Coeliac Diary

A Use for Gluten-Free Bread

2008-06-26T21:16:00.000+01:00

I just cooked myself a very nice supper. When you’re a sixty year old man, who hasn’t really cooked before, anything above the ordinary is good.

I took some gluten-free bread and minced it in my Kenwood Mini-Chopper, as featured by the cheating Delia. I then used it to bread a turkey breast, which I’d flattened with a rolling pin. I fried it in olive oil and it was delicious.

Exercise Performance and Glutening

2008-06-26T08:20:00.000+01:00

My late wife, Celia, could run 5km in 25 minutes at the age of 58. I have never been able to do anything like that at all, so recently I have bought a rowing machine to try and improve my fitness.

I row about “4 miles” on the machine and typically it takes me about five minutes to perhaps five minutes ten seconds. I aim to do this twice a day, except when I play an hour of tennis. I should say that I’m not showing much improvement, but perhaps my body is past the point of no return. On the other hand, my real tennis handicap has improved since I started taking the extra exercise. I always used to tail off towards the end of the hour, but now I seem to stay in there.

About two weeks ago, I was accidentally glutened in a pub probably because of some balsamic vinegar. (Why can’t they all use Aspalls?) My performance dropped alarmingly for two days and it was probably four before I got back to my normal performance level.

This is not a definitive test, but it did show me the alarming affects of gluten on someone like me who is by no means supersensitive.

Goat's Milk

2008-06-25T21:47:00.000+01:00

After reading Dogtor J’s piece on lactose I thought I’d try some goat’s milk. Over recent years, I’ve come to think that I’m slightly lactose intolerant. I always thought it tasted and smelt a bit funny, but the Waitrose semi-skimmed seemed to be almost indistinguishable to cow’s milk.

I have found that I get a slight reaction with larger qualities of cow’s milk, such as I would have with cornflakes. But I tried the goat’s milk this morning and felt fine. I even put some orange juice on top of it and got no reaction. That can make me feel queasy.

Dogtor J

2008-06-17T11:07:00.000+01:00

I’ve just had an e-mail from this vet, who is a coeliac.

Interesting. Especially for me as he’s going into equines.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

2008-06-05T10:58:00.000+01:00

I moderate a list for coeliacs in the UK. We have had people on the list who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for many years and in later life they have been diagnosed as coeliacs. Guess what? The arthritis has gone or seriously diminished. I, myself, I used to suffer from joint pains, but since diagnosis in 2003 they have gone.

In this area, there is an arthritis specialist, who now checks all his patients for coeliac disease.

Recipes in The Times

2008-06-01T08:40:00.001+01:00

Trying one of these for lunch today.

Does Anybody Like Rice Cakes?

2008-06-01T08:39:00.000+01:00

I recently went to Montreal for a weekend on business. Coming back there was no gluten-free bread or biscuits, but they served rice cakes. They really are truly awful. Does anybody like them?

As an aside Montreal was good, but not if you are an unprepared coeliac. At least the breakfasts in the hotel were fruit and eggs, but otherwise waiters and restaurateurs didn’t have a clue. Strangely though I met two people, who had close friends or relatives who were so it’s not as though the disease is unknown.

I’ve posted my experiences of the city here.

I’ve since done a Google search for gluten-free restaurants and there are a few lists.

Experiments with Adnams

2008-05-20T11:19:00.001+01:00

I am not a supersensitive and have recently been talking to the Chief Brewer at Adnams. He has told me that the gluten levels in some of their beers are quite low. How low is open to question, as he told me that measuring gluten is not easy. I said that I’d try a bottle and see what happened. He urged me to be careful, but he would be interested in the results.

Last night, I drunk a half-litre bottle of Adnams Bitter with a chicken salad that I had for my supper. As of this morning, I have had no ill effects.

But the sad thing was that I wasn’t really enamoured with the taste of the beer after all these years. Especially, as I used to drink bottles of it with my supper before I was diagnosed. But then I remember when I was introduced to beer by father at about twelve, I wasn’t struck on the taste then. He said you had to learn to like it. He also reckoned that introducing kids to beer and wine early was a good thing as it meant they were less likely to get a drink problem. Not sure, if he was right, but I don’t have a drink problem, except with finding good half-bottles of wine. My three children were also introduced early and all three don’t drink alcohol at all.

