Tag Archives: Europe

In the Shadow of the Acropolis

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Seeing the Acropolis up close was a dream come true for me. No matter how many times you view a place in photographs or videos, there’s nothing like experiencing it in person. And the Acropolis is particularly alluring because you catch sight of it from different angles as you stroll around the sprawling metropolis that is Athens. Day or night, it’s a joy to behold.

The Acropolis holds a series of treasures. The entry gate, called the Propylaea, was designed to inspire awe. Just beyond it is the Temple of Athena Nike, which represented the goddess as the victorious protector of her namesake city. Step further inside and you’ll find the Erechtheion — a temple famous for its six stone guardians, the Caryatids — and the Parthenon itself, dedicated to Athena the Virgin. Built between 450 BC and 440 BC, it was the largest Doric temple in Greece.

If you want to see the glorious statues and carved reliefs that once graced the Parthenon, there are two places to look. One is the British Museum, which houses the Elgin Marbles, a collection that includes friezes from the Parthenon and one of the Caryatids from the Erechtheion. (The return of this collection is the subject of ongoing debate and discussion between Greece and Britain.) The second place to look is the stunning modern museum at the foot of the Acropolis.

Built atop Roman and Byzantine ruins, the Acropolis Museum opened in 2009 to showcase both art and history. It does so beautifully, with original statues excavated from under the Parthenon, and with impeccable copies of the works that were removed by Lord Elgin. The top floor of the building is devoted to the carved marble panels of the Parthenon. Even though you know you are looking at copies (the museum is scrupulous about noting that), the scenes — depicting warring deities, centaurs, Amazons, and the fall of Troy — are breathtaking.

There was another wonder at the foot of the Acropolis, just across from the museum…. 

Read the full post on Substack.

A Lesson Learned in Athens

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Friends, I am back from Greece! Even though I’m so jet-lagged that I may need to prop open my eyes with toothpicks for the rest of this week, I had an absolutely fantastic time. It was my first visit there, and I dove headfirst into every historic site I could find. That included the glorious Acropolis, the ancient Agora, the Roman Forum, Hadrian’s Library, Keramikos Cemetery, and the Temple of Olympic Zeus.

Each of these places took my breath away. It wasn’t just the grandeur of the sites, or the thousands of years of history I was looking at. It was also the discovery of charming quirks, like the cats roaming freely around the ruins, and the realization that both Hadrian’s Library and the Keramikos Cemetery are guarded by… turtles.

My first piece of advice applies to every traveler planning to spend a few days in Athens: buy the combination ticket! The Hellenic Heritage e-Ticket saves you time, by letting you skip the ticket line at each site, and it saves you money. To visit the Acropolis costs €20; the combination ticket is €30 and lets you visit all of the sites I mentioned above. (Each site charges an admission of about €8 to €10, which adds up quickly.) Since you now have to book the timing of your Acropolis visit in advance — a new rule that came into effect in September 2023 — it really makes sense to buy the combination ticket online.

On the dining front, I ate incredibly well, starting with the breakfast at my hotel every morning. Athens has many hotels, and I ended up choosing one based on a few factors. Location was key: I wanted to be in Plaka, the oldest neighborhood in Athens, close to all of its ancient treasures. (The trade-off being that the streets wind around in confusing ways, with tiny sidewalks full of tourists, but it was wonderful nonetheless.) My husband and I scoured guidebooks and TripAdvisor reviews, and that was how we found a place called the Classic Hotel by Athens Prime Hotels.

Friends, it was perfect. To be clear, our room was tiny, as all guestrooms in Plaka are (space is forever at a premium in historic districts). But it was clean and well-designed, with amenities like a mini-fridge, a safe, a great shower, and a hot tub on the balcony. Even better? The hearty gluten-free breakfast I had every morning.

After booking online at the Classic Hotel, my husband and I wrote to them asking about the included breakfast — specifically, if there would be anything that a celiac could eat. Staff wrote back that while the breakfast included eggs, vegetables, fruits, yogurt, and cheese, they didn’t have any gluten-free bread or other specialty items. That was fine with me. But when I arrived, I discovered that the staff member in charge of the breakfast, Michaela, had gone out and bought some gluten-free items for me. I ended up with two different breads (one brown, one white), rice cakes topped with white chocolate and strawberry, and small crispbreads to pair with the fresh peach jam. Yes, I was spoiled — and very grateful. The Greek reputation for warm hospitality is well deserved.

