I was at a conference in a less gluten enlightened part of Colorado the past couple of days. We were at a restaurant, and 3 of us at the table were asking about wheat in their food. One gal, who I had just met from Denver, asked about wheat in their rice pilaf. The waitress, even after checking with the cooks, couldn't tell us if there was wheat in the pilaf. The Denver gal said that rice pilaf usually has wheat in it. I didn't believe her, as I couldn't imagine how they would put wheat in rice pilaf, and went ahead and ordered it. Being from The People's Republic of Boulder, we're a bit sheltered here and wheat isn't in our rice pilaf.

Lo and behold, the rice pilaf came out with orzo pasta in it. I couldn't believe it. And if I would have ordered the chicken fajitas, they also got the same rice! I ate it anyways as I was already drinking my beer that was not GF. Sometimes, I just don't feel like going hungry, and all the other choices of sides had dairy in them, so I had to pick my poison. A couple of days later, I got a little blue, but that could have been related to a friend dying earlier this week. And today I got the "cow pie" stools, boardering on diarrhea, so I guess the gluten was a loser still. I wish I had had digestive enzymes on me for this type of thing to lessen the symptoms, which weren't really that bad, but just a reminder for me to steer clear of gluten.

The moral of the story is that if you order rice pilaf at a restaurant, make sure they confirm that there isn't any orzo pasta in it! I'm sure the waitress didn't even know what orzo is made of.

Claire