One of my favorite events of the year is about to begin: ThrillerFest, a conference that has been described as “summer camp for thriller readers, fans, writers and industry professionals.” It brings some of my favorite writers to the Grand Hyatt in Midtown Manhattan for four days, starting this Wednesday, July 7th. (The first two days are for CraftFest and AgentFest, targeted at writers who are working on thrillers; Friday and Saturday are for readers and writers alike). Featured authors include Linda Fairstein, Harlan Coben, Tess Gerritsen, Gayle Lynds, Joseph Finder, Sophie Littlefield, Rebecca Cantrell… well, you get the idea. It’s quite a line-up. This year, I’ll be on a panel, too: “How Do You Pack for a Thriller?” — about using international settings in your fiction — will take place on Friday, July 9th at 11am. (If you weren’t aware of ThrillerFest but want to attend, you can still register for Friday and Saturday.)

One writer who is attending ThrillerFest asked me — via Twitter — about where to dine gluten-free in New York. This seemed like a perfect time to mention some of my favorite Manhattan spots. If you’re visiting New York this summer, you won’t want to miss these:

Bistango: Almost every item on the menu of this Italian restaurant in Murray Hill can be prepared in a gluten-free version. There’s plenty of gluten-free pizza and pasta dishes, as well as meatier offerings like  rack of lamb. What really makes a meal at Bistango stand out is the graciousness of its staff. The owner, Anthony, goes back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen, talking to everyone and making sure that diners are comfortable. This is a gem. [web] www.bistangonyc.com

Rosa Mexicano: My favorite Mexican restaurant in Manhattan now has a separate gluten-free menu. (The gluten-free menus are available at all three of Rosa Mexicano’s Manhattan locations, though the one at the original First Avenue spot is a little different from the others.) There’s a long list of options, but my favorite main dish is the Budín de Pollo, a decadent tortilla pie filled with layers of chicken, peppers, and cheese. There are also amazing — and rather strong — pomegranate margaritas. [web] www.rosamexicano.com

Risotteria: The bad news is that Risotteria doesn’t do reservations. When the wait gets extremely long, sometimes the waitstaff comes outside with gluten-free breadsticks, guaranteeing that you’ll hang around. The food is stellar, and the many celiac-safe options run the gamut from Caesar salad to mushroom risotto, and from pizza to panini. All of the desserts are gluten-free, and they are divine. [web] www.risotteria.com

There are also two bakeries that I want to mention. Both of them deliver to addresses in the continental U.S., though not all of their products are available this way. If you can, check them out in person:

BabyCakes NYC: This Lower East Side bakery is famous for its organic, vegan, and gluten-free options, but keep in mind that the treats made with spelt are not safe for celiacs or the gluten-intolerant (though they’re a great option for wheat-allergic people). I’m wild about the cupcake tops, but other options include cookie sandwiches, crumb cakes, and banana bread. [web] www.babycakesnyc.com

Tu-Lu’s Gluten-Free Bakery: Formerly known as Tully’s, this East Village bakery is entirely gluten-free. I’m hopelessly addicted to their brownies, which are the best I’ve had in a long time. There are also cupcakes and a variety of cookies, including oatmeal, cranberry, and classic chocolate chip. [web] www.tu-lusbakery.com

The Gluten-Free Guidebook is having its first-ever Reader Report Contest (check out this post to enter). I’ve received questions about it from some readers, and I wanted to answer them here, in case others are wondering the same thing. It’s perfectly fine to send a list of your favorite celiac-safe restaurants and shops, without actually “reviewing” each one. Some Reader Reports that are already on the site are actually lists like that, and they’re very helpful to people. The Reader Report can be about anywhere in the world, and it’s perfectly alright to write about a destination already featured on the site. There’s always new information to share. I look forward to reading your entries!

Contest aside, several readers have sent me tips about gluten-free restaurants and bakeries via e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook, and I want to pass these along. I’m always grateful when people take the time to share information, and I know that these tips will help many others.