I’ll be writing more about Athens over the next few weeks, because I ate extremely well there. But my first lesson was that it never hurts to ask a question — or to mention that you have celiac disease. I know some people feel shy or uncomfortable about doing so, but in my experience, it’s worth it.

Exploring Barcelona With Rick Steves

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Let me admit a certain amount of bias upfront: I spent a decade writing guidebooks for Frommer’s Travel Guides, so I’m predisposed to believe guidebooks are useful. But in recent years, that belief has taken a beating. Even before the pandemic, guidebooks were an endangered species, since a growing cohort of travelers think they can get everything they need from the Internet. That led to guidebooks being updated less frequently, which undermined their utility. More recently, guidebooks have been getting a bad reputation thanks to what the New York Times calls “a new form of travel scam: shoddy guidebooks that appear to be compiled with the help of generative artificial intelligence, self-published and bolstered by sham reviews, that have proliferated in recent months on Amazon.”

When I was planning my trip to Barcelona this spring, I’d pretty much sworn off guidebooks. This would be my fifth trip to the Catalonian capital, and I felt like I knew my way around the city reasonably well. But when I glanced at the latest guidebook options, I noticed that Rick Steves had a recently updated guide to the city. On impulse, I decided to buy it.

Friends, I’m so glad I did.

Read the rest of this post on Substack

The Gluten-Free Guidebook Goes to Berlin

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Before I went to Berlin for a week in August, a friend warned me that I wasn’t going to like the food. When I asked him why, he described it as “beer, bread, and bratwurst” — which, I have to admit, did not sound appealing, especially to a person with celiac disease. I took his warning to heart and did even more research than I normally do before a trip. The result? I had a week of amazing meals, interspersed by visits to incredible museums, historic landmarks, and breathtaking gardens. Here’s where I ate.

AC Hotel Humbolthain Park: This was my home base in Berlin, and I couldn’t have asked for a better spot to stay. This recently-renovated hotel is located at the edge of a beautiful park, a stone’s throw from Gesundbrunnen station (a major hub for public transit, making it easy to get just about anywhere in this sprawling city). Every morning, one of the thoughtful staff members would bring me a plate from the kitchen with a dark gluten-free bread and a chocolate muffin; there was also a gluten-free cereal from Udi’s on offer. The breakfast buffet items had signs with numbers on them to indicate what allergens they contained (I wasn’t familiar with this system, but I encountered it at several Berlin restaurants, so it appeared to be a popular approach to dealing with food allergies in these parts). I also had dinner here one night when a massive downpour hit the city. My appetizer was a simple green salad paired with parmesan; my main course was pork belly paired with beets and berries and it was incredibly good.

Buschbeck’s: Located on a quiet street in Charlottenburg, this is a lovely restaurant run by a husband-and-wife team. Everything at Buschbeck’s is homemade, and they take food allergies seriously. The menu changes daily and is written (in German only) on a large blackboard in the main dining room. Fortunately, one of the owners patiently explained all of the options in English, and she made it clear that almost everything that wasn’t already gluten-free could be modified to be. I started with a simple beet salad paired up with Parmesan, and had an Argentine steak grilled to perfection with potatoes and veggies. I also had my favorite drink of the trip here, a kir cocktail. The restaurant doesn’t take credit cards, but the prices are very reasonable. This was one of my favorite nights out in Berlin, and I highly recommend Buschbeck’s — I felt like I was in really good hands here.

Suzette: This Breton creperie was recommended by a friend of a friend, and it’s an absolute delight. It’s located in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, which I’m told was once a grim place in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, but is now an area filled with charming restaurants and boutiques. All of the main-course crepes are made from buckwheat (remember, buckwheat is related to rhubarb and is safe for celiacs; in spite of the name, it’s not wheat!); the dessert crepes are made of flour, but the staff will make gluten-free ones on request. My main course was a crepe of goat cheese, bacon, and tomato… and I may have ended up splitting a second main course with my husband, a three-cheese crepe filled with roquefort, emmenthal, and goat cheese. They were both so delicious, and so was my dessert crepe with caramel and chocolate. (There are a few desserts that can’t be made gluten-free — the ones they set aflame with pear brandy would burn to a crisp atop a buckwheat crepe! — but there are still many options.)

