Eating Out

One book I won't be buying anytime soon. Or ever.

"Hi, I can't eat garlic or anything with gluten, is there anything on your menu that I will be able to eat?"

This is how I envisage a lot of pre-dinner conversations starting in the future. You know, scenarios like this... I walk into a restaurant with friends, the food looks yum, I ask the above question, get a negative and decide that for the sake of friendship a liquid dinner will have to suffice, end up throwing up in a gutter later. Or I walk out, repeat said process a few more times then give up and go home to cook. Or I call ahead and don't even make it to the restaurant before getting a negative. Bleak picture I know. But think how many things have garlic in them.

D and I are going out for dinner tonight. It's super exciting. First meal out since all these shenanigans started. We're going to a little place that he has sussed out at being able to cope with my dietary requirements. Hooray for places like this. :)

Day 16 - Garlic - Friend or Foe?

Hm, having uploaded this photo, I realise that our meal from Tuesday night looks totally unappealing. You'll have to trust me that it's just exceptionally unphotogenic (like me) and really was totally delicious and looked amazing in real life (like me).

We have introduced deep sea fish (not farmed = no chemical contaminants) for a bit of protein variety. That's the flaccid white blob at the bottom of the photo. The slimy green things are very yummy baked green beans with olive oil and garlic. And the lumps up the top are baked kumara with baked garlic smeared on them. We really went all out on testing the garlic, mostly because we both LOVE it.

So we enjoyed our meal, and D didn't seem to suffer any major repercussions. I however, swelled up like a balloon, or pregnant lady (choose you imagery), felt very "weird" in the tummy all evening, and then woke up with a heavy stomach feeling, suspiciously similar to how I feel after eating chocolate or durum wheat.

When I still had a stomach ache yesterday morning, I though "Oh no, garlic intolerance". D said "Maybe you just ate too much of it, after all garlic is really potent". So I looked up dose-response in food intolerance, and yes, it could have been that I ate too much, although that would suggest some level of intolerance anyway. But despite the stomach ache lasting til midday, I decided to brave the garlic again last night in a much smaller dose, the kind we would normally include in a meal. Fortunately I didn't become grossly pregnant looking this time. I did, however wake up in the middle of the night with just the same stomach ache, which is persisting even now. *sigh* I guess it's just time to face the fact that all these years garlic has just been a frenemy, and I should let it go from my life. This it a royal PITA, because not only do D and I love it, but it's also put in just about everything you get when eating out. Seems I'm condemning myself to a life of cooking for myself.

Oh, and as an addendum to that, my Poppy used to always say that garlic didn't agree with him. We all used to think he just didn't like the taste, but maybe he was intolerant too!