Kathy, a reader in Montreal, visited New York a few weeks ago, and wrote to tell me about a restaurant she’d enjoyed: Emporio. She described it as having a “great GF menu, helpful staff and wonderful atmosphere.” I haven’t tried it yet but plan to. ([address] 231 Mott Street; [tel] 212-966-1234; [web] www.auroraristorante.com)

Chelsea, a reader in Toronto, wrote: “The Starving Artist cafe/waffle bar in Toronto (near Bloor/Lansdowne) has really awesome gluten-free (and vegan) waffles. You can substitute the GF waffles in any of their waffle meals/desserts.” That’s another place on my list of places to try. ([address] 584 Lansdowne Avenue; [tel] 647-342-5058; [web] www.starvingartistbar.com)

My friend Henny Groenendijk, also based in Toronto, told me about a new gluten-free bakery in Oakville, Ontario. It’s called Voila Gluten Free Bakeree ([address] 22 Lakeshore West, Unit 6; [tel] 289-837-0110; [web] www.voilaglutenfreebakeree.com).

Another friend, Margaret Littman, told me about Fifth Group Restaurants, a company in Atlanta, Georgia, that recently launched gluten-free menus at each of its five restaurants: El Taco, Ecco, La Tavola Trattoria, and South City Kitchen (which has two locations). From the company’s official statement: “We are dedicated to giving our guests as many dining options as possible – and that includes options for those with dietary restrictions. It’s another step in striving to satisfy our current patrons and potential new diners, and with a rise in celiac disease diagnoses, I think it’s a big step that we absolutely must take.”

It’s always exciting to see more places offer gluten-free options. What have you found lately?

What does it say about me that one of the holidays I most look forward to is Passover, and I’m not even Jewish? But I do live in New York, where the holiday is widely observed. Many grocery stores have a special section set up for the occasion, and that’s normally a goldmine for gluten-free items. Passover — also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread — generally prohibits the consumption of grains (rice and beans are also on the forbidden list for Ashkenazi Jews). I say “mostly” since one staple of the regular Passover diet is matzo, an unleavened bread that’s made from wheat. That means anything made with matzo — such as matzo-ball soup, gefilte fish, and any product made with matzo meal — isn’t celiac-safe.

Still, options abound, especially when it comes to treats. Passover desserts range from traditional macaroons to raspberry rolls, chocolate-covered marshmallows to fudge brownies, and marble loaf cake to chocolate-chip cookies. One brand that I’ve grown to know well over the past few years is Shabtai Gourmet, a bakery that is entirely gluten-free; they are also dairy- caesin- and soy-free, and their products are certified kosher. If you live in the continental USA, they offer free mail-order delivery of their products. Take a look at their offerings at [web] www.shabtai-gourmet.com, or call [tel] 516-652-5671.

There are other companies that prepare gluten-free items for Passover, such as Manischewitz (which makes potato starch noodles) and Dr. Prager (which makes spinach-and-potato pancakes). Nancy Lapid, About.com’s celiac guide, prepared a great list of items to watch for in “The Jewish Holiday of Passover: A Gluten-Free Bonanza.”

Finally, thanks to Google, I’ve learned that there’s even gluten-free matzo available now. Created by a rabbi based in England, Shemura Oat Matzos are gluten-free and meet the strict requirements of Passover foods (the oats are literally watched as they’re baked, to ensure that they don’t rise). The product is available in the US and Canada, as well as Australia, South Africa, Belgium, England, and Israel. Shops that sell it in North America include:

Kosher Cajun [address] 3519 Severn Avenue, Metairie, Louisiana [tel] 504-888-2010 [web] www.koshercajun.com

Fishman’s Delicatessen & Bakery [address] 4100 Minnetonka Blvd., St. Louis Park, Minnesota [tel] 952-926-5611 [web] www.fishmanskosher.com

Also, Kosher.com will ship orders anywhere in the US. I wish everyone who celebrates the holiday a very sweet Passover.

UPDATE 04/03/2010: I’ve found a few articles — and recipes — that are well worth checking out:

• “Quinoa: A Welcome New Guest at the Passover Table These Days” by Susan Schwartz, The Montreal Gazette
• Food52 has a delicious-looking recipe for Oaxacan Cinnamon Chocolate Macaroons
• Dessarts has a lovely recipe for a Flourless Chocolate Orange Almond Cake for Passover

Early in December, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jenifer Christenson, the executive director of external relations for the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation. She has celiac disease and is incredibly well-informed about resources for gluten-intolerant people in Edmonton and the surrounding area. She’s already shared the names of some local restaurants that do a great job with gluten-free, and now she’s provided a list of where to shop in Edmonton, too.

