A Southern Celiac

Food. Fashion. Fainting.

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AMOT Eatery Nashville TN

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Traveling while gluten-free can be hard. I spend a lot of time packing my own snacks and eating salads. I don’t have anything against salads. Actually, I usually have a big salad for lunch! However, when everyone around you is chowing down on delicious-looking carbs, and you’re sadly poking a piece of iceberg lettuce with a fork? Yeah, no.

Nashville is about two hours away from my home base of Chattanooga, Tennessee. My best friend recently moved to a Nashville suburb, so when we were passing through after a trip to Kentucky, I was able to meet her for lunch. Now, Taylor has been one of my biggest supports since going gluten free. She’s suffered through more weird homemade gluten free concoctions than I can count, and has dutifully tried each new restaurant I’ve found with a gluten-free menu.

When I mentioned that I was going to be in Nashville, she asked where we should eat lunch. “I usually get Fido,” I said, referencing the best gluten-free option near my Vanderbilt doctors.

“They’re busy on weekends. Look up AMOT Eatery!” she replied.

AMOT Eatery Nashville

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Going Gluten Free Without Breaking the Bank

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When you first go gluten-free it can be daunting. It seems like you’re destined to spend seven times what you did before, and everything is doomed to taste like heated cardboard. Although plenty of blogs assure you that eating gluten-free is easy, low cost, and you’ll never miss anything you ate before. While that may be true for some people, the reality for me was that following a gluten free diet was a challenge at first, and I still miss some junk foods I can’t have. (Fazoli’s lasagna anyone?)

However, a gluten free lifestyle doesn’t have to be miserable. It also doesn’t have to be terribly expensive. In fact, I’ve made an art out of being gluten free on a budget. So here’s how I stay gluten free without breaking the bank.

Going Gluten Free Without Breaking the Bank

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An Anniversary in Chattanooga

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For our anniversary, Justin and I wanted to do something a little different. We couldn’t get too wild, but we asked my mom to watch the baby overnight while we tried a new restaurant and rented a movie. It wound up being a good thing that the baby was at mom’s overnight because I had a minor health crisis that kind of ruined our relaxing weekend plans, but hey. You win some, you lose some.

Despite the ER trip, we managed to have a decent time celebrating our anniversary. Although we had considered an overnight in Atlanta or Nashville, Chattanooga is really growing its food scene. Although they’ve been working the farm-to-table and upscale Southern angles for a while, we’re beginning to see an influx of restaurants serving food from all over the world, prepared like it would be on the streets of Mexico or a grandmother’s house in India.

This is a long, convoluted way of saying: yes, we had Latin food for our anniversary, just like we have Latin food for almost every special occasion. Although I can throw down a local beet salad or some (gluten free) fried chicken with the best of them, I have a special love in my heart for all foods South of the Border.

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Gluten-Free with Flavor: What a Celiac Eats

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When someone hears that I’m gluten free, there are three pretty standard reactions I’ve come to expect.

  1. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I could ever live without bread!”
  2. “What is gluten? What can you eat?”
  3. “Oh yeah, me too, it’s sooooo much healthier for you.”

I’m not going to be one of those celiacs that claims I never miss bread or pizza. I would probably chew off a man’s arm for a real pizza, and I’m not even kidding. As for the people who tell me, while I’m buying a gluten-free brownie the size of my face and eating it in one sitting, how healthy my diet must be? Well, yes and no. Yes, I am no longer literally starving to death because my body has decided gluten is the bad guy. No, I’m not some magical paragon of healthy living and eating. Sure, I eat a lot of salads and healthy, balanced meals. But you’re going to pry my baked goods and sodas out of my cold, dead hands. A girl’s gotta have balance, right?

The “so what can you eat” question is the only one that throws me. I mean…..everything y’all eat, except without the gluten?

What do celiacs eat? (Almost) anything we want!

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Easy Guacamole Recipe for Cinco de Mayo

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When you think of Cinco de Mayo, you probably think of two things: food and booze. Endless margaritas, beer, tacos, and all the Mexican food you can stomach. No wonder it’s such a popular holiday, right? Despite the misconceptions surrounding it (no, it isn’t Mexico’s Independence Day), Cinco de Mayo remains a favorite holiday for many. And why not? Who doesn’t love Mexican Food?

