Largest gluten-free food fair and conference gets even bigger!

From Michael Thorn, Suffolk County Celiacs


The 2nd Annual Gluten-Free Vendor Fair and Conference is now even larger with 54 confirmed vendors!

The event is open to the public and many vendors will be selling their products!

Vendors and attendees are coming from around the country and Canada for this special event. We are accessible from local airports and NYC.

If you are planning to attend we encourage you to pre-register and avoid the lines! There will be express check-in for pre-registration.

For more information or to pre-register go to our website at www.suffolkcountyceliacs.org


Here is the list of the confirmed vendors-

SureTalent Books
1-2-3 Gluten Free, Inc
Against the Grain
Arico Natural Foods Company
Benevolent Baker
Bob & Ruth's Gluten-Free Dining & Travel Club
Bob's Red Mill
Breads from Anna
Caffe Baldo
Cali Fine Foods
Celiac Chicks
Cherrybrook Kitchen
Cream Hill Estates
Dr. B Well's Naturally
Enjoy Life Natural Brands
Everybody Eats, Inc.
Gaga's Inc.
Get Healthy America
GFN Foods, LLC
Gilbert's Gourmet Goodies
Gluten Free Forever, Inc.
Gluten Free Mall
Gluten Free Pantry/Glutino
Gluten Free Passport
Goji Berry Granola
Heartland Ingredients
Julianna's Delectibles
Kimball Genetics, Inc.
Mama's Restaurant
Marys Gone Crackers
Mr. Ritts Bakery
Nana's Cookies Co.
Naturally Me Inc.
Owl Books
Pamela's Products
PureFit Inc.
R. Plotkin Assc. Inc/Lifefield Buckwheat
ReLiv International
The Best Ever Low Carb Cakes!
The Diet Shop
The Empire Torte Company
The Kitchen Table Bakers
The Really Great Food Company
Triumph Dining
Whole Foods Market
Wild by Nature Market
Ford's Gourmet Foods/Bone Suckin Sauce
Joan's GF Great Bakes
Thumann's: The Deli Best
Executive Concepts LLC
Foods by George
Kinnikinnick Foods, Inc.
Food-Tek, Inc
GLP Free Manufacturing Corp.

See you there!

Michael Thorn
Suffolk County Celiacs - a Branch of GIG

Washington, D.C. Gluten-Free Cooking Spree

As you may have read in my earlier post, I attended this wonderful event in New York City on March 2, 2007. I highly suggest this event to anyone in the area.

The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness for Celiac Awareness and CNN Newsroom Anchor Heidi Collins to host the Washington, D.C. Gluten-Free Cooking Spree

Watch top chefs, doctors and news reporters compete to make the best gluten-free meals!!

Friday May 4, 2007

6:00pm to 9:00pm VIP ($100)
includes meet & greet with doctors and chefs and autographed copy of Beyond Rice Cakes

6:30 to 9:00pm General Admission ($50) and Kids ($35)

Hyatt Regency Bethesda
7400 Wisconsin Ave
Bethesda, MD

*10 of Washington D.C.’s Top Chefs
*10 doctors from 10 different D.C. hospitals
* 10 health care reporters from media organizations

The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and CNN Newsroom Anchor Heidi Collins invite you to participate in the Washington, D.C. Gluten-Free Cooking Spree. The Gluten-Free Cooking Spree is an event that joins together the medical and lifestyle aspects of celiac disease to educate both doctors and chefs about celiac disease and
the gluten-free diet.

Here’s how it works:
*Top chefs, doctors and reporters will be put on to teams of three. Each team will have one chef, one doctor and one reporter. Together, the doctor, chef and reporter will work to create the best gluten-free meal.

*A three-person panel will judge recipes. A food critic, a celiac specialist, and a child with celiac disease will make up the panel.

*National and local media will attend and cover the event.

* Winning team will receive a donation made to the hospital that the doctor on the team is affiliated with. All members will also receive a gift basket with a variety of gluten-free goodies!

* Winning team will be featured in National Foundation for Celiac Awareness monthly newsletter and on website www.celiaccentral.org.

**At the event, NFCA will honor Dr. Alessio Fasano from the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research. Dr. Fasano will be one of the expert judges at the event and a donation will be made to support the center's work.

RSVP NOW by clicking here.

Happy Australian Coeliac Awareness Week

Originally posted here: http://www.gluten-free-living.net/news/

** Australian Coeliac Society – Media Release **

The gluten free diet is not a fad diet for over 250,000 Australians!

Coeliac Awareness Week
13 – 20 March

Medical practitioners and the food and catering industry need to be aware that for many Australians the gluten in wheat, rye, barley and oats is not food, but poison.

Coeliac Disease is now recognised as an underdiagnosed life long disease affecting over 250,000 Australians (prevalence 1:70-250 caucasians and west Asians) with a range of presentations.

How much of a burden to society is untreated coeliac disease?

We do not have the answer yet but we can say that we are working towards it and other important economic questions needed to be answered about coeliac disease. The Australian New Zealand Coeliac Research Fund has recently commissioned the School of Population Health, University of Melbourne to undertake an important project. Over the next twelve months, they will quantify, in health and economic terms, the full impact of coeliac disease, in Australia and New Zealand and identify useful priority areas for future research.

