Our (Utterly Delicious) Summer Vacation

As promised, I'm back to blog about our gf vacation! It’s been a busy time for our family, getting kids back in school and moving my oldest into her college dorm--sad and happy time for me, but wonderful for her. She is exactly where she is supposed to be at this time in her life. Sigh.

Our vacation was long and wonderful. I really didn't want to return to the Oklahoma heat.

One of the reasons I really want to tell about the food on our trip is to let others see that we really do eat well and eat gluten free. It’s not impossible. It’s not boring. It’s not even very difficult once we adjusted to it. Eating this way is not what we would have chosen—but it’s definitely doable—and very worth it.

When we vacation, we take most of our food with us. Lots of fruit, snacks, drinks, and special treats. We stay in places with kitchens when we can so that I can cook. Fun! But we used to do that before, too. We’ve always loved to picnic. This time, we took three coolers. When we stop, the kids run around and stretch their legs, and we make some great memories—much better than a mcstop. We’re a family on a budget. We always have been, and this is the way we have always traveled.

I made carrot/zucchini bread for our breakfasts the first few days.  I also made gf snack mix for the road. My kids love this, and I threw some in the oven the night before we left. (Recipes will follow.) Another time, for a trip this long, I would have brought more homemade goodies, but I was really sick for a while before we left, and that was all I could manage.

We had one big food goof (I’ll fill you in on that one later), but the rest of the trip was a breeze. A delicious, gluten free, vacationer’s breeze. YUM!

We limited our eating out, so I’ll divide this into a couple of posts by area. This first part of the trip was to the Grand Canyon (loved it!) and Northern Arizona. We were busy with outdoorsy stuff, made a few quick stops at Arby's, but otherwise ate our own food. We then moved on to southwestern Colorado.

When we checked with the local health food store about gluten free eating options in Durango, the store folks weren’t much help. We found out more by asking at restaurants, always our best resource.

Durango

We found this cupcake at The Yellow Carrot in Durango, Colorado. This  little bakery and catering shop had some of the most delicious gluten free baked goods we’d ever eaten. No kidding! We had two different gf cupcakes, two regular cupcakes, a piece of gf focaccia bread (wow), and took a gf shepherd’s pie back to our condo for dinner. The cupcakes were huge and cream-filled. Two people could have easily shared one. And the shepherd’s pie made a great dinner for road-weary traveler’s who’d been eating picnic food for most of a week.

In Durango, fresh off the road, we also wandered into this cool barbecue joint--Serious Texas Barbecue.

Right on the menu on the wall it stated that all meat and sauce were gluten free. We felt like we’d won the lottery. We ate outdoors in the cool air, there were baskets of flowers everywhere, and the food was delicious. My son is very sensitive to gluten, but he didn’t have a problem. One of the side sauces had berries in it, which we didn’t realize, so berry-girl ended up with swollen lips. A little Benadryl and she was fine a few hours later. 

This is getting a little long, so I’m going to put this up and continue in a separate post—but believe me there’s more wonderful food—and a train ride-- to come!

Blessings,

The Lady in (ever-increasing amounts of) Pred

A House Divided, Gluten-Wise OR My Restaurant Tantrum

It's Friday night, and we ate out tonight. We are not doing that much anymore, and anytime we do, it's at some specially pre-selected place where I know there is a gluten-free menu. The times we've been cavelier about his diet, we've paid for it with days of him not feeling well.

I make sure before we make a move that there is food for him wherever we are going. I can feel us all relaxing a bit as time goes on, but still, it is a new way of life, being responsible for a child who will get ill if he eats what everyone else is eating. It has made me more than a little anxious at times over the past few weeks. Do I have enough food in the house? Food for his lunch? Breakfast? Something to send with him to a friends? To a church fellowship? What will we do about camp? About college? (I'm getting a litte ahead of myself here, aren't I?) I dream at night of grocery aisles of gluten-free food, and spend hours a day on the internet, trying to find the flour mix of my dreams.

Funny thing is, my normally fuss-budget-of-a-kid has turned remarkably layed back about his food lately. "Sure, mom. I can eat those." "It doesn't matter." "I can eat whatever." Blessing of all blessings, God somehow sent a better attitude with his better health, which is quite a change for him. No shreiking, gagging, or complaining in general, he has even apologized for not liking a few of the odder things I've served him. Huh?

So tonight we went out to one of my preselected restaurants. Fish City, with its very own gluten-free menu. When I asked the waiter for it, he had no idea what I was talking about--I explained I wanted the menu for the items free of wheat, for my son. He said the kid's menu "didn't have much wheat." I'm a little keyed up about the whole gluten-free thing, as I've said. I pointed to the kid's menu, and named the items, "hamburger, mac and cheese, fried fish, fried chicken. Those ALL have wheat. I need the menu without wheat. He cannot eat wheat and your restaurant has a menu with food choices that don't contain it."

Our waiter was pretty young, and he started to stutter. "I, I'll go see." He returned shortly with the gluten-free menu, but in the meantime, my sweet son had called me on my behavior. "Mom! You can't talk to him like that! You're acting like he's dumb." I apologized to the poor guy when he returned, who also apologized for not remembering the menu. We were off to a better start, and I indulged my sea-food lovers.

There are several good options--my blackened catfish was great. Alec loves crab legs, and even though they are expensive, I gave in and let him have them this time. He was happy as a clam, or maybe a crab, and both the glutened and the non among us were satisfied. No bread on the table to make us wish we had some, and their slaw has a vinegar dressing that I love.

Thumbs up from our family of five! And apologies to the waiter--Alec thanked him profusely when we left! The waiter worked hard to make up for his initial lack of information, and Alec worked hard to make up for my rudeness, so I think we were all happy when we left.