On the tapas trail in Moorish Spain

Eating out overseas is much easier when the local coeliac society lists gluten-free-(GF) friendly restaurants on their website like the Italians do. But if they don’t the next best thing is when restaurant staff have a good understanding of the gluten-free diet.

Fortunately this was what we experienced when travelling through the Andalucía region in southern Spain last year. In most of the restaurants we dined the staff knew what GF meant and could advise what was suitable on the menu.

Logging on to the Federation of Celiac Spain (FACE) was also useful although its listing of GF restaurants is limited to hotel and restaurant chains. At the same time it is a good source of information on supermarkets selling GF products and on explaining your GF requirements when eating out. It also provides links to coeliac organisations in other regions of Spain including Malaga, Granada, Cordoba and Seville.

One of the nicest meals I had during our time in southern Spain was at Citron in Malaga, our first stop before heading on to explore Moorish Andalucia. Here I was served warm GF bread topped with olive and anchovy paste followed by beef medallions perfectly cooked medium-rare with yellow and red capsicum, onion and cherry tomatoes and chips made in-house.

I also thought I was enjoying a GF beer, however on closer examination I found that the Estrella Damm Daura GF beer was actually not 100 per cent GF. Made from barley it contains a small amount of gluten so it is low-GF rather than GF-free. Consequently it was my last beer in Spain.

The staff at the Hotel Tryp where we were staying in Malaga were very helpful in finding a GF restaurant in the Costa de Sol city and recommended Citron. Tryp Hotels are a good option for coeliacs as they offer GF meals in their dining rooms.

Another hotel chain that is coeliac-friendly is the Parador group, but they are significantly more expensive than Tryp hotels. In Granada we traipsed up the hill to the Parador near the Alhambra so that I could dine gluten-free. While the dinner was nice, it was quite expensive and we would rather have eaten in a more traditional Granada restaurant with more atmosphere than this rather formal hotel dining room.

In Seville we stayed at a Tryp Hotel in the Macarena area and so started each day with a GF breakfast in the dining room.

In Granada and Cordoba, we visited the same cafe each morning where the staff were more than happy to heat up my GF croissant or bread roll bought at the local supermarket.  They would serve it with jam and butter, our daily fresh orange juice followed by a cafe con leche.

During our four days in these two fascinating cities we returned to the same cafe each day for our breakfast ritual and almost felt like locals. One tip I would suggest is when you see GF supplies at a supermarket stock up as you may not find them at your next destination.

In the Las Alpujarras (white villages) in the Sierra Nevada Mountains there was not quite the same knowledge of the GF diet but people were helpful in trying to understand what I couldn’t eat. Learning the Spanish words for wheat, barley, rye and oats and flour was useful, as was carrying the Spanish translation card explaining coeliac disease and the GF diet.

With tapas considered an Andalusian speciality I was keen to join in this culinary tradition. While I couldn’t eat everything on the tapas menus in restaurants and bars throughout Andalucía, there were usually at least four options I could choose from.

At Taberna Tofe in Granada we had too much tapas!  The food was nothing extraordinary at this traditional restaurant but the woman serving us was extremely helpful in ensuring my selections were GF including pork with shredded cabbage and paprika and a salad with lettuce, tuna, fetta, sultanas and apples.

We also enjoyed some delicious tapas at Casa Rubio Bar after exploring Cordoba’s colourful patios full of geraniums and other potted plants.

Grilled fish and salad at El Rincon de Carmen in Cordoba’s Jewish quarter was a nice way to finish the day after visiting the spectacular garden at Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos. Perhaps our best tapas was at Aljibe restaurant in Seville, which had interesting combinations to choose from.

After visiting Cordoba’s mosque-cathedral Mezquita, we dropped into the always busy Bar Santos for one of their famous tortilla de patatas. We ate the filling potato omelette on the steps of the Mezquita washed down with a freshly squeezed orange juice – one of the daily delights of travelling in this region.

And of course the sangria was GF so I could enjoy a glass or two at a bar opposite Granada's spectacular Alhambra and take in the historic and beautiful view. Muchas gracios Andalucia!

Senza glutine in Roma, Siena, Cortona and Firenze

Unlike France, there is a lot of awareness of coeliac disease and the need to be on a strict gluten-free diet in Italy. More often than not Italians know what you are talking about when you mention words like coeliac or gluten-free (GF) although it does help to say them in Italian - celiachia and senza glutine.

