[Sca-cooks] food allergies, life choices, issues

[Susan Lin]

Greetings all.

My query is:  How do you attend to people with food allergies, issues, life
choices?  Also,  how often do you make a dish you can't stand just because
it is a good/period dish and you know others will enjoy it?

If I know someone has an allergy (gets sick, could die) I am very careful to
label any dish containing the offensive ingredient and I will try to go out
of my way to warn the person directly if it is a small gathering.

Vegetarian/Vegan - I always have at least one, usually more than one
vegetarian dish available.  As for Vegan - I try but I cannot always
promise.  I will often use vegetable broth instead of chicken if the rest of
the dish is all vegetables.

Silliac/gluten:  See allergies above.  We have several Silliac sufferers
here and one is quite adept at cooking so sometimes I ask her to make bread
or a dish she knows is safe.

Issues - meaning someone is not specifically allergic but does react badly
to an ingredient - we have someone who cannot eat onions if there are any
cell walls remaining - for this person if I know they are coming to feast I
usually pulverize the onions where it is appropriate to do so.  If not I
warn them.

The "I don't like" people - well, if it isn't going to kill someone I'm not
inclined to make changes although I do label things so people can stay away
from stuff they don't like.

I try not to rule out any dish just because of my own personal taste.  That
said, if I make it I have to find someone else to taste it to make sure it's
right.

Shoshanna