Lola Rosa, Montreal

Who are you and where are you?
I’m Laura, a 25 year old Master’s student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Tell me about your relationship with gluten..
I realized I had Celiac disease in September of 2010 and have been off of it since.

Why should gluten free travellers visit your town?
Montreal has the most amazing food- I tend to be a bit of a traveller and there are few places that are comparable to Montreal in terms of the variety and quality of food that is being offered.

Gluten-Free Curry!

Green Panther

Tell me something fun about your town..
The city is wonderfully diverse. It is multicultural and this is evident in the food and traditions that we have in the city. It is an exceptionally historical place, our architecture often reflects this and we have very distinct neighbourhoods which add uniqueness to our city.

Where is your favourite place to eat out in your town and why?
I have several,

Bombay Mahal– It is the best Indian food that I have ever had (and I have hunted). They are exceptionally knowledgeable about gluten free and are always willing to answer your questions about food that has flour.

Arepera du Plateau– is a Venezuelan restaurant that is 100% gluten free. They specialize in arepas which are sandwiches made from corn flour. They have a great menu and are super awesome people.

Arepa!

Arepa de Plateau

Some other great gluten-free places to eat in Montreal! 

Burritoville

Green Panther

Crudessence

Lola Rosa

L’avenue

You can check out Laura’s blog for more gluten-free suggestions.

Have you travelled gluten-free to Montreal? Where did you eat?

Gluten-free BBQ!

Who are you and where are you?
Leigh Espy – Memphis, TN

Tell me about your relationship with gluten..
After a strict 30-day elimination trial in 2011, during which many lifelong ailments subsided, I reintroduced gluten and was sick for days. I have eaten strictly gluten-free since that time.

Why should gluten free travellers visit your town?
We have many fun things to do in Memphis: music, museums, festivals, BBQ, the Mississippi River, and great restaurants. And of course, Graceland! Memphis is known for it’s fantastic BBQ and blues, and of course Elvis! We have many restaurants that can accommodate a gluten free diet. Many local restaurants are knowledgable about gluten free diets, and either have gluten free menus, or can direct you to items on the menu that are safe to eat.

Tell me something fun about your town..
In the spring and fall we have many festivals. The weather is great and one can find lots of outdoor music and activities of many different types. The Memphis in May Festival hosts a weekend-long music festival with well-known musicians, and there is also a weekend-long BBQ cooking contest, for which teams come from around the world. Memphis is a super friendly town and we love visitors.

Where is your favourite place to eat out in your town and why?
Bounty is completely gluten free! Pyros Pizza is local, and has a great thin, crispy crust. Tsunami is finer dining, and consistently outstanding. They serve gluten free rolls with dinner.

Cafe 1912 is also excellent and easily accommodates  gluten-free needs. Alchemy is funky and trendy, and has a gluten-free menu. For a kid-friendly laid-back experience, Huey’s has many gluten-free options.

The BBQ Shop is another great place to eat gluten-free. The photo above is tasty gluten-free BBQ from this awesome place!

Have you been to Memphis? Where and what did you eat?

Best fish and chips ever!!

Our family loved Vancouver! What a fun city. Running around beautiful Stanley Park was amazing. Exploring all the fun thrift stores in the Mount Pleasant area was awesome. Finding loads of safe and delicious gluten-free food was the best!! There are at least five or six gluten-free eateries or bakeries in the Mount Pleasant area of town alone so if you’re gluten-free and headed to Vancouver, definitely check out that area.

LOADS of sushi!

Where I ate:

The first thing I saw when we arrived at our AirBnB in Vancouver was a take-out menu on the fridge for a sushi place. Right on the front was a huge “We do gluten-free sushi” sticker. I was SUPER excited! Downtown Sushi Bar on Davie Street are awesome! Their sushi is delicious, they offer gluten-free soy sauce and they prepare your gluten-free sushi safely. The woman we ordered from was celiac herself and told us they get lots of gluten-free customers. She even showed us the gluten-free soy sauce bottle to assure us that the soy sauce we were getting was safe. Check out our yummy spread above!