While the country isn't in a great financial situation at the moment, its performance in diagnosing and treating coeliac disease is much better. Italian children are screened for coeliac disease at around 6 years of age and the average time time between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis for Italians of any age is usually only 2 to 3 weeks. As a result Italy is up there with Australia, Ireland and Finland as the top four countries for diagnosis of coeliac disease.

At the same time you can't presume that everyone in Italy will be aware of coeliac disease and understand what gluten-free means. So a coeliac's best friend in Italy is the restaurant guide on the Italian Coeliac Association (Associazione Italiana Celiachia) website.  To get to the guide, click on the menu item ''dieta senza glutine' and then click on 'Project Power Away'.  The information is organised by region so you just have to select Tuscany or Sicily or Veneto etc to find somewhere suitable to eat.

I would highly recommend taking an iPhone or device that allows you to look up GF places to eat as you go.  When we were in Italy in the middle of this year, we didn't bring a laptop or any sort of portable device with Internet access. This meant traipsing off to Internet cafes to find a GF restaurant  instead of being able to look one up on the go or as we were approaching a new destination.

At the same time you can be pleasantly surprised in Italy like the night we arrived in Castiglion Fiorentino, a small hill-top town about half an hour from Arezzo.  When I explained my senza glutine needs the waitress went to the kitchen and returned with a packet of GF pasta.

Another great resource is Maria Ann Roglieri's The Gluten-Free Guide to Italy which is available at www.gfguidetoitaly.com. Unfortunately I only discovered this book just before we set off for Italy so I didn't have it with me. It is packed full of GF eating-out options and is a handy back-up when you don't have Internet access.  Here are a few of the coeliac-friendly places we found in Rome, Florence, Cortona and Siena.

Osteria del Gallo, Roma

This is a cute little restaurant in one of those typical narrow Roman streets not far from Piazza Navona. While it was a bit windy the night we dined there we persevered in sitting outside as it was fun watching the passing traffic and taking in the atmosphere in Vicolo di Montevecchio.

Perhaps the most delicious part of this meal was the bruschetta served on toasted GF bread.  The traditional tomato and garlic bruschetta was nice but the eggplant and zucchini one was sensational.

For the main course I chose one of my favourite sauces - pesto with GF spaghetti.

There were plenty of GF choices for dessert including panna cotta and torta al cioccolato (gf chocolate torte).  Osteria del Gallo is at 27 Vicolo di Montevecchio, Roma.

I Quattro Amici and Il Portale Trattoria-Pizzeria, Firenze

In Florence we enjoyed a nice GF meal at I Quattro Amici which is close to the city's main Santa Maria Novella railway station  The staff were very knowledgeable and all the GF options were highlighted on the menu. My main course choice was the grilled sea bass with potatoes,olives and red pepper, followed by creme caramel for dessert.

The next night we dined at Il Portale Trattoria-Pizzeria.  Around the corner from I Quattro Amici, at 29 Via Luigi Alamanni, it turned out that this restaurant shared the same kitchen.  The entree servings of pasta were huge and easily served as a main meal. I enjoyed the spaghetti allárrabbiata with garlic, olive oil, red pepper and tomato.

Osteria Del Teatro, Cortona

On a day out in the hill-top town of Cortona with our friends at Villa Rossi Mattei in Arezzo, we came across Osteria Del Teatro.  As well as being a historic town, Cortona is known as the location of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun.

It's a delightful place and it was great to stumble upon a coeliac-friendly restaurant like Osteria Del Teatro.

For lunch I chose the GF gnocchi which was very nice but quite rich, washed down with a chilled white wine. The GF dessert option was oven-roasted pears with cinnamon, drizzled with chocolate. As you can see from the photo, the chocolate was more than a drizzle, which I endeavoured to work off climbing the steep cobble-stoned Cortona streets.

Il Ghibellino Osteria, Siena

On a day trip to Siena with our Villa friends we enjoyed a pleasant lunch at Il Ghigellino Osteria.

About a five-minute walk from the Piazzo del Campo and close to the Duomo, this is a quiet place to escape the tourists.  For lunch I had the leek risotto which fuelled me up for exploring Siena.

Villa Rossi Mattei, Arezzo

And during our week at Villa Rossi Mattei I was more than well-catered for by our host Liliana at our two group lunches and dinners with GF risotto, pasta, meats, salads and sweets.

