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Pizza Week Part 1
August 16th, 2010 | caitlin | Categories: Uncategorized
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I’ve been thinking about doing a pizza week for months. Husband and I are lucky to be located between two wonderful pizza places that serve GF. My only hesitation was my Canadian content – yes, I’m just like CBC! I don’t like to post if my Canadian readers can’t find useful information because let’s face it, we’re all in this together.

(insert brain wave here)

I decided that I would ask a guest blogger to fill in the Canadian content for me. Drum roll please…

Meet Char. (at least that’s what I call her) She’s just like you and I. She doesn’t bother trying to be a “super celiac” which I think makes her fully qualified. The post I asked her to write was on Boston Pizzas new GF selection. I’ve been dying to try it, but won’t be on Canadian soil for at least another 5 months. So instead of waiting for me, here are Char’s thoughts.

And please stay tuned this week for a snap shot of some other GF pizza adventures.

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In my previous, pre-gluten-free life, I was not necessarily a fan of Boston Pizza’s pizza. When we (meaning my family – husband, son, daughter, all non-celiacs) did dine at our local BPs, I used to prefer the pasta. Pizza to me was meant to be thick and ooey gooey. Needless to say, those are distant dreams now and I think I’m getting close to being over it (GOI – get over it) as my son often tells me. So in the past five years, anytime my family decided they’d like to go to Boston Pizza (which fortunately was not that often) I would stick to a plain salad or nibble on the nachos (not sure whether they were ok or not…seemed to depend on the day but sometimes if you’ve got to eat you’ve got to eat).

Now, I typically do not keep up to date on the latest celiac news. When I have a few minutes I might check the Celiac Canada website to see what’s new, but that’s about the extent of it. So when a colleague (and fellow celiac) mentioned to me that Boston Pizza has a gluten-free pizza, I was overjoyed and it was ironic that we had already decided to go out the next night to Boston Pizza. Still somewhat skeptical, I immediately went online to assess the possibility that MY Boston Pizza had GF pizza…and was further surprised to find that this was a North America-wide phenomenon. It appeared that ALL BPs have GF pizza. And it was on the online ordering menu! Now this was progress!

But could it really be true that there was Gluten-free pizza in a franchised restaurant in Canada? I fully expected to go in and be disappointed, having to resort back to plain salad and nachos. I was hiding my anticipation as I opened the menu and scanned through, looking, looking, looking for those magical words that mean so much…and there it was…right on the REAL people’s menu…on the REAL PEOPLE’S PIZZA page…not in the back…not on a single, separate menu that someone had to spend 10 minutes hunting around for…RIGHT ON THE REAL PEOPLE’S PIZZA PAGE! GLUTEN-FREE PIZZA! WE HAVE BEEN HUMANIZED! WE ARE ON THE MENU! And BPs so nicely asterisk’d the toppings that we can eat too! Needless to say that it took a couple minutes for the reality of all of this to sink in.

The waitress arrived to take our orders. When it came to me I pointed at the menu and said “I’d like pepperoni, mushroom, and tomato on the gluten-free crust” and she wrote it down and asked if I wanted cooked or fresh tomatoes and she went away. No quizzical look, no questions, nothing. I felt normal again at a restaurant for the first time in a very long time.

We waited for our food and I’ll admit there was a little anticipation of what this was all going to be about. Food arrived. My pizza was square, cut into 4 nice sized pieces. And somewhat fluffy but not too much because BPs crust is typically of the thin variety. And the pepperoni was sizzling on top. And the cheese was browned just right. AND IT WAS GLUTALICIOUS! The crust was just right…browned right all the way through, not soggy in the middle. I could have ordered another one or two…easily. AMAZING compared to any homemade GF pizza I’ve eaten in the last five years.

Now I realize there is some angst about eating GF pizza from a traditional pizza place due to cross contamination. And I am one of the hypersensitive celiacs who get sick if just a micro-molecule is ingested. So after supper I waited…and waited…and am pleased to say that nothing happened. I was absolutely fine with no stomach issues whatsoever. And I went to bed so happy that I could eat good pizza again ☺.

I can’t express what it means to be able to go out to a casual dining place like Boston Pizza and eat like normal with my family. This is HUGE people…HUGE! Sorry Judy G’s…you’re good for bake at home, but nothing compares to fresh, dine-in pizza hot from the oven. Nothing.

Boston Pizza’s gluten-free pizza gets 4 Glutastic ♥’s out of 5 from me. Only because it’s still not thick, ooey gooey pizza, but it’s definitely a hundred steps ahead of where we were before. Now if we can only get them to serve GF beer….

More Glutastic!

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