Boston: Participate in GF Website Research

A friend found the following on a LiveJournal site.  If you live in a respectable distance to Kendall Square and want to participate in some gluten free research, send these people an email:

Hello!

I’m looking for individuals in the Boston area with Celiac Disease who are able to come in for an hour to my company’s offices in Kendall Square (right by the T) and test a new Gluten Free service we are releasing very soon.

To participate, you must be able to come into our offices in Kendall Square. In exchange for your time, some compensation will be offered. 😀

If you’re interested in testing our service, please reply to shannon@zeer.com with the following information.

Your Name:

When You Started Living Gluten Free:

Your Occupation:

Your Age:

Your City & State:

What Time of Day Works Best?

Thank you! We’re eager to get fresh eyes and opinions. Looking forward to hearing from you 😀

I’m going in sometime this week.  Compensation is a $25 Amazon gift card.  This company, Zeer, I think is fairly new; I saw them hiring on Craigslist not too long ago when I was newly diagnosed, unemployed and trawling websites for jobs.  I almost applied, but then I got my permanent gig, which I am glad to have.

NYC was great, and I got to try a lot of fun GF food.  In other news, the husband and I are attending a Celiac round table discussion at Beth Israel tonight with renowned celiac dietitian Melinda Dennis and others.  This is the first official thing I’m going to as a celiac since being diagnosed in April, since I couldn’t get an appointment with Melinda until late July!  I’ll post a debriefing after the meeting.

Trader Joe Treats

I realize that I am very lucky to be celiac and live in a city that has multiple Trader Joe’s.  Not only do they provide a PDF list of gluten free items that their store carries, they have enough gluten free products that warrant them to make such a list!

I also realize that I am very lucky to have friends and a husband who are supporting me on this new dietary adventure.  Right after coming home from my endoscopy, my friend Michael presented me with a Trader Joe’s goodie bag filled with things from the afore-mentioned list.  And since I hadn’t really eaten solid foods for about 48 hours, I indeed feast on all sort of things like surfboard tortilla chips, salsa, and marshmallow krispy bars.

My faves so far are the rice chips and the Pecan Pralines.  Those nuts are gooooood.  So good that I ate a bunch after brunch yesterday and I think they sent me into some sort of sugar overload, because I was dizzy for about an hour afterwards.  I’m going to have to practice some self discipline with those.

The Husband has also been very supportive.  Not only is he learning how to homebrew gluten free beer, he is thoroughly checking labels (and sometimes double checking after me) and bringing me new foods to try.  Like last night!  We had had a stressful day (stressful week at that) and I sent him to TJ’s to buy some wine for some risotto I was making.  He came back not only with wine, but some other new treats for me because we had had a bad day and he wanted to make me feel special.  Well, I did.

He brought me TJ’s Rice and Adzuki Bean Chips and some Candied Walnuts.  The chips have an interesting texture and flavor.  Good color, too–they are rice flour white with striations of dark brownish bean flour throughout.  Very light, and most importantly for me, salty.  They are perhaps too light; they are small (about 1″x1″) and airy, and I don’t know if they would stand up to hearty salsas or a taco dip.  They do, however, have a nice adzuki bean aftertaste so that you might just like to eat them on their own.

The candied walnuts were also good.  Not as decadently sweet as the pecan pralines, but perhaps this means I won’t binge on them as frequently.

I hope you have an equally good snacking day!