Simela: This pizza place has a couple of locations in Berlin; I ate at the one in Mitte, which has limited seating, but the food was very good. Practically everything on the menu is available gluten-free. The pizza itself was made with a buckwheat base (I noticed a few people online complain about the strong taste of the crust, but I liked it). There are plenty of vegetarian options, and a couple of dairy-free choices, but I went for a dose of cheese and prosciutto, and I loved it. I also had a hearty salad with olives and tomatoes and somehow had no room left for dessert, a decision I still regret.

Cookies Cream: Finding this restaurant is a nightmare: it doesn’t have a proper street address, and locating it requires walking down three adjoining alleyways that look like great places to get murdered (remember, I’m a crime writer; I see killer possibilities everywhere). It’s behind the Westin hotel on the Unter den Linden, but you need to enter from an alley off Behrenstrasse. Fortunately, the innovative food made the trip worth it: Cookies Cream is a glamorous vegetarian restaurant, with red banquette seating and stainless steel accents in a room that otherwise looks industrial. The menu is prix fixe, with your choice of three, four, or five courses. I went with four, starting with a soup of tomato tea and verbena, then a watermelon and artichoke carpaccio, a savory main course of baked eggplant and edamame, and a dessert blending cucumber and juniper (I know that doesn’t sound like a dessert, but it was delicious). Most of the dishes were already gluten-free, and the ones that weren’t were easily modified. Expensive but excellent.

Chay Viet: Berlin has a vibrant restaurant scene featuring cuisines from all corners of the globe. I’d seen this completely vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant mentioned as “gluten-free friendly” on a couple of sites, so I wanted to give it a try. The menu was marked with same allergy-warning system that my hotel used, but it turned out that it was out of date. Fortunately, the server spoke English and was able to guide me in ordering what was actually gluten-free; however, the kitchen’s first attempt at my main dish contained gluten and had to be remade. Overall, the food I had here was excellent — delicious spring rolls, a simple-but-amazing clay-pot dish of sesame rice, a savory curry — but I feel some trepidation making a recommendation to visit. The staff was lovely and helpful, but the misleading menu and kitchen mix-up definitely made me anxious, even though it all worked out in the end.

The Gluten-Free Guidebook Goes to Stockholm

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Late this summer, I spent a week in Stockholm and fell in love with the city. Several people asked me if there was “enough to do” in Sweden’s capital to justify that long a stay (most seemed to think of Stockholm as a weekend destination for those en route to Copenhagen). I can happily report that a week was barely enough to scratch the surface. Stockholm is blessed with great museums (the Vasa was my favorite); several palaces, including the historic castle in the Old City and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Drottningholm, where the Swedish Royal Family now lives; and it has gorgeous architecture and parks and public art installations. Even the subway system serves as a kind of roving art gallery, at least in the downtown stations I saw. The fact that Stockholm is spread across a series of islands gives it a physical beauty that is simply breathtaking.

And then there’s the food.

To say that Stockholm is a haven for those who eat gluten-free is an understatement. Everywhere I went, people were familiar with celiac disease, aware of potential cross-contamination issues, and willing to help. It was, quite possibly, the most relaxed I’ve felt traveling since I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2004. I didn’t use any of the Swedish-translated cards I brought along; everyone I met spoke at least some English, and the Swedish word for gluten-free — glutenfrei — got an immediate reaction everywhere I went. Here are some of the places I recommend:

Hotel Birger Jarl: This was my home away from home in Stockholm. Located where the neighborhoods of Vasastan and Norrmalm meet, the hotel was on a quiet street, but close to every amenity I could want and only a 10-minute walk from the busy city center. It served the most satisfying buffet breakfast I’ve ever had at a hotel, with signs indicating what was gluten-free and steps taken to prevent cross-contamination (for example, GF bread was on a separate table from wheat bread). I had dinner at the Birger Jarl’s restaurant one night and was impressed; several menu items are indicated as gluten-free, but others could be modified.

