Gluten-free Cooking for Kids

We went to bed listening to the church bells of Harwell ringing in the New Year  and woke to a beautiful crisp and very cold morning.  After a breakfast of streusel topped blueberry muffins, Daddy's delicious hot chocolate (recipe to come!) and some strong coffee, we wrapped up, wearing all our winter woolies and headed into Oxford City Centre on the train.  This is part of our resolution to be a little greener this year and make more of our public transport system.  It was a short journey and almost missing the train, made it that bit more exciting.

Having done a bit of research on the web  http://www.wagamama.co.uk/food/dietary/wheatandglutenintolerant  we headed for Wagamama's for a late lunch.  The web site looked promising and there appeared to be a number of gluten free options, which surprised me as it is not a place I would have thought would be suitable for those on a gf diet. Unfortunately the reality was a lot less gf friendly then it appeared on cyberspace.  We were given a laminated ringbound folder to leaf through which was something intended for the kitchen staff and then left to sort out which dishes would be suitable.  It was a rather complicated system of matching up menu item numbers with those on the laminated sheet and to be honest, it all got to be too much.  So we commandeered the waitress and asked if it would be possible to order a small bowl of rice noodles and some chicken skewers without any sauce.  The waitress brought us a large industrial sized container of gluten free soy sauce (that was impressive) and some limes, from which we made a little sauce for Ruthie.  She scoffed the lot quite happily but later said she didn't think the restaurant had done a good job.  On further questionning, it appeared that the lack of children's chopsticks was more to blame for the low rating, then the lack of gf options.  So there you go.

As for those resolutions, well mine is to get under the skin of the restaurant  food chains.  I would love to see these restaurants modifying their menus and making gf options more readily available.  As my daughter gets older, I can see that travelling with a well stocked lunch box may no longer be the answer.  Apart from the obvious problem of explaining to the staff why you are bringing your own food, there is also the psychological aspect of being excluded from what is after all a social experience.  Eating out, participating in conversation and enjoying the social aspect of eating with a group is something we all take for granted.  So for 2010, let's see if we can get some gf action and get more GF food on those menus.   I'd love to hear of your gf eating out experiences.