I know it’s been a while since I’ve done a post that wasn’t about advocacy or purity protocol oats. When information needs to be shared urgently, the fun stuff takes a back seat. With my manuscript for The Downward Spiral now in the hands of my beta readers, I finally have time to share some fun stuff.
Last fall, Chaz was given sabbatical time by his boss. We went on a five week road trip, driving out to Seattle, working our way down the coast, and then returning home. The worry, as many of you know, is always, where will it be safe for me to eat? On the road, I made sure we had snack foods that included jerky and hard-boiled eggs, as well as dried fruit, peanut butter, and purity protocol oats for safe breakfasts when needed, and sandwich fixings for rest area lunches.
I was overjoyed when we hit Seattle and we discovered fully gluten-free restaurants. The first one we tried was Capitol Cider in the Capitol District of Seattle. They have Sunday brunch where you can order a mix of breakfast and lunch or one or the other. My eyes were bigger than my stomach after perusing the menu. I wanted one of everything…mostly because I could. When does that happen for us when we’re out to eat? We even concocted the idea to just stay all day and eat our way through the menu. That didn’t quite work out, but we still enjoyed ourselves.
I started off with some Stumptown coffee. If you’re a coffee lover, you should try it. It ranks up there with pure Kona coffee for me.
They have a huge menu of just the hard ciders they carry. They have flights to try a few at a time, and you can even buy cider to take with you. I went with the International Flight which were unfiltered ciders from Europe. They are drier than what you might be used to with some of the domestic ciders, and were reminiscent of the mead my college buddies used to homebrew. My favorite of the three was the one from Normandy. It was rich and full, almost like the cider version of a stout beer.
We ordered the doughnut holes to start and ho-lee-WOW. When I shared the picture of them on Instagram, I proclaimed them to be the best gf doughnuts ever. They aren’t the spongy ones that you get from Krispy Kreme. They’re cake-y with no aftertaste or strange what-is-that-in-my-doughnut taste like you get from some gluten-free baked goods. Plus, they came with the not-too-sweet berry compote as a dip.
While I love breakfast foods, and they had a lot to choose from, I ordered the fish and chips. I’ve never been anywhere I could order that before. My rationale was I can get breakfast food most places. I can’t get fish and chips just anywhere. I was happy with that decision even though I would’ve loved some malt vinegar to go with it. It was still delicious, again without a weird taste or an aftertaste.
If you go to Capitol Cider, make sure you take some time to walk around and enjoy the neighborhood. Lots of fun little things to spy on the walk and treasures to behold in stores —- like records.
As I share this adventure with you, I hope your takeaway is that while your diet may be “restrictive,” it doesn’t have to restrict your travels. If I can live on the road for five weeks, so can you. Don’t let having Celiac or NCGS stop you.
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