Gluten free home, and shabbos guests (challah)

Silver Member Joined: Dec 30 2010 Posts: 737

Seraph,

Welcome to my world! (Cue the corny disney theme song music)

I have Celiac Disease (proven, with bloodwork, biopsy, cheating just because I didn't believe the doctor when I was in my teens and paying the price for moths -- the whole nine yards). DH has epilepsy and headaches and gets migraines when he eats wheat. DD tested iffy on bloodwork and her pediatrician said that any toddler that tests 'iffy' should be gluten free (especially when said toddler had seasonal allergies that demand an epi pen, constant ear infections, horrible eczema, and a nasty case of asthma.) As for the baby? She's already got a severe dairy allergy. I'm really dreading giving her allergy strong food (gluten, eggs, peanuts, treenuts, fish, sesame, soy, strawberries, etc). I'm slightly nervous that I'll need Hatzolah on standby.

So we are a gluten free house.

That being said, we can eat oat challah, and I serve that to all guests. The earlier suggestion about having whomever is sending you guests check with you first is a good one. I can't just go and buy takeout. If I'm crazy stressed b/c of work, pregnancy, illness - either the kids, DH, or I- I can't handle guests.

Growing up, my mom and aunt came up with a few different methods for preventing cross contamination. Before you begin, inform the guests that it is a gf setting and that everyone's cooperation is required. There will be no challah during the meal and everyone needs to wash their hands after challah.

1) Set the table with a lovely white tablecloth. Cover with a plastic. Set out grape juice glasses. Make kiddush. Wash. Bring out Challah. Make hamotzie. Carefully roll up the plastic. Have everyone wash hands in the bathroom. Bring out a clean plastic. Set the table. Serve the dips with rice crackers. (personal fave method. I have yet to be contaminated with this method. The price of the 2 tablecloths = far less than tossing the dips)

2) Set up two tables (one is a little card table). Cut the challah and have the guests eat it at the card table. Have them wash hands. Serve dips with rice crackers.

3) Set the table fully. Cover with a plastic. Eat challah on the plastic. Carefully remove. Have guests wash hands. (least fave method b/c it is so easy to spill the crumbs and then whoops!)

Feel free to message me to discuss further.

Silver Member Joined: Dec 30 2010 Posts: 737

Your welcome.

It's the old been-there-done-that with regards to: how can cbsmommy possibly be that sensitive? One crumb can make her sick? It matters if I wash my hands with soap? Why will washing my hands matter at all?

*sigh*

Alternatively, if you can't make the guests you have work -- change the guests! call the seminaries/yeshivas and ask them if there is someone with Celiac Disease who needs a place. When I was in seminary, there were 5 families that I would rotate going to for shabbos. (3 were my family. 2 were people I met.) They were LIFESAVERS! I had such problems at shabbatons because I needed someone who understood gluten free. Seminaries and yeshivas have tons of students who end up at a home of well meaning folks who dump the challah crumbs out of their water glass or off of the napkin and say "I cleaned it for you". Instead of gluten eating guests, can you let people know you can handle the people who eat gluten free?

Silver Member Joined: Dec 30 2010 Posts: 737

No, I said it BEFORE the knife was back in the chummus, but the guest didnt chap what I was saying and put it back in, and then asked "what did you say?" by which point it was too late.

Shalhevet, what if a guest absentmindedy is about to pour way too much salt into a dish you made, ruining it so it no longer is edible- is it normal to try to get them to stop?
And I don't mean shouting, like raising your voice, but more, speaking quickly and directly, not "oh, if you didn't mind, I would appreciate it if you didn't put that into there", etc...

But either way, I hear you, and I don't want that to come up- which is why I'm trying to make sure this isn't an issue so something like this won't end up happening.

Ok I'm with Shal here and Seraph, let me explain why I kept asking questions about whether any of you have been proven celiac or whether this is just a choice of yours for your kids and what about your dh etc.

I don't think you can even begin to imagine what kind of food limitations I live with. Celiac? Small fry. No lactose...simple. The peanut business which is really awful in terms of the fact that a kid who touched bamba and then touches a kid with peanut allergiers could kill him. now THAT is really serious.

But if you touch a bread crumb will you die? Will it put your life in danger? Will it put your health in danger? If not then it is possible to be among people and sit among people eating stuff that you can't eat. And guess what - the solution is not to eat. If they bring it into your house, it means you go hungry until you can go and eat something else. C'est la vie. It's called being a human being who b"h doesn't have the kind of life and death allergies by touch. And Boruch Hashem for it.

I live like that all the time. I don't eat out. Period. I can't because there is almost nothing that I can trust that hasn't gone near oil. It's a lot easier for me to list what I can eat than what I can't, because the list it nice and short. And what it means, because we live in the middle east where EVERYTHING practically touches oil (think: one asks for a picec of "naked" chicken shnitlz baked in a pan with nothing...well those nice people don't think along the lines of "nothing" also means that you can't grease the pan...which of course could send me straight to the hospital.

So...I don't eat out. I go to family and I don't eat anything. I drink a glass of water. Period. And when people come to my house I cook normally for them AND I DONT EAT. I can have bread so on a shabbos like that I eat challah, and have a peeled cucumber and a piece of dry chicken breast skinless that had the fat cut off before roasting dry and I have a big glass of water. Dessert is a peeled apple. That's my life. I've been in many a situation where, for example, I made dry whole rice, boiled in water, which I can eat, and a guest who asked to "help" asked if I had put salt in it (we can't eat it like that, dh and I) and I said "of course not" and before I could finish the sentence she had salted it...and that was the end of the rice for me and dh. We went hungry until after shabbos because that was the main dish.

