A Rose by any other name... is a lie! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all. I hope it brings you good fortune and tasty food. I would like to apologize for the long break, but the holidays brought me to my knees with all the extra things life threw at me. For starters, I had to rebuild my Subaru's engine. Ick! Now that the drama llama has left for the new year (I HOPE!) it's back to business on keeping the second class citizens of the restaurant world, ie: Celiacs, well fed and maybe dare I say FAT!

I pick on the restaurants because:

a) a car company cannot claim their car to be the highest MPG because they left out an engine.

b) a movie cannot have the rating dropped from R for violence to PG by telling you to close your eyes.

c) a restaurant cannot claim to be gluten free by telling you to order your meal without the bread, sauce, or spices. Sorry Outback. You been called out!

d) ALL OF THE ABOVE

Here is how my strange little mind works. If I went to your house with the promise of a GF meal, and you served me a slab of unspiced and unflavored meat and nothing else I would think, "At least they are trying. Gluten is sneaky. Almost Ninja.", but if you then handed me a bill for $20 I would be saying such unkind things to you that you would not only have to take the GF off your description, but probably the family friendly as well. Please remember that we (GF people) have to read the back of every label before purchasing. The words on those labels are longer than those on my child's junior home chemistry set. The creative ways that companies repackage the names of crap (CORN SUGAR? ARE YOU SERIOUS?) or label it with the safety net "MAY contain...", or even lie about it. Even if we weren't highly intelligent to begin with, this raises our awareness to a level above your bait and switch "Gluten Free*" menu.

Here are a couple of  places that I have great respect for as far as their choices for an actual gluten free menu.

Burtons Grill

P.F. Changs (not the West Hartford, CT location. Have had questions about cross contamination)

As much as it pains me... Our local Burger King does say order without bun and that Fries are cooked separately as to be GF. I give them credit because there is only so much you can do with fast food. After all, it is what you eat when you forgot to pack healthy or just do not care.

Just remember. "Fool me once..." as well as a hospital visit, is a lot easier to avoid if you are cooking for yourself. This week I will be working on adjusting a couple recipes to be even further limited in allergens, but I promise I will get back to trying and posting the new stuff by the end of the week.