Surviving Japan, only to end up in Hell

I'm so pleased my big sister and her husband have returned to England from Japan. I loved Tokyo and survived eating gluten there. I also survived a massive earthquake and then being in a typhoon half way up Mt Fuji, but that's a different story.

I took my own bottle of gluten free soy sauce everywhere I went - luckily nothing is weird in Japan. Most Japanese restaurants have a mini BBQ on your table and you cook the food. As long as we ordered without sauce this was great for me, expect the time we nearly set fire to the restaurant...




Of course it helped having two Japanese speakers with us to avoid those Lost in Translation moments, but with places like Coco Curry having an allergy menu, it's possible to visit Japan and eat out gluten free.

So although their return has scarpered my plans to return to Japan on the cheap, at least they're returning to Clapham where Hell Pizza deliver gluten free pizzas. So they'd better get used to much more frequent visits from me!

Back to Basics

In the search for an alternative to Hula Hoops, I discovered Sainsbury's Basics Potato Rings. They're so cheap that they probably can't afford to add the barley malt extract that may or may not be in plain Hula Hoops.

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1286126025691



The only down side is that I look like a pikey at lunch time in work. However the plus side is I can once again eat the cheddar cheese filled Hula Hoops snack I saw on Freaky Eaters.

Pikachu Soup

I'm reading Gluten Free Girl by Shauna James Ahern at the moment, and have been inspired by her to try new and different foods.

So, I bought this lil' fella at the farmer's market in Winchester on Sunday.



Part squash, part Pokemon, it seemed a shame to have to chop him up and put him in my soup!

Wheat Prices Crisis

Let's see how everyone else likes paying £3 for a loaf of bread.

Animals are cute – fact

There comes a time when all teenager girls realise animals are in fact too cute to eat. Some parents are very helpful and encourage this lifestyle choice. Others aren’t so willing to make the rest of the family eat tofu just because their 13 year old daughter just watched Babe.

My attempt at not eating cute things didn’t go well. I was under the impression my mum was being helpful. She said she wouldn't cook me separate meals, but I could either a) cook for myself or b) pick the meat out of dinner

I opted for option B thinking it would be easy. There followed a week of Chilli Con Carne and Spaghetti Bolognese, not only two of my favs, but also leaving me with little choice but to inevitably eat it a little bit of the meat.

As it turns out, its a good job mum wasn't so corporative and I was a lazy 13 year old unwilling to prepare my own meals. Being a vegetarian ceoliac isn't easy.

But it is easier than I thought. I could eat at Mildreds every night! Its a completely veggie restaurant but also one that marks the menu with those thoughtful little GFs. I fully embraced my inner hippy when we went there this week, drinking organic wine and eating sweet potato curry.

The guilt of playing with the reindeer recently at my friend’s wedding was therefore doubled.

A sight for sore eyes and gluten free pies

After squinting continually at the telly, I thought it was time to get my peepers tested. Turns out I need glasses to see things in the distance. So I put on my new specs for the telly, the cinema and those dreaded powerpoint presentations at work.

I love my glasses and think I look sophisticated in them (even when watching What Katie Did Next), but I always forget to take them with me. They could have come in handy in Warwick at the Merchants pub this weekend. The menu was on blackboards at the other side of the pub so I didn't immediately see the little (g) symbols next to the gluten free dishes. The idea of a steak chips for a fiver won over the laziness and I made the trip across the pub to read the menu properly. I skipped back to the table to tell my friends 'I can even eat the chips!'

Tonight I'm going to try a Dietary Specials steak pie. I'm usually a Clive's Pie kind of girl, but thought I'd try this one as Clive only seems to sell his pies to random health shops. Pie and mash, isn't a typical Easter weekend meal, but after two days drinking in Warwick, it's going to sort out the hangover (the Creme Egg for pudding will sort out Easter!)

Wispa Gold, always believe in your soul

Somethings in life are not worth questioning.

Like, for example, the fact that Wispa Golds are gluten free, but the run of the mill Wispas are not.




No point shouting at Cadburys or campaigning via Facebook, I'll just quietly enjoy my Wispa with loads of gooey caramel shoved on top!

Flipping 'eck

Whose stupid idea was it to go out on Pancake Day? The only day of the year that it's acceptable to heap ice cream, Nutella, and banana onto one plate, and I found myself in rainy London, arguing with a waiter over poached salmon.

It's not often that a restaurant won't cater for my gluten free requests, often offering to cook something totally different than what is on the menu.

Not the case in Auberge, where they couldn't confirm if the poached Salmon was gluten free, because it had been cooked by a different chef in the morning. At 8pm, suddenly the thought of old fish with a possibility of added gluten didn't seem so appetising. And by then my friends, (in the spirit of those Carlsberg adverts) said if I couldn't eat there we were leaving. Probably the best friends in the world.

Just as we were about to start fighting over the last few eggs and Jif lemons and call it a (pancake) day, we stumbled across Cafe Rouge. I've never been to one before and it was brilliant when they reached into a cupboard and pulled out a gluten free menu for me! Had a lovely fresh salmon fillet with roasted veggies.

I will be having belated pancakes sometime this week and will give up going to Auberge for lent!

Approaching 30, fast....

Long gone are the days of drinking cider in the park before gigs. The last two bands I've seen, we started the evening in a nice restaurant, with a nice bottle of wine. A clear sign I'm growing up.

Pete and the Pirates were great at the Plug and Play, following a posh meal in Myalacarte in Caversham. And before Stornaway (a folk band, another indication of my age) we went to Las Iguanas by the Oracle in Reading.

Both these places mark their menus with gfs, which is great and means I spend less time worrying about what I can eat and more time concentrating on the pre-gig drinking, which ultimately results in the same level of teenage drunkness obtained from two cans of White Lightning up the park!

The toast of things to come

I have finally succumbed and paid a whooping £2.50 for one loaf of bread. One small, fresh, delicious, Genius loaf of bread.

It has been quite a while since I had 'real' bread, so can't actually remember how it tastes, but this seems to hit the spot!

Rumour has it thats it's on offer in Sainsbury's at the moment, so hoping for another massive snow storm so I can panic buy 20 loaves!