trip report - LA, Fargo, Eugene...

[Guest guest]

Actually this was three tips and they were a while ago (October -

December) -- I have been meaning to post this for quite some time.

Last fall I had a business trip to Fargo, ND. I did a little research

before I went and found some interesting facts. There is a Fargo

marathon every year, and at the pasta dinner for the marathon they

have a gluten-free pasta option. And here I am in the " progressive "

bay area and can hardly find lunch in San Francisco. But enough

complaining, at least for this paragraph ;-). While in Fargo, I had

dinner at " eXtreme Pizza " . It's a regular pizza place but the woman

who owns it started making GF crusts as well when her friend's son was

diagnosed with Autism. She was very friendly. Anyway, when I walked

in, I was worried -- the place looked like it was probably covered in

wheat flour. But I was hungry and went for it anyway. Surprisingly, I

did not get sick. I also found the time to stop by a specialty

gluten-free grocery store. That's right, folks, Fargo, of all places,

has a dedicated gluten free grocery store. The woman who owns it said

she wanted to do a cafe also, but the bank thought she was crazy and

wouldn't give her enough money for that. They had the biggest

selection of gluten free goodies I have ever set eyes on, all in one

place. Every possible flavor of Kinnikinnick donuts; every brand of

cake mix you could imagine, etc. This is the place:

http://www.sydneyshealthmarket.com/ ... they also had a list of

restaurants put together by the Red River Celiacs -- I didn't have as

much luck with that list. The one restaurant I went to no longer had

the GF menu. Anyway, though, all this in Fargo -- who would have

thought.

I also went to LA for a conference in the fall. I didn't eat out in

LA, so no restaurant news, but I did go out of my way to visit The

Sensitive Baker in Culver City. As far as I know, they are the ONLY gf

bakery in LA -- LA's Mariposa, if you will, although I wouldn't

compare the two since The Sensitive Baker really just seems to be a

local bakery without all the distribution etc. The owner was there

when I visited (the same woman who does the blog and was on the TV

show someone mentioned a long while back). Anyway, I had a few

different things there, but what I remember most were the bagels. They

were by far the BEST gluten free bagels I have ever had! They had a

pretty good bagel-like consistency and tasted good, but the best part

is that they did not have that eggy after taste or that eggy smell

when toasting them. (They do have eggs in them, but they must use less

or do something differently.) The egg aftertaste and the egg smell

when toasting GF bread/bagels is a big pet peeve of mine. Man were

these bagels good. But they are also 4 for $10. So at $30 a dozen, we

made them last ;-) Anyway, I've tried three brands of frozen GF bagels

and of course Mariposa bagels. The ones from The Sensitive Baker are

my favorite. I also bought some of their breadsticks, not really

knowing what I would do with them. We took them out of the freezer and

toasted them from time to time to go with soup, etc. They are great.

They also had these little pizza that were GFCF and the " cheese " was

something like hummus. Good stuff. Lots of other goodies too. I can't

wait for m next excuse to go to LA and stock up on more stuff. Back to

the conference -- I was worried about what I was going to eat the

entire time. This was the MIcrosoft conference (PDC) and it was at the

LA convention center. When I registered, I told them about my dietary

requirements, but I fully expected them to be clueless when I got

there (like the conference center at the Bellagio in Vegas that served

couscous to me). Anyway, boy was I surprised! The LA convention center

had a special line for folks with special meals. I was on a list, and

they were well informed about gluten free. They had breakfast and

lunch ready for me every day. The chef even asked me how it was and

asked if I had any requests or suggestions for the following days. It

wasn't super inventive -- eggs, cold cuts, salad, steamed veggies,

etc., but it definitely did not have gluten in it. There were some

other GF folks at the conference as well.

We went up to Eugene, OR for Christmas (my mother, who is diagnosed

celiac, lives there). Not much to report on that front other than the

fact that the big Price Chopper market in south Eugene has a bigger

selection of GF stuff than any supermarket I have been to on the bay

area. This is always surprising to me -- and fun -- I spend about an

hour checking everything out -- they have like 7 different kinds of

N-R-G brand GF bread -- I didn't even know that brand existed before).

We got gluten free ice cream cones there over the summer. I actually

took some pictures of some of the shelves -- I'll send another note if

I post them on flicker or something. The other interesting thing about

Eugene is that they have a GIG there (Gluten Intolerance Group) with

meetings every couple weeks with guest speakers like doctors and

nutritionists, and lots of free samples. I've never heard of anything

like this in the bay area. My mother was telling me that a recent one

she went to brought up the subject of a gluten free bakery in

Corvallis. It turns out that these folks were a struggling regular

bakery, and decided to take a shot at going GF. Now they have more

business than they can handle, and they often deny requests to bake

more stuff to ship down to Eugene. There is some talk of opening a

dedicated GF restaurant in Eugene, too (but it hasn't materialized

yet). Antoher meeting she went to had an MD talking about his research

and his belief that all diabetes is related to gluten-intolerance (not

celiac, but gluten-intolerance -- he believes there are many other

expressions of gluten-intolerance other than gastrointestinal). I

thought was interesting since my dad had type I and his mother had

type II diabetes. Anyway... that's about as much as I can get away

with typing Saturday morning with two kids up ;-)

-Luther