In addition to the stores below, there are two sites that Jenifer also recommends highly. One is the website of the Canadian Celiac Association’s Edmonton Chapter. Another is www.edmonton.com, which provides information about what to do and where to stay while you’re in town.

Thanks again for all of your help, Jenifer — it’s very much appreciated!

JENIFER’S REPORT ON GLUTEN-FREE SHOPPING IN EDMONTON

Bosch Kitchen Center [address] 9766 – 51  Avenue, Edmonton [tel] 780-437-3134 [web] www.barbskitchen.com
This kitchen shop carries all sorts of gadgets, cookware and baking supplies. You will find most types of gluten-free flour, xanthan and guar gums, and some bread mixes.

Ed’s Gluten-Free Specialty [address] 9303 – 34 Avenue, Suite 117, Edmonton [tel] 780-465-1118 [web] www.edsglutenfree.com
The store carries only gluten-free products from all major gluten-free manufacturers with their main focus on Canadian suppliers. Many products are yeast-free, dairy-free and egg-free. Open seven days a week.

Kinnikinnick Foods [address] 10940 – 120 Street, Edmonton [tel] 780-424-2900 or 1-877-503-4466 [web] www.kinnikinnick.com
A totally gluten-free store and bakery, which carries a large variety of baked goods, baking supplies, commercial cereals and soups. They accept special orders including wedding cakes, case lots and mail orders.

Nutter’s Bulk and Natural Foods, several outlets (check www.nutters.com for details). They carry a lot of gluten-free food and flours, including Kinnikinnick, Celimix, Kaybee and Nutter’s Corn Pastas. Locations in the Greater Edmonton Area include:

• 4720 – 51 Avenue, Leduc [tel] 780-986-1257
• 5218 – 50 Avenue, Wetaskiwin [tel] 780-352-4555

Planet Organic Market [address] 7917 – 104 Street, Edmonton [tel] 780- 433-6807 and Planet Organic North [address] 12020 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton [tel] 780-452-4921 [web] www.planetorganic.ca
A knowledgeable, helpful staff sells natural organically grown foods, health aids, cleaning and personal care supplies. They also carry gluten-free baking mixes, flours, gums, frozen breads, snack foods, cereals, bouillon cubes, pastas and energy bars.

Sweet Tweet Sugar Free Shop [address] 4345 – 50 Street, Edmonton [tel] 780-462-2010 [web] www.sweettweet.ca
A low-carb, sugar-free shop carrying some delicious gluten-free treats. They also stock pure oats.

Photograph provided courtesy of Edmonton Economic Development Corporation.

One of my favorite things about the last week of the year is that it’s a good time to take stock of what’s happened over the past 360+ days. In 2009, I found that some posts got a great deal of feedback from readers — and I learned that sometimes it’s impossible to predict which ones will spark the most interest. Below are the posts that garnered the greatest responses, and if you missed them the first time around, you can still read them (and comment) now.

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to e-mail me, follow me on Twitter, join the Facebook group, or make a comment on the site. I deeply appreciate your support, and look forward to hearing more from you in 2010. Happy new year!

Vacation Planning for Celiacs: Cruises

The irony for me was that, after researching different cruise options, I ended up going to Las Vegas instead. But my research wasn’t wasted: because I looked at the gluten-free options onboard different cruise lines, I was able to share what I’d found about Carnival, Norwegian, Princess, MSC and other companies. Better yet, so many readers contacted me about their cruise experiences (mostly with positive reports about dining gluten-free) that it inspired another post.

New York City Day by Day… for Celiacs

When I wrote the New York City Day by Day guidebook for Frommer’s, I was a newly diagnosed celiac. Fortunately, the book didn’t require full-length restaurant reviews; since it was intended as a cheat sheet to the city, and mostly filled with walking tours, I could get away with short mentions of favorite eateries. Of course, that list included many great spots for the gluten-free, such as Rosa Mexicano, Rice, Blue Smoke, and Pure Food & Wine. The book is now available as a download from the New York Public Library; for details, check out the original post.

