Saturday, February 4, 2012

An awkward situation with gluten

I hear a lot about the problems celiacs encounter at events where food is served. I've somehow managed to avoid them in the 13 months since I went gluten free. But I found myself in a situation this week that I didn't know how to handle.
I was attending a business luncheon at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Jacksonville branch. I went to one of these last year where they served a buffet featuring lasagna, which I couldn't eat. But I just helped myself to a large portion of the salad. So I went to this luncheon anticipating I'd do the same thing.
But when I went up to the serving line, I found it had a large salad bowl with croutons already mixed in. Grrrrrrr. Maybe it's more common that I thought, but that's the first time I've ever seen that. I wasn't sure what to do or who I could complain to. I mean, when I order a salad in a restaurant I make sure to say "no croutons." And if the salad then comes with croutons (which hasn't happened to me), I would send it back.
But what do you do in a buffet line? I really wasn't about to make a fuss in the middle of this luncheon. So I picked at the big salad bowl to try to get around the croutons. But I'm sure I must have gotten gluten contamination.
Anyway, just wondering, what should I have done?

No comments:

Post a Comment