New book about travelling with allergens

[Lucy]

Hi everyone,

I just attended, with my entire local family, including b-i-l. a presentation by a couple of people, a lady with various allergies from Chicago, and a gentlemen who's been in the restaurant business for a while who, I believe, resides in N.Y.

Anyway, they have co-authored a book together on how to eat in ethnic restaurants both here and abroad (travel book, in other words), and have also produced some little helpful cards for communicating and teaching restaurant folks as well as helping to get the foods you need served correctly, and that one does starve while traveling.

At the end of the presentation, I asked the guy who'd been in the restaurant business about the meats as I had thought we had to be cautious, due to the possibility of their being injected prior to delivery to the restaurant.

Guess I sort of caught him off guard as their presentation, though good, didn't mention the meats the restaurants used at all.
He sort of side tracted by saying that many places used organic meats, but in some areas, they may not, and had a sort of blank look on his face. Guess they'd just not thought to include that in their presentation or book, but then I'll have to read it to know for sure. It was a little fast for my glutenized brain, but I liked they way they mentioned certain ethnic foods that would be free of certain common allergens.
They said that they were working on getting the list of eight expanded to a total of 10 allergens by the year 2008, and one of the other two was "gluten." Hope they can pull it off!

Still, I worry about any newbies at this meeting who may think that they can just go out and eat any meat in a restaurant if it can be made without certain additions IN the restaurant. What about what's added before it's loaded onto the delivery truck, for instance?

The lady speaker said that Chicago now has other chains besides their local one I'd heard about before which now have a gluten free menu, and apparently, they are springing up lots around there. Hope this becomes a national trend. They also have the national chains there.

Jean, I hope that when you go home next, you'll be able to find lots of places who can prepare things minus ALL your no-no foods without a hassle.

Yours, Luce