Philadelphia’s Great Gluten-Free Initiative

Bravo to the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness for training so many Philadelphia chefs via its Gluten-Free Resource Education Awareness Training (GREAT) program… to the wonderful chefs who took part… and to the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation for being savvy enough to recognize this as a terrific tourism initiative.

Smart Businesses Support Celiacs

This was inspired by Starbucks’ “now you see it, now you don’t” gluten-free Orange Valencia Cake. Remember it? But the post was about much more than Starbucks. It was about making smart choices to support businesses that are responsive to their customers’ needs. One of the things I wrote last July was, “At a time when we’re all watching our budgets, I’d like to make a case for spending even more carefully. If a major corporation isn’t serious about serving the gluten-intolerant, I see no reason to support them.” I stand by that position.

Gluten-Free Fast Food at the Toronto Eaton Centre

This post was an accident. While I was in Toronto last June, working on the Frommer’s Toronto 2010 guidebook, a business lunch was canceled at the last minute. Since I was stranded near the Eaton Centre, my hometown’s famous shopping complex, I decided to explore the fast-food options there. The response from readers was overwhelming. It turned out that just about everyone wanted to know more about celiac-safe fast food. This post had an unexpected result: a Toronto reader wrote to tell me that the Druxy’s Famous Deli in Commerce Court had gluten-free bread. When another reader saw that, she contacted Peter Druxerman, Druxy’s vice-president of marketing, to ask if the company could make gluten-free bread available at their outlet inside Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital. In the blink of an eye, Druxy’s responded, adding gluten-free bread to its offerings at PMH. Remember what I said earlier about supporting businesses that are responsive to their customers?

On the Road With…

I love finding out the secrets of great travelers. Both Alice Bast, founder of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, and Sloane Miller, who writes the delightful Allergic Girl blog and runs Worry-Free Dinners in New York, were kind enough to share many of theirs.

Mail-Ordering Gluten-Free Groceries

First and foremost, the Gluten-Free Guidebook is about travel and dining out. But even if you’re on the road a lot, as I am, you need to buy groceries sometimes. I’m lucky to have some great spots near me in New York, but there are also some companies that I order from online. And it still surprises me that Amazon consistently offers some of the best prices on gluten-free groceries.

A Celebratory Gluten-Free Lunch in New York

For those of you who know me mainly as a travel writer and celiac advocate, it came as a shock that I have a dark side. My debut crime novel, The Damage Done, will be published by Forge in October 2010. I have been publishing short stories for a while, but I’m still happily surprised about my two-book deal with Forge. What I didn’t expect was that some criminally minded fiction types would be interested in the Gluten-Free Guidebook, too. David Cranmer, editor of Beat to a Pulp (one of the best places to find contemporary crime fiction), asked me about both my novel and my gluten-free travels when he interviewed me. Jen Forbus, the book blogger behind the wonderful Jen’s Book Thoughts, was kind enough to ask me to take part in her Six-Word Memoir project, in which she asked crime writers — including Dennis Lehane, Linda Fairstein, Joseph Wambaugh, Sue Grafton, Lee Child, Megan Abbott, Ken Bruen, and Mary Higgins Clark — to sum themselves up in six words. Have you read mine yet?

October is Celiac Awareness Month, so there’s an uptick in coverage about the disorder and generally about gluten intolerance. A couple of the better pieces that have been published lately: “Gluten-Free: Is It for Me?” by Daphne Oz on Oprah.com and “Why Common Foods May Hurt Your Health” by Dr. Jon LaPook on The Huffington Post.

Everyone knows it’s Halloween at the end of this month, but parents of children with celiac disease and/or food allergies need to hear about the Halloween candy list that’s available from Sure Foods Living. Keep in mind that this list was compiled using American sources. Canadian parents, when you read that Smarties are free of gluten, know that this is not true of the popular Nestlé treat, but of an American candy that is unrelated but shares the name. Also this month, the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness hosts a Gluten-Free Cooking Spree in San Francisco. It will take place on October 30th; check the NFCA site for details and ticket information.

