Dear convention gods,

Thank you for letting things get patched up between me and my foodie cat, for more reasons than the benefits of having a New England foodie for a friend (seriously, having a fellow geek for a friend who shares so many of your interests as well as being an all-around good and fun person - on TOP of being a fantastic cook with a huge collection of cookbooks that knows how to make proper Maine whoopie pies - is tops)… and this includes my gratitude for her introducing me to the wonder of GoPicnic ready-to-eat meals.

As any traveler with dietary restrictions (and especially conventioners) knows, eating quickly on the go can be a real hassle when you can’t grab a meal at a fast food restaurant or in the convention center food court.  So it was while Foodie Cat was perusing a grocery store, she found one of these, and reading the label to discover it was gluten free, she quite promptly gave the information to yours truly (and also nomming one herself, declaring them to be quite good).  As I’ve only recently started this blog… this is my first time getting to really talk about them!

GoPicnic (with an entire line of gluten free meals and snacks that can be found here) is a company dedicated to healthy, filling small meals that don’t need refrigeration… and for the price, what you get is worth it!  From their website:

"Founded in 2006, Chicago-based GoPicnic® is the pioneer and leader in delicious, nutritionally balanced and portable ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch and snacks. Innovating the concept of refueling on-the-go with its tasty offerings, GoPicnic® is on a mission to prevent Hangry* one meal at a time."

When we first looked, it appeared that the only place to get them here in the empty expanse of Ohio was the airport shop past the TSA checkpoint in the Port Columbus International Airport.  I was disappointed, and for a while, I didn’t even bother to look again, honestly forgetting about them entirely. I even had to deal with a whole weekend of the same single meal over and over for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when I went with a friend to the Midwest Media Expo in Detroit (where he “jokingly” continued to drop the “just have a salad” bomb at every meal… including breakfast), as the food court and the in-hotel restaurant were extremely disappointing as far as both knowledge of and provisions for celiac and gluten sensitive diners.

(Protip: I wound up getting incredibly sick, as they used a boxed egg mixture to make their omelets which, unluckily for me, must’ve used a gluten-based shelf stabilizer. Live and learn, I guess.)

This didn’t change until summer of last year, shopping at a Meijer near Columbus.  There, in the gluten free aisle, I saw them: GoPicnic boxes!  I quickly sent a message to Foodie Cat, and lo and behold, she confirmed that’s what she had been on about!  I ended up picking up two.

The first one I tried was turkey pepperoni with asiago cheese and multi-seed crackers with an assortment of snacks.  See me be put off at first since, as a whole, I dislike turkey.  Just the smell of it makes me queasy!  But it was really good, with plenty to keep me full for a while!  The other was the sunbutter one, which was also exceptionally tasty.  I ended up grabbing a few to take as lunches when we went to OhayoCon in January (say yes to the hummus box- SO GOOD), and even put a few in my Handbag of Holding so I could have lunch on the plane on my way to Anime Boston (a trip during which the gracious Foodie Cat made special bento lunches I could eat so we wouldn’t have to stumble around for options, and cooked for me while I stayed with her and the husband and cub… really, everyone should have a foodie cat; they’re good people).

Well, her stance on the Kaiju vs Mecha debacle aside.  She can have her kaiju; I am now and forever pro-mecha!  Though I suppose we can call a truce in the name of healthy and delicious foodstuff...

If you’re in a situation like I was, sighing over a lack of healthy meal options when you’re at a convention or a geeky social gathering, I highly suggest grabbing a few GoPicnic boxes for a quick lunch.  It may only solve the lunch conundrum, but it’s a start!  Unsure about where to find them?  This handy-dandy store locator will show you the way.

Happy eating!

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Gluten Free Geek Ahoy!

For years, I’ve been getting sick.  For a while, it was a little sick, and a lot of my symptoms were attributed to other things.  The ulcer, yeah, that was a true one… but some other things just didn’t add up.  Nor did the broadness of my symptoms, which mostly started when I moved back into the Cincinnati area in 2004.  And then it happened.

At the end of 2013, scant months after moving back to the Midwest from New England following a year-long stint there, my whole body absolutely revolted.  Miserable cramps and bloating, muscle fatigue and an odd sensation I refer to as “jelly joints” (ever felt like your joints are tingly and not strong enough to hold you together? that’s jelly joints), foggy headedness, lethargy, headaches, and stomach pain.  I missed more work at a new job than I would’ve cared to, and so finally, I went to my doctor.

All signs pointed to the usually undiagnosed celiac disease.  I was told to start an exclusionary diet, since I was always very leery of needles anywhere near my person and wasn’t keen on a colonoscopy.  This was a week before my birthday, a little more than a week before Thanksgiving.  A little more than two months before the tri-state region’s “convention season” kicked off.

As a member of a very Southern household where comfort food, usually deep fried, breaded, and/or smothered in gravy, is the overall norm, I suddenly found myself facing two holidays with my family and no real way to say “so hey can we exclude gluten from this year’s festivities.”

It was awful.  The holidays I once enjoyed were now full of me draped over couches and chairs in pain because “a little gluten won’t hurt.”  In January, the case was pretty clear: I was completely intolerant of gluten.  Due to the misfortune of a doctor who only understood the basics (hence an exclusion diet prior to any blood work or the like), a blood test was inconclusive, but the shoe already fit.  All of my symptoms lifted with gluten excluded, so it was heavily recommended I keep wearing it.

While my friends have all been largely supportive, it’s been hard with a family that sees very little in the way of problems from food allergies or restrictions.  Of the few we do have, they tend to ignore it.  My mother, who gets itchy welts when she eats tomatoes (I get hives and the roof of my mouth aches for days!), still eats them because the reaction “just isn’t that bad.”  My father, who also has some gut problems when eating bread, ignores it because “it’s too hard to manage.”  Family members still insist “a little bit won’t hurt you” at family functions.

After all, I was always a foodie growing up.  I am particularly fond of gourmet grilled cheese- yum!  Give me pasta with delicious creamy sauces, or a pizza with that perfectly crispy thin crust, and I will be your friend for life.  Slow baked homemade macaroni and cheese?  I’m there!  So why now, in my 30s, would I cut out the things I loved so dearly as a child?  According to them, a serious illness is not the right reason.  Thanks for all your loving support, guys.

Then came my hobbies into the mix.  Being a geek and attending geek functions like conventions and gatherings and faires, or even going to the movies to see a new and much-anticipated film?  Well!  That just made it ten times harder.

My ultimate goal with this blog is to help other geeks suffering with celiac disease, gluten allergies, or non-celiac gluten intolerance navigate the tricky world of conventions and other events without fear.  There’ll be experiences of my own, anecdotes, and reviews of establishments I visit whenever and wherever I travel.

And you know, despite being a geek-themed blog, I hope I help other travelers a little bit as well.

Happy eating!

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