New Food Allergy Cookbook

Are you tired of your same tried and true recipes, and are looking for something new to spice up your life. Linda Coss, author of one of my absolutely favorite Oh My God My Child Has Food Allergies What Do I Do Books, "How to Manage Your Child's Life Threatening Food Allergies" (see my insightful review here) has published her second cookbook, "What Else is to Eat? The Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook,".

"What Else is to Eat?" features recipes for foods that everyone can enjoy, whether they have food allergies or not. Main dishes, side dishes, breakfast foods, and baked goods are all included. With an emphasis on fast and easy recipes that use "normal," easy-to-find ingredients, this book is designed for today's busy lifestyles.

And even more exciting - anyone who order by August 31, 2008 will get FREE Priority Mail shipping to U.S. addresses! Just go to http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001LGVkxyDrXSCrT12RFELaiRPuByMjxNwsKt01QTP_noFm0gGNhu6Z17Kv3k2aeLBaaZsW94dmDUNu2pb30m-PxkmIs4HXRNs_IapIVLC91Vqt8FujNpSjhMsDO7I7ikIDtSukS0-F4Yk= and use coupon code CB2B at check out. "What Else is to Eat?" will not be available elsewhere until the official publication date of September 15th.

I ran and excitedly told Mick that there was a new food allergy cook book out, and he laughed at me, and not so kindly reminded me that I am probably the only person alive who can burn pasta and is unable to boil water. Maybe Linda's next cookbook will be how to boil water for the allergy set.

Eating out With Food Allergies - Macaroni Grill

While hoping around on our whirlwind of a vacation, we also made another eating out find. A friend of ours in Southern California works for the Macaroni Grill, and convinced us to come by. She said they have allergy menus for the top 8 allergens, and the only obvious peanut products she has seen are on a cake shipped into the place from an outside source with peanuts already on them.

I looked into this new and exciting eating out option, and discovered that the Macaroni Grill belonged to a chain of restaurants owned by a company called Brinker International.

Brinker International Restaurant home page
http://www.brinker.com/

This company appears to be quite allergy aware, and all the restaurants except for Maggiano's have top 8 allergy menus similiar to the ones at Red Robin.

Macaroni Grill Allergy menus

http://www.brinker.com/gr/allergens/mac%20Allergen.PDF

Chili's Allergy Menu

http://www.brinker.com/gr/allergens/Chilis%20Allergen.PDF

In The Boarder

http://www.brinker.com/gr/allergens/otb%20allergen.pdf

With all this allergy awareness ozing around me, I decided we should check out the Macaroni Grill. Thankfully here, there was Macaroni and Cheese that was egg and nut free, so Conor actually ate something besides ice cream and french fries. He was able to have raspberry sherbet for desert that came with his kids meal, and was very happy to be able to eat exactly what everyone else was. Everyone enjoyed their meal, and there was no cartoon mascot to be seen.

Our experience although wonderful was greatly helped by our family friend who helped us out during the entire meal. When we showed up she had the allergy menus ready, and had already read through them to see what was safe. She oversaw our waiter and checked in the kitchen on our food preparation to make sure Conor's food was prepared separately. She even took all the little ones to check out the kitchen and see how things are made.

If you do not have an insider though, I do not know how allergy aware they would be if you walked in unknown. It is certainly worth a phone call, to see if it is in your comfort zone. Also, any company that takes the time to make up and maintain allergy menus deserves a big YAHOO!! and is certianly worth a look into.

I have also not tested out any of the other restaurants owned by this company with allergy menus. I had heard a rumor that Chili's used peanut butter in the chili, and I have no clue whether or not this is true. I would certainly need to check it out before we went in person.

If anyone knows about any of the other restaurants please let me know, because I HATE calling!

Eating out with Food Allergies - Red Robin

Whew!!! We finally made it back from our vacation, and boy am I tired. I enjoyed the family vacation, but now I need a vacation from the family. :) We tried camping for one night in a cabin with just beds in it. It was fun, but I have never been so happy to have brought the great little porta potty with us for use in the middle of the night.

http://www.kalencom.com/main/page.asp?id=8&s_cate_id=02&tid=&bt=&cs=

It is called the on the go potty, and although they sell liners, you can use regular old plastic bags. For anyone with little ones potty training, or newly trained, I highly recommend getting one. I used to be driving along when I was potty training the twins and one of them would decide they needed to go just when we got far enough away from everything that there was no going back. Then there was no way I was dragging three little children into some random store to try and find a potty, so the on the go potty became my best friend. We don't use it very often these days, but if you are going camping and happen to be no where near the bathroom, it can be extremely, extremely, extremely helpful. I could make some sort of potty joke here, but I am censoring myself.