Some Gluten-Free Guidebook readers also have advice to share. Carolina, who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, recommends one gluten-free spot:

There is a place called CeliGourmet here in Buenos Aires that sells food to take out. It has all sorts of things, such as crepes, tarts, pizzas, sandwiches, empanadas (typical local food). There are also many kinds of cake, like cheesecake, chocolate cake, tiramisu, etc., and a variety of breads. There are two stores: one in General Paunero 1927 – Martinez (like half an hour out of town) tel, 4798-2990, and one in Thames 1633 – Palermo Soho, in town, tel 4831-5162.

To my ear, Buenos Aires sounds more and more like a gluten-free paradise. Reader Silvia Basualdo Róvere shared some local restaurants in this post and in this one. If you visit Buenos Aires, check out Oleo, a website that allows you to search for city restaurants that serve gluten-free meals (“comidas para celiacos”). There are currently 300 places on the list!

Another reader, Sybil, left an incredibly helpful comment on my post “Gluten-Free Fast Food at the Eaton Centre.” In it, she mentioned that the Druxy’s Famous Deli in Toronto’s Commerce Court kept gluten-free bread in its freezer. I’d never heard about Druxy’s offering gluten-free options, but Peter Druxerman, the company’s vice-president of marketing, confirmed it. Right now it’s just a test program — the only Druxy’s with gluten-free bread is the one in Commerce Court — but it’s one that Druxerman says the company would like to expand.

Next summer, if you’re visiting Ontario’s spectacular Stratford Festival, take a tip from another reader, Marilyn, who shared this:

We twice visited the festival last summer, and we were able to order ahead, by phone or online, for a gluten-free picnic lunch that we picked up from the Festival Theatre lunch bar. We found the food and beverage supervisor very helpful in discussing options, and the food was excellent!

If you go, the Festival Theatre Café is located at 55 Queen Street, Stratford, [tel] 1-800-567-1600 or 519-271-4040. According to the website, picnic lunches need to be ordered at least 48 hours in advance.

Many thanks to Carolina, Sybil, and Marilyn for their terrific tips. Please keep them coming!

I often get questions from readers looking for recommendations about where to dine gluten-free in destinations that I haven’t visited (or, at least, haven’t visited since being diagnosed with celiac disease). I make the same suggestion to all of them, which is to check out the Gluten-Free Guidebook Group on Facebook. The great thing about this group is that it has a discussion board where people can ask questions and share recommendations. I’ve been impressed by how helpful people are, and I’m grateful to everyone who has contributed their time to the group.

One popular destination that people often ask about is Paris, a place I haven’t visited in the past five years. Fortunately, reader Ellen Maycock has, and she shared her very helpful suggestions with the Facebook group. She was enthusiastic about one Parisian restaurant in particular:

I’m just back from Paris. I highly recommend a totally GF restaurant, in Montmartre! It is Des Si et des Mets, located at 63, rue Lepic in the 18th. Metro stops Abesses or Blanche, phone 01.42.55.19.61. I had two excellent meals there. What a treat to be able to order *anything* from the menu! Our waitress one evening said she was a celiac. I don’t know if they speak English, but they were extremely friendly. (You might want to bring a small dictionary to translate the menu.) The *entire* restaurant is gluten-free, so you don’t need to worry about cross-contamination. The prices are moderate for Paris — you can get a very nice 3-course meal for 26 euros.

Ellen also had some helpful general recommendations for celiacs who visit Paris:

If you have any cooking facilities, you’ll be in good shape. There’s a great organic market every Sunday morning on the Blvd. Raspail. I found GF items in the Monoprix (major grocery chain), and in some health food stores. I was told about good bread in Naturalia, but didn’t try any.

I was anxious about dealing with GF in Paris — my first trip there after my diagnosis in January — but I felt very well (better than in the States).