When Food Should Taste Good reached out and asked if I’d like to collaborate with them for a Cinco de Mayo recipe, of course I said yes. They sent me several flavors of their tortilla chips, and after perusing the offerings (including blue corn, my favorite!), I decided to make something that would well with any chip I chose: guacamole.

Guacamole is a simple dip that’s endlessly customizable. My favorite guacamole recipe is incredibly simple, so I’ve included a list of my favorite “add-ins” for when you want to mix things up a bit.

Easy Guacamole Recipe

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Return to Strange Brew in Starkville MS

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Starkville, Mississippi, is a college town through and through. There’s not much to do there, although there appear to be plenty of bars. There’s also a wildlife refuge outside of town, but as far as places to chill out with family or friends? You’ve gotta search a little. Sure, there are some parks that would be cute for picnics. But what about the quintessential tiny cafe or coffee shop, where you want to sit down with a notebook and do your homework? What about a place to take your parents while you convince them that you’re an incredibly poor college student who should be bought snacks and razors?

You’re in luck, and you don’t even have to head to a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. See, Starkville has a not-so-hidden gem, serving up coffee even my mother loves. My mother is not a coffee drinker.

Strange Brew Coffeehouse is located near the Mississippi State campus. The drive is a straight shot from the dorms, so even your most directionally-impaired student or campus visitor probably can’t miss it.

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Migas

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In Spanish, “migas” means crumbs. In Latin cooking, migas means the perfect fridge-cleaning food. Similar to how casseroles are used across the southern United States, migas takes all that leftover produce you’ve been meaning to use, adds a few pantry staples, and calls it a meal. And, just like casseroles, migas is delicious.

When faced with feeding three hungry school children along with three hungry adults, we’d normally go for something easy and crowd-pleasing, like tacos or spaghetti. Macaroni and cheese is also a big hit. But, sadly, we didn’t have all the ingredients for any of our stand-bys. Wait, did I say sadly? I meant “in a happy turn of events.” I need to make this again and actually plan to take pictures, because taking iPhone shots while swatting tiny hands away from the fried tortillas worked exactly as well as it sounds like it would.

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Tortilla Making Adventures (and recipe)

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Look, I know the basics to making tortillas. You need masa, you need water, you need a griddle. Some people use a tortilla press. Some brave people manage to make perfect circular tortillas with their hands. (These people usually have years of practice. Seriously, some of my friends started training in handmade tortilla-ing when they couldn’t even reach a counter.) I know HOW to make tortillas, just like I know HOW to drive a stick shift. That’s why I always buy tortillas from the local tortilleria, and also why you don’t see me trying to drive Justin’s Kia around. I can go in first gear and reverse, so it’s not like we’re getting anywhere fast.

Last night, someone I know was having a rough night. It was time for food, so Justin and I stepped up to the plate- literally- and offered to make the dinner. There was no tortilla press to be found.

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It’s a Snack! It’s a Meal! It’s…?

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I have a tendency to get into a meal rut. I’ll have the same thing until I’m sick of it, then quite literally never eat it again. It’s kind of a problem, especially since I’m gluten free and my food options are limited anyway. It’s also a problem because there are only so many times I can force Justin to eat gluten free hibachi in one week before he starts pretending to be asleep whenever I ask him what we’re planning to do for dinner. (We haven’t actually reached that point yet, but it’s coming. It’s coming.)

Although I’m still struggling with hyperemesis, we have reached the point where as long as I don’t get wild with my food choices and I take my nausea medications on a schedule, I’m able to keep food down. Usually. It’s still a work in progress. Anyway, the point is, I need to eat. I need to eat well enough to support myself and Critter, the tiny parasite. I hate food thanks to nausea, food apathy, and my inability to make a real meal without winding up on the floor crying. So what’s a girl to do?

SNACK MEALS.

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Arepa Mia

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Located inside the Municipal Market in an area of downtown Atlanta that I am not highly familiar with is a small restaurant cooking up 100% gluten free Venezuelan food. I don’t remember how I first heard about this restaurant, but when Justin took a trip to Atlanta without me sometime last year, I decided to send him in search for it. Since it was located inside the market, he had a bit of a hard time finding it. The arepa he brought back, though? Totally worth any trouble he may have gone to.

For some reason, I have been craving arepas during my pregnancy. Sure, I’ve only had them once or twice, but pregnancy cravings are no joke. When the opportunity to visit Atlanta came up, I agreed to go on one condition: we were stopping by Arepa Mia.

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