Month: May 2012

Pennsylvania, USA

Guest Post: Gluten-Free on the (Rural) Road by Anya

Erin Smith

I met Anya, author of Another Gluten-Free Blog, about a year ago through the NYC Celiac Disease Meetup group. Gluten-free since September 2010, Anya travels a lot for work so I thought her road-tripping tips would be a perfect guest blog post this month. Anya is also a co-owner of Mile End Bakery, specializing in both regular and gluten-free cookies! 

Gluten-Free on the (Rural) Road
by Anya, Another Gluten-Free Blog

I am fortunate to live in New York City where there are plenty of gluten free options.  However, I have to travel to rural Pennsylvania a fair amount for my job.  At first I was nervous about finding gluten free options in very rural areas.  Determined not to starve, and equally determined to find good gluten free food in rural PA, I started doing my research.

Using the Gluten Free Travel Site (glutenfreetravelsite.com) and regular Google searches, I was able to compile a list of over 30 restaurants with gluten free menus in the many areas of Pennsylvania I travel.  Having all these restaurants to eat at not only makes me feel better about being gluten free on the road, but it also makes the trips more fun.  Being on the road for many days at a time with only one meeting a day, I find myself able to try many of these restaurants and booking hotels based solely on their proximity to restaurants I want to try.  I’ve had a lot of great meals in Pennsylvania over the last year!

However, I have also found myself in areas without any gluten free options.  For these times, I highly recommend you have snacks with you.  Sometimes snacks don’t cut it, though, and you need a real meal.  For this reason, I recommend you not only research gluten free restaurants, but restaurants in general.  Too many times have I found myself on stretches of highways with only fast food options available.  I’m sure there were restaurants a few miles off the highway that could have made me a safe salad, or plain proteins and veggies, but if you don’t know where they are, they can’t help you.

When you are really in a fix, many gas stations these days offer surprisingly healthy and naturally gluten free options: yogurt, packaged veggies and dip, fruit cups, cheese, etc.  If worst comes to worst, create a meal out of these options.

I haven’t let Celiac Disease keep me confined home and I hope you don’t either.  To read more about my gluten free adventures please visit my blog at anothergfblog.blogspot.com

general, USA

Photo Friday: Walkway over the Hudson

Erin Smith
Gluten-Free Globetrotting over the Hudson River

Poughkeepsie, NY to Highland, NY

Join me on May 19th at the 1st Mid-Hudson Valley Walk for Celiac

 

general, USA

Guest Post: Gluten-Free Travel by Diana

Erin Smith

In honor of Celiac Awareness Month, I asked my readers to contribute their gluten-free travel stories. I love all of the comments and entries I am getting from my dear readers. Although faced with challenges of being gluten-free, you are still traveling and that is what is most important. You, dear readers, have not let Celiac and the gluten-free lifestyle keep you down. You are jetsetting more than ever! Here is my first reader-submitted travel post. Thanks Diana!

GF Travel
by Diana S. from Chicago

These have been ups and downs to say the least. I’ve had some great travels, some that were miserable. All of my travel has been in the US. But next year I’m looking to start some international travel, so it should be interesting!

I always pack a ton of food when I travel, nuts, pretzels, cookies, larabars. I panic each time that I will get stranded.

I was spending a week in LA with friends. In the “agenda” of our trip I added a tab of GF restuarants I found on Urban Spoon, Gluten Free Travel Site, and reviews of LA. I also packed several packets of Tamari Soy Sauce and my multi languge travel cards and any travel size snacks I could keep in my purse. We also mapped out Drug Stores in case we need to get some Milk of magnesium (Helps reduce my pain when glutened) that luckily we never needed! (We all have smart phones, but felt much better having this written down and in hand)

Starting with the miserable…

I had a layover for 3 hours in St. Louis… I had pretzels, cookies, and nuts in my luggage… That was really my only option there. They had so few options it was unreal, everything was pre-made, breaded and fried. I could at least get something to drink, but i was starving when I got home!

Tawas, Michigan – went up for a week stay at a friend’s cottage. They stared at me like I was crazy, that I packed GF pasta, pancake mix, cookies, pretzels, brownie mix, and a few other items. Being such a small town there were VERY few options for eating out, and we ended up making a lot more food than expected. The grocery store had some mixes, but not much more… On the up side we did have some fun with the “non-cookers” trying their hand in the kitchen to make some interesting naturally GF meals. This years trip is centered around What can we learn to make.

