaurants in NYC.

Backpacking Europe Veg and GF with Child

We just returned from a 10 day trip to Europe. We spent 5 days on a backpacking trial-run and had 100% success gluten free and vegetarian. We plan to do a month long trip in a few years when my daughter gets older. We carried only a backpack with change of clothes an all of our electronics (nintendo, iphone, ipods, and cameras). We did not have room for much food. I knew we would have good luck finding food so we just carried a few bars and packaged nuts.

We traveled to Amsterdam, Marken and Volendam in the Netherlands, Paris, Brussels, London and Windsor. We traveled by train, stayed at 1 star hotels. We had no problem finding food, actually it was easier than finding Gluten Free food at home!

We traveled by train from city to city, we took mostly Thalys and EuroStar trains and were able to pre-order gluten free meals on most of the trains. The train stations in Brussels and London had great gluten free options at the airport and train stations.

London Heathrow Airport - British Airlines International Connections (Terminal 5, After Security)
Wagamama
http://www.wagamama.com
http://wagamama.com/food/dietary/wheatandglutenintolerant
Has a gluten free menu with excellent stir fry, noodle soups, miso soup and rice dishes.
They have locations all over the world. They had an extensive special diets menu.
(We also ate at Wagamama in London, at the Windsor Central train station, and in Amsterdam)

Wagamama #38 Yasai Itame
Grilled bok choy, fried tofu, red and spring onions, red peppers portabello
mushrooms, and bean sprouts served with rice noodles in a coconut and
green chili soup, garnished with coriander, mint and a lime wedge.
Naturally GF and Veg!

London Heathrow Airport
EAT.
http://www.eat.co.uk - In Terminals 3 and 5
All salads and soups are marked if they are vegetarian and or gluten free.
They have locations all over the UK at airports and train stations as well.

YoSushi
http://www.yosushi.com/ in Terminal 3
They had a menu listing all allergens and what dishes were safe or could be modified.

Brussels Midi Train Station
EXKI
http://www.exki.be
Had salads and soups that were marked if they were vegetarian and gluten free. Also sold packaged rice cakes.

Paddington Station in London
Salade
http://salade.co.uk
Had salads, soya deserts, juice bar, salad bar everything was marked if it was gluten free and vegetarian.

YoSushi
http://www.yosushi.com/
They had a menu listing all allergens and what dishes were safe or could be modified.


Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Amsterdam City
Amsterdam Central Train Station
Albert Heijn Grocery Stores
http://www.ah.nl
They had an extensive selection of packaged salads that were marked as gluten free. Our favorite find there was "KoKos Sticks" which were slices of fresh coconut and a mango puree to dip them in. They had great packaged salads. The store also sell gluten free bread in the bakery at some locations, the bread is in the back in the freezer.
Amsterdam Health food Stores

DeNatuurwinkel (several locations)
http://www.denatuurwinkel.com
A organic healthfood store near the Rembrandt House. A gold mine for gluten free breads, crackers, cakes, homeopathics, and organic foods.

Paris Health Food Stores
Naturalia - http://www.naturalia.fr/
Touch of Bio - http://www.happycow.net/europe/france/paris/
Both places sold organic packaged gluten free items by Valpiform and Schar. Naturalia has fresh GF bread that you could order daily.

LegoLand Windsor
http://www.legoland.co.uk/park/Food+and+Drink/vegetarians.htm
They had gluten free and vegetarian foods available at 2 of the main restaurants as well as charts available at the park showing which foods were safe for a variety of special diets. We were able to eat a traditional English breakfast here and it was naturally gluten free and vegetarian- scrambled eggs, baked beans, hash browns. In the Italian restaurant we had an awesome broccoli risotto. The "chips" were gluten free at all of the restaurants. ("chips" = french fries.)

(Wagamama is also at Windsor Central Station)

Paris & Amsterdam
Maoz Vegetarian
http://www.maozusa.com/
Sadly we cannot eat their falafel but we could can eat their hummus and many things on their salad bar. At several locations the fries were safe. We ate there in Amsterdam and Paris.

Disney World 2009

Just returned from a week at Disney World. This is the ultimate celiac kids vacation spot! I have to admit that I over planned this vacation for fear of being caught in a theme park all day and not having access to food. I just could not believe that there would be so many options.

