I had a lot of submissions for my blogathon, and I tried to use them all, but there was one that I had forgotten, but it was for a very good cause. My lone amiga at work, the wonderful, delightful, and sexy as hell, Amy had requested that I post her site. Now this site isn't just any site. It's a site with a cause. Last year, Amy was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, which is also called Celiac Sprue or Gluten intolerance. What is that? "Gluten intolerance is the result of an autoimmune system response to the ingestion of gluten (from wheat, rye, and barley) that damages the small intestine." <--Gluten Intolerance Group Which basically means she can't have most breads, pastas, soups or other things that might have wheat as an ingredient. No Krispy Kremes. No orange chicken.

It's a hard diet to have. She constantly has to check ingredients to make sure that it doesn't contain anything that would make her sick. She has to call restaurants in advance to make sure that they have something gluten free. And some places aren't so nice about it. There are specialty stores where she can buy breads and foods that she knows are gluten free, but to work in an office such as ours, where we're pigging out all the time on everything, is pretty difficult.

So she has started a website, to give news, reviews, and support for other people that have this disease. It's so admirable that she's putting the effort to make the lives of other people who are living with Celiac a little easier. So check out her site:

Gluten Free Empowerment

It's a good site, and it will give you a good view of the life of someone coping with Celiac. She's a strong woman, and she has a lot of us backing her up. Amy Rocks!

So anyway, it was Amy's birthday last Friday, and me and Dan took her to the Fogo de Chao Churrascaria. It was an hour in heaven, let me tell ya! Fogo de Chao is an all-you-can-eat restaurant of...MEAT. Oh baby, my mouth waters just remembering the experience. When you walk in, you can see huge skewers of meat surrounding an open flame cooking. The gauchos, or waiter-chefs, go around with the skewers and slice the meat onto your plate. They have a whole variety of wonderful tasty meats, like the succulent picanha - garlic beef, to the super tender cordiero - leg of lamb, to the delicious frango - chicken drumsticks. And there was more. So much more. And the way it goes is that you have a little card next to you. When you want the chefs to come and slice you meat from their skewers, you leave the card on the green side - 'GO'. The flock to you like bees to honey. When you're eating, or need a couple minutes to recoup, flip your card to 'RED' and they leave you alone. There were a couple times when I did a quick card flip to green when I saw a favorite go by.

And I was in heaven. It was better than 'Cats'. I mean, wow. I am a carnivore, all the way, and this was as close as I can get to going out and hunting my own meal. Meat everywhere! A vegetarian's nightmare! Though they DO have a salad bar, but come on...the meat is practically walking on its own! I wanted to eat everything. I was so full I could hardly move.

And the other wonderful thing about Fogo was that they were so helpful when it came to Amy's dietary requirements. The manager made sure to point out the meats that Amy could have and for the ones that she couldn't, he had the chefs make a special batch without the seasonings that Amy couldn't have. He even went so far as to rush to our table when he saw Amy about to take a bite out of a piece of meat that contained gluten seasoning. So to Andy out at Fogo de Chao, we thank you. You are awesome! It was definitely a good birthday, Amy was a happy, happy girl. And so was I!

So to Amy, yanowhatimean wishes you a happy belated birthday!

Posted by Yano at July 28, 2003 12:33 PM

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