As I sit here thinking about what my very first posting should be... I believe a brief introduction is in order.
Fresh out of university, I have just moved to the big city of Toronto to start real life. Moving from one big city to the next, I didn't think I'd have any problems as I got so used to moving so much while I was in school. Now actually living in Toronto, I've come to realize two things. 1)Just how big it truly is and 2)just how bad my sense of direction is. So bad in fact that I have to constantly ask for directions from people on the street and when they answer "just head North a few blocks", I don't understand which way North is. I'm hoping the direction thing will just come with time so that I don't have to keep carrying a map of the city around with me.
Besides being directionally challenged, there is one thing I'm most excited about. Exploring. Exploring the neighborhood I live in, where all the good shopping is, where the entertainment is and especially... where the gluten free food is. I just know that Toronto has a ton of great little nooks where gluten free food and products can be found and I'm determined to find all of them and share them with you.
One thing I've learned about being gluten-free is that you can either sit, sulk and feel sorry for yourself or you can accept what you have and use it as an excuse to create your own adventure to discovering amazing food. When I first found out that I was a Celiac, I remember absolutely hating going to the grocery store. It seemed like anything and everything had some form of gluten in it and that I was doomed to only eat from the produce isle for the rest of my life. Now, I am seeing this world in a whole new light. I see this as a road to a healthier and happier self. A road where I can wander any which way I want to discover new food that I've never heard of before, new cooking (not something I had done before since mac and cheese was a university specialty), the art of experimentation with food and my favorite, sharing my experiments (both successful and epic fails), experiences and stories with you.
Since I have been diagnosed in 2009, I have been lucky enough to have taken two extensive trips to two wonderful and fabulous countries- Thailand and Australia. Being gluten-free, I was hesitant to travel because I was completely unsure of what to expect in these foreign places, but I was not about to give up my love of travel that easily. So, with little to no research, I dove right in and was very surprised by what I found (in a good way:) ). Both of these trips are hopefully just the beginning of my gluten free adventures around the globe. These two very unqiue and individual trips have been both life changing and have left me with "heaps" (as the Aussies say)of gluten free travel stories. I cannot wait to share these with you, so may this be the first page of my gluten free novel...
Enjoy and always smile,
The Gluten Free Passport