SMAK was probably my favourite place in Vancouver. It’s 100% gluten-free and their menu is huge and varied. They are a healthy, fast-food kind of a place featuring all sorts of amazing goodies for breaky, lunch, dinner and anything and everything in between.  Oatmeal, eggs, sandwiches, wraps,  salads, smoothies,  hot bowls (my favourite!!), power boxes and soup! Oh, and hot drinks and dessert too. This place is so great. I was a huge fan of their chili with rice and their lemonade chocolate brownies. Mmmm.

You can find SMAK on West Pender Street in the Coal Harbour area of downtown Vancouver. I guarantee you will have a silly celiac grin on your face as soon as you walk into this place.

Amazing brownies from SMAK

SMAK to-go for the train ride

If you were wondering where I got the amazing fish and chips pictured above, it was this place! The Fish Counter (Main Street and 22nd) make the best gluten-free fish and chips in Canada! No, in the world! I loved this place. They have a dedicated gluten-free fryer. I wish these guys would open up in San Francisco.

Panne Rizo (Cornwall Avenue in Kitsilano) is a fantastic 100% gluten-free bakery. You can grab lunch to go or sit down in store for a cuppa tea and a yummy gluten-free cake. Panne Rizo is great because it’s like a wee gluten-free store and bakery in one. I was a big fan of their breakfast sandwiches and they offer a brilliant selection of cakes and treats.

Interesting soup for Panne Rizo

Breaky wrap and cuppa

Gluten-Free Epicurean is another 100% gluten-free bakery in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver. Here you can find hot meals, meal to take and bake and plenty of fresh gluten-free cakes, cookies and other yummy things. Their chilli and corn bread was pretty fantastic. If you visit this place and you have kids, don’t miss the amazing kids consignment store across the street. Best one I’ve ever visited!

SMAK chilli

Chilli and corn bread!

For our next trip:

Lemonade Gluten-Free Bakery: Another 100% gluten-free bakery, also in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Vancouver has so many gluten-free bakeries!!

Quejos Cheesebuns (4129 Main Street)

Do you live in or have you travelled to Vancouver, gluten-free? What’s your favourite gluten-free spot? Every time I look at that photo of the fish and chips, my mouth just waters. Ridiculously good!!

Seattle

Our family just returned from a fantastic 9 day trip to the Pacific Northwest. This included four days in lovely Seattle. Highlights were an 11 mile run to explore the city (whilst listening to a playlist of Seattle Grunge on Spotify!), a visit to the fantastic Seattle Children’s Museum and of course, all the wonderful gluten-free food! I had been to Seattle only one before but it was ten years ago and just for a couple of days. I feel like I got to experience a lot more of the city this time, and I liked it. It’s not San Francisco but it’s Seattle, and that’s pretty cool too.

Where I ate: Capitol Cider (818 East Pike Street) jumps easily into my top 10 gluten-free restaurants in the world! The food is fantastic and the atmosphere has a classy British pub feel to it. With a 100% gluten-free kitchen, it’s the kind of place that will make any gluten-free traveller’s trip. Their owner, Julie, is lovely, and gluten-intolerant herself. I wish these guys were in San Francisco but I’m glad I at least got to check them out whilst in Seattle.

Amazing fish n chips!

Their cider selection is absolutely fantastic and their fish and chips (see above) are scrumdiddlyumptious! It’s a bit challenging (or impossible, really) to eat out late when you have a toddler so we ate here for brunch. I hope to check out their dinner menu on my next visit. For folks who are looking for a gluten-free delivery option, Capitol Cider is on Caviar so you can have their gluten-free goodies delivered to your apartment or hotel in Seattle. Yay!