Other readers have written recently to share their gluten-free discoveries. One couple, Lynne and Ernie, passed along a terrific recommendation for the Niagara region:

Cafe Amore (211 Martindale Road in St. Catharines, Ontario) is our favorite restaurant. They have rice pasta and all the sauces are gluten-free. They have gluten-free desserts and amazing dinner rolls. They are all very aware of cross-contamination issues and are more than helpful when it comes to ordering a safe gluten-free meal. This is a place that is worth spending time at while visiting the Niagara area.

Another reader, Nadine, wrote to share a couple of discoveries she’d made:

I have a recommendation for a restaurant in La Jolla, California: George’s at the Cove. I had a fish taco that was out of this world delicious. It was one of the restaurant’s specialties and my server told me it was gluten-free. Also, there is a bakery in the small town of Bristol, New Hampshire: Cornucopia Catering and Bakery. It bakes gluten-free breads and pastries. It’s the only bakery for miles and their products are worth the trip. I’ve had their cinnamon buns and a pecan bread, which were fantastic.

One more recommendation came from my friend Danyael Halprin, a journalist who lives in Calgary. She told me about a dedicated gluten-free restaurant called A Tasty Menu. Its offerings include plenty for vegans and vegetarians, and the lactose intolerant. There’s also a special menu for kids.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has contributed suggestions and recommendations. Please keep them coming!

A while back, I wrote about the impressive array of gluten-free groceries at the Specialty Food Shop at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The store isn’t just for celiacs, and not all of its products are gluten-free. But located in its aisles are gluten-free North American brands such as Glutino, Mi-Del, Enjoy Life, and Kinnikinnick, and international ones such as Australia’s Orgran and Germany’s Glutano. There are plenty of treats — cookies of all descriptions, ice-cream cones, snack bars — as well as healthier fare, including pastas, cereals, breads, soup bases and mixes, baking products, and frozen dinners.

The Specialty Food Shop introduced me to a Canadian bakery that I’d never heard of before, but a taste of El Peto‘s unbelievably delicious butter tarts made me want to get to know them better. Founded in 1988, the company is a Swiss-style bakery and a dedicated gluten-free facility. Since El Peto is located in Cambridge, Ontario — about an hour’s drive west of Toronto, close to the charming theater town of Stratford — I decided to visit the last time I was in the area.

El Peto is “free” of so many ingredients, I started to wonder what they do bake with. It’s not only entirely wheat-free and gluten-free, it also offers corn-free, yeast-free, milk-free, egg-free, peanut-free and trans fat-free foods. Their product range includes breads and pizza crusts, muffins and pies, hot and cold cereals, cake mixes and cookies, and their own milled flours, made with ingredients such as romano beans, chickpeas, quinoa, potato, and brown rice. Their company store also stocks gluten-free products from other manufacturers, such as pastas from Tinkyada and Gogo Quinoa (a Bolivian fair-trade company), waffle ice-cream cones and wafers from Barkat, and soup cubes from Celifibr.

Then there are, of course, El Peto’s wonderful butter tarts. It turns out that other types of tarts are also available — pecan, lemon, raspberry — and that there are unfilled tart shells, too. El Peto’s prices are reasonable, but the best news is that you don’t need to visit to shop there. You can order via the online store. El Peto’s products are also turning up more frequently in mainstream grocery stores — those butter tarts can now be found at the Loblaws Superstore in Toronto, along with breads, rolls, and mixes.

El Peto [address] 65 Saltsman Drive, Cambridge, Ontario [tel] 800-387-4064 or 519-650-4614 [fax] 519-650-5692 [web] www.elpeto.com

I’m always grateful when the Gluten-Free Guidebook gets coverage in the media, and so it was a thrill when the site got a mention in the July issue of the JourneyWoman newsletter. If you travel solo, for work or for pleasure, JourneyWoman is an amazing resource (and while some of its tips are certainly geared towards women, many apply to men, too; just sign up on the site to receive the free newsletter via e-mail).

I heard from several people as a result of JourneyWoman’s coverage, and wanted to mention a tip I got from Barbara Collins, who had a fantastic experience with Holland America:

I read about your site in JourneyWoman Newsletter.  I recently got back from a cruise to Alaska with the Holland America cruise line.  When I signed up for the cruise, they had the possibility to indicate special dietary needs.  In fact, I am not celiac, but do have a severe allergy to wheat and a lesser intolerance for gluten.  But I am even more complicated in that I am also allergic to dairy and eggs.

