Cup of Coffee with Katie

Come join me this weekend for a gluten-safe holiday festival!  Click here for more info and tickets! Also, make sure to follow me on Instagram for your chance to win a pair of tickets.  Lastly, I promise some new posts in the new year, but look out for some changes :-) \

That's right: it's Expo time !! Expo 2016: my first Worcester Expo! By Expo time, I mean the 2018 Gluten-Free/Allergen-Friendly Expo in Worcester,  MA. Now those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know that Expo weekend in July is like Christmas for me . For those of you who are new to the blog, I encourage you to read s ome of these summaries of past expos but I will also entice you with some photos from last year's Expo in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is an amazing weekend surrounded by you-safe foods and people who totally understand what it means to scrutinize every label and stress about eating out. If that is not enough of a reason to make you want to head toward Worcester, read on for 7 reasons to be excited about the Expo. 1) Donuts.  That's right. All of these donuts were available for sample, and for purchase of course.You can also find them in the freezer section of some local grocery stores. However, at the Expo you often ge

It is no secret to those of you who have been reading for awhile that I love coffee. In fact, even if you're new to the blog, the title and the cover photo make that pretty easy to decipher. What you may not know is that I didn't really drink coffee until I became a teacher. Yes, I drank a variety of steamed milk beverages throughout high school and college (ah yes, the days of Dunkaccinos- anyone else?? Do those even exist anymore??) but I didn't pick up the true coffee habit until my first year of teaching in DC. Then in the years following the habit evolved into nothing short of a passion. Of course as many of you know, I had to make the switch to decaf around Fall 2015 because my body suddenly decided caffeine was no longer a friend, but a foe. The silver lining is that I didn't have to make a switch to decaf during the early days of my pregnancy, and no one found it at all suspicious that I was drinking decaf before I shared the news. See, there is always a silver

Yes, the draft of this post has been a work-in-progress for over a year now. Literally. I started it in May of 2016 just a few weeks after our wedding...and then life happened.  June of 2016 brought a move to Boston, August brought a new job, and then with Fall 2016 came news of our little bundle of sunshine and suddenly time was consumed by a combination of typical baby prep and slightly less typical "how to eat safely and handle pregnancy with celiac" research and appointments. Thus, the wedding post was left occasionally touched, but never quite finished. (Don't worry, the baby ones are a work-in-progress too...so maybe by 2019 I'll finish those?? :-) This post is going to address two different scenarios: planning a wedding (or any major event really) when you are the one with food allergies/intolerances, and also some tips for planning a wedding where some of the guests have food allergies/intolerances (which honestly these days is pretty much guaranteed at

I'm not sure about wherever you're reading this, but here in Boston it feels like summer today even though the calendar says September 26th. Though the unseasonable weather certainly poses some challenges (do we turn on the A/C in September??), there are also some undeniable perks. Boston winters come early and last long...so the days of long walks with the little guy are numbered...and I'm savoring every single one. Also, this gives me a few more days to procrastinate in finally switching over to my Fall wardrobe and digging the Fall decorations out of the scary abyss that is our "seasonal items" closet. And last but not least, this little heat wave gives me a chance to enjoy a treat I probably would otherwise pass up: pumpkin ice cream. Yes, this is my actual cup of ice cream. The pumpkin and gourd were just in the window and I couldn't resist! Now I'm sure that paragraph already has your mind running through some questions but we'll deal wit

Soy. It is something I rarely thought about prior to my Celiac days. I vaguely knew it had something to do with tofu, but aside from that I knew very little about it. Fast forward to my dairy-free/soy-free diagnosis and suddenly soy became a very important concept in my life. You see when you become dairy-free, things that are labeled vegan catch your eye...because even if you're a carnivore like me, that designation means that there is no dairy and hence you can check one of your allergens off the list. Of course, you soon learn that vegan products more often than not contain soy (and sometimes gluten too) so as someone who has to avoid the magic trifecta (gluten, dairy, and soy), you are left standing in a gluten-free, vegan cafe where you can eat next to nothing, bewildered and wondering how eating out became this complicated. I feel you...virtual hug from me to you, my friend. Now for those of you with immune systems that react to gluten, casein, and soy, there are rarely o