Blue Moon Burgers have a few locations in the city and offer a great selection of gluten-free burgers and sides. All of their burgers can be made gluten-free on request and well trained staff will give you a special menu that tells you how to order yours gluten-free. This kind of thing normally sounds a bit sketchy and unsafe to me but with Blue Moon, it’s not at all. I felt very safe eating here and the burger was absolutely fantastic. Their gluten-free buns don’t seem gluten-free at all (but they are!) and they have a dedicated gluten-free frier for fries, onion rings and gluten-free chicken fingers. This is pretty cool. You can check out their full list of gluten-free options here.

Blue Moon Burgers

Coffee and Speciality Bakery (Behind Pike’s Place Market) is a fantastic wee gem of a place located in the centre of Seattle. It’s 100% gluten-free and everything they offer is delicious. They have more sweets than meals but you can find something for a tasty lunch and they do a chicken sandwich (or chicken strips) with fries and coleslaw which is a good lunch or dinner meal and it’s awesome!!

Gluten-free chicken strips!

Salmon, cheese and spinach pastry.

I love my GFF is a 100% gluten-free food truck which can be found in various parts of Seattle depending on the day of the week. The menu is simple; Fiesta Bowl or Sunshine Bowl. Both are packed with exciting, gluten-free ingredients and come with or without chicken. Healthy, colourful and full of flavour, their food is great, and their cookies are really, really good too.

Sunshine Bowl

I’ve only eaten at P.F. Changs once before but I’m glad I tried them again in Seattle. They took good care of me and the staff were well trained and very understanding. On this occasion, we got take-out which we picked up for dinner and it was great. It’s hard to find Chinese-style food when you’re celiac so I’m a fan of P.F. Changs. I know some gluten-free folks aren’t for a variety of reasons but at least from my two experiences, they are a pretty good place to try once in a while.

Other gluten-free places I wanted to try but didn’t have the chance to on this trip:

Razzi’s Pizza has an ENORMOUS gluten-free menu, with options made in a dedicated kitchen by GIG trained staff. I desperately wanted to eat here but located in the north of the city, they were a bit far for us to trek and unfortunately they wouldn’t deliver to the area we were staying. Next time for sure!!

Ghostfish Brewery is yet another 100% gluten-free establishment which just recently opened it’s doors. They are an entirely gluten-free taproom featuring small batches of beer brewed in dedicated gluten-free facilities. I’m really just not a beer fan which is why we didn’t visit but for any gluten-free beer lovers out there, this place sounds pretty amazing!

Flying Apron in Fremont is yup, you guessed it, another 100% gluten-free place. Yay Seattle!! They are a certified gluten-free facility with two retail locations in Fremont and Redmond. They serve both sweet and savoury gluten-free goodies and also do a lot of wholesale so you can find their products in and around Washington at these locations.

Wild Ginger is an Asian inspired restaurant with two locations, in downtown Seattle and Bellevue. Their menu boasts a wide variety of gluten-free options, clearly marked. This is a must try for a future visit.

Do you live in or have you travelled to Seattle? Where and what did you eat, gluten-free?

Fish and chips!

Our little family spent a wonderful week in London back in August. The plan was to meet a bunch of friends, get a feel for what it may be like to move to the city at some point in the future (in a world where San Francisco doesn’t exist or is no longer an option!) and to eat as much gluten-free food as we could get her hands on. Mission accomplished!

There was a lot of exciting eating going on all week. London is an absolutely fabulous place to be if you’re gluten-free. They are so many different options to choose from. It was impossible to try out everything I wanted to in just ones week but here are the places we were able to enjoy.

Leon is a chain with  more than 20 restaurants across the city of London. It’s healthy, fresh and amazingly delicious fast food. It’s exactly what I wish every city I visited had, a place for a tasty box of gluten-free lunch. Hot boxes and salads. Yum! I ate at Leon 3 times during our week in London. Almost everything on their menu is gluten-free and clearly marked as so. Moroccan Meatballs, Sweet Potato Falafel, Thai Green Curry,  Chicken and Chorizo. Yum, yum, yum! I want a Leon right next door!