Yeah, guests contaminate stuff all the time. A pile of dry peeled cucumbers and a pile of pepper slices with nothing on them, and instead of using the serving fork they use the spoon on which they had put a drop of chumus to take their pieces...but just a drop of chumus got splattered on the cukes...well that means no cukes for me.

It's a fact of life. If you are going to have guests this will happen. And there is nothing you can or should do except...to learn to be quiet and learn to go hungry. You want the mitzva of hachnosas orchim? No one said it would be easy. If you want to eat only what you want when you want and how you want? Then don't have guests.
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friedasima, we all know from different threads that you 'go crazy' with guests and your expectation of what people should or shouldn't do when they have guests, so what you do isn't the yardstick by which anyone should decide norms with guests. expecting a hostess to starve when guests come instead of figuring out how everyone can eat is not normal.

and a tiny bit of gluten doesn't just make me uncomfortable, it really harms my health.

and no, I never eat out.

I already got plenty of ideas via this thread how to make sure that doesn't happen again, shalhevet, thanks to lots of posters on this thread. I was just responding to friedasima'a absurd 'if you want guests be prepared to starve'.

IMO, invite people for late-afternoon coffee and dessert.

You can serve fruit salad, nuts, sorbets and some fabulous gluten-free cookies and cakes that you made.

I just don't think you'll have such an enjoyable meal if you're on constant lookout for people putting knives into hummus or passing a crumbly pita over the salad bowl.
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Last edited by freidasima on Sun, Jul 01 2012, 6:54 am; edited 3 times in total

Seraph just look at your exaggerations: "we all know"..."you go crazy"...where is your sense of humor. When I wrote "prepare to starve" it is tongue in cheek. What I meant is that if you are so limited in your diet as you claim you are, as so many people with real serious health issues are, and you are the hostess, then, you always HAVE to prepare for yourself for the possibility that if you are eating with other people at the table unless you will limit everyone always no matter what to what YOU can eat, there is a distinct possibility that your food will be contaminated by things you aren't allowed to eat and then you have nothing to eat at the shabbos table.

That doesn't mean that you can't go into the kitchen and eat your stuff (of course if you are the only one in the kitchen ever and your guests never come in and never try to help serve and be "helpful" messing up things in the kitchen because they don't understand the ins and outs of what you are calling "cross contamination". Because remember, the minute any food, including that which you can eat, goes out to the main table where other people are sitting, it can get contaminated. It happens. People don't think. They put their fork into something instead of using a serving fork and their fork has something ossur for you on it. And if you are a good hostess, and polite hostess, then you don't say anything after it happens and you don't drive your guests crazy with your limitations, you just sit quietly, eat what you can and if there is nothing left then you just don't eat at the table and you drink your water or whatever and then after the meal, in the kitchen when it's over and your guests won't be insulted, you go and eat what you can and what you want...if they haven't come into the kitchen and contaminated it with whatever.

You are obviously not used to lots of adult guests in and out of the kitchen trying to help and obviously not used to the kind of stuff I wrote "Boruch Hashem" about...just ask Marion who knows from peanut allergies with her kids. If someone had a piece of bamba and still has something on their hands and wipes it on a napkin and a hostess has a severe peanut allergy and she even picks up that napkin to throw out...guess what Seraph. She can die if she doesn't have an epi pen around and gets an attack.
THATS WHAT I MEANT. And no, from what you describe you don't have that kind of gluten allergy. Nor do I have that kind of oil allergy. I can oil my hands with whatever and make them nice and soft and you can probably wash your hands with gluten based soaps...as long as it gets totally wiped off before your hands will ever get near your mouth. Get it? You won't die from it. Chas vesholom kids with peanut allergies will.

BIG DIFFERENCE.

And lighten up a bit...don't take everything so heavy, and literally. But yeah, in order not to insult your guests unless you are going to make the entire house gluten free no matter what for anyone stepping in through the door, there is always a chance that every single thing on the table including on your plate will get gluten crumbs on it and you just won't be able to eat at the table at that meal...so take it all in your stride...it happens and if someone goes without a meal because of it and eats later...it's also not going to be the end of the world. People make too much over food and eating...just take it or leave it. We aren't starving b"h or malnourished that if we miss a meal for a few hours because of a mishap then it's the end of the world.

Gold Member Joined: Aug 19 2011 Posts: 2059

I know Seraph has gotten the answers she wanted but I wanted to point out that there sometimes aren't tests for what bothers people. Ruchel upthread said when she eats challah, she gets a migraine. Granted my DH has only been dealing with chronic migraines for 3 years, but, while his dr has suggested cutting out certain foods (and DH has followed this advice), there is no medical test to conclusively prove that gluten causes migraines (anyway not the case for us). One thing I've heard that is interesting (and I'm not applying this to Seraph as she has already given the list of what she has to avoid), I did read that the wheat we eat nowadays is so genetically modified that it bears very little resemblance to wheat that our ancestors ate even 100 years ago. A hypothesis is that this modified wheat contains some substance that is very inflammatory to many people's bodies (this is beginning to be recognized by the medical establishment as chronic inflammation is linked to shorter lifespans). Is it gluten? Who knows. In any case, there are myriad reasons beyond "fad" for giving up wheat (or anything else your body finds inflammatory).

In our family, we eat wheat only a few times per week - I don't think our health suffers at all for eatingmore veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, and proteins. To each his own diet.