Sunrise in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Lovely.
We are just home from traveling. More about that in another post. This post is about food. There are many conditions way, way worse than celiac and in fact, I have a couple. The issue with celiac is that humans need to eat fairly regularly and when one is traveling and has the autoimmune disease celiac, finding safe, appetizing food may or may not be problematic. At home I manage just fine, as long as I’m careful.
In February, we flew to the lovely little town of Loreto, located in Baja California Sur on the Sea of Cortez where we stayed at La Mision Hotel. Because my guy is one of the good ones who looks out for me, he contacted the hotel general manager ahead of our visit, explaining that I have celiac. The GM contacted the chef who instructed his staff and voilà, the food part of our travels were worked out — as long as we ate at the hotel. Contacting places ahead of time is a best practice and allowed the chef to bring in safe corn tortillas for me since most local ones contain wheat. Go figure.
The chef at La Mision prepared this beautiful array of vegetables and seafood for me. Yum.
Of course, eating only at the hotel means we forego the travel pleasure of spontaneously buying street tacos or popping into a local joint to eat. That doesn’t work out for someone with celiac. Since we booked our tours through the hotel, the concierge and tour guide also partnered to make sure I was given safe food on tours. On one tour, we stopped at a restaurant in López Mateos, a small town that is a launching point for gray whale viewing. The restaurant owner/chef spoke with our guide and our hotel several times to make sure she prepared a safe meal for me. Traveling adds complicated layers to any trip for us but mostly works out, in part because I have a partner who helps me.
Grilled shrimp and fish tacos at Los Olivos at the La Mision Hotel and the view from the restaurant’s outside dining area. What is not to like?
All went well until we hit Monterey, CA where we’d planned to spend a few days. Before checking into the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant we’d been to before. I ordered from the gluten free menu (salad with grilled fish), asked the server to tell the kitchen I am celiac, and guess what — I got really, really vomiting sick back at the hotel from what must have been hidden gluten or gross cross contamination. Our stay was cut short because I was so ill and we both decided to head home. Even for those of us who are careful, planful travelers things can go wrong because as celiacs we rely on servers and kitchen staff to be upfront about what they can do and to follow safe practices. That did not happen in Monterey.
I’ll be back with more about the trip.
RetireTravelCeliacGo 