More Adventures in Gluten-Free Dining

It was a horrible weekend.  On Saturday, I had a migraine.  Seth received a call from his family asking him to drive to New Hampshire to bring his sick dad to the hospital.  Before he left, I ran to the chocolate store to buy Seth’s mom some chocolates for Mother’s Day, so Seth could bring them up.  And when I say “ran,” I mean, “I drove my car.”  But I didn’t realize I would have to contemplate literally running home.

My car decided to leak brake fluid all over the chocolate store’s parking lot.  See, and when I have a migraine and stress and a tummyache from Excedrin, it makes me do crazy things, like start to cry in plain view of a busy intersection.

That’s why Kate and Dave ended up in Massachusetts at 2:30 on what was supposed to be a lazy Saturday afternoon.  As we were all starving, and I had no car to go grocery shopping before they arrived (leading me to clean the kitchen in its entirety, including the inside of the dishwasher), we went to the only lunch shop in the area that had a gluten-free menu.

I called ahead to make sure they could do gluten-free, and this wasn’t just a trick of TEH INTERNETS or something, and here’s what the manager said:

“When someone comes into the shop with a gluten allergy, I personally make take the wok into the back room and make sure that it is cleaned on our hottest cycle of our dishwasher.  Then when we cook the food, we make sure to turn the wok up to a higher setting than we would normally.  And all of our staff is highly trained in food sensitivities and know to be very careful to avoid cross contamination — they know to wash their hands and change their gloves and sanitize the cutting boards.”

Here’s what actually happened at the restaurant.

Me to myself: Oh, their burrito filling is gluten free, and served in a bowl.  I’ll have that.

I watch burrito guy fold up someone else’s burrito on the cutting board, and then he turns to me.

Me to burrito guy: I’d like a burrito, please, but I’m gluten-free.

Burrito guy: …okay…

Me: …

Burrito guy: …

Me: So you’re probably going to want to change your gloves.

Burrito Guy rolls his eyes, changes his gloves, turns burner on and places a wok on it, and starts to joke with a coworker.  Then he puts oil in the wok, and pulls out the meat for the burrito filling.  At this point, I break in.

Me: Um, excuse me?  I called earlier and spoke with the manager, and he said that when someone who is gluten-free comes in, he makes sure that the wok and cutting boards are sanitized?

Burrito guy glares at me, flips burner off angrily, clangs hot wok onto a different burner, grabs a second wok and storms off with it.  At this point, I motion Kate (who has already paid for her food and mine) over to me.

Kate: I saw what you did just there.  Did you tell that guy he had a dirty wok?

We giggle.  Burrito guy comes back out, but starts working at the sandwich counter, and avoids eye contact with us.  Instead, a manager comes over.

Manager: Did you call earlier about gluten?

Me: Yes.

Manager: You wanted a burrito?  That’s going to come in a bowl.  And we don’t have to sanitize the cutting boards with burritos.

Manager proceeds to wash his hands, get new gloves, and make me burrito filling in a bowl.  He adds toppings like tomato and lettuce using different tongs for each addition, until he gets to the cheese.  Then he puts his gloved hand into the cheese and sprinkles it on top.

At this point, I’m too faint from hunger and Excedrin and my earlier cleaning binge to notice the importance of the lack of tongs for the cheese.  It wasn’t until I was halfway through the damn bowl that I realized that if the manager put his hands in the cheese, everyone else put their hands in the cheese too.  Can you see what I’m getting at?  The cheese was cross-contaminated.  Sigh.  I was glutened for three days.