You know, I think I complained once about having a hard time finding some of the gluten-free flours I needed back in the US. I had to go to specialty stores to get what I needed and that was kinda a pain. Well, I take it back. Every complaint I made about shopping for ANYTHING in the US, I take back. Seriously. Shopping here is PAINFUL! I’m trying to hard to find gluten-free ingredients so I can make things for Troy, but it’s like playing Where’s Waldo at a Waldo-impersonation convention.
Troy assured me before we left that I’d find plenty of foods here that he can eat, since their main staple is rice. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, he lied. Majorly. Yes, there is a ton of rice here, but there isn’t a whole lot else that he can eat. Well, that isn’t insanely expensive. Or doesn’t make him ill from all the spices.
Since we moved out of the hotel, we’ve mainly been eating chicken and rice. Last week I made a super yummy beef stew with carrots, potatoes and celery. He really liked that and wants me to make it again. I think he likes having a bit of variety. Though, him eating the chicken and rice has been beneficial in that it has balanced out his system again. It’s so hard to tell whether something has flour in it and he’s been eating quite a bit of things he shouldn’t. There were these chocolate pudding desserts at the hotel that we found out had cookie bits in them and other random desserts would look like he could eat them and a few bites in he’d find cookies or other items made with flour. It was frustrating for both of us. He gets so sick and feels so awful when he eats flour and it frustrates me because there’s nothing I can really do except help him screen foods. Now that we have an apartment, though, I can have complete autonomy over the ingredients in his food.
For the most part, we don’t even bring in foods he can’t eat. He brought me a piece of chocolate cake for my birthday and we have frozen chicken nuggets for me in the freezer. We also have a couple of noodle cups and some spaghetti, but other than that, it’s all vegetables, fruit, chicken, cheese and eggs. It’s not too bad having fresh fruit and veggies. lol. I kinda miss roles and french bread and corn dogs, but it’s not like we can find those things here anyways.
Shopping for anything Western is insane. All these website say ‘go to this place to find Western foods’ and ‘go to this place to find a variety of gluten-free mixes and products’. Well, we’ve gone to those places and we’re either looking in the wrong areas or we’re at the wrong locations because we aren’t having a whole lot of luck. I finally found brown sugar and rice flour on Friday. We’ve been looking for both of those for a while. I still need tapioca starch, sorghum flour, yeast, guar gum and brown rice flour. I offered to make corn tortillas since we can’t find any (and the gluten-free tortillas are expensive), but I need to find a special blend of corn flour. I found corn flour and bought some, but all the recipes call for masa harina. It’s a special kind of corn flour used for corn tortillas. I need to do more research and see if I can make the tortillas with plain corn flour.
I dunno. It’s so hard shopping here. Everything is just set out in a way that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I have pictures from my excursion to the mall yesterday and I need to post them. Craziness.
So, yeah, if anyone wants any ideas for what to get Troy and myself for Christmas, we will gladly accept gluten-free ingredients and mixes and foods. I’m good as far as anything else goes. Troy makes sure I have the things I need and there isn’t really a whole lot I want. I just want to be able to make food that Troy can eat and enjoy.