The real reason I came here tonight was to post about some of our eating out experiences while on the road. A few other bloggers had mentioned that Red Robin has allergy menu's, and they had good experiences there.

Check out the Food Allergy Buzz's great review here
http://www.foodallergybuzz.com/2008/07/food-allergy-friendly-restaurant-tip.html

And the Peanut Allergy Kid's comments here

http://www.peanutallergykid.com/2008/08/review-of-peanut-allergy-friendly.html

Armed with this exciting information, we first headed out to the local Red Robin to check it out. When the waitress came over I asked for the Allergy menus, and she quickly went to get the manager, who delivered them personally to our table. Conor is allergic to peanuts and eggs, and these came printed out as two different menus. This was great, but it took me quite a while to cross reference between the two of them to discover what items were ok for both the peanut and egg allergic. Thankfully they supply crayons to the table to color with, so I was able to color code the menu's to determine what items were on both menus.

Michael and Natalie both decided they wanted chocolate shakes, so Mick ordered them before I was able to cross reference the allergy menus only to discover that it was not safe for Conor. This mad Conor very, very, very upset (the taunting from his brother did not help), and we finally compromised on getting him some vanilla ice cream in a cup that looked just like his brother and sisters. Of the other options available to him, he insisted he would only eat the french fries with his cup of plain vanilla ice cream. Yes, not a very nutritious meal, but at least it was safe. The manager delivered the allergy menus to us, asked us if we had any questions, and visited the table later in the meal to check on us. The rest of us enjoyed our food as much as one can at a chain restaurant with a giant red bird as a mascot, and were generally very pleased with the experience.

The Red Robin Mascot

After the good experience up in Northern California, we decided to try another Red Robin down in Southern California where we were visiting the grandparents. When we sat down, I nicely asked our waitress for the allergy menu's for peanuts and eggs. She looked at me like I was completely insane and told me there were no such thing as allergy menus, but if it was really important she could put a note on our order. I still politely informed her that there were allergy menus and suggested she either speak to her manager, or allow me to speak to him for her. She stormed off like a teenager, only to return a few minutes later with her tail between her legs to let me know that she was printing off the allergy menus and they would be at our table in a few minutes. A few minutes turned into alot of minutes, but they finally arrived. Conor wanted his Red Robin usual of ice cream in a cup like a shake, and french fries, and enjoyed every second of his meal. He had no reactions, and the rest of the meal went smoothly even though there were no overly cheerful manager visits to our table.


So all in all, I would say that our visits to Red Robin were a success. I only was looked at once like I was crazy, the allergy menus are very useful, and there were no reactions. The only real problem is Conor wants to go there every day for his Red Robin usual nutritious lunch.

Shopping with Peanut Allergies - Don't Accept the Coupons

Do you ever wonder who does the marketing things at the supermarket. The ones where you get coupons at the end of your transaction with your receipt. These coupons are supposed to be coordinated with your club card account so you get discounts on products you use.

I went to the market today to get things for our vacation next week. We are going camping for one night and then heading down to visit Grandma and Grampoo (Natalie named him Grampoo when she first learned to talk, and it just seems to fit) for 3 days. Last time we went down to visit we made the unfortunate discovery that Conor is severely severely allergic to cats, and can not set foot in the Grandparents house where 2 cats now reside. I can not wait to discover what else he is severely allergic to this time.

Anyways we live in a small town. If we go over a hill for about 7 miles, you are in a very big town, but I am way too lazy to go over the hill just to go to a grocery store. So I go to our local grocery store which is part of a big chain, but truly one of the worst grocery stores ever. Some days they have certain products, other days they don't. Different weeks, different products are in different places in the store. It is kind of like playing hide and seek with your groceries every time you go in. Some weeks there is no chicken, some weeks no beef, some weeks both, but you just never know. It is kind of exciting, like playing the lottery each time you enter the store. Also they have 3 express lanes, but only seem to open them when the store is empty...

Anyways, so I was having a good day at the local chain grocery store. I found most of the things I needed in record time, and it was empty so tons of registers were open. As I was finished checking out, the woman at the register handed me a coupon even before she gave me the receipt. She looked down slowly and said "Oh look, here is a coupon for you....Wow, you can get buy one get one free on Planters Peanuts Products." She tried to hand me the coupon and I just started laughing. Where in the world did this supermarket chain, with their electronic club card get the idea that I would want a coupon for PEANUTS!! I have not purchased peanuts/nuts or any product even made in a facility with peanuts/nuts in over 2 years. Could this all be a big conspiracy on the part of Mr. Peanut to make me go crazy? Maybe they should donate all the money they spend trying to market research their customers to food allergy research.

The checker looked at me baffled, as I probably not so nicely refused the really great coupon. I told her she could keep it, but I sure hope she does not come near our house with her 2 for 1 peanut products.

