Recap 1: Google is my friend, contaminated grocery items, and GF-friendly restaurants

So, as promised, I'm going to recap the first couple of weeks of this journey.

During the first week (okay -- let's be honest -- I'm still doing this), I spent an inordinate amount of time on my computer googling every food-related thing I could think of (from restaurant names to brands of groceries to types of food items) and appending "gluten free" to each search. Through this, I found out more than you'd ever want to know (but lots of stuff I needed to know) about the non-obvious, hidden gluten in things.

Some examples of gluten-containing products that by all rights should be Gluten Free (GF):

• Crispix (rice on one side, corn on the other -- why wheat/barley anywhere??)
• Rice Krispies
• Corn Flakes
• Nestle Crunch bars (chocolate, crisp rice -- why did they add barley malt?? At least their Butterfinger and Baby Ruth bars are fine)
  
• some jarred spaghetti sauces (others are fine)
• many brands of canned chicken/beef/etc broth
• some brands of yogurt
• soy sauce -- it's from Asia -- they didn't even have wheat till Europeans brought it there!
• some salad dressings
• Pringles -- sure, they're majorly synthetic but they're POTATO chips!
• almost all (if not all) cans of cream of anything soup -- maybe this isn't unreasonable b/c they do need something to thicken it with but it's no less irritating

Okay... enough whining about groceries for a bit...

So in our household, we have eaten out on Friday evenings for practically forever. So I get this diagnosis on a Thursday and all of a sudden that's not a no-brainer! Italian seems like it's mostly out. Much Mexican has flour tortillas or sauces that contain flour. Burgers? sure, w/o the bun! Add to that the surprise element that some restaurants dust their fries or tortilla chips in flour before they fry them -- say bye bye to those (and anything else fried in the same oil with them)!

But then there's the good news -- many restaurants, both here in Austin and around the country, either have printed GF menus or have knowledgeable management and/or staff who can help me order safely! We chose to start with Matt's El Rancho on that first Friday, where the word was that I needed to talk to a manager. So I asked when we got there and they sent Heather to my table to help me out that first evening. WOW! She knew what she was doing!!! Apparently they have several GF clients, at least one of whom goes in weekly. Heather has apparently worked with them extensively and knows exactly what has to be done to modify the food prep to make it GF. Plus their chips are fried in oil that is only used for their chips (no flour dusting either), so they're always safe. I have to say goodbye to any sauces other than queso and the table salsa on my enchiladas/tamales, and I can only have the whole beans (not refried), but that's not bad! She says other managers know what to do too, but I haven't had to find out b/c both times we've been there since my diagnosis, she's been there and helped me out.

So here's a preliminary list of restaurants I know about for me to get started:

• Matt's El Rancho
• Guero's (owner is GF)
• Serrano's (manager says they have a printed menu; haven't been in yet to check out)
• Cantina Laredo (emailed me the menu and have it in restaurant; haven't tried)
• PF Changs (menu online w/some of my favorites on it -- can't wait to try!)
• 360 Uno Trattoria (very delicious; waitress was not very knowledgeable, but owner is GF, so several options on menu are available GF, including pizza, which I will try sometime in future)
• Fogo de Chao (they say almost everything is GF, including the bread rolls -- yea!)
• Brick Oven -- especially one on Brodie has a bunch of options; others have pizzas
  
• Chipotle (as long as you avoid the tortillas, everything's GF, but b/c of cross-contamination, I have to ask them to change gloves before preparing my food)
• Terraburger
  

Chipotle has been my primary grab-it-quick destination, though I enjoyed a Terraburger one day last week (very tasty including the GF bun!). So far, we've eaten out at Matt's twice and 360 Uno once. Some of the others are high on my list to try soon, and I'll keep you posted.