Progress

I've found someone who will make our wedding cake with a gluten and nut free tier! And her cakes are beautiful, I have actually fallen in love with some of her designs. So we now have, cake, invitations, The Father-In-Law-To-Be is sorting our cars, I have a dress and an idea for the bridesmaids, The Fiance has chosen his suit and Best Man. All we need now is a bow tie for my dad and an outfit for you mum! I'm going to visit them this weekend. You have no idea how much I need this trip. I've been really withdrawn and tearful recently, I know this can be a sympton of Coeliacs, but I think its a combination of self-image issues (I hate being this skinny and I think that I look unhealthy) and frustration that I've not miraculously got better in 2 months. What I need is a few days of mum and dad time and lots of yummy home cooking. Even just the thought of not having to cook for myself for a few days cheers me up!!

Packing for Mum and Dad's is crazy. I'm going for 4 nights so I'll need 4 sachets of Maxijul, 2 bottles of Calogen, 8 Enlive Plus drinks, one loaf of gluten free bread (Mum and I are going to bake some too), and half a pack of gluten free crispbread. That's on top of my regular Crohn's Disease medication! I'm off to a wedding in France the weekend after so will need to think about what I can take there, I won't be having home cooked meals so need to think about how I can add my weight gain supplements to food while I'm away. I wonder if I can charge my excess baggage to the NHS?!

I've been reading up a bit on Coeliacs and I think I understand a bit better the reasons behind all my various symptoms. I was very interested to read that the main areas of malabsorbtion are fats and lactose. I'm keeping a food diary so that I can look at my diet to see what I might need to change. I'll talk to the Dietitian next week when she weighs me.

Loch Fyne

Well, I am full of praise for the Loch Fyne fish restaurant! I went out for dinner with The Fiance and his parents (invite crisis over, we're in agreement about one!) to Loch Fyne in Beaconsfield. I phoned ahead and was reassured that everything is made from scratch in the kitchen so that any dietary requirement could be catered for. I told the waitress when she first came to the table that I was Coeliacs and what I had to avoid, when I made my choice (guided by the list provided by email - see my post on 21st May) she went to the kitchen to double check it was ok and then came back to me to double check what I couldn't eat. It was all very reassuring. I opted for the Pan-fried Bream with Olive Oil Mash and Watercress Pesto. It was delightful, the mash was soft and sweet-ish but the olive oil didn't overpower the fish. The Bream was lovely, the crispy skin and mild flavour were just what I wanted. My only criticism would be that the pesto was more of a garnish than part of the dish, I expected more from it. All in all, however, a really tasty meal, and one where I didn't have to give gluten a second thought. Hurrah! The Father-In-Law-to-be raved about his fish stew (contains gluten) and Mackerel Pate (no gluten, except if you have the oatcakes - i suppose you'd have to eat it with a spoon(!) or bring your own crackers). He seemed very pleased with his first visit to the restaurant, and he's a difficult man to impress.

Gluten-free-nut-cake or nut-free-gluten-cake?

Hmmm... The Fiance's parents are coming next week. They want to see a prototype invitation, we haven't agreed on a design yet. All my ideas have been rejected by The Fiance, who says he "doesn't care what it looks like, I just want you to design them" but who has disliked every suggestion. I was wide awake until well after 3am last night (despite ridiculous exhaustion) worrying about it. On top of that, we need to find someone to make our wedding cake with a gluten free tier and to ensure that it's nut free (The Fiance can't eat nuts). I think we should have a pavlova wedding cake. That solves all our problems, and pavlova is brilliant! I knew things would get stressful once we hit the 6 months to go mark, I just didn't factor in the fact that The Fiance would want so much say in everything, and that his opinion would oppose mine in everything. The only area in which I've had complete autonomy is the flowers, but he's not chosen his ushers so I can't order any buttonholes because I don't know numbers... Seriously, I thought weddings were meant to be all about the Bride (and Groom) not the Groom (and his family). I need to visit my mum and dad, regain perspective.

