Staying Alive

As promised, I've been taking notes and pictures of my meals here.

It hasn't been too difficult finding gluten free food to eat, but I'm realizing I can't be picky about what it is and how much it costs. This is the challenging part for me. Eating gluten free is so much easier at home, because I have access to a kitchen. I made this insanely delicious (if I do say so) stir fry before I left, and I can't stop thinking about it!

All the vegetables at the grocery store keep calling to me, but there are so few I can simply eat on the run. I may just become a fan of eating peppers and onions like apples. As it is, I've been consuming my share of carrots.

This is the second meal I ate at a restaurant. It was a Chinese place, and I safely assumed that the soy sauce and other sauces they used contained gluten. As no rice noodles were served, I selected steamed broccoli and rice. Very delicious. Until my bill came. Twelve euros. That converts to $17!!!

Yikes! After that meal, I vowed to do things differently.

So I ate a lot of granola bars! And peanut butter.

The breakfasts here are the same each morning: french bread and croissants with various spreads, coffee, tea, and OJ. I consumed all the "emergency" oatmeal packets I brought, and then went to the store and bought good ol' oats in a box. I've eaten oatmeal almost every morning. I add raisins (that I brought), peanut butter (that I brought), nutella, honey, jelly, etc. depending on the morning. I'm really trying to diversify it for my taste buds. A couple mornings I've had tortillas with the spreads offered by the hotel, but I found that the oatmeal proves more filling.

Midday snacks/lunch usually consist of granola bars, PBJ tortilla, the dried fruit I brought, and an apple or apricot from the store. Oh, and hot chocolate downstairs at the conservatoire. Less than fifty cents, so it fits the budget.

One day I asked my roommate, who was headed to the store, to pick up some cheese for me. (A week in, and I hadn't even tried the cheese yet!) She came back with an apology and a HUGE slice, saying she'd asked for a petite slice in French. Different standards here, I guess. Wish I'd have thought to take a photo of that swiss cheese. It was seriously the size of my head. So delicious!

One day I was craving chips and salsa.

(I MISS MEXICAN FOOD!!!!!)

This snack was a huge disappointment. For one, I failed to notice the "continent du gluten" warning on the salsa jar. I didn't eat very much of it anyway, because it was the weirdest thing ever. It tasted more like tomato jello than salsa. Eck! Makes me sick thinking of it. Failed snack attempt.

These increasingly popular fruit squeezer things seemed like a good thing to try. They were delicious and were great to eat while I was recovering from strep. They were also fairly expensive, though, so I haven't purchased them again.

This is me, eating a Lara bar for dinner by the Eiffel tower. Not a horrible scene until I tell you to picture my friends all eating paninis and crepes. Because they were. And their dinners smelled sickeningly heavenly.

(Note to readers: I'm already planning on trying a chocolate Belgian waffle in Belgium, so don't be too disappointed. There's only so much a girl can take!)

Since I was sick two days, I really didn't eat much at all during that time. Strep = hard to swallow.
That temporarily solved the food quandary, but my appetite returned with my health. My third meal out I ordered this.

Mmmmm. Best thing I've eaten here. It was around seven euros, so nearly ten dollars. Still very pricey by my standards, but I realize I'm in a very expensive city. I almost didn't order it because of the cost (the only thing cheaper on the menu was a side or french fries or a soda - both nearly five euros!), but my roommate convinced me to be kind to my body. So glad she did!

Speaking of my roommate, here she is with her pistachio ice cream. If I wasn't so over nuts (ahh! the granola bars!!!), I'm fairly certain I would have thought that the best ice cream I've ever tasted.

The other day I realized I hadn't had any meat since that first meal, so last night I ventured to the grocery store in search of some meat. There's no meat deli here with cooked meat. Everything in the grocery store is raw. This means I landed on a slightly less fresh and more expensive package of turkey I found in the refrigerated section. I added some hummus spread (courtesy of friend), and it was superb. Also accompanying dinner were shredded carrot salad and two apricots.

Package of meat (more than I could eat), carrot salad, and two apricots: 5,59 euros = almost $8. I found the carrot salad for fifty cents cheaper at another store, so I bought it there today instead.

That's about all for now! I'm thinking I might track down some hummus to spread on my tortillas for dinner. And I'll probably try the nectarines. I've heard they're amazing.