The Magic Card

We recently took a vacation in Istanbul. And despite the stunning mosques, the ancient town wall, the beautiful minarets, and deafening call to prayer (which seemed to initiate very little prayer and woke us up at 5:30 am) the most spell-binding thing we saw happened at dinner each night, when JFG would hand the waiter a small piece of paper, after which the waiter would produce gluten-free food.

It wasn't money he was handing over -- it was a document we began to refer to as the Magic Card. It was a print-out from Celiac Travel, a blog that provides information on safe traveling for people with celiac disease, and explained in detail (and in Turkish!) what foods JFG could and could not eat. Even better, the card was emphatic -- perhaps slightly hyperbolicly -- about the implications if safe food was not served.

At each restaurant, the waiter would carefully read the card, nod his head slowly, and lean over JFG to scan the menu. He'd point to items, turn to JFG, and say, "This? Not for you. This? Not for you. This? For you." Every single restaurant, every single time. Occasionally the waiter would take the card to the chef and come out with recommendations. But perhaps the most amazing moment was when we handed a card to a restaurant owner who said, "Oh! You're the second person today to come in with this card! Other lady -- we fix her vegetables and meat and rice, she love it." And JFG did too. And he made it seven days in Turkey without once, to our knowledge, being glutenized. We certainly don't have that track record in the U.S.

Celiac Travel makes these cards available for free on its website in 49 different languages, including Estonian, Urdu and Basque. You can buy similar laminated cards from Triumph Dining, but in limited languages. If you're traveling, especially to some where exotic, printing cards from Celiac Travel gets the job done.