Now for the good news. I've been seeing a dietitian for Coeliacs, obviously, but also to help me gain weight. She weighed me yesterday and in the first week of using all the weight-gain supplements I've put on 1 1/2 lbs! Ok, so it doesn't seem like much but to see the scales moving upwards not downwards is very exciting for me. I'm a bridesmaid for a friend in August, hopefully I'll have put on enough weight by then that I won't look like a real-life stick person. My target is to have put on about a stone by the end of August so that when I have my first wedding dress fitting it doesn't drop off me!

Energy?

Sooo tired! On Sunday morning I woke up before my alarm, got up, dressed, had breakfast and was ready for church before I realised that this was not normal for me. Where had this energy come from? Could it be the copious amounts of food and 3 different weight-gain supplements I had the day before? Doubtful. I was sick the day before and didn't each much and didn't manage all my supplements. Could I be cured of Coelics?! That seemed unlikely too. I hope that it is part of the exceedingly slow healing process that I've noticed since starting on the gluten free diet. By about 3pm I was exhausted again and ready to sleep for a week, but it was nice while it lasted.

I'm back to complete lack of energy now. It's a struggle to even open my eyes in the morning, let alone get up. I have to force myself out of bed. Throughout the day I feel as if I could fall asleep at any moment and it's quite normal for me to have a nap in the evening. I know that it's a result of malabsorption and once my intestines heal I'll feel better. When will that be? I'm bored of this now. Sunday morning was a glimpse of what I could feel like, it's made me impatient.

Yesterday I was so sleepy in the evening that I couldn't be bothered to cook. This would have been the ideal situation to rescue one of the meals that Lovely Bunny cooked for me to freeze. (If I'm honest, I'm desperate for an excuse to eat one of the frozen meals because they are gorgeous. I tasted a bit to check seasoning and could have finished the lot then and there!) Instead, The Musician decided to make salmon. The salmon, however, was lovely. The accompaniment was achieved by par-boiling then sauteing potatoes, panicking and throwing in some onion, stirring vigorously, then adding chopped peppers! It actually tasted quite nice, I think it could be improved by popping it the oven and roasting for half an hour. Next time!

Today, I think I will cook. I re-discovered Delia Smith's recipe for moussaka and it seems a fairly simple process to adapt it to make it gluten free. I'll let you know if it works!

More Restaurant Responses

I actually got this one a while ago, but it was saved on a different PC. These are all the gluten-free options for Caffe Uno.

Caffe Uno

Prosciutto di Parma e melone
Trio di pomodori con mozzarella
Insalata nizzarda con salmone e grensaola
Olive marinate al rosmarino
Filetto di salmone alla griglia
Pollo alla pizzaiola
Pollo avvolto nel prosciutto con caprino sciolto
Trancio di tonno in padella
Insalata tricolore
Insalata tiepida di pollo e verdure arrosto
Puré di patate
Patate novelle arrosto
Fagiolini
Insalata di pomodori e cipolle rosse
Insalata stagionale
Rucola con scaglie di Grano Padano
Panna cotta

A good selection, especially for a pizza/pasta restaurant.

Bring on the BBQ season!

I was a bit nervous about the amount of barbeques I had been invited to lately (two last weekend and one the weekend before). What will I eat? I wondered. Well, I went prepared with gluten-free sausages, a couple of slices of gluten-free bread and chicken with exciting seasoning all individually wrapped in foil, not only did it guarantee that what I was eating was definitely gluten free and avoided any cross contamination, but it also meant that I definitely got something I liked! It also proved to be quite a conversation starter! It's amazing how many people have some kind of food intolerance - wheat, eggs, strawberries, the list is endless.

Over the bank holiday weekend, The Musician had a birthday barbeque. I chopped up some new potatoes, tossed them with a teaspoon each of ground cumin, coriander and garam masala and a sprinkling of ground cinnamon. Chucked in half an onion, finely chopped and enough olive oil to coat everything. I wrapped it all in foil and we put in on the barbeque for about an hour. When it was cooked, the potatoes had a lovely crisp, fragrant coating and even tasted good cold. Quite a success.

I think I'm going to survive the barbeque seaon after all...