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.

Lone Star Steakhouse (and intolerance confusion)

Today we’re headed out to Michigan for the second of three weddings we are attending in May. This will be my second traveling adventure as a celiac.  This is great, because although the wedding is for a friend of The Husband, I grew up in Michigan and will have the opportunity to see family and a bunch of old friends.

I’m meeting up with my kid brother for dinner tomorrow night, and we decided on Lone Star Steakhouse.  It was between that and Chili’s, but after reading about Gluten Free Gluttony’s bad experience at Chili’s, I opted for the former.  Lone Star seems to have it going on in terms of celiac awareness.  They even have a gluten free page and menu.  But looking closer at the menu, it’s not really a gluten free menu.  They just tell you to order from their regular menu, but to ask to make everything plain plain plain.  They even tell you to order the baked potato with no butter, sour cream or bacon.

Which brings me to a question, because this reminds me of a situation I had when eating out at Pizzeria Uno’s the other day:  Do people often confuse dairy intolerance for gluten intolerance?

For example, after getting my gluten free pizza at Uno’s, I asked if I could have some Parmesan cheese for the top of it, asking the waiter if it was “safe”, e.g., making sure the cheese didn’t have any wheat starch added to prevent the grated cheese from caking.  He came back to the table with the manager, and both said, “well, it has pasteurized milk, so it’s probably best not to try it”.  Now I see Lone Star telling celiacs not to put butter and sour cream on their baked potatoes.  Does this happen often, or am I making a bad generalization based off of two experiences?  I know that celiacs tend to also have lactose intolerances, but not all of us do.  And seriously, if I can’t have fries, you better believe I’m gonna stack that potato with as many fatty things as humanly possible.

More tales from the road coming soon!