A Rant about Restaurants

To some people, eating in restaurants is one of the pleasures of a vacation. But when you have food allergies, eating out can be a source of anxiety and even illness.

I have allergies and sensitivities to a number of foods. The hardest items to avoid in restaurants are wheat and milk products. Pepper is also a challenge, but my reaction to it is short-lived and is pretty much limited to coughing (sometimes violently, which can be embarrassing).

When I look at a menu, I don't look for what tastes best or even what is the best value. I look for what I can eat without feeling sick afterward. Often there isn't much. In that case, I might just order a hamburger patty and some lettuce, hoping that the burger is not heavily peppered. Or if they serve breakfast, I order poached eggs and bacon. (Scrambled or fried eggs often contain milk or butter, which gives me painful bloating lasting several days. Also, anything grilled or fried is likely to come in contact with wheat or dairy on the cooking surface. I've learned this the hard way.)

Personally I think that any restaurant should be able to serve poached eggs, but a surprising number of cooks don't know how to poach an egg! Simmer water, break eggs into a dish, slide them into the water and simmer for a few minutes. There's also a microwave method but hopefully cooks aren't that lazy!

So when I saw that this little diner served breakfast all day and had eggs "any style," I ordered poached eggs. "That is one style we don't have," said our waiter. So I asked for hard-boiled eggs; they didn't have that either. That's when I ordered a "burger patty with no bun, just lettuce and meat, that's all, no sauce or anything." I explained that I am allergic to wheat and dairy.

When our orders arrived, my burger patty had cheese on it. I had to send it back to get one without cheese. Perhaps the fellow did not know that cheese was a dairy product!

This is only one example. I'd say that out of 12 lunches on our trip, at least six of my orders arrived incorrectly filled and had to be sent back. Also, I had a reaction that I usually get from wheat at least three times even though the food appeared to be wheat-free. I suppose there were crumbs or perhaps just some flour on it. Fortunately my reactions have never been life-threatening, although wheat makes me terribly sleepy and that can be a safety hazard but at least on this trip I was not driving so falling asleep at the wheel was not a potential risk.

While in California, we only ate lunches out. We fixed breakfast at my sister-in-law's home and just had snacks for dinner. That's much easier than trying to eat out two or three times a day.

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