gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

Healthy Feast's legendary lemon meringue

It’s the sort of news no gluten free blogger ever wants to deliver: a favourite bakery has quietly shut up shop.

Healthy Feast, makers of arguably the best spread of gourmet gluten-free baked goods in Australia, is no more. The Leichardt-based shop front has closed its doors and there will be no more appearances at local food markets. Read the rest of this entry »

Start spreading the news. We’re leaving on Tuesday.

It’s going to be our first official Gluten Free Family fact-finding mission to the Big Apple. (Okay its really a holiday).

But between shopping trips and sightseeing, we plan to suss out the gluten free US supermarket scene, hunt down the legendary Babycakes, and sip gluten free cosmopolitan cocktails.

We did a similar roundup on the gluten free scene in London last year, when Lucy braved the British summer to visit relatives.

This time the whole team (all two of us) will travel to New York, and we’ll report back on all that we find—and even post a few pics—in a week or two!

Lucy and Mandy

Or get our newletter . . .

Not sure if that tuna mornay really is gluten free?  Swinburne University student, Alexandra Gray, has developed an electronic touchscreen device that could let you know. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I regaled you with tales of supermarket aisles and vacuum packed bread in the UK, and I pondered the future of gluten free products here in Australia.

Now its time to discuss some of the other potholes we encountered on the road, oceans away from the comforts of our own sweet kitchen.

As always, the biggest trouble we had was with eating out. Hot chip fatigue set in early this trip as munchkin refused any type of potato foodstuffs that didn’t come heavily salted in a foil packet.

Britain proved especially challenging for us here because although the supermarkets offered a good selection of GF wares, very few cafes had any non wheat options whatsoever.

That’s a bit of a departure from our experience here in Sydney where a friand, muffin or an almond biccie can be found most decent coffee brewing establishments.

Then there were the restaurants and pubs which boasted little other than off-limits delights like scampi, beef and ale pie and sticky toffee pudding. Read the rest of this entry »

Anaphylaxis Australia recently asked restaurants in this country to move beyond their ‘fear’ of people with food allergies and “address the risk it posed to a growing number of Australians”.

It says six per cent of children, and four per cent of adults, live with a lethal allergy to common foods or ingredients such as shellfish and nuts, and most fatalities occur while they are dining out.

The organisation said the key was to incorporate food preparation processes that would not enable cross-contamination, and to train staff to ensure they were aware of the risks and transparency in the menu, and be familiar with procedures for dealing with allergic customers.

It struck me that while anaphylaxis prevention must undoubtedly be at the very top of a restrateurs priority list – many of these sorts of measures could also help coeliac sufferers who can also experience very severe responses to cross contamination of common cooking ingredients.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lemon meringue pie has always had a strange magnetic pull on me.

When I heard that it was one of the specialties of the house at gluten free bakery, Healthy Feast in Sydney’s Leichardt, a visit was inevitable.

So last weekend I strapped the bicycles to the back of the car – the plan was to have a gluten free picnic in the park followed by some hardcore pedalling – and off we went.

You can see what we bought in the picture. The lamingtons and lemon meringue pies were amazing. The former tasted just like the gluten-based variety and the latter even better. Read the rest of this entry »

Choices gluten free bakery

This weekend we jumped in the car and headed for Choices gluten & wheat free bakery in Sydney’s Turramurra.

It was our first trip because it is a good 40 minutes away in quiet traffic. But we were inspired by news on the Gluten Free Pages that Choices has opened new Sydney stores. It now has outlets in Bondi Junction, Bella Vista and Mona Vale.

Though none of them are close to us, this is still great news and gives me hope that a gluten free bakery may some day open its doors in my neck of the woods.

Like most of the specialist bakeries they will deliver to other areas. But for those like me who like hands-on shopping, there do seem to be more bricks & mortar bakeries popping up. Silly Yaks for instance has opened a factory outlet for its frozen bakery goods in Preston Victoria.  Then there is Deeks Bakery & Cafe in Canberra. Read the rest of this entry »

Back from another weekend away, and thanks to some handy self catering we managed not to fall of the gluten free wagon even once. Not knowingly at least.

Of course with kiddies in the car and a long stint on the freeway it becomes almost impossible to dodge the mighty Maccas when coming and going from our weekend hideaway – and we found ourselves driving through those golden arches on more than one occasion this weekend.

Gluten free food is not a traditional focus for hamburger restaurants, but the good thing with the big chains is that once you get to know their menu, you can at least have some type of assurances about what you are eating.

Lucky for us McDonalds french fries in Australia are officially gluten free (although it is worth noting that not all restaurant chips are) and we don’t seem to have any trouble with them at all.

And while McDonalds bricks & mortar is not the simplest place to hunt down gluten free info, the company has published fairly comprehensive food sensitivity charts, ingredients and nutritional information on its website. Read the rest of this entry »

Its Saturday night and kids are rolling their eyes at your offer of spaghetti bolognaise.

Time to step our for a bite . . . but where?

Your favourite cheap and cheerful Italian is now out of bounds, and the fish and chip shop on the corner wont fry up without first coating every menu item in batter.

The people at the local burger house gave you a dazed look when you asked if there was any wheat flour in their patties,  and the kids don’t like curry.

If you’re anything like us, thinking about all the places you can’t eat can easily take the fun out of an outing and sometimes we just resort to trying our luck anywhere in the desperate hope there will at least be hot chips on the menu (not beer battered please!).

Thankfully we have recently discovered a number of pizza restaurants adding gluten free options to their menus – so that is where we have started to head when we need a change or we are away from our normal stamping ground. Many cafes are also starting to serve up gluten free bread alongside perennial favourites like beans and sausage instead of the battered-everything style kids menu – so we always ask (before we are seated) if that is an option.

Asian restaurants have also become great family favourites – but checking out ingredients can be tricky in some places (are the noodles wheat or rice based?) – so its best to have an idea in advance which meals are safe (and enjoyable) for your family to eat so you only have to check one of two separate items on the menu.

Mexican restaurants can also come in handy with some of their corn-chip and taco-based offerings generally being wheat free (but always best to double check).

Over time, of course, we all find a handful of places that we love and trust for doing that little bit extra, and it is those restaurants we would like have in our new family friendly restaurant list.  This list is in its infancy – but with your help we want to turn it into a handy guide of nice family friendly places to eat – even if they are not officially a gluten free venue.

You never know – it might just help another gluten free family looking for a easy, pleasant meal out when they are away from home.

LH

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