Suddenly driving 7 miles over a windy hill does not seem so bad..

Come into the club - Food Allergy Wristbands

So lets say little Johnny came to you asking for a medical alert tattoo, and you stopped him in his tracks. What other options are there out there for temporary medical alert bracelets. Just when I thought I had covered all the options, I discovered yet another one...the plastic wristband.

That's right, the plastic wristbands you used to get when you entered a night club back in the day, or the ones you get when you go into a concert that say you are old enough to drink. (Trust me, I am...) Or even the ones you get sometimes when you get checked into the hospital.

Little did I know that plastic wristbands come in many different shapes, sizes and materials. They can be black, white or red, have photos or crazy designs. They can even say Allergic to Nuts, Do Not Feed, or you can customize them yourself. These amazing products even come in a material called tyvek.

Ok, I know I have now piqued your curiosity. What in the world is tyvek you ask.......well let me tell you.

According to Wikipedia

Tyvek (TIE-veck) is a brand of flashspun high-density polyethylene fibers, a synthetic material; the name is a registered trademark of the DuPont Company. The material is very strong; it is difficult to tear but can easily be cut with scissors or any other sharp object. Water vapor can pass through Tyvek, but not liquid water, so the material lends itself to a variety of applications: medical packaging, envelopes, car covers, air and water intrusion barriers (housewrap) under house siding, labels, wristbands, mycology, and graphics. Tyvek is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Tyvex."

Aren't you glad you asked?

Ok, enough of my diversion into random knowledge. Here were some of my favorite wristbands, and where you can find them.

First there are the yellow owl Do Not Feed wristbands.

http://www.allergyalertz.com/

They are bright, cheerful and have that cute little owl on them.

Then of course there are the bright red allergy alert bracelets, that are not quite as cute, but certainly get the message across.

http://www.allergators.com/accessories.html

This website also has the option of the custom plastic wristbands where you can write whatever you want to attach to your child's wrist. Your imagination is the limit.

So, next time you want to inform anyone that your child is a VIP in the food allergy club, try out these cool plastic wristbands.

When a Peanut Allergic to Peanuts is a Filbert

So yesterday, I popped in to one of these really trendy and expensive baby and little kids stores. You know the ones I am talking about. The stores that sell cashmere baby sock to go with the matching cashmere sweater that also goes with the matching cashmere hat, and the matching cashmere baby blanket. These are the stores that sell one sock for $25, and give you a deal of the pair for $40.

As I walked around this oh so trendy,oh so chic store wondering what sort of dry cleaning bills one would have for their beautiful cashmere outfit, I saw this shirt.

I walked over to it, wondering if Mr. Peanut had even taken over posh and trendy children's clothes. On closer inspection, I realized the scary peanut had a little speech bubble thing that said "I'm allergic to peanuts". At first I found this confusing....Is a peanut saying he is allergic to peanuts. Then he would be allergic to himself, and that would make things awfully difficult. I hope he is not contact sensitive.

After a few minutes of thoughtful contemplation, I realized that the shirt is probably meant to tell people that the wearer is allergic to peanuts. It would probably be more effective to have a big red circle and line through the peanut. Maybe the shirt is trying to make a social commentary about peanuts and our society.

I figured I would delve into this further. I looked at the label and discovered that the shirt was made by the cool and trendy fashion designer Paul Frank. That is right, Paul Frank, famous designer of that ever endearing icon

Julius the Monkey

I began my search with Wikipedia.

Paul Frank is so famous and trendy that he is of course featured in Wikipedia:

"A few years later, Frank formed Paul Frank Industries in order to keep up with the demand for his products. He worked at another job during the day, but sewed and sold his products during his spare time. Paul Frank Industries are currently in Costa Mesa, California. The company's stores are also popular, with domestic locations in Southern California, San Francisco, New York City, Dallas (now closed), Las Vegas and Chicago. International locations include: London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Athens, Seoul, Bangkok, and a group in Japan. Future locations include Doha, Qatar and Dubai, United Arab Emirates[1].
Frank also collaborated with many bands including Bad Religion, Every Time I Die, Radiohead, The Vandals, Alkaline Trio, Atreyu, Tool, Gorilla Biscuits, The Aquabats, and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Other musical collaborations include the Coachella festival, Lollapalooza, and Los Angeles radio station KROQ.
Besides co-branding and licensing affiliations with bands, Frank has collaborated with other artists and companies, including Mattel, Oscar Mayer, Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, Wahoo's Fish Taco, SHAG, John Deere, Nirve Bicycles, Obey Giant, ProKeds shoes, Mark Ryden, Thomas Campbell, Hello Kitty, and Lego.[2]"

This was interesting, and further confirmed that Paul Frank was in fact very very trendy, and liked to think oh himself as very very artsy.

