One of the funniest moments for me, at the conference, was Thursday night, when my husband joined me for the evening before going back home to help with my son. The Top of the Rock restaurant at the Buttes is a very nice place with very nice chefs, hosts, and servers. I called ahead to make sure I could survive eating there, and when I arrived they knew me by name and were very thorough to make sure I could eat what I ordered. So I ordered, and my husband ordered some parsnip soup, I asked the server to check on the ingredients on this so I could know if it's safe to take a bite of it (just to compare it to my own parsnip soup). The server was one of the best I've ever had, and carefully checked it over. She also had a very distinctive accent. When she came back she informed me that the broth in the soup had corn or gluten in it so "The soup...is not for you." After she left our table, my husband looked at me, waved his hand in the air and in his best Seinfeld fashion announced "No Soup for you!" I could hardly stop laughing. By the way, he said my soup is a little better Nice husband.

The meal was excellent, they had a wonderful seafood special with shrimp and macadamia crusted scallops, which were pure heaven. It sat atop some frisee and maple glazed sweet potatoes, with a wonderful sort of chile butter sauce. When I went back later in the week, I had the free range chicken, but substituted the same sauce and sweet potatoes, it was also very good, though the lamb chops looked amazing too.

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Last night I didn't feel at all like cooking (or cleaning the kitchen) so we did fast food. We almost survived it. I took my bun-less, sauce-less, cheese-less burgers and decided to make a taco with the gluten-free tortillas I had bought. I found out later in the night this was a bad idea. I knew better; I had read that vegetable gums often comes from corn, and these have xanthan and cellulose gum in them. I ended up itching during the night and having trouble sleeping. From now on, I'll just make my own amaranth wraps, they are better anyway.

I had two revelations at Costco today...the first was how few things there I could now eat. Now that I have to cut out all corn derivatives, that cuts out most of the canned foods, except pineapple. I ended up getting mostly produce. (and was very pleased to see their tomatoes on the vine were grown without pesticides). The second revelation was as I waited to check out and surveyed other shopper's carts...they looked healthier than they usually do. The Japanese family in front of me had mostly rice, fish, and some sushi rolls. To the side, I saw more produce than usual, and no junky snacks like pop tarts and twinkies. A little bread here and there, a box of cereal, but no cakes or doughnuts. This survey usually leaves me depressed, but today it was a bit uplifting. Maybe it's just the time of day, or maybe times are starting to change just a little bit.