Gluten Free Breeze (formerly Brendygirl) Blog

In the elevator to our hotel room (the cdf conference in L.A.), a woman commented on the Udi bread she spied sticking out from my bag on the bellman's luggage cart. This was my marine's first clue that "people like ME" were swarming the hotel.

Celiac.com Sponsor (A13):
My beau learned SO much from the speakers (Dr. Peter Green, Dr. Sheila Crowe, Dietician, Shelley Case, and Cook Extraordinaire Frank Baldassare!

My Marine needs to step up his know-how pertaining to Gluten Freedom since.. *drumroll*:

The Marine Corps is sending him to Command & Staff School for a year and so I'm going to rent my house out, sell my car, put my teaching job on hold, adopt a carefree attitude, a scarf, and a metro card...and shack up with him for a year! Funny enough, the hardest part has been thinking about glutenous tenants contaminating my virgin, high-end fridge and stove!

Back to the conference:

After dining on gluten-free Bisquick Pancakes (perfect texture, yummy, can't wait for them to hit stores this fall),and savory Jones Dairy Farm All Natural Sausage Links (thumbs way up!)we alternated between raiding the chillbump-inducing superfluous vendor sample hallways and watching the presentations. I preferred last year's lunch, this year was chicken (snore), but the Betty Crocker cupcakes were tasty. It's always such a special occasion to eat out without needing to tame & train a server and just relax and enjoy with lots of "special" people, who are "against the grain", like me! I was pleased to see lots of nutritionists at a seminar learning about gluten-free!

Now for the GOODS on the GRUB:

Foods/Products I liked and recommend:

1. Udi Bread (Awesome & loaf can be thawed!)
   1. 
      
   2. Rudi's Bread (similar to Udi's and if I see it, I'll buy it)
      1. Glutino Chocolate covered pretzels- 2 die 4!
         
      2. Asian Chicken Helper (Hamburger Helper)- pretty tasty. A good replacement for the "normal" kind
         
      3. gluten-free Bisquick Pancakes- Yum with a capital Y--it came with 9 other gluten-free recipe cards to use bisquick
         
      4. Jones Dairy Farms All Natural Sausage- Savory and Delicious
         
      5. Kettle Cuisine Soups- I like them, but I'm too thrifty to purchase them
         
      6. Soy Delicious (fake ice cream): It's rich and flavorful- cookie dough is a nice gluten-free flavor!
         
      7. Zojirushi Breadmaker- the bread was good, and machine is $200 or so
         
      8. Simply Gluten Free desserts- oatmeal cookies were delicious and only a tad overchewy
         
      9. PureFit Nutrition bars- fair as nutr.bars go, but too pricey, I'll stick with Lara (half the price)
         
      10. Bard's Tale Beer- great
          
      11. French Meadow Bakery Brownies- Vey Good, texture&taste. I prefer Rudi's Raisin bread to theirs
          
      12. Smooze Mango and Coconut Fruit Ice- tasty, but I use cheapie popsicles
          
      13. Green's Beer- Great
          
      14. The Pure Pantry Baked Goods- Delicious
          
      15. Sof-ella cake mix- Good, I get it cheap at FreshNEasy
          
      16. Boar's Head deli meats and cheeses and condiments are tasty and ALL gluten free
          
      17. Annie's Bunny Crackers Cocoa & Vanilla- yum
          
      18. Schar breadsticks and Wafer cookies- crunchy and tasty
          
      19. Boulangerie Brownies and Baked Goods- Excellent- My favorite find at the conference!!!

      Things I didn't like (don't waste your dough)

      1. Simply Boulder Culinary Sauces- not creamy enough and too tart
         
      2. Earth Cafe Desserts- taste like mush
         
      3. Mary's Gone Crackers- taste like birdseed, CrunchMaster are better
         
      4. Nature's Agave sweeteners- yuck. Better to go with real sugar
         
      5. various pastas- stick with Mrs. Leepers and Tinkyada