Survey says... pizza.

Make your gluten-free voice heard and vote for your favorite GF brands in Triumph Dining's first annual Best of Gluten Free Awards! Participants receive free dining cards. Check it out here: http://www.triumphdining.com/blog/best-of-gluten-free/

In *ahem* extremely exciting gluten-free pizza news, northern Delaware is now home to Extreme Pizza, located in downtown Wilmington. The good news: they deliver and the pizza is really good! (In fact, I voted for them in the Triumph survey.)

On the down side, it's pricey - almost $16 for a 12" plain cheese GF pizza and about $20 for specialty toppings. In comparison, Seasons Pizza is $9.99 but it's smaller and thinner. That's quite a splurge for pizza, but it may be worth it on rare occasions, since lazy + delivery + GF is no simple proposition. (Another unfortunate side effect of celiac disease: $20 pizza?!) Extreme's GF menu also includes a few salad choices. The specialty pizzas are very creative and have fun names like Mr. Pestato Head, Peace in the Middle East (shown above, with hummus, tomatoes, olives, onions, feta, fresh basil, pepperoncinis, and mozzarella), and Poultry Geist. Another perk: Extreme also offers soy cheese.

PF = my GF BF.

After spending this lovely autumn weekend locked up in the law library, I am FINALLY (mostly) finished a much-dreaded memo for school! To celebrate, I ordered takeout online from PF Chang's. Due to the wonders of technology, when I arrived at the designated time, I was told I still had to wait another 35 minutes for my food. Well, that turned out to be a good thing! In the same shopping center (The Shoppes at Brinton Lake) I discovered The Fresh Market. Not merely the only store open at 7:30 on a Sunday, it's a gloriously swanky, upscale food store. As their website says, "Our stores convey the atmosphere of an old world European market, all under one roof, where you can visit an array of departments... The open air feel of our market presents a feast for the senses as colors and fragrant smells fill the atmosphere and classical music plays wafts through the air." This joint is classy! One of my joys in life is wandering around food stores looking for new GF discoveries - again, not a hobby that fits well with the rigors of law school - so it was wonderful to do some guilt-free exploring.

I've read about the new King Arthur GF baking mixes but hadn't seen them in person - voila! Some other good finds included Sharwood's papadums and San-J tamari-ginger salad dressing. They also carry Caesar's frozen GF pasta entrees, which are fantastic, especially the manicotti. Because of the location and not-cheapness, I won't be shopping here often, but it seems like a lovely place to pick up odds & ends or high-quality organic produce and meat/fish.

In other news, this week I finally tried out Seasons Pizza's gluten-free pizza. It's now being offered at the Concord Pike, Christiana, and Elsmere locations. Real talk: nothing can replace the role of gluten in pizza crust, so no pizza is going to be the same. But this is pretty darn good! The pizza comes only in medium size for $9.99 (toppings extra). The pie is small, and the crust is very thin; almost crispy but not quite there, although the melty gooey cheese is so perfect that you can trick yourself. This is about as good as it gets for gluten-free pizza. (It's also good the next day if you pop it in the toaster oven, which does crisp up the crust a bit.)

Despite the pizza talk, I've decided I must recommit to being dairy-free, or as low-dairy as I can get. The time crunch has made me rely too much on carbs and dairy for quick fix meals lately, and it's having a drastic effect on how I feel and look. It's going to be hard but I think it's for the best. Goodbye cheese, I will always love you.

Good news & bad news.

Savvy celiacs already know that gravy is almost always a huge blinking red flag item for us. One glorious exception was the poultry gravy at Boston Market. Key word: was. Today I spotted a sign proclaiming that it's been reformulated and now contains wheat and soy. Boo, hiss!

It is commendable, however, that they mentioned the allergy info right on the marquee. You get used to relying on certain brands or products, but the reality is you must keep checking ingredients in case anything changes. Thanks to Boston Market for keeping the food-sensitive community (or, more likely, our attorneys) in mind, although obviously it would be even nicer if we could have our gravy and eat it too!