I continued my internet research only to discover that the peanut allergy t-shirt was called "The Filbert". This piqued my curiosity, since why was a t-shirt with a peanut, talking about peanut allergies was called "The Filbert". I again consulted my knowledgeable researched Wikipedia,

"Filbert can mean the following:
Corylus maxima, a species of hazel
Filbert, West Virginia
A type of artists' paintbrush with an elongated flat bristle with a rounded or circular tip
Filburt, a character of the TV show Rocko's Modern Life
Slang: a lunatic; an individual wholly unhinged; predominant neurotic tendencies (e.g., "a nut"). "

I don't know if this cleared things up for me, made me more confused. I don't think he would name a shirt about peanut allergies a hazelnut. the much maligned filbert nut

I hope he is not naming the shirt after a town in West Virginia.

Perhaps the shirt is named for his favorite type of paint brush,

but the artwork is really not all that exciting.

The TV show Rocko's Modern Life is, an animated cartoon with a character of a turtle named Filbert. I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with peanut allergies.

The only option left was one I was not so happy with since the slang for filbert is a crazy person or a "nut". I am not sure how I feel about a t-shirt with a peanut saying he is allergic to peanuts being called with a name that is the slang for a crazy person. Perhaps this cool and trendy company was just trying to be ironic while raising awareness for peanut allergies, perhaps I just have way too much time on my hands, perhaps I am a bit paranoid, but perhaps this t- shirt is not the great advocate for peanut allergies I first thought it was when I saw it.

When I originally started writing this post, I planned for it to be about how peanut allergies are now maybe cool and trendy since this cool and trendy fashion designer has put the issue on one of his kids t-shirts. Maybe it was becoming more mainstream, and more understood by the great cool and trendy public out there.

Now I am not so sure.....

Running away from nuts.

We had a really good and exciting weekend. Mick and I ran the San Francisco Half Marathon on Sunday. Before you think I am one of these great fast running people, and might be impressed, don't be. Mick is really fast. I am not. In fact, I am kind of chubby, and I don't even run, I waddle. And then I also walk alot. so maybe I jaddle, or perhaps woggle. But really, before I joined this training group to run a marathon last year I could not even run a mile, at the end I could woggle 26.2. If I can do it anyone can.

Before any big race there is an expo where you need to go and pick up your bibs, timing chips, etc. There are also tons of people selling anything you can think of related to running, and lots of free samples. Initially I thought it would be a great idea to take everyone on Sat to the expo, and let them explore around with us. Conor had a Dr. appointment with the allergist on Friday, so there was no way I could make it then when I had someone to watch the young folk. On Wed I got a call from the allergist that Conor's appointment had been cancelled, as our Dr could not be there and I needed to reschedule. Although this was kind of annoying, I was happy that instead I could go to the expo myself without trying to keep track of three very curious children in a large crowd.

So I go up to San Francisco Friday afternoon, and head into the expo all ready to pick up Mick and my bibs and check it out. As I walked in the entrance I smelled a horrible, rancid evil smell. I looked around wondering why no one else was concerned and running for the doors. Then I saw what was causing the smell. At the side of the pavilion was a giant stand handing out hundreds and hundreds of samples of freshly roasted peanut butter. There was peanut butter everywhere, in peoples hands, in little plastic cups all over the floor, on little plastic spoons littered everywhere. Then, to add insult to injury there was another table by the exit with a giant bowl of peanuts in their shell to be taken and shelled at any ones leisure as they were perusing the expo.

I was so relieved that I had not brought Conor with to this peanut ridden event. I thought back to the allergist's phone call canceling his appointment and letting me go alone, and wondered just for a second if she knew something I did not. Perhaps it was divine intervention, perhaps good luck, but it did remind me of something - runners love their nuts.

One cool thing I did discover was something that could be used for an epi-pen carrier. It is called the spibelt. http://www.spibelt.com/

Apparently it fits an mp3 player, keys, cell, etc and it does not bounce. The SPIbelt does not bounce, ride or shift while running or doing other activities They already market to the diabetic market ( wow, a bit of a pun) SPIbelt is a proud supporter of Triabetes.org, the national team of fearless triathletes with Type I. Their Black belt with the brilliant orange zipper contributes $1 to the organization.

I spoke with the representative at the expo (who thankfully was no where near the peanut butter tent) and she said they have been looking into the epi-pen market, and may expand there soon. They also make the belts in children's sizes also and if anyone is interested in the kids ones just call or email. I bought one to test it out, but have not really had the chance yet. I am hoping maybe Mick will wear it also. I will keep everyone updated.....

So, it turned out to be a great weekend. Mick and I did our personal best in a half marathon, no one got hurt, and I did not throw up. A success all around.