Going Away For The Weekend

[terri]

Okay, I've been gluten-free for a year and a half and feel I have a handle on things. However, going away with our friends to their lake house this weekend has me worried. I don't feel right inspecting their kitchen, cutting boards, pots and pans, dishwashing liquid, etc. On the other hand, this is my health involved and I don't want to get sick! And, there's a wine festival we're to go to also where I won't be able to eat. My husband said, don't worry. Bring your pb and rice cakes in your purse and every night we'll just grill something... Yes, I can see it now. " Did you put marinade on that meat? Where's the bottle? What are the ingredients? Did you heat up a roll where the meat is? What cutting board did you slice the meat on? Has it ever been used for bread?

So, at lunch today I went to the health food store that stocks mucho gluten free items and bought 4 meals in a box. I NEVER eat food from a box or bag or what have you, but in this case I feel I won't be a burden and I won't get glutened. It will be so hard though to watch them eat steak, or chicken and other yummy stuff. I also got instant gluten-free hot quinoa for breakfast...I just hope it works. I want to go. I don't want to be a party pooper (literally!) and I don't want the weekend to be about me and my disease....

Any advice, input, encouragement, would be much appreciated.

[kabowman]

I have the same problem coming up with Thanksgiving...the last 2 years it has been at my house and totally safe. This year, at my sister-in-laws house and they live on bread and milk products so I am going down there to watch them eat. Their tiny, cluttered, not particularly clean, gluten filled kitchen just isn't even safe for me to cook anything in while they are cooking their stuff. I don't even trust their microwave.

I know, I know, it is about the company but a lot is also about the food and a meal isn't so bad to miss but a weekend is...

[terri]

We're going away for Thanksgiving to my husband's cousin's house. She is worried sick about cooking something I can eat. I keep telling her not to worry, she doesn't stuff her bird, I'll have turkey and green beans, but I feel awful, like I've already ruined her day.

[Carriefaith]

It will be so hard though to watch them eat steak, or chicken and other yummy stuff. I also got instant gluten-free hot quinoa for breakfast...I just hope it works. I want to go. I don't want to be a party pooper (literally!) and I don't want the weekend to be about me and my disease.... Any advice, input, encouragement, would be much appreciated.

Buy lots of tinfoil and Kraft BBQ sauce for cooking meat!

Before they start marinating stuff, just ask if they can set a piece aside for you in a gluten-free covered container. When they start cooking, wrap your meat in the tin foil (2 layers is good) and pour some BBQ sauce on it. I always make my tinfoil into a pan-like structure, that way you won't loose BBQ sauce. Once that is done, take your meat and place it on the BBQ and keep a close eye on it, making sure no one opens it and touches it with a glutened utensil to make sure it's done. This is what I do when I go to BBQ's. The tinfoil is great because the meat doesn't burn

[terri]

What a good idea! Thank you!!

[Guest nini]

when I first went gluten-free my husband and I went to his grandmother's house in Indiana, we went up for a wedding(we drove from GA) and I was very concerned about how I was going to eat in a strange new town in a house where gluten was everywhere and so on... So I packed a cooler with safe foods that all I needed to do was heat up, or I could eat cold... several bags of gluten-free snacks and other goodies. I was a little jealous of all the homemade Grandma food that everyone was eating, but at least I didn't get sick and I didn't starve.