Lots of Leon!!

Lunch from Manna

Manna is a fantastic Vegetarian restaurant in the Primrose Hill area of London. I got their Indian Delight Masala baked potato for lunch and it cam with all sorts of amazing sides and toppings. I spoke with staff about cross contamination and was told not to order anything fried as gluten and non-gluten items are fried in the same area. Anything else is safe.

The Truscott Arms in Maida Vale was another favourite! Their bar menu is great and offers loads of gluten-free goodies. I went for the Battered Cornish Cod with Chunky Chips and Pea Puree. It was so amazing. Cake of the day is always gluten-free and that day it was Chocolate Almond Cake. I had one piece for dessert and a second to go. Exciting day! The menu offers plenty of gluten-free options as well as options which can be made gluten-free on request.

Chocolate almond cake

Pizza Express offers a range of gluten-free pizza and it’s pretty tasty. We got a few take-out pizzas for dinner with friends on our first night in the city and my gluten-free tummy was very happy. Coeliac UK have awarded Pizza Express with their accreditation after they made their pizza creation process safer for coeliacs. They have incorporated new labelling and storage, they use new equipment only for gluten-free orders and they’ve also changed the flour used for tossing and stretching to be gluten-free!

La Tasca was another restaurant at which we enjoyed a really tasty gluten-free meal. We spent the afternoon having lunch with the lovely Gluten-Free Mrs D, her lovely Mr. D and their two little ones. John and I devoured a tasty chicken and chorizo paella. Yum!

Restaurants and cafes to try on our next visit –

WAGFree Food in Brixton

Honest Burgers who currently have seven locations in and around London

Cookies and Scream in Camden

Cotto in Waterloo

Bake-a-boo in West Hampstead

Check out my earlier gluten-free in London post for more ideas!

What are your favourite gluten-free spots in London town?

Five years and going strong!

This week marks five years since my celiac diagnosis. I’ve been gluten-free for five whole years. I can hardly believe it’s been that long. Although, I can barely remember my gluten-eating life. I really don’t miss it.

This year has been a huge one for me. I became a gluten-free mama almost eight months ago and my whole world has changed in the most magical of ways. From navigating pregnancy (and travel!) without gluten to deciding if and when to introduce gluten to my baby girl (Still not there yet but planning to in the next week or so!) there has been a lot going on in my world.

I think everyone should celebrate their gluten-free birthday. It may have been a time when you had to stop eating some of your very favourite foods. It was probably also a time when you finally started to feel better. It was definitely a time when you finally learned what on earth what going on. This is something worth celebrating.

To celebrate my five year gluten-free birthday, I want to highlight five amazing gluten-free wins from this past year. I will celebrate with a large slice of delicious gluten-free cake from Mariposa Bakery in San Francisco.

1) Thank you New Zealand for all of your AMAZING gluten-free options. I was 3 months pregnant when we visited the North Island of this absolutely beautiful country for three weeks and from fish n chips to lasagna to cakes, I couldn’t have asked for a better selection from one of the most celiac friendly countries I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. You can read about my travels in New Zealand here.

2) Thank you California Pacific Medical Centre (CPMC) for your safe, gluten-free options. I spent five days in hospital after my daughter was born and I was able to eat tasty, gluten-free meals every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They took my dietary requirements as seriously as they need to be taken and I am very thankful for that. You can read more about the gluten-free options at CPMC here.

3) During pregnancy and since becoming a mama, I’ve made a whole bunch of new friends and I want to thank them for being so supportive and considerate to their new gluten-free friend. These lovely ladies meet me for lunch in restaurants I feel comfortable eating at, they understand why I bring my own food rather than allow them to cook for me and they have taken the time to learn about and understand the challenges that come with being celiac. A couple of them have even read my post on How To Cook For A Celiac and with my slightly nervous supervision, have cooked me a delicious, safe, gluten-free meal.

