A very merry coeliac Christmas
This has been our first coeliac Christmas. Much of it didn’t vary from usual – vegetables, Quorn roast (beef for the carnivores), cranberry sauce etc, and Tamsin’s never liked bread sauce. Her dad made his famous sage & onion stuffing with gluten free bread that was slowly turning to dust in the fridge (see last post) and gf mince pies and Christmas cake was easily available in Aldi. Incidentally, Aldi is a great resource for everyday gf staples, including flour and pasta. Tamsin made her own gluten free Yorkshire Puddings which looked fantastic and from what she said tasted lovely too.
Problem areas
As mentioned in the previous post, Tamsin’s food management isn’t good and that caused ructions with her dad over Christmas pudding. To cut a long story short he made arrangements with her over a gluten free Christmas pudding, of which she then had about one mouthful and ignored the rest for a week, by which time it was inedible. This is standard stuff for Tamsin and can infuriate others who’ve made special arrangements about food to accommodate her. I know it’s wrong, but Christmas is a pressurised time for the host and catering for coeliac Christmas foods is just another layer of work. When it’s barely touched it’s hard not to mind a bit.
The problem we have atm is accommodating Tamsin while making an appropriate amount of something for her. Her appetite is much smaller than it was, so we now divide and freeze foods. Tamsin made herself a gf Christmas cake, ignored it for weeks, and then at my insistence cut it into quarters and has put it in the freezer. I expect this time next year it will come out and be fed to the birds.
Maintaining good hygiene at home…
The other issue with a coeliac Christmas is preventing contamination of gf foods with guests and lots of catering and hosting. Day-to-day we have this under control, but I watched like a hawk as people dipped into cranberry sauce, sliced roast, cheese etc, ensuring no-one used a utensil that had been used for anything else.
…and away
Tamsin saw friends several times over the Christmas holiday and her preparation was of course non-existent. It was up to me to ensure that she went with something she could eat – crisps or something else suitable for a party or sleepover. Today she was behind herself getting ready to go to a friend’s house and I had to insist she either eat before she went or took something with her; left to her own devices she would have waltzed out of the house having eaten nothing and with no rations.
Although she’s growing up and needs to take responsibility for herself and her condition, I just couldn’t in good conscience let her go out like that, especially as she was going to be in someone else’s house and I didn’t want to land them with needing to feed her. I really look forward to the day that she ensures she’s got what she needs and thinks ahead to how she’ll feel if she hasn’t.