Mackinaw City was a pretty similar situation… But we did find a place to eat that understood my situation, and made a very lovely salad! The drive home was pretty dismal until we found a Ruby Tuesdays for their squash pasta.

On to the good…

Grand Rapids, Michigan – We went to visit some friends, found TONS of places to eat on Urban Spoon. There is a GF section, it was fabulous.Everyone we talked to when dinning was so nice about it. I felt very welcomed and ate well. We tried some unique foods and have to go back again.

Southwest Airlines – Flying for work I was on a 3 hour flight with Southwest. They were passing out cookies and nuts. I told the stewardess I couldn’t eat the cookies, but the nuts were ok, she gave me handfuls of the packets of nuts. My boss is also really good if we are meeting with a client who insists on taking us to lunch or dinner, he’ll tell them up front, it has to over a GF menu, give me the name and Diana will contact them, and we’ll let you know. I’ve never met a client who was rude about it, it always starts an interesting meal conversation.

On a return flight from LA on American Airlines, I had brought back BabyCakes cupcakes for the family in Chicago. The flight was packed and we did not have room for the box with the cupcakes to lay flat. I talked to the stewardess who was a sweetheart, totally understood my situation and put them up in First class where there was room. As we were de-boarding she made sure to flag me down and make sure I got my cupcakes.

We do a lot of roadtrips and my Boyfriend and Brother are both really good at looking up our travel routes and telling me what cities we’ll pass thru, to see if I know of any places, or just looking up, “Hey there is xyz along the way, we’ll stop then..” I only travel with people who understand my situation, because it makes it so much more comfortable.

Send me your travel stories and I will post them on my blog throughout the month of May. Email me at gfglobetrotter @ gmail.com 

Portland

Photo Friday: Park Kitchen in Portland

Erin Smith
Park Kitchen
Portland, Oregon
Hand edited by waitstaff before I even arrived
Amsterdam

Gluten-Free in Amsterdam

Erin Smith
Picture from the StudioGrassi website

When my good friend Kristen mentioned she was going to Amsterdam in March, I got really excited. I love researching new cities and I thought finding gluten-free food in Amsterdam would be a challenge. I didn’t find a ton of restaurants that could cater to a gluten-free traveler, but did find one gluten-free bakery and another chain restaurant that served gluten-free food. I cannot vouch for any of these places, since I haven’t been myself, but I wanted to share my Amsterdam research with my readers. You can read Kristen’s Amsterdam tales here.

Restaurants
Haesje Claes (restaurant)
Gluten-free menu available
http://www.haesjeclaes.nl/?language=en_EN
Spuistraat 273-275
1012 VR Amsterdam
Tel. 0031.20-6249998

Cau (Carne Argentina Unica)
Argentina restaurant
http://www.caucaucau.com/
Damstraat 5, 1012 JL,
+31 20 623 9632

Bakkerij Visser / ‘t Stoepje (Bakery)
Rozengracht 80
1016 NE Jordaan
020-6244284

Wagamama (chain restaurant)
Gluten-free menu

Markets
Albert Heijn (supermarket)
Gluten-Free product list

BioMarkt Amsterdam (supermarket)
Weteringschans 133-137
1017 SC AMSTERDAM
http://www.biomarkt.nl/

Links
Translation cards: http://www.celiactravel.com/cards/dutch/
Gluten-Free Food: http://www.glutenvrijeten.nl/
Dinner Site (Amsterdam search): http://bit.ly/GDwBn5
Nederlandse Coeliakie Vereniging: http://bit.ly/GDwiZn
Horecaad: http://www.livaad.nl/Locatieshorecaadned.htm

UPDATE:

After my original post, a dear reader and friend passed along a photo from her trip to Amsterdam and a comment:

“Yes, I AM … Gluten-Free and having fun being so! Your delightful guest blogger Kristen reminds us of our take on Amsterdam. Surely you did an excellent job researching GF for her trip, Erin. That ol’ lump in the tummy is no longer de rigueur in order to travel GF. Amsterdam is a fun, energetic, lovely, historical, and easy place to get around. We love seeing things from a different point of view. Anything can go!”