Tranan: This historic restaurant in Vasastan opened in 1929, and it’s not hard to understand why it’s perennially popular. The setting is elegant, the food is excellent, and the service is superlative. When I told the waiter that I have celiac disease, his face lit up. He carefully went over the long menu with me, then brought me some of the most delicious bread I’ve ever tasted, served hot. Tranan serves classic bistro fare with a Swedish twist (there’s plenty of herring on the menu). My steak tartare was paired with truffles, Parmesan, and almonds, and it was perfect.

Hemma Vasastan: “Hemma” means home in Swedish, and this charming restaurant wants diners to feel as comfortable as if they were dining at home (minus the work, of course). The server brought me my own gluten-free bread basket, which contained both a warm toast and a traditional crispbread. My goat cheese starter salad was delicious, as was my Arctic char with asparagus risotto. This was also the spot that introduced me to Briska pear cider, one of my favorite finds of the trip.

Lilla Ego: This tiny spot in the Vasastan neighborhood was the trendiest spot I visited. It’s featured in a Michelin guidebook and is often booked a month in advance, but I was lucked into a reservation for two by being flexible on dates (I ate there on a Tuesday night). The service is friendly but casual, which belies the ambitious, innovative cuisine. My favorite dish of the evening was actually dessert, a goat-cheese creme brulée that had hot and cold layers, plus macadamia nuts for good measure. It was a perfect mix of savory and sweet.

Vurma: This casual spot seemed to be very popular with locals, judging from the number of people dining on the open-air patio with their dogs). It’s located in Ostermalm, which had some of the most stunning architecture in the city. I dined here my first night in town (after failing to sleep on the overnight flight), so I have to trust my notes instead of my memory: “Salmon with potatoes & mint sauce = perfection.”

Da Peppe: The small island of Gamla Stan is Stockholm’s historic heart, but that doesn’t make it any less of a tourist trap. I was warned in advance about how hard it can be to find good food here, and I struck out on my first two attempts. Then I lucked out by finding Da Peppe, which stocks corn pasta for gluten-free guests, as is happy to make any other required accommodations. My chicken penne was served with a chili-infused cream sauce that turned up the heat in a rich but tantalizing way.

McDonald’s: It’s been 13 years since I’ve eaten at McDonald’s (I was diagnosed with celiac disease back in 2004). I was curious when I heard that many Swedish McDonald’s restaurants offer gluten-free Big Macs. I tried one at a busy kiosk in the city center on my first day in town, and I was impressed by the steps taken to avoid cross-contamination. And yes, the Big Mac tasted just the same as I remembered. (PS to McDonald’s: If you can manage this in Stockholm, why don’t you give it a try in some North American cities?)

On the Road With Daphne Oz

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Last October, I was excited to find an excellent article on Oprah’s website about gluten intolerance. The author was Daphne Oz, daughter of Oprah’s favorite health expert, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Daphne, who graduated from Princeton in  2008, is an author in her own right: in 2006, she published The Dorm Room Diet, which is being re-released in an expanded and revised edition this September; in 2007, she wrote The Dorm Room Diet Planner. She is also co-author of the bestselling books You: The Owner’s Manual, You: The Smart Patient, You: On a Diet, You: Staying Young, and You: Being Beautiful. Last year, after experiencing health issues that ranged from sleep problems to weight fluctuations, Daphne followed the advice of a naturopathic, Ayurvedic doctor who recommended that she cut gluten from her diet. While tests have shown that she doesn’t have celiac disease, Daphne noticed her health improve on the gluten-free diet. She’s currently at work on a self-improvement book about conscious living.

How often do you travel? I am a total gypsy. In October and November, I was living in Chicago, but now I’m back in New York. Recently I’ve also traveled to Florida, Philadelphia, Maine, California, and England.

What foods or snacks do you pack when traveling? There are some staples that I always bring with me, like pistachio nuts. My dad has really drilled home the nuts issue! They’re a great snack. I also bring apples and soy crisps. Generally, I prefer to eat food I’ve brought with me, rather than what’s served on a plane.

What other things do you always bring with you? I’ve assembled a travel pack because I’m on the road so much. I bring hand sanitizer, facial moisturizer, lip balm, and a full-size pillow — those tiny pillows they give you on planes just don’t work for me. I bring my iPod and a bunch of magazines, like Oprah and Vogue.

