Wherein I Risk My Life to Test a Theory

First of all let me just say that my GI doc would be APPALLED at what I did last night. I’m sorry Dr. Nowain. You are right, and I am wrong. I am the worst patient you have ever had, and you would be well within your rights to eject me from your roster. Still.

My sister-in-law told me — and I since verified and disproved it on the Internet — that Corona is wheat-free. After ascertaining that this beer does not contain wheat, but it does contain barley (thanks, Wikipedia! Ummmm….), I dismissed it as an option. After all, barley is all gluten, all the time. But then I had this thought: What if it’s only wheat gluten that bothers me? (I just heard Dr. Nowain sigh, and the Celiac Associations ban me from their secret meetings.)

I’ve seen people on various forums say they have no issue when drinking the Mexican lager, so my magical thinking made me give it a shot. After all, we have a ton left over from a taco party and my husband can’t drink it all, no matter how hard he tries. So I popped open a cold one and threw a lemon slice in and went to town.

Gluten-Free Donuts: I Totally Ate That

I’m just going to come out and say it: Gluten-free donuts all taste like cake. Now, if you’re a lover of cake (and who isn’t, really?) this means that you can enjoy gluten-free donuts all day long and think, “Wow, that’s some good gluten-free round cake with a hole in the middle.” But if you’re a donut lover and looking for the light, airy, crispness of a normal donut in gluten-free form, my friends, I’m afraid you will be very disappointed. Disappointed while eating delicious cake, mind you, which is its own kind of incredibly satiated disappointment.

So I won’t put aside my fantasy of biting into a hot glazed one as soon as I finish my fried chicken because I just got the magic gluten vaccine just yet. We all have our dreams, and that is mine. And it’s beautiful.

There are however, many good people trying to let celiacs fake like we’re normal people, when it comes to donuts. Mad props to them, and thank you for allowing me to pretend I could eat donuts again. I love you one and all, but here are the best of the nuts and holes:

Gluten-Free Disneyland is Kinda’ Magical

This weekend my family decided it was about damn time we visited the happiest place on earth. I mean, how long can one avoid Disneyland when one lives in Southern California? About a year-and-a-half, apparently. While I got some great Disneyland tips, many of which included bringing my own food, I decided that I was going to go for it. I was going to make Disneyland my gluten-free paradise, and see what kind of gf yummies I could nosh on in between Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and a melt down that looked something like this -

Well guess what, Mousketeers? Disneyland is totally celiac-friendly. But of course it is. Do you know how many kids running around with food allergies there are in that land of enchantment? Kids just ready to sue the pants off Mickey if they get sick on site? Naturally, this is what happened when I inquired at “City Hall” about my gluten-free dining options:

Gluten-Free Menu for Post-Root Canal Surgery

Being that this is the place where I complain about my physical ailments, here’s another: I just had a root canal. Since I’ve been one of those super lucky people who has never had dental work in her entire life, getting a root canal was pretty much the worst thing that’s ever happened to my mouth. That, and Zima.

Therefore, I can barely open my mouth and when I do, biting down isn’t a party either. Here’s what gluten-free goodness I’m going to be noshing on this weekend.

What To Do When Someone Slips You Some Gluten

Just when I was all, “My birthday was better than your birthday, suckas!!!” I go and get gluten’d. If you’re a regular reader of this site, you’ll know that this isn’t the first time this has happened. It is, however, the first time I’m so freaking pissed off about it that I want to throw things. Why? Because it was my birthday, that’s why. And I had just enjoyed what I thought was a lovely impromptu dinner with awesome friends and you want to savor those memories. You know when you’re like, “Wow, that night was so amazing, except for getting held up at gunpoint.”* It’s like that.

So I’m all at home basking in my last birthday blast glow, the husband is preparing us a nightcap, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get lucky on my birthday. And then, there it is.

Therefore, eff you Delphine. This may sound paranoid — okay, it totally sounds paranoid — but I’m convinced someone in the chain of restaurant service messed up through negligence or malice, as I was very clear with our server about my stupid gluten issues. I’m not a total a-hole unlike these people, and try to show my appreciation, like continuously so they know that I know this is a pain in the ass. The waitress may have been slow as hell, but she appeared confident in her answers and even (supposedly) checked with the chef. Which makes me wonder how I’m suddenly violently, painfully, ill within seconds of getting home, and therefore ruining any chances of birthday sex.

