Saturday, January 3, 2009

Eating in non-Food Allergy World

Last Saturday night we went to the BIG town and visited an O'Charles restaurant. We've been there a few times before with the kids. From the kiddies menu they can have only their hamburgers and the french fries and broccoli - if it's just steamed. They can't even have the fruit cup because it only has mandarin oranges - which Christopher has been reacting to:)


But this experience was nice.


I am attributing the enjoyable experience to our waiter who immediately became our advocate with the chefs..... he made sure our hamburgers were HAMburgers and not cheeseburgers, he made sure that our broccoli would be steamed only and then he did something NO OTHER waiter/waitress had ever done before..... he ordered our bread with NO butter.... amazing.... we were all able to enjoy the warm rolls.......


It's nice to have someone on our side.... and he was so willing to help:)


We have a new Dairy Queen in-town. So I decided to check on-line to see what we can enjoy at the restuarant. Now I wasn't excepting much because hmmm... the store's name is DAIRY Queen.

Although there isn't much we have have at Dairy Queen I was impressed with their "allergen brochure" which when through each of their products and had the allergens that are present. So the kids can have their fries, hot dogs and their original hamburger...... about what I expected! Dairy Queen doesn't live up to it's slogan "something different" for us.


I don't expect restaurants to KNOW how to provide food for my food-allergy family. But it's very, very refreshing when restaurants have online allergy resources or staff that are knowledgeable of their menu's ingredients, willing to take the extra step to keep my kiddies safe (ie, change gloves) and at least TRY to help us.

Believe me... I've been in plenty of food places that are downright ugly about doing anything extra for the kids or "thinking outside the box" to help us eat safely!!!

When I'm a customer at these places, part of me wants to jump the counter and stab them with the Epi-Pen... ha ha haaa.... don't worry you won't hear of this on the local news!!! The sensible side that wants to be Christ-like tries to be calm, polite and friendly even when their eyes roll at me.... And then we make a mental note of that store no longer being a option for us!!!

We do enjoy eating out. But because of the costs and the risks and lack of variety of safe foods, we actually prefer eating in:) We've been learning this food allergy game for almost 4 years now and we've got a lot of yummy, normal recipes and dishes that we won't get to enjoy out....

so that is one way we cope in this "non-food allergy" world.

3 comments:

Mark and Rachel said...

You know I can relate :) I was pretty impressed today when the manager at Ruby Tuesdays came out and helped assure me their hamburgers were 100% beef and agreed I could have extra lettuce instead of a bun. I agree, if I've had one good experience somewhere, I'm more likely to go there again then try somewhere new. Guess that is often true with or without food allergies! I'm just grateful that I can eat out every now and then, even if I usually end up with the same thing at all of them.

In Everything said...

Yep!

Well my kids LOVE to eat out. They are excited to go somewhere and get french fries and a hamburger.

As their mom, I'm the one who wants to fuss about it. But they're as content and can be with their hamburgers:)

Brittany said...

Love this post! I can totally relate to wanting to jump across the table and stab someone! Too funny! :)

Living in a non-allergy world is tough...glad that I have other moms who relate!!!!!