Wembley

2008-05-19T07:50:00.000+01:00

I went to Wembley yesterday for the Blue Square play-off final. Stadium great, public transport much improved, views good, Coke expensive and food absolutely non-existent for a coeliac. So take a packed lunch.

View a full report as a PDF!

Kenya

2008-05-18T10:15:00.003+01:00

I've had requests to put up the details of my holiday in Kenya, so I've extracted the Kenya part of the book as a separate pdf file.

Travels with My Celia(c) - Kenya

You can also see the video I took on my YouTube site.

I've also put up the videos from the Siruai, which was where I rode in the Masai Mara.

Campaign for Real Chips

2008-05-14T06:52:00.000+01:00

I’m writing up my book on coeliac travelling and a pattern is starting to emerge. When I’ve been glutened and it hasn’t been often, I suspect that in several cases, it has been due to chips. If you look at M&S, their oven chips are marked as containing gluten and I suspect that some of the industrial chips used by restaurants and sometimes very good restaurants have been coated in flour.

On the other hand, I was recently at the Ship in Levington near Ipswich and had some very good hand-cut gluten-free chips. So it can be done. I was also told by the manager of the Cart and Horses at Kings Worthy that his chips were not gluten-free, but they would boil a few potatoes for me. I also accused the owner of the Star at Lidgate over her chips, as they were very nice and very crisp and I suspected that there was flour involved. She assured me they weren’t and I was fine.

Campaign for Real Chips anyone?

Blood Pressure, B12 and the Sun

2008-05-11T06:57:00.000+01:00

I had my B12 shot on Friday and as she always does, the nurse took my blood pressure. It was absolutely normal for a sixty year old man. I was pleased. But a couple of years ago, it was all over the place in the winter. So much so, that I was measuring it every day with a machine from the surgery. I got the impression that this winter, I wasn’t that brilliant either, especially after the death of Celia. But everything in my body seems to have come better in the last few weeks as the sun has come out. I find that in the winter, I cough and splutter for perhaps half-an-hour or so when I start playing real tennis, but now I have no breathing problems and am ready to go. My handicap is improving too.

As a scientist and engineer, I wonder if others notice that the sun appears to calm their systems and make them more energetic? Could it be that the vitamin D is important to us? And if so, why?

Another curious thing, is that people, like the nurse, say I’m getting thin. She worries about me, so she also weighed me on Friday. I had lost a kilo since the last time she weighed me properly about two years ago. I wouldn’t have thought that was serious, but I have lost centimetres from my waist. That I suspect, is because I’m eating a bit less, as I’ve cut out things like cereals, as I find that if I have more than a small amount of milk, I react to it. So breakfast is more often fruit and perhaps a couple of Trufree crackers with honey.

Incidentally, I have taken to weighing myself regularly over the last month or so, as I want to keep my weight steady at around 61 to 62 kilos. One thing I notice is that if I weigh myself before I go to bed and then when I get up in the morning, the difference is almost half a kilo. Do we really sweat that much away?

Food on the Go in The Netherlands

2008-05-01T07:34:00.000+01:00

I just spent a couple of days in The Netherlands to see a couple of friends and didn’t find the food too difficult. One of the problems is that a lot of their meals are bread based, but I did get a couple of good meals in Italian restaurants without trouble, as the owners were real Italians and knew about celiachia. One thing that I did find was that in a chain called Albert Heijn, which always seemed to have a selection of very good salads, that were marked gluten free.

Gordon Ramsay in The Times

2008-04-12T16:49:00.001+01:00

There are some interesting recipes in The Times today courtesy of Gordon Ramsay. A bit too challenging for me, but of the three recipes there’s no gluten except in a soy sauce, which of course can be changed.

It must be gluten-free day as there are a couple of nice ones in the East Anglian too!

A Silly Thought

2008-04-07T16:53:00.000+01:00

I was driving into Cambridge and I passed a van advertising Cambridge’s first lap dancing club.

I just had a thought. I wonder if they serve gluten-free food?

Travels With My Celia(c)

2008-03-11T19:16:00.005Z

I've put up some notes that will form my book called "Travels With My Celia(c)" on the Internet. If anybody wants to have a look, feel free.

View the Book as a PDF File

London - 15th to 17th February, 2008

2008-02-19T08:42:00.004Z

I'm putting a lot of my experiences of travel together in a book called "Travels with my Celia(c)". It's an awful pun I know.