4) Thank you FDA for finally getting your act together on gluten-free labeling legislation. As of this month (August, 2104) companies labeling their products as “gluten free” must be in compliance with this rule. For more information on this ruling and what it really means for the gluten-free community, check out the FDA’s Q&A on this.

5) As always, thank you to my supportive husband for cooking me all sorts of tasty gluten-free food, particularly when I was pregnant, sick and very fussy!

These last five years have definitely had their challenging moments but I’m happy to say that I forget that I’m celiac a lot more these days than I used to. Here’s to many more gluten-free years! Unless they find a cure of course…

How long have you been gluten-free? What’s this past year been like for you? Have a piece of cake to celebrate!

Tasty steak and potatoes

When you need to spend time in hospital, for whatever reason, the last thing you should have to worry about is getting safe meals. When you have food restrictions, eating anywhere that you’re not in control of the cooking and prep can be pretty scary. But hospitals should have this stuff sorted, right? We would certainly like to this so but in this crazy, gluten-filled world, unfortunately you can never take this for granted.

I spent 5 days in hospital when my daughter was born. I didn’t have much faith that the hospital would  provide me with safe, gluten free food but I was wrong; it turned out to be pretty great. I of course had my bag of just-in-case,  gluten free goodies with me but thankfully I wasn’t forced to eat protein bars for every meal during my stay.

How it works in CPMC here in San Francisco is that patients are given a menu filled with a nice variety of different breakfast, lunch and dinner options. During meals hours, you call down to the canteen and order whatever you fancy. The only mention of ‘gluten free’ on the menu was that they had gluten free toast but after a couple of phone calls from a lovely and very feisty, postpartum nurse – post delivery and drugged up, I wasn’t feeling up to my usual 20 questions – I was eating great, safely prepared, gluten free meals from then on.

Every time I ordered a meal, I double checked that my choice could be made gluten free and the canteen staff confirmed that my meal would be prepared in a clean area, using separate pots and pans, using separate utensils. Most days, I ordered chicken or salmon with rice and veggies for lunch and steak with mashed potatoes for dinner. Since I’d lost a lot of blood and was pretty anemic, I was suddenly all about the red meat! Since the baby was here it no longer had to be well done either! Yum! Breakfast was usually bacon or sausage with eggs and gluten free toast. This ended up being John’s breakfast though since I only want cereal in the morning and had brought plenty with me.

I’m very thankful that my gluten free hospital experience was a positive one, although when I saw how much was billed to my insurance company for my labour/delivery and hospital stay I should bloody well hope so!

I’d love to hear about your experiences! If you’ve spent time in hospital, were you given safe, gluten-free meals? And if so, were they any good?

The Celiac Sprue Association seal

There has been some debate for a while now as to whether or not Omission craft beer should be considered gluten-free and safe for celiacs to consume. This week, many gluten-free beer drinkers will be happy to hear that the Celiac Sprue Association (CSA) has given them their seal of approval.

When a company earns the right to use the CSA seal, it means they meet their stringent requirements of less than 5ppm. This is currently the best test available. I know there are folks out there who will say that they wonâ€t eat anything unless is contains zero gluten but unfortunately 0ppm cannot currently be tested for.

Omission Brewing Company are the first to make craft beers that include malted barley in their recipe but which undergo a special process to remove the gluten. Iâ€m not entirely sure what this process is but Iâ€m intrigued to find out more! Each batch of their lager, pale ale and IPA is independently tested using the R5 competitive ELISA test to ensure that it contains way below the FDA gluten-free standard of 20ppm or less of gluten.

Last year, I attended one of Omissionâ€s launch events. I met the companyâ€s lovely CEO (who is a celiac!) and tried their beer. As a celiac himself, Terry Michaelson spoke about the importance of keeping customers with celiac disease safe and clearly they have taken this step of using the CSAâ€s recognition seal to show customers that they take their gluten-free status seriously and want to prove that they can be trusted. I should probably add that I didn’t get sick from their beer but I have some gluten free friends who have.