Here’s the deal. If I suspect you’re just being a jackass and I get gluten’d, the shit is going to hit the fan. And a lot of other places. ‘Cuz this is what’s going to happen the next time someone slips me some gluten.

My Awesome Gluten-Free Birthday

Happy birthday to me, ya’ll! So I’m a year older, and while that’s eh, I had a super rad celebration and all the gluten-free bizness I could eat and drink. I have the coolest friends who showered me with gf goodness, and a super duper husband that threw me a taco party complete with the best gluten-free chocolate cake of all time from The Sensitive Baker. Y.U.M. It’s huge, which means I have to eat cake for every meal this week. Which is no problem, because it’s my birthday.

But the party doesn’t stop there. Look at this gluten-free bounty my buddies brought over.

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Muffins for My 1st Day of Pre-School

You know as you’re sitting in those orientation meetings for new parents, they go on and on about this kid’s peanut allergy, or that kid’s aversion to loud noises and dogs, but do they ever ask the parents if they have any dietary restrictions? Well, noooooo, they do not. They do, however, offer up coffee and pastries to parents who are in the middle of “transition” with their brand spanking new pre-schoolers. Or so I heard.

Which is why I went into survival mode the night before my son’s first day in his big kid school and made a mess of gluten-free muffins. Because I will not be denied a pastry. I will not.

It turns out that whole table of coffee and pastries was a myth, or at least they hid it from me, anyway. So I was most likely the only parent with a purse full of muffins. Still, these were DELISH. And took like five seconds to whip together. I only wish I’d had some coffee to enjoy with these cinnamon delights. If my kid is okay today, I’m hightailing it to the Starbucks on the corner and feasting like a gluten-free mom who has just sent her baby to pre-school and must eat to dull the pain of facing her own mortality. I mean, look at this kid.

Here’s how you can prepare for the next generation taking your place, too.

Gluten-Free Cold & Flu Season Just Got Rad

People say to me, “Hey April, where does gluten hide out, like the jerk that it is?” And this happens a lot, because I’m clearly an expert. In pretending that I know what I’m talking about.  I usually stun the crowd by throwing out the improbable combo of  blue cheese and soy sauce. But the other things that I, myself a gluten-hater, don’t always think about are drugs. Vitamins, minerals, and even the fun kinds can have gluten, or stomach-irritating ingredients. Which means cold and flu season can knock out a celiac, what with no chicken soup or ibuprofen around to soothe your pain and thin your snot. And Tylenol, I love you, but you just are not going to be able to help me through this winter on your own.

Which is why I was more than stoked to see gluten-free meds land on my doorstep yesterday.

Gluten-Free Mozzarella Sticks for Stress/Party Eating

Which is sometimes one and the same.

In an attempt to ward off the gluten cravings, I yet again dove into the fried food family. Won’t you follow me there? The fact is, I’ll never be able to eat anything deep-fried again when I’m outside of my own home. Not at least until someone finally opens a gluten-free deep-fried food truck. Which you know, could totally happen.

So when I set out to cover something in crust and oil and cook it until it’s crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside, I try not to feel too horribly guilty. It helps that I started with a recipe from the Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking cookbook. Of course I ghetto’d up their recipe and adapted it by skipping their flour mixture — which is divine — and instead grabbing a box of all-purpose gluten-free flour. Hey, if I’m going for Super Bowl food, I might as well keep it WT. It turns out, it’s actually pretty simple to make these sticks that I used to think only existed in bar and grills.

It appears the trick is rubbing those babies in your flour mixture, then the egg wash, then the bread crumbs. Otherwise I’m guessing you get a mess of melted cheese everywhere. The triple roll really did the trick. The Italian seasonings also added a whole other level of flavor, especially since my daughter accidentally dumped an entire jar of dried basil into all three mixtures. So my sticks were basil-rific. 

Gluten & 9/11

Most people won’t associate gluten and the horrors of September 11, 2001. I mean, duh. I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t been spending so much time in the bathroom after a gluten-ing earlier this week, and therefore was able to read the extensive New York magazine encyclopedia of 9/11, ten years later. And it all comes back: From the futility of having the hospitals on standby, to the weirdness of the mayoral election. After avoiding books, movies, even discussions of September 11th for ten years, it was probably time that I tried to stop avoiding thinking about that day. I guess.

As one of the millions of people living in New York City on September 11th, I obviously was in the path. But aside from the darkest memory of that day — thinking a friend had died when our phone connection cut off as the second tower fell — I’d simply pushed away everything else that happened then. That memory, however, will never go away.