Sir Edmund Hillary
These are the voyages of the Celiac Tom, continuing my mission to explore strange new restaurants and other eateries, to boldly go where no Celiac has gone before.
I found myself in St. Augustine, Florida over the holidays, wandering aimlessly in search of a restaurant for dinner along with 9 other family members. It was about 8pm – not an ideal time to start the hunt for food in a heavily trafficked tourist town. The early crowd from the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum was out and ravenous from their viewing of Martha Stewart’s Tiny Egg, and Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth had just closed, so seats at tables were at a premium.
Trying to get 9 people to agree on anything, especially a restaurant choice is about as easy as nailing Welch’s Squeezable Grape Jelly to a wall. So in the interest of eating before the 2010 holiday season, I elected to abstain from voting on restaurant selection. After all, this is Man vs. Celiac, so I saw an opportunity for a new and unforeseen challenge, and put myself at the mercy of group think. Family group think.
Bad idea.
Got a little Captain in ya?
We ended up at a pizza and Italian place called PizzAlley‘s. That’s what I get for ducking out of the group decision making process. Like crime, indifference doesn’t pay. Trying to find a gluten free meal at a place that orders flour by the metric ton is kind of like playing russian roulette with all 6 cylinders loaded. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat.
So I settled on one of the few safe bets in my repertoire. Times 3. It’s OK, Aunt Rissy drove home.
Got a little Captain in ya?
After an 18 month adventure through the catacombs of the medical system, I was formally diagnosed with Celiac Disease. The bright side of that journey is that I know 3,712 nasty and horrible conditions that I do NOT have.
Really enjoy your blog!
My husband and son are gluten free and it is a total pain for them!
I have also been to Pizza Ally—we have family in that area. Do they still have the ‘sweet, sweet water’ Ponce drank? if they do, I’ll do you a favor—skip it, it tastes crappy and does nothing to help wrinkles
You know, I did not see that on the menu, but then again I didn’t look too hard once I decided to do the liquid dinner! The Fountain of Youth attraction up the road didn’t do too much to help my aging either
We stopped by today with a group who wanted pizza. I asked about a gluten free pizza and SURPISE-they made a pizza using smashed french fries as a crust. I spoke with Zach, the gluten free expert, who assured me that the fries and cheese were gluten free. I have to say that it was a great surprise-pizza and fries in one meal!!! The taste was a lot of what you’d expect-fries topped with pizza, but not the least bit greasy-it was a fantastic treat!
I just ate it this evening, so I’m not making any promises that it is indeed gluten free, but Zach asked his staff to provide clean utensils for preparing my pizza and he answered all of my questions positively. Apparently his son might have gluten issues, so he is very well informed.