Friday, September 19, 2008

Some Updates

Just wanted to fill everybody in on a few updates.
  • I attended last night's Celiac Support Group meeting and met a ton of great people with a lot more Gluten Free experience than me. I hope to continue to learn from these folks, many of which have been doing this for a long, long time. I intend to post some meeting minutes so that the people who could not attend last night can still know what went on. More to come on that.
  • I have been making some progress on finding Gluten Free items at Carolina Hurricanes home games at the RBC Center. The hockey season is quickly approaching. I have been in contact over the last few weeks with the Director of Food and Beverage as well as their Executive Chef. I will let you know more about what is decided for those of us who require/request Gluten Free food and beverage as soon as possible. At this point, things are looking pretty good for us!
  • I have also been working on the folks at the NC State Fair which is coming up in a few weeks. In the past, this has been one of my favorite events to attend and I love the food. I estimate that I usually end up consuming somewhere around 7,000 calories in about a 2 hour period (yikes). At this point, I am trying to see if any vendors at the fair can claim to be Gluten Free. This will be a difficult maze to navigate, but many vendors have meat, vegetable, fruit or dessert items that have potential. The main concern here will be cross-contamination. I will let you know what I find out there. I am bummed to have to stay away from the elephant ears and fried snickers bars though - oh well. Maybe I can still get my London Broil sandwich, sans bun. UPDATE 9-20-08 @ 8AM - I heard from the folks at the NC State Fair this morning and they are currently in the process of querying their vendors about Gluten Free Items!
  • Lastly, I am a formulating a strategy on how best to contact the many restaurants in the Raleigh area about their Gluten Free friendliness. I plan to start in the Downtown area where there are over 100 restaurants and then work my way out. I have come up with a Online Survey that can best gather this input to at least get the ball rolling. I intend to contact each place and share the feedback that I gather in the Survey. This may get information out a little quicker than everyone waiting for me to eat at each place. More to come on this definitely! UPDATE 9-20-08 @ 8AM - The first 40 surveys were emailed out to restaurants last night. I am starting to get some responses and will provide this feedback to you ASAP. For the other 60 restaurants Downtown, looks like I'll be pounding the pavement on those. Wish me luck!
Thanks and have a great weekend!

4 comments:

Curious Art said...

Thanks for doing all this research! I'm also gf in Raleigh, & rarely eat out since my Celiac diagnosis. I'm definitely checking back often to see if you find any safe places to eat.

I'm assuming you already know about PF Chang's-- if not, their gf menu is one of the better options I've found, other than sushi with my own soy sauce.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for all your work on this blog. You are doing all of us in Raleigh a big favor. My name is John and I am in the Raleigh Celiac Support Group. I took your advice on Red bridge beer and I am sooo glad I did! It is good and I can rest a little easier now that I found me a brew. New Grist to me is undrinkable, as is one I got from A Southern Season which is from Belgium (I forget the brand, but I will try to email the group about it!). Take it easy. -j

Anonymous said...

Thanks for tackling this!
My partner and I are both GF and have found some really great places to go.

Hockey games are always hard! We have had the pulled pork over nacho chips! That was good!!

As for the fair, I did the wings at Woody's last year - they don't bread them. I'm not so sensitive to items being fried in the same oil, so that might be an issue for other people more sensitive.

As for the beer that the previous commenter made --- TRY GREEN'S! it's from Belgium and awesome. It's high alcohol content and we share one beer (large). They come in blonde, amber and dark. The amber is the best!!

Amy said...

The GF restaurant listing will be a great help. I have been gluten free since August, and dining out has been the hardest obstacle to overcome. Thanks in advance for all your work! You are not just helping people with celiac disease, you are also educating restaurant owners by being a GF advocate. That's cool :)

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