Any favorite restaurants? I absolutely love a New York restaurant called Peasant. They serve fresh fish with just a little olive oil and sage. There’s no gluten-free menu, but the food prep is so simple that many dishes are naturally gluten-free. There’s another place in New York, Fatty Crab, that I really like. They serve Malaysian cuisine and have amazing coconut-milk broths. In Los Angeles, I always go to the Newsroom Café, which does great vegetarian food, and the LA Mill, a coffeeshop that serves food, including gluten-free crackers. In London, I just had brunch at Baker & Spice, where they had wonderful Mediterranean salads, like peppers and feta cheese, and roasted sweet potato.

Any favorite hotels? Staying at the Penninsula in Los Angeles was probably the most luxurious experience of my life.

Favorite city or destination that is not your hometown or current home base? I love Istanbul for many reasons. I have family there, the food is wonderful, and the city has this amazing union of Byzantine architecture and modern skyscrapers. I also love London, even though the weather is terrible.

What’s your dream destination? The place that immediately comes to mind is Thailand, because of the history and culture. I’d also love to see Bora Bora.

Do you have any other advice for gluten-intolerant travelers? When you’re traveling, one of the best things to do is to visit a local market, where you can get fresh fruit. Not only is that good for you, but it teaches you a bit about the culture of a place.

Photograph provided courtesy of Daphne Oz.

Vacation Planning for Celiacs: Cruises

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Sunset

It turned cold very early this fall in New York, as it has in much of North America. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking of taking a vacation somewhere warm. One thing that I’ve never tried is a cruise. I’ve taken day-long boat trips in places like Newfoundland and Chile, but that’s just not the same thing.

My daydreaming may have been inspired by a reader, Barbara Collins, who wrote to me in July to share her fantastic experience onboard a Holland America cruise ship. You can read her letter in this post. It was extremely encouraging to hear that a cruise line would go above and beyond the basics to take care of a wheat-allergic and gluten-intolerant traveler.

What I’ve discovered so far is that many cruise lines seem willing to accommodate people on gluten-free diets and other special diets. Each cruise line seems to have a different policy on the subject. Most seem to have a special requests form that you must fill out, often weeks in advance of your cruise. While I haven’t tried any of the following cruise lines — yet — all of them sound pretty great.

Carnival: “Guests with special diets can be accommodated on Carnival Cruise Line,” boasts the company’s website. In addition to gluten-free, Carnival offers meals for a range of special diets, including vegetarian, low sugar, and low fat.

Disney Cruise Line: While advance notice is required to accommodate special diets — at the time of booking the cruise is strongly recommended — Disney is able to prepare meals for an incredible range of special diets. Vegetarian options are widely available on its ships, as a matter of course.

MSC Cruises: Given that Italy is a world leader in celiac awareness, it’s no surprise that this Italian cruise line takes special care of its gluten-free guests. However, there are different offerings on its different vessels. According to MSC’s website, “MSC Cruises works closely with the AIC-Associazione Italiana Celiachia (Italian Celiac Association) to provide gluten-free menus in the restaurants of MSC Fantasia, MSC Musica, MSC Orchestra and MSC Poesia cruising in the Mediterranean and in Northern Europe. On MSC Splendida, MSC Lirica, MSC Opera, MSC Sinfonia, MSC Armonia, [and] MSC Melody, guests can find pre-packaged gluten-free products like snacks, biscuits, croissants, plumcakes and muffins.”

Princess: This cruise line emphasizes “personal choice dining” so there are plenty of options. Gluten-free, dairy-free, salt-free, MSG-free, and vegan meals are all available — when arranged for in advance of sailing.

Royal Caribbean: Special diets this line accommodates include gluten-free, low-sodium, and low-fat. They are also happy to accommodate those with food allergies. These meals should all be arranged in advance. Note that vegetarian meals are also available without any advance notification. As Royal Caribbean says, “We make every effort to accommodate our guests’ dietary requirements whenever possible.”

I’d love to hear about your cruise experiences. Please let me know how well you were able to eat while at sea.