Grazie Italia! Arrivederci.

High dining in the city of lights ... and love

There will be no gluten for you madame, said our waiter when we celebrated our wedding anniversary at Le Jules Verne restaurant at the Eiffel Tower.

Our waiter was prepared for my sans-gluten needs as booking online at the restaurant website allows you to indicate any special dietary needs.

Le Jules Verne was launched by restaurateur, entrepreneur and chef Alan Ducasse in 2007. It is named after the French writer of fantastic tales like '20,000 Leagues under the Sea', 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' and 'Around the World in 80 Days'.

Just as Jules Verne invites the reader to go on extraordinary adventures in his books, Alain Ducasse welcomes diners to the magical place that is the Jules Verne, which he describes as a French experiment of our time - 125 metres above the ground.

With head chef Pascal Feraud, Ducasse wishes Le Jules Verne to be, "the most beautiful place in Paris to enjoy the pleasure of a contemporary and accessible kitchen."

Located on the Eiffel Tower's second observation platform, you can take a tour here with Patrick Jouin, the designer of the restaurant.

Seated one table back from the window looking north-west to La Defense and the Arc de Triomphe, we appropriately started our lunch with a glass of French champagne.  As we sipped on pink Bruno Pallaird bubbly, we were served an aperitif of duck liver pate with banana and mango.

As jazz and showtime tunes played in the background we tucked into our entree of simmered Helixbernn French snails with delicate "velvety" of lettuce.

For the main I chose the roasted sea bass with braised leeks and gold caviar - no less - accompanied by a chardonnay from Burgundy. Bruce had the spit milk-fed lamb with tiny artichokes and pearl jus (not gluten-free), washed down with a pinot noir, also from Burgundy.

The meals were delicious - very colourful and full of flavour and texture.  There was a sense of theatre to the serving with sauces dramatically poured over the plate at the table and cutlery faced down until it was time for the appropriate course.

As there was no gluten for madame, my dessert choices were limited to strawberries with sherbet.

While this was lovely, the gluten-eating monsieur Bruce fared much better. As well as his dessert of strawberry/rhubarb tart with thyme and lemon ice cream, accompanying his coffee was a bowl of passionfruit marshmallows and a plate of chocolate profiteroles and macaroons.

"Can I have any of that monsieur," I enquired hopefully to our 'no gluten for madame' waiter. "No madame," he said shaking his head.  I consoled myself with a dessert wine from Jurancon near Toulouse.

The experience was completed with a visit to the viewing platform without having to queue up with all the other tourists.

Le Jules Verne was a culinary experience to remember and a special way to celebrate our anniversary. Bon apetite.

Taste-testing at the Gluten-Free Expo at Homebush

When I was diagnosed with coeliac disease 16 years ago the quality and choice of gluten-free (GF) food was much less than it is today.

In those early days of adapting to the diet, I remember giving my niece Mary a taste of a sweet GF biscuit. "That's disgusting," she exclaimed.  Compared to gluten-containing biscuits it probably wasn't much good but back then I was just grateful to have something sweet to eat. Breakfast cereals weren't much better and most commercial breads were very crumbly and went stale almost immediately.

Today, it's quite a different story. As I said to my brother and nieces as we travelled home from the GF Expo at Sydney's Homebush last Saturday: "The best thing about the Expo is being able to try all the different types of food and find out which one is the best."

Today, it's not just a case of accepting what's on offer; I am looking for quality GF food.

There were 92 exhibitors at last weekend's Expo, which is an initiative of Coeliac NSW/ACT.  You could try four different types of GF beer made by O'Brien Brewing. There were curry and Asian food products from Ayam including red, green, Malaysian and Thai massaman curry paste and fish, teriyaki and oyster sauce.

There were a wide range of of snacks, chips and crackers including this brown rice variety from Deligrains.

Rowie's Cakes in Marrickvillle showed off its rocky road, cakes and biscuits.  Rowie Dillon, who supplies gourmet products to Qantas and Singapore Airlines, also gave a cooking demonstration and introduced her new cookbook, Indulge which includes savoury as well as sweet recipes.

Callum Hann from Masterchef fame and Rick Grant also gave demonstrations on preparing nutritious and delicious GF meals. Other sessions included advice on being a 'social coeliac', 'label-reading made easy' and what's new in coeliac disease from Dr Jason Tye-Din.

