I can’t go to a non-kosher restaurant or home to eat, but in a restaurant or friend’s home, asking questions never quite yields me enough information. “Does this salad come with noodles, croutons, or bread? Please leave it out.” That’s a handy sentence to remember, but when they put a vinaigrette on the salad (which was never mentioned in the description of the food at all) which has glutens in it, or when they chop the lettuce on the same cutting board that they use to slice bread, it’s a problem. Burgers fried on the same griddle that they use to toast the nice gluteny buns are another issue. French fries fried in the same vats along with doughnuts or onions rings, there’s another one. Going out to the kosher sushi place, I was dismayed to learn that they don’t stock tamari for those who can’t have regular soy sauce, their spicy sauce (for spicy tuna rolls) contains soy sauce and they’re not willing to mix up a mini-batch without it, and they roll every roll in tempura crumbs. Oh, I ate my sashimi, but what I’d wanted and what I got were two very different things that day.

I’ve long been a frugal shopper, getting my family’s shopping bill down to $140 a week including both food and non-food items like shampoo and toilet paper — and believe me, when kosher meats cost 2-3 times as much as non-kosher meats, and kosher cheeses can cost up to 8 times as much, $140 is pretty amazing — and am going to have to drive it down even further somehow. But since going GF, I’ve had to also spend up to 3 times as much on GF pastas, 4 times as much on GF bread substitutes, 1.5 times as much on tamari versus soy sauce, and so on… Basically, this means the only times I get carbs are when I have beans, rice, or millet. I love those things, but they get old fast if that’s all you get.

I have friends and relatives who cannot get over the fact that I can’t eat at their homes anymore, after experiencing the results of their attempts to cook GF recipes without first cleaning out their toaster ovens, re-seasoning their cast iron or using a non-cast-iron pan, or actually dusting their meat with flour “just to crisp it up a bit — for heaven’s sake, it’s not like I gave you an entire loaf of bread!” They get similarly incensed when I come to their parties and bring my own food, then won’t share it because (1) mine tastes better, HA, (2) so everyone eats mine and then leaves me nothing, (3) their food gets compared unfavorably to mine, and (4) I still haven’t had a bite to eat.

I gave away my bread machine. Even if I used GF AP flour in it, it’s probably too contaminated. But is there a GF AP flour that would produce those rich, yummy, whole-grain breads that I used to love so much? I know better than to ask if it would be as much of a savings to make that at home as it was to make my glutenous bread at home, back in the day, though.

GF foods tend to get their texture and taste back, once the glutens were removed, by adding fat. I lost 60 pounds with Weight Watchers and now have gained 40 of it back. YAY (in the not-at-all way).

Thanks to the laws of kashrut plus the laws of GF living, here’s what I can eat when I travel, which is often: Fresh fruit; canned tuna; rice, if I bring my rice cooker and have an in-hotel place to wash it out every night. Delicious, yes, but it does get very old if you’re traveling for more than two or three days, which I do.

Had to replace all my cast iron pans. Because I keep kosher, that meant three of each (for dairy, meat, and neutral cooking): small skillet, large skillet, Dutch oven, deep fryer, wok. Cast iron is pretty inexpensive, but go ahead and add up the costs if you want. It’s not small once you’ve got fifteen items to replace. One of those pots was my grandmothers, and I had to give it up to a cousin.

Movies, airlines, customs officials, some schools… they don’t let you bring your own food without a major hassle getting documentation and approval. A two-hour movie isn’t so bad, but an 8-hour work day, 12-hour trans-Atlantic flight, and so forth, those are a big deal.

There’s one company that makes kosher, gluten-free veggie burgers, “chicken” nuggets, and the like. It doesn’t sell in the US. It just got ten times harder to be a vegetarian (which I was for a decade, and had considered being again, until I learned that).

I MISS BAKLAVA. I also miss spanakopita. Yes, I could make my own GF fillo dough, but I’ll tell you something: it’s terrible. It’s very time consuming, extremely hard to work with, and you can’t get it nearly as thin as it should be. I’d be willing to sacrifice some of my precious grocery budget in order to find some ready-made fillo dough or even puff pastry that I wouldn’t have to make myself.

If I didn’t have to go pick up my nephew from school right now, I’d actually be able to list even more inconveniences and irritations from going gluten-free. How’s that for scary?

It’s not that bad, because we have a huge variety of foods we, as Celiac’s, can eat. I was never one for “convenience” foods. My veggies are either fresh or frozen. I have to agree with one of the other comments – I do miss cream of chicken soup! Will have to give the recipe here a try.

There are a few gluten free sites that do not use xantham or gar gum for many of their recipes. Google and look through these sites Tarlette, http://www.latartinegourmande.com/2010/01/11/banana-hazelnut-cocoa-muffins/ http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com/2010/01/meyer-lemon-lime-and-quinoa-pudding.html

many times you can use sweet potato or pumpkin in place of gums to hold them together.

Here is a great recipe that will give you an example here: http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/2007/06/sweet-potato-cake-with-maple-glaze.html

With so many allergies, have you tried many stir-fry dishes? We keep a few basic veggies and small cut-up packets of meat frozen, than add sweet potato, peppers and mushrooms each week to whatever other veggies are in the house. The sauce is easy: ginger & garlic cooked at the beginning with the meat, then everything else at the end: fish sauce (fermented fish with salt–sounds icky, but the flavor is unbelievable!), dried peppers for spiciness, a tablespoon of frozen concentrated orange juice, rice wine vinegar, a splash of whatever cooking wine you like, (you can skip the GF soy sauce) and, if you need more sweetness, a dash of sugar or concentrated apple juice. If everything is at hand, it really does not take long and we eat the leftovers all week long. Good luck!