Landmark Dining in Istanbul

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Before I left for Turkey, I e-mailed a friend for advice. Like me, Alison is a travel writer — her blog is called A Curious Mind, and she’s penned articles for everyone from The Washington Post to The Huffington Post — and she had visited Turkey a few weeks before me. It turned out that her trip was a whirlwind press tour — she only spent three days there in total. Still, she had plenty of suggestions for what to see and do. Her one restaurant recommendation was for Hamdi, an Istanbul restaurant that is close to the Eminönü ferry docks. “They had a pistachio kebab that I cannot stop thinking about,” Alison told me.

While I loved the places that she mentioned (including Topkapi Palace, home to many of the Ottoman sultans), I wondered whether Hamdi would work out. Perhaps I’d had good luck with restaurants early on in the trip, while I was in Selçuk, in part because I was visiting in November, technically the off-season for Turkish tourism. Restaurant owners and staff had taken good care of me, but on a couple of those nights, my husband and I had been virtually the only people in the restaurants. Hamdi is listed in every travel guidebook, and it’s popular with locals — everyone wants to enjoy its spectacular views of the Galata Tower and the New Mosque (otherwise known as the Queen Mother’s Mosque). Would a crowded, busy restaurant be up to the task of preparing a gluten-free dinner for me?

It turned out that I needn’t have worried. The night that we dined at Hamdi, the fourth-floor dining room was packed and we scored the last available table. I was amazed that, even in such a busy place, all of the staff read the Turkish celiac card I had with me. After a quick huddle, two waiters were assigned to my table — the one who was working in that section of the restaurant, and another who was serving a different section, but who spoke very good English and could translate my needs to the kitchen. I ended up having an incredible kebab, a mix of lamb and veal with pistachio nuts, served with a tomato salad. Because every dessert on the menu featured pastry (Hamdi is famous for its baklava), the kitchen prepared a fresh fruit salad for me. It was a luxurious meal, even thought the restaurant isn’t an expensive one. And now, like my friend Alison, I can’t stop thinking about that amazing pistachio kebab.

Hamdi [address] Tahmis Cad. Kalçin Sok. 17, Eminönü, Istanbul [tel] 90 212 528 03 90 [fax] 90 212 528 49 91 [web] www.hamdirestorant.com.tr

Finding the Unexpected in Istanbul

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It’s hard to describe just how rich Istanbul’s history is. Everyone knows that it’s the city where East meets West, literally: part is in Europe and part is in Asia, with the Bosphorus Strait dividing the two. I was enthralled by Hagia Sophia — or Ayasofia, in Turkish — the great church built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537 (it’s now a museum). Across the street from it is the Sultanahmet Mosque (also called the Blue Mosque), built by Sultan Ahmet I in 1617, famous for its stunning tiled interior and six minarets. But the most surprising place, to me, was a treasure that was forgotten for centuries beneath the bustling city: the Basilica Cistern.

At roughly the same time Hagia Sophia was constructed, Justinian expanded and rebuilt the cistern, which had been created during Emperor Constantine’s reign. While its purpose was purely functional — the cistern served as a reservoir for the city, capable of holding 27 million gallons of water — its form was a work of art. Justinian’s builders reclaimed 336 columns from local Roman ruins to support the cathedral-like brick ceiling. It’s hard to believe, but this subterranean Byzantine treasure was forgotten in the Ottoman age. Rediscovered in the 20th century, it was repaired and opened as a tourist attraction in 1987 (after being used in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia With Love).

It seemed to me after visiting the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarnici in Turkish, literally ‘sunken palace’), that Istanbul was a rare city in being able to overlook such a gem for so long. But that’s the thing about Istanbul — there is an abundance of everything. This can be enthralling, as you wander through its historic places, or confusing, as it was in the case of restaurants. Sultanahmet is filled with restaurants, most of which have men in front who try to lure you in, often loudly and aggressively. The approach didn’t whet my appetite, and it made me seek alternatives. In a pedestrian alleyway off the crowded Divan Yolu, I found one restaurant, Amedros, where the host out front smiled and nodded politely. I showed him my Turkish celiac card and he became curiously excited. He showed the card to a waiter, who became equally animated. They assured me that the kitchen would be able to make a safe meal for me. One added, “This card, it is wonderful.”

