Last weekend, me and and a group of friends all made the trek over the Seattle for a Steely Dan concert. Naturally, I get quite anxious at the very thought of leaving the comfort of my city and kitchen to explore the unfamiliar and scour a new environment for delicious eats.
I did some planning for my Seattle trip. I had gone onto urbanspoon.com to get the scoop on what restaurants were being touted as gluten-free. I made a fabulous list, complete with addresses and types of cuisine. (I'm a Capricorn...making lists is just something we're obsessed with). But despite my list, I felt like it had the potential to hold me back, or worse yet, isolate me from the rest of the group. I knew I had to be flexible for improvisation.
After taking this three day trip, I kept some notes on how to improve my experience the next time I'm over there. I suppose these tips could apply to travelling just about everywhere, so hopefully this will be useful to everyone:
1) Make sure your hotel room has a mini fridge: Yes, we had a coffee maker in the room, but no accessible soy milk.
2) The Clipper has pretty much no gluten-free options: Aside from sodium-laden peanuts and potato chips, you're pretty much on your own for this 3 hour ordeal. The Clipper can at times be a pretty rocky ride; I recommend bringing these: a couple bananas, candied ginger, rice cakes, and an apple, water bottle, and coconut water. If customs gives you a hard time for bringing fruit on board, just simply explain to them these are your only food options available for the trip over. They'll be nice about it.
3) Bring ginger capsules: these handy little pills are my best friends when eating at unfamiliar places. I took about 3 with every meal, and 2 every couple of hours. I was still recovering from the gluten-poisoning I experienced nearly 3 weeks ago now, and my tum was just not ready for super rich foods. So...I forced myself to eat whatever was available, and I counteracted any unpleasantry with these ginger pills. If you wanna read more about ginger pills, go here http://www.nutritional-supplements-information.com/benefits-of-ginger-root.html.
4) Inform every place you eat that you have a gluten allergy: Ask what might be suitable options, and also don't be afraid to ask for them to make modifications. Most places I found were happy to accommodate me.
Another recommendation, find a drug store close to where you're staying. Once there, look for coconut water in the refrigerated section. Coconut water does amazing things for my stomach, especially if I've eaten too much salt, or too rich foods. I drank about half a litre of this stuff every day I was there.
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