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Research, plan, ask, check, avoid

Yes, there’s a lot to keep in mind. Here I’ll brief you shortly on the most common situations I must deal with when traveling. Being highly sensitive to gluten, wheat starch and cross-contamination requires a lot of research and planning. Asking and checking is the normal. Always. Even asking twice and double check many times, is a must. Avoiding places, events and situations is also a huge part to take in consideration. It can be frustrating of course but I’ve learned to better accept it and focus on possibilities instead.

My mouth is watering, the cooking smell from the skewers are irresistible. I randomly happened to run into a quiet, unpretentious outdoor restaurant. I am hungry, I liked the atmosphere, it looked cosy and inviting so I wanted to stay. The people working there are very nice and friendly and now I am also close to make a typical mistake. Here it is important to stop myself for a second and ask about the handling and preparation of the skewer to avoid the risk of cross-contamination. Everything was ok, they were very caring. This is also a perfect opportunity to buy some take away skewers, as a ready-made meal to eat later, cold or warm them up next day as a snack or light lunch.

I made my homework. I researched. I e-mailed the hotel and asked before arriving. Everything seemed to be okey with glutenfree options and a fully aware staff about the risks. Fantastic, creative displays of all the breakfast food, visually very beautifully arranged, both the gluten-free options and the regular ones. I’m hungry, can’t wait to start eating. I ask one more time, I want to double check, just to be sure. I’m then surprisingly told that everything marked with a G means it contains gluten, not that it’s gluten-free. This was an extremely close call. I was already picking from everything marked with a G. At this moment I couldn’t think the other way around. Instead I didn’t take much, just a little to satisfy my hunger and left asap. Normally I love sitting for an hour or two and fully enjoy a hotel breakfast. Yes, I did ingest gluten and got sick, unfortunately. The service was absolutely wonderful, the staff were very nice but at the end of the day it’s up to me to keep track. I should have avoided the breakfast this time and go somewhere else. Lesson learned.

I haven’t tried a specialty Food Hall yet but it looks really inviting with all kind of restaurants divided into different sections with their own interior design theme styles. To me it’s not only about eating glutenfree food. I also appreciate the entire context of food and aesthetics, altogether. The menus from the various restaurants here looked pretty yummy. Much nicer than the mainstream kind of food halls. I would love to sit down in such a classy, relaxed restaurant atmosphere and enjoy a delicious meal. As I checked with some of the restaurants, about glutenfree options, I understood they were not so much into it. Vague answers and not showing interest so I thought it was best to avoid this place. Maybe it’ll change one day. Let’s hope so.

Abroad, new different gluten-free breads and products in the grocery stores and shops. A lot of I’ve never seen before. I was surprised how fluffy this gluten-free bread was. What could be the secret, I was wondering? How do you get gluten-free bread like that? It was placed in the middle of the shelf among gluten-free breads and buns. I bought it, looking forward tasting it. I could hardly wait to open it when I was back in the hotel room. Anyway, I was terribly suspicious, something didn’t add up. I checked with the translation and yes, it turned out being a regular bread baked with wheat flour. After this incident, I check everything gluten-free with Google Lens Translate before I buy anything when traveling. I never opened it and very thankful I dodged a bullet.

More coming up! Stay tuned…also check my Pinterest