Some of the clinical features that prompt screening for coeliac disease are family history of coeliac disease, unexplained anaemia, fatigue, nutrient deficiency, diarrhoea, constipation, irritable bowel type symptoms (although gastrointestinal symptoms may not be present), osteoporosis, growth and developmental delay in children, recurrent mouth ulcers, unexplained neurological complaints, infertility and recurrent miscarriage, skin rash – typically itchy and blistering. Coeliac disease is associated with a range of conditions which include type 1 diabetes, thyroid disease, liver enzyme disturbance, colitis and other autoimmune diseases.

Don’t trial a gluten free diet

A gluten free diet should never be started before an endoscopy and blood tests, as it will interfere with establishing the correct diagnosis or may delay the diagnosis of another condition with similar symptoms.

If you would like further information you can contact –
The Australian Coeliac Society on +61 2 9411 4100 or info@coeliac.org.au

Celiac Disease on The View

NOTE: This link has been working on and off. It looks like the YouTube video was removed today by ABC due to privacy infringement, I am working on getting a link directly from the NFCA. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Gluten-Free Redbridge Beer Benefit Dinner

I have been sick since March 2 with a terrible bout of bronchitis, which is why I haven’t been blogging much. I have had asthma since I was kid and I am prone to upper respiratory infections. This round of bronchitis came with a fever, chills, and a terrible cough. Unfortunately, it was coming on during the NFCA Cooking Spree so I probably didn’t enjoy myself as much as I would have if I were feeling better. I had been totally looking forward to that night for months, so I was disappointed that I didn’t have much of an appetite and that I was popping Tylenol all night long. I guess I played it off well, though, since many of my fellow “MeetUppers” didn’t know I was sick.

Despite my illness, it didn’t stop me from going to a top-secret NFCA Cooking Spree after-party. I was tremendously flattered when I was invited to this invited sponsored by RedBridge of Anheuser-Busch. I was asked to keep this quiet from my fellow Celiac friends since very few of us were invited. The Redbridge Beer Benefit Dinner was held at Centrico located in the heart of Tribeca. Aaron Sanchez, the head chef and owner of Centrico, had participated in the Cooking Spree earlier in the evening and was gracious enough to have this benefit dinner at his restaurant later that evening.

The event was very exciting. We enjoyed a wonderful gluten-free gourmet meal prepared by Chef Sanchez. Heidi Collins of CNN, Alice Bast of NFCA, and Elisabeth Hasslebeck of The View were all on hand to talk about their adventures in Celiac Disease. I had the pleasure of sitting with Jennifer Iannolo and Mark Tafoya of The Gilded Fork who were both extremely eager to learn about gluten-free dining and Celiac Disease. Look for their podcast with interviews and highlights from the event!

The food prepared for this event was wonderful. We started out with a smoked pumpkin soup with canela cream. My entrée was roasted duck breast with spiced red chile sauce, pineapples, prunes, and raisins. The dessert was my favorite, by far. We had coconut flan with cantaloupe. The flavor was just sweet enough and a nice touch to end the evening. The drink of choice for the event was obviously RedBridge Beer which we learned how to pour and enjoy from an Anheuser-Busch Brewmaster. Again, since I wasn’t feeling well I nursed about ½ a beer for the entire evening. I do like the RedBridge and I am happy it is getting as much publicity as it is. A-B has been very eager to get their sorghum beer into local bars, so if you are having issues getting it at a bar near your check out their website.

I truly enjoyed chatting with all of the wonderful people at both events on March 2, 2007. I sat with Jehangir Mehta, of Partistry and Graffiti, and his assistant and friend Tom on the subway on the way home and thanked them over and over again for participating in both the NFCA Cooking Spree and the dinner at Centrico. I told them that they are two more people that now know about Celiac Disease and they can help promote awareness with their new knowledge of gluten-free cooking and Celiac Disease.

Celiac Disease on "The View"

On Wednesday March 14th, “The View,” a national daytime talk show on ABC-TV with hosts Rosie O’Donnell, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, will air a segment on celiac disease. Dr. Peter Green of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University and Alice Bast, executive director of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness will be guests for the segment.

“The View," recipient of the 2003 Daytime Emmy® Award for "Outstanding Talk Show," is ABC Daytime's morning chatfest, featuring a team of dynamic women of different ages, experiences and backgrounds discussing the most exciting events of the day. The program has received critical acclaim since premiering August 11, 1997. It's broadcast live Monday through Friday from NYC (11:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, ET; CLOSED-CAPTIONED; broadcast in stereo; TV-14). Check your local listing for times.

GF Bloggers

Originally uploaded by Lizzy Vegas.

The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness had their first NYC cooking spree on March 2, 2007 at the Institute for Culinary Education. I Thought the evening was quite fun, but my most exciting part of the night was meeting so many great people in the Celiac community. I was extremely proud to talk about our NYC Celiac Disease Meetup Group as well as my blog. It was terrific to finally put faces and names together of fellow bloggers and Meetup Group members.

In this picture you will find:
David of Gluten Free NYC
Catherine of Gluten Free Guide
Erin (Me!) of Gluten-Free Fun