Pre-Planning
We made our restaurant reservations a couple months in advance. this was tricky because I had to plan what park we would be at when. Having been there now and knowing that the parks are sooooooooo far apart I would have planned differently. I called the Disney Dining line ( (407) WDW-DINE) to get a list of the restaurants that we could eat at. They emailed me lists of fast foods in each park and menus from the restaurants.

Where We Ate
Rainforest Cafe @ AK
We have eaten at this chain all over the country and have always had very friendly reception. However, we did not get the usual friendly reception at Disney. The chef acted like we were a bother. Eventually we got a great meal, they had a fabulous vegetarian stir fry! We ate here three times, twice with reservations and once without.

Sci-Fi Dine In @ HWStudios
This was the most amazing meal we had the entire time. The chef was so friendly and accepted the challenge of making us a gluten free and vegetarian meal. We had an amazing pasta dish with sun dried tomatoes, white beans and capers. We also had a great polenta and pasta dish.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall @ Epcot
Princess Character Breakfast
This was fun. Not sure it was worth what we paid just to eat Gluten Free vans waffles, fruit and potatoes. But it was fun and it got us in early to the park.

Hollywood & Vine @ HWStudios
Play & Dine Character Breakfast
Again, lots of fun, got us in to the park early but was a bit pricey for waffles and fruit.

Tutto Italia @ Epcot
This was the only bad meal we had. It was also the most expensive meal we had. The service was very slow. We ordered penne pomodoro and it had no taste at all. They did not have the GF bread that so many reviews touted.

Main Street Bakery @ Magic Kingdom
This was an amazing experience. I read in the guide that the reservation line sent us that you could reserve a to-go lunch box here. So I called ahead to do so and the manager took our order over the phone and sent us an email confirmation. When we arrived at the park we walked right up to the counter and gave our name and our meal was ready in minutes. My husband (non veg) had a GF Philly Cheesesteak and KT and I had Veggie sandwiches on GF rolls. Both meals came with fries and GF brownies.

Our Hotel
We did not stay at a Disney property because My husband's convention was at the Gaylord Palms. We emailed ahead to the hotel to tell them that we needed gluten free and vegetarian meals. We arrived at midnight and were able to get a wonderful gluten free pasta and garlic bread when we arrived, after a long day of travel. The chef even made us veggie sandwiches to take on the plane with us on the return trip home.

Resources
DizAbled
This website and book has great info for a variety of special issues including food allergies.
http://www.diz-abled.com/Disney-World-Restaurants-Menus.htm

Of Vegetarian Interest
A must see/do ride is the Living with the Land ride at Epcot. This is totally amazing! This is a boat ride through the Disney Greenhouse where you get to see new farming technologies that Disney is researching to make agriculture more efficient and environmentally friendly. Warning to Vegans the fish farming part might be a little disturbing. The vertical farming and creative greenhouse was fascinating. Not sure how I felt about the biotech stuff, but overall it was interesting.

This photo is not upside down, these watermelons are growing from the
rafters in the Land at Disney's Epcot!

Cairo, Egypt

Just returned from week in Cairo. Another gluten free success!

I did tons of research on vegetarian options but we did not use any of it because we had had a Guide assigned to us that took care of everything for us because of the business my husband was doing there.

Actually, I am not sure this post will be much help to anyone visiting there other than to know that it is possible to have a great trip and eat vegetarian and gluten free.

We stayed at the Marriott in Mirage City. This is one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. There were several restaurants in the hotel and food was available around the clock. The chef fixed us whatever we wanted. There were not any gluten free breads available but we ate VERY well, maybe too well! Our favorite was the Italian Restaurant, believe it or not. They had great soups, salads and the best gnocchi I have ever had.

We carried gluten free crackers with us everywhere. This came in handy for KT at the long dinners.

We ate almost all of our meals in the hotel, only one was on a Nile boat KhulKhal and it was ordered for us by our guide and was a very nice rice and vegetable dish.


Places we visited:

• Pharaonic Village, A living history museum that recreates life in ancient Egypt. A great place to take children!
• Great Pyramids of Giza
• Cairo Tower
• Egyptian Museum
• Khan el-Khalili Market

Our only struggle on this trip was the airline connection through Paris CDG airport. We had a 5 hour layover between the US and Cairo. There was very little that was suitable to eat and we were starving. My advice is not to connect in Paris- London or Amsterdam have much better options for veg and gluten free foods.