I discovered over dinner why they were so thrilled with the celiac card. A few weeks earlier, a tourist who had a food allergy had dined at the restaurant, but she hadn’t told the restaurant staff about her issues and they watched, horrified, as she had a serious reaction to the peppers in her dish. The staff was relieved — grateful even — to find out what my dietary issues were and were happy to accommodate them. The menu at Amedros is available in English, and it offers detailed descriptions of each dish, but you can never count on avoiding an allergen by ordering something that just looks safe. My meal there was simple — a green salad, followed by grilled sea bass and veggies, all paired with a light, white Turkish wine — but it was safe (and delicious!). The staff actually thanked me at the end of the meal for telling them about celiac disease. It was a wonderful evening, and a reminder that Istanbul is full of surprises.

Amedros [address] Hoca Rüstem Sokak 7, off Divan Yolu, Sultanahmet, Istanbul [tel] 90 212 522 83 56 [web] www.amedroscafe.com

Turkey, Travel… and Thanksgiving

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My fellow New Yorkers are preoccupied with turkey this week, since it’s Thanksgiving on Thursday, but I’m obsessed with an entirely different Turkey. My trip there was memorable for many reasons. The sheer volume of ancient Greco-Roman sites floored me, even though I’d previously read that Turkey has more Roman ruins than Italy. I visited a few (Ephesus, Pergamum, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis) and was amazed again and again by their beauty and grandeur. I saw great museums (Istanbul’s Archaeology Museum was simply incredible), and magnificent houses of worship, such as Sultanahmet’s Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia (the latter was a church, then a mosque, and now a museum, but it’s a place of beauty whatever you call it). There is so much to see in Turkey, and I only scratched the surface by visiting the Aegean Coast and Istanbul in my 12 days there.

On the dining front, Turkey presents a challenge for the gluten-intolerant. Bread is such a staple of the diet, and wheat sneaks into a wide range of products (for example, the rice cakes I found in supermarkets contained wheat). Restaurant menus are filled with dishes that contain wheat, from stews and soups to kebabs that are wrapped in a wheat shell. However, there was one very important factor that made dining in Turkey possible for me: the Turkish people I met were wonderful hosts, and everyone — from the busiest restaurant to the simplest cafe — was willing to go out of their way to help me dine safely.

I also had the good fortune to correspond with — and later meet — Oya Özden, the founder and president of the Living With Celiac Association of Turkey. She sent me a celiac disease information card, written in Turkish, that I could show to chefs and other restaurant staff. She also gave me some general guidelines about dining in Turkey. Some of her tips:

  • Question everything you eat, because flour is used so much in Turkish cuisine
  • Mezes, or appetizers, are prepared in different ways in different restaurants; the simple artichoke and olive oil meze you had in one spot may have flour added to it in another
  • Rice pilav is common on menus, but beware — it often has orzo pasta mixed in with it (the pasta is sometimes much darker than the rice, but I also saw versions where the difference in color was subtle and would be easy to miss)
  • Grilled fish served without sauce is a safe choice, but beware of cross-contamination from kofta (small meatballs made with wheat) that could be cooked on the same grill

The lesson was to be vigilant, particularly because wheat is used so commonly that restaurant staff might overlook it. I learned that the hard way on my first night in Turkey, when I was accidentally ‘glutened’ by the dining room of the small hotel I stayed at in Selçuk. My mistake was in taking the word of a staff member who was a native English speaker (since my Turkish is very limited, I thought I was on safe ground explaining my dietary restrictions to someone who spoke the same language). She assured me that the rice pilav was just rice. When the plate was set in front of me, I noticed that the rice had slightly darker bits of… something… mixed in. “Are you sure this is just rice? There’s no pasta in this?” I asked, and was reassured that it was rice. One bite later and I knew that there was more than just rice in the dish. Orzo pasta, as it turned out.

It was a disappointing way to start the trip, but it was a good reminder to proceed very cautiously. Everywhere else I ate, for the rest of the trip, did come up with great gluten-free fare for me — and you’ll be hearing more about that in the weeks to come. In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving to my American readers. And for readers who are celebrating their first gluten-free Thanksgiving, check out this excellent post from Shauna James Ahern at Gluten-Free Girl.