The aim is to write something that is personal, light-hearted and hopefully gives a bit of information to coeliacs who might want to go somewhere different.

View the chapter on London!

El Piano

2008-02-17T12:26:00.001Z

I had this e-mail from a restaurant called El Piano in York and Grandada.

Sounds interesting.

We have enjoyed your web-site in the context of Gluten-free-ness. Thanks for making it interesting and accessible.

Thought you would be pleased to hear that El Piano is 10 years old this year and we have celebrated by going from a more than 80% gluten-free menu to 100%, as well as nut-free (have always been) and totally free of animal products too!

Come and see us sometime, either in York or in Granada...the food is delicious...(well we would say that wouldn't we?)

Best,

EL PIANO
www.el-piano.com

York UK - Co. Reg. No. 03210744
15/17 Grape Lane
YO1 7HU
Tel: +44 1904 610676

Granada ES - NIE X2048335R
c/ Gran Capitan
18002 GRANADA
Tel: +34 646 018 110

Gluten Free Sausage Pie

2008-02-15T11:53:00.004Z

Henry and some of his friends are coming down at the weekend, whilst I'm up in London.

Celia would have always cooked them something so I did the same this morning. Henry may have lost his mother, but he shouldn't lose the things she would do.

So I've cooked a variant of her sausage pie for everybody.

I took ten Musks gluten-free sausages and cooked them in the oven and then cut them into pieces which I put into the bottom of a large flat dish.

I also fried one onion and two peppers in a small amount of olive oil, which I then mixed with the sausages and a tin and a half of baked beans. Some gluten-free soy sauce was then added for flavour.

The whole thing was then covered by mashed potato.

Before heating it just add some grated cheese to the top.

I Thought it was Getting Better

2008-02-03T08:13:00.000Z

I thought that hotels and restaurants were getting better in their treatment of those with allergies like me.

That is until I read this e-mail :-

We went to a wedding last weekend, and stayed at the Stirling Highland Hotel (where the wedding was held).

We told the chef that Lala was coeliac and asked if there was a gluten free menu option. No.
We asked the wedding organiser for a copy of the menu options and were sent a copy of the menu, and asked if we could have the beef and vegetables and we would bring our own gravy to be microwaved. No.
Chef said that he would provide the beef option as a coeliac option, including gravy. This didn't arrive - just a bit of beef and some veggies that had some sort of coating on them. Being 5 years old and faced with something she had never seen before, she wouldn't eat it, so we gave her some chips that we were assured were safe.

The starter was carrot and potato soup, but I think that the Chef used a wheat thickener, (either that or the chips weren't safe) because she was sick as anything over the following few days. When she got up on the Sunday, she was itching, and her face was an absolute mess.

We won't be eating there again.

I certainly won't be going to the Highland Hotel in Stirling.

Cart and Horses - Kings Worthy

2008-01-25T08:34:00.000Z

This is just a typical country pub, just outside Winchester. I had a very good meal there last night, where they cooked me new potatoes instead of chips etc.

But two of the staff have relatives or close friends who are coeliac or gluten intolerant. So it does show that knowledge and training gets good gluten-free meals. And probably good meals full stop.

Coeliac Sportsman

2008-01-08T08:22:00.000Z

Hayley Turner now admits to being a coeliac. She’s a very good jockey. Note, that I did not use the word lady.

A Gluten-Free Dinner Party

2008-01-06T20:34:00.000Z

Celia and I always had a dinner party at Christmas. Roderick had pointed this out at her celebration and I thought why not in a rash moment.

So on Friday night, seven of us sat down to dinner that I'd cooked myself.

Now, is that a first for someone of sixty?

Super Natural at Sainsburys

2008-01-06T19:00:00.000Z

I was in Sainsburys this morning and they had a special offer on these. They are chilled meals for one and it seems that about half are labelled “Suitable for Coeliacs” and not just gluten-free.

I had a chicken and rice one tonight. OK.

India Knight in the Sunday Times

2008-01-06T12:21:00.000Z

She is promoting her new interesting diet in The Sunday Times today.

I’ve just read it and most of what she has done looks interesting and is gluten-free. There is one recipe for Indian Scrambled eggs, that looks good to me. She also has a recipe for quiche that doesn’t use traditional or gluten-free flour.