This process of removing gluten from gluten-containing grains using some kind of process, which I can only assume is some type of magic, has been a topic of much debate in Europe for years now. Many breakfast cereals in the UK, for example, contain “barley malt extract” but are considered by Coeliac UK as safe for celiacs to consume as they have been tested to confirm they contain less than 20ppm.

Codex wheat starch is another ingredient found in some of the UKâ€s gluten free products because again, it keeps within the less than 20ppm market enabling it to be classed as gluten free. Whiskies are also considered gluten free in the UK as it’s said that gluten does not transfer through the distillation process.

SO..

Omission beer has now been classed along with many other products to be gluten-free and containing less than 5ppm of gluten. The CSA is a fantastic resource for the gluten free community and they certainly donâ€t take their certification process lightly. I have no doubt however that many of you still wonâ€t feel comfortable drinking it. Whilst the gluten removing process means that little to no gluten is found in the beer on testing, it was still made from a gluten-containing grain in the first place. Does this make it less safe for celiacs?

Iâ€d love to hear your thoughts on this! Please share in the comments below. If there are any readers out there who can explain the science behind whether or not these types of gluten free products could be harmful to celiacs, please share your knowledge!

I’m clueless on the science stuff so here’s a question I’d like to know the answer to: If two products are gluten-free certified and tested to contain less than 5ppm, are they equally safe for celiacs to enjoy? Even if one is made from a gluten-containing grain?

GFCO

CSA

Come August, 2014, it will be safer and easier for celiacs living in or travelling to the United States to buy groceries. Yay! The new labelling legislation, which I’m very excited was finally passed this summer!!, means that companies will no longer be able to label products as “gluten free” unless they contain less than 20ppm of gluten.

Until then, it can be challenging finding gluten free products in the US which are really gluten free and genuinely safe for celiacs to enjoy. Without a definition for what “gluten free”actually means companies can label their products as so even when they are manufactured on shared equipment with gluten-containing products. This isn’t helpful, and it’s dangerous, for celiacs looking for safe, gluten free options. To help make your life a little simpler, and safer, look out for these logos when you’re out gluten free grocery shopping.

The Gluten-Free Certification Organization (GFCO) is probably the best known certification program in the United States for gluten-free products. They inspect products and manufacturing facilities for gluten and they assure consumers that products certified by them (using the symbol above, on the right) contain less than 10ppm of gluten.

The Celiac Sprue Association (CSA) use their seal (above, on the left) to let consumers know that products with this seal have been tested to ensure they contain less than 5ppm.

The Gluten-Free Certification Program (GFCP) also certifies products using their logo (below) which tells consumers that these products test at levels of less than 10ppm of gluten. They work with both US and Canadian products.

GFCP

Do you know of any other gluten free certification programs currently being used in the United States? Let me know!

Quinoa is great for breakfast!

Rice with PB and peach!

Breakfast time is my favourite meal of the day. I should probably say that breakfast food is my favourite because no matter what time of day, I always consider a bowl, mug or cup of cereal a great idea! Recently I’ve been trying to vary my breakfast food a little and hot grains served with peanut butter and fresh fruit is my current favourite!

Ingredients: (serves 2 hungry breakfast lovers!)

• Cup of quinoa
• Peanut Butter – Make sure it’s gluten free!
• Chopped up fresh fruit – I like this dish best with pear or peach
• Milk – Almond, soy or coconut milk is great if you can’t do dairy.

How to make it:

• Cook the quinoa until soft. I like to cook it in my rice cooker as it’s super simple and always tastes great!
• Add a few splashes of milk to the quinoa and mix together
• Place quinoa in a bowl and mix in a large spoonful (or two!) of peanut butter
• Add fresh fruit and another splash of milk
• Serve and enjoy!

This breakfast is also great with jasmine rice as a substitute for quinoa!! It’s basically a super simple, delicious, rice pudding breakfast.