Holland America took this very seriously and every day gave me the menu for the following day from which I made my choices.  They then prepared that menu specially for me not including any of the ingredients to which I was allergic or intolerant.  In fact, I was surprised one evening when I ordered something Asian and my dining partner had the same thing, but hers had a drizzle of soy sauce and mine didn’t.  It was then that I found out that soy sauce contains wheat!

They had quite a good selection of gluten free products as well (bread, muffins, pancakes, etc.). I would definitely recommend this cruise line for anyone with any special dietary needs.

In other news, GF Patisserie, which I’ve written about before, turns one this month. I haven’t had the chance to visit this dedicated gluten-free bakery in Cochrane, Alberta, but I’ve heard only wonderful things about it. If you happen to be in the area (it’s a short drive from Calgary), you’re invited to the bakery on Saturday, August 8th for some celiac-safe birthday cake with founder Victoria Edlinger and her husband, Peter (who writes the Celiac Husband blog).

If you’re in Los Angeles, you might want to check out the SunPower Natural Cafe in Studio City. It’s an organic, vegan raw-food restaurant where all of the desserts are gluten-free, including the tiramisu, cookies, and the “un-cheesecake.” And if you’re near Hackettstown, New Jersey, stop by the Donaldson Farms roadside stand, which my friend Charlie just told me about. The stand is open daily from 8am to 6pm from May 1st to November 26th, and its offerings include fresh fruit, fresh-cut flowers, and fresh-baked gluten-free treats.

Do you have a favorite spot that I should include on the Gluten-Free Guidebook? Please let me know about it.

Back in May, I was excited when Starbucks introduced its first-ever gluten-free baked treat, the Orange Valencia Cake. But last week, the company announced — via Twitter — that it was no longer going to carry it. Instead, gluten-intolerant people would have to make do with KIND bars, one of those fruit-and-nut snacks which, in my opinion, are neither healthy enough to justify as part of a meal nor decadent enough to qualify as a treat.

To me, it was a great disappointment. It wasn’t that I was in love with the cake. I’d been in several Starbucks locations where the cake had been taken out of its packaging and set on a cake stand in the display case, alongside the wheat-based baked goods, entirely defeating the point of it being gluten-free. But I was surprised that such a major US chain would go to the trouble of developing the treat, stocking it nationally, then just ditch it within weeks. I’m not sure what Starbucks’ message to the growing number of gluten-free consumers was supposed to be, but it certainly wasn’t that they were committed to serving us.

Triumph Dining has organized an online petition to Starbucks, designed to get the company to bring back the cake. Personally, I’m choosing to focus on shopping at places that have consistently shown an interest in serving celiacs. The recession has made me more conscious about where I spend my money. With the growing number of empty storefronts in New York City, I want to support new businesses like HealthSmart of NY, which opened in Murray Hill a couple of weeks ago and which boasts a surprisingly huge gluten-free section for a relatively small store. I also like to buy my groceries at local stores like Natural Green Market and Fairway, or national chains like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, all of which have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to the celiac community.

My feelings about supporting businesses that serve celiacs extends to bakeries — such as Babycakes and Shabtai Gourmet — and especially to restaurants. When I’ve gone out lately, it’s mostly been to spots such as Bistango, Risotteria, GustOrganics, and Rosa Mexicano, all places with an impressive record of serving celiacs. (Rosa Mexicano doesn’t have a gluten-free menu, but over the course of many visits I’ve found them to be very celiac-aware.)

At a time when we’re all watching our budgets, I’d like to make a case for spending even more carefully. If a major corporation like Starbucks isn’t serious about serving the gluten-intolerant, I see no reason to support them. As Ethan at Gluten-Free Maps pointed out to me last week, Starbucks offers a gluten-free fair trade chocolate cake at its outlets in Great Britain. And this isn’t just about Starbucks; as Chris at Celiac Handbook has noted, McDonald’s restaurants in Finland have a gluten-free menu (as do the ones in Sweden). If these American-based companies can manage these feats overseas, they can do it here. No excuses.