gluten free by nature — casein, soy and entirely almost sugar free…

I owe all of you an apology. I have not meant to neglect you. Things in our neck of the woods have not exactly been smooth going…we are in the process of selling our house. AND we are currently in South Africa on a family holiday. Trying to get ready to list our house and simultaneously preparing to leave the country for a month proved to be quite an undertaking. I found myself with absolutely no time to be in the kitchen.  So busy, in fact, that I never even found time to leave a note here that I was going to be away for a bit. Well, albeit late: here it is.

Many of you know that my husband is from South Africa. And he happens to be the only person in his family who lives outside the country. We haven’t been back to visit together in almost 6 years. It’s so good to be back - and it’s been wonderful to catch up with family and dear friends. It is such a beautiful country and the people are so warm. Seeing the  ocean has been fantastic.

Getting here was quite the long haul though – flying one flight from Denver to London and then the other flight from London to Johannesburg. We stayed in London for almost 3 days to break up the journey.   So, I thought I would leave a brief description of our experience of gluten free travel so far. It’s been quite interesting. We were able to book gluten free meals on the airlines. To be frank, I was more or less disappointed on United Airlines.  Dinner was mediocre chicken with steamed broccoli. Breakfast – after 10 hours of flying mind you – was a rice cake and a little container of Mott’s applesauce. Not my idea of the most nutritious way to start your day. 

Once in London, we ate (my personal favorite) Indian food. Chowki and its sister restaurant Mela serve gluten free meals and were very helpful/ accommodating with selecting dairy free options. Chowki is located in Picadilly (central London) but there are other satellite restaurants in and around London. London is very well known for its outstanding Indian food. I could not wait to take my first bite – incredibly good but too spicy for my children. The second evening we ate at Carluccio’s- a very hip resto located one block off Leicester Square that has an entirely separate gluten free menu. It was delicious.  And a very large antipasto bar to boot.

The gluten free meals on South African airways were unbelievable. I felt so spoiled. My children were in heaven. Scrambled eggs for breakfast, along with home fries and vegetables. Way better than the rice cake and applesauce. Great healthy snacks and a late lunch included a vegetable rice dish. All sauces were served on the side (something I was quite nervous about with the dairy and soy issues we have).  I have a few posts coming up while we are here – but there are not going to be frequent.  Bear with me my friends, I will be back to you shortly.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 9am and is filed under main course. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.