There were numerous bread-making companies and a number selling sweet and savoury pies including ones from Bellyhoo. The St Peters based group offers a range of sweet and savoury fillings including sour cherry, apple, beef burgundy and beef and vegetable.

I am a fan of Country Life bread but it was good to see a few other players in the GF-bread market at the Expo. The Queensland-based Gluten Free Bakery make puff pastry and sweet pastry mixes as well as a range of quiches, pizzas and breads. I particularly liked their French baguette product line.

We all ended up with blue tongues after hoeing into the Blueberry Clouds from Clouds Lollies. After tasting a few pizza bases we thought the ones from  Old Time Bakery in Sydney's Yagoona were the best.

And of course it was great to see the team from the Coeliac Society, who were on deck answering queries and welcoming people to the organisation's 7th Gluten Free Expo. 

Coeliac Queensland will follow with the 2011 Gluten Free Food Expo on Sunday 30 October 2011 at the Commerce Building RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane from 9.00am to 4.00pm

Thumbs up for coeliac-friendly cafes in my Sydney suburb

A couple of months ago I wrote a story for The Australian Coeliac magazine's 'Thumbs up for your home town' competition.   The competition invited Coeliac Australia members to write about coeliac-friendly restaurants, cafes, caterers and stores in their home town.

My story, which follows below, was published in the June 2011 edition of The Australian Coeliac.  For my efforts I won a hamper of GF food from Simply Wize.

Petersham's sweet gluten-free treats

I am taking you on a tour of Petersham’s sweet gluten-free (GF) treats. Just six kilometres from Sydney’s CBD, my suburb is a place of planes, trains, terrace houses and ‘Little Portugal’.  

First stop on our tour is Perfect Crema or ‘Michael’s’ as all the regulars call it after its friendly owner. Just off Parramatta Road on Railway Street, Michael and chef Tom have recently added some GF cakes to their menu.

Now, my morning latte is often accompanied by a blueberry, raspberry or passionfruit melting moment or moist pecan maple or coconut and raspberry friand.

The delicious creations are made by self-confessed baking tragic Jenny Pitarch, who enjoys adapting recipes for her coeliac mother.

Next stop on the tour is the Palace Pantry run by Erich and Takako Fasolin. The 131-year-old corner store at 49 Palace Street offers a selection of GF cakes and slices made by pastry chef Takako. Takako developed her skill working at Rowie’s Cakes in nearby Marrickville and for Adriano Zumbo of MasterChef fame at his Balmain patisserie. 

Using her own flour mix of rice, tapioca and potato flour with GF baking powder, Takako’s philosophy is to create simple cakes made with quality ingredients.

Her four GF options – mixed berry friand, orange and almond cake, caramel round and chocolate brownie – are mouth-watering treats after a dip at the nearby Fanny Durack Pool named in honour of the 1910 Olympic gold medallist and one-time local resident. The pool is in historic Petersham Park where 18-year-old Don Bradman scored 110 in his first, grade cricket appearance in 1926.

Takako also sells her cakes at five inner-west cafes – Kelby’s and Free Pour in Marrickville, Hoochie Mamma in Newtown, and Mollycoddle and Paper Cup in Stanmore.

Crossing the bridge over Petersham Station, our tour moves into the area known as ‘Little Portugal’ – home to many Portuguese restaurants, cafes, butchers and delicatessens.  In the heart of the strip at 35c New Canterbury Road is Sweet Belem, run by husband and wife team, Lina Correia and John De Almedia.

Here you can taste traditional Portuguese cakes like orange roulade made with polenta. Other GF options are raspberry and lemon roulade, flourless orange and chocolate cakes, coconut and mango blackberry fool, orange jaffa and chocolate truffle and crème caramel.

“A lot of people come in and are surprised at the variety we have,” says Lina, whose ‘cake boutique’ is named after Lisbon’s Belem district, the area where she and John were married nearly 20 years ago.

The final stop on our tour is Big Brekky at 316 Stanmore Road, just around the corner from the art deco Petersham Town Hall featured in Baz Lurhmann’s 1992 film Strictly Ballroom.

As you sip on your coffee you can enjoy a GF chocolate brownie and gaze at the artwork on the walls, on loan from the nearby ‘Wood Paper Silk’ gallery at 348 Stanmore Road.

As the Portuguese say, bom apetite!