At PCC they have a new freezer endcap stocked with gluten free food. I love it when grocery stores stock the gf products all together, like at Whole Foods where there is a whole section of gluten free dry goods. After a quick browse, I picked out a frozen individual size pizza by Glutino, which I haven’t tried before. There was another woman looking, and my son was loudly reminding me that he was hungry for vanilla yogurt so I could not check everything out as long as I wanted. It made me think about grateful I am to live where I do. I can’t imagine there are many places as understanding of gluten intolerance as the Seattle area. It reminds me of what a woman once told me about a different situation, “It may not be a club you wanted to join, but since you are a member you are in a great place for it.” Very true! Now if only someone around here would open up a Gluten free Italian restaurant~ there are such great alternative grain pastas it would be relatively easy. There are already pizza places that offer gluten free pizzas which is a great start, but what about the whole menu? I guess I’ll just have to keep cooking my own pastas for now.

Walking around town in Redmond, Washington today I noticed a new sign on a restaurant that I have walked by many times but have never stepped into because it is an Italian restaurant and what any gluten intolerant person well knows, Italian means pasta. But this sign read: Gluten Free Menu available. Yes! I went home and looked it up online and here is the low-down on Sages Restaurant. Apparently one of the co-owners is a celiac and therefore very aware of ingredients and issues~ a definite plus. They don’t seem capable of substituting with gluten free products, like using a corn-quinoa noodle for example, but they modify things such as leaving croutons off the salads and such. Good start. Personally, I don’t know why more Italian restaurants don’t serve risotto. Palino’s used to and it was yummy. Now I still go there and get salads, but it was nice to get something else from a restaurant besides salad occasionally. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers! Sages just might be my birthday dinner pick this year, if only they have a kid menu.

Lately I’ve been having a strange but luckily satisfy-able craving. Cornflakes. I want them for breakfast, snacks, and any other meal I can get away with eating them. This has happened once before and I remember it lasting a few months, but I have no idea why it happens. I haven’t eaten cornflakes for probably 10 years, but suddenly I couldn’t go another day without them. My normal cereal type food is Udi’s granola with Vanilla Greek yogurt, preferably Chobani 0%. Thankfully Nature’s Path makes a huge bag of corn flakes so I’m covered for a while, though I’m going through my rice milk much faster than normal. And the bag has Gluten Free printed right on it, which is just nice b/c even though one would assume corn flakes were gluten free, they aren’t always.

Yesterday my husband and I went to Boom Noodle in Bellevue, where I was happily surprised to see a little G next to certain dishes indicating they can be gluten free. It was so much more enjoyable eating pad thai knowing it was made with wheat free tamari! The food was good too, beyond just the GF-ness. The people next to us, though, were not so enjoyable. We were stuck between a family of loud complainers and another family talking about how rich, powerful, and lovely they are. Seriously! It was odd. About as odd as the time I was in labor with my second son and the nurse told me she was from Canada but had just moved from Texas, so I innocently responded, “Oh, so you are a traveller, eh?” And she said, “How do you know that word, traveller?” I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. She persisted. “Really, how do you know it?” I looked at my husband for help…Doesn’t everyone know that word? Well, every English speaker anyhow. At least it wasn’t the doctor saying crazy things.