Burgers

I have been utterly craving a burger.

Ever since I was diagnosed Coeliac right before Christmas last year (and it feels SO much longer than 2 months ago), I have been unable to have a burger, due to the buns obviously containing gluten, being bread and all.

Curse you, burger, for looking so awesome!

It's quite a change, from being able to go to the local burger hole with Andrew and Mark for burgers every second week or so, to being completely unable to. I could go with them, but that would simply be an exercise in frustration, getting to watch them stuff their mouths with giant burgers of the awesome variety, while all I can do is sit and watch. Perhaps order one without the bun. Assuming they didn't add bread crumbs or something to the meat, which is entirely possible.

Hell, I can't even get chips from that place, since they cook battered fish and such in the same oil, contaminating what would be otherwise perfectly gluten-free fried potatoes. Bastards.

I cannot even comprehend the awesomeness of this beast

I even managed to find a burger shop which did gluten free burgers. Awesome, they even looked really good. But they're in Newtown. How the heck am I going to get to Newtown without driving for like an hour? Driving an hour for a burger strikes me as slightly insane. It was, however, almost getting to the point where it would be worth it.

Which is why last night was so damn awesome.

My mother found a place that did gluten free bread rolls. Yes, gluten free bread is horrendous, but my dietician offhandedly mentioned last time I visited him that people tend to not have such a problem with the rolls - that they're different somehow.

So last night's dinner was a burger, on a gluten free bread roll. The roll wasn't amazing, but it doesn't have the horrendous aftertaste that the regular GF bread leaves. However, the fact that I was having a burger, and it was edible, and it didn't make me sick, made me so very very happy.

Well, at least until next week when I get blood taken to test for how I've progressed. That's likely to go about as well as it did last time - ending with me on the floor in a less than conscious state. Eugh.

Pub Lunch Friday - The Search

My office has a tradition, well, kind of a tradition. Not everyone takes part in it, so I'm not entirely sure its a true tradition as a result. Usually Ben, Shibs and I take part, so a trio tradition?

Anyhoo, I refer to the "Friday = Pub Lunch" tradition. A tradition I wholeheartedly support, considering that for the rest of the week the majority of lunches are taken at my desk, either still thinking about code, or spending a few minutes browsing random interweb articles for a little relief (hey, you gotta have breaks sometime!)

There was the one pub we would always go to when I first started work here - the Porterhouse in Surry Hills. However, as mentioned here, we moved offices recently. While we did not move very far (we're still in Surry Hills, and moved a matter of streets away), we are far enough away that the Porterhouse is not within easy enough reach to have lunch. Considering that walking all the way across the suburb is way too much effort for lunch and a drink or two, we needed to find a new local.

The new office has a multitude of pubs nearby. To be completely honest, I have no idea how many there are around here. On our lunch trips, we have visited three different pubs, trying to find our groove. I assume we will be trying all of the nearby ones and making a decision once we try them all.

The first one had a name which I promptly forgot. This was, by far, the failure of the three we've tried so far. The steak there was quite thin, apparently the chicken schnitzel wasn't particularly amazing, and Ben's steak sandwich smelt like fish. This greatly worried everyone involved - particularly Ben, who spent the afternoon carrying about it.

The second one was called the Shakespeare, and makes the hefty claim that none of their meals (the food portion anyway) costs over $10. Turns out this was quite accurate. The place itself looked rather dingy, but the steak was good. Well, except for the part where the sauce on it utterly destroyed me as a result of unexpected gluten, but that was likely my own messup rather than theirs. I'll blame them next time :P

Today, we tried yet another pub. A closer one, which again I cannot recall the name of (its a pub dammit. I know where it is, and I know they sell food and alcoholic beverages, and that's enough information for me). This one is, by far, my favourite of the three, for a single reason.

They sell WAGYU steaks. Sure, its more expensive than regular steak (Wagyu being a specific breed of cattle - and Japanese style, and damn delicious), but it great. Even better - the sauce that came with it seems to be gluten-free. Well, as far as I can tell anyway, since I ate it over 2 hours ago and my stomach hasn't threatened to implode (which is the more fun and less...messy part of my gluten symptom), I take that as a good sign.

The other advantage, is that returning to the office from that particular pub take s quite close to 7-11. Most people know what I'm thinking here - SLURPIES! WHEEEEEEEE SUGAR HIGH!

So if we get to vote, rather than just follow Ben to whatever pub takes his fancy, then my vote lies there, and Friday becomes Wagyu lunch day :)

Test results are in... Meoo part 2?

So, today I left work a bit early to see a gastroenterologist. A post from this here blog a couple of weeks back explains that I had a test to determine if I am Celiac - and today was result day.

I was quietly freaking out in the reception area for an hour or so (freaking out mainly because I fully expected to be told I need another blood test - the last time I had one I was unconscious on the floor within 5 minutes of the deed being done due to my natural aversion to and failure at stomaching anything even remotely medical) until I was eventually called in by the doctor. I was the last patient there, and the doctor seemed kinda glad that the day was almost over!

So I enter his (quite large) office, sit down, and expect to be told I need moar blood tests because, at first glance, I was told I did not have Coeliac Disease.

Well, first impressions are often completely wrong - and in this case, it was indeed. I have been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, and need to have a gluten free diet for (most likely) the rest of my days.

This means that anything containing gluten (ie, anything with wheat, oats, barley, malt, or rye in it) is off limits. This means bread. This means donuts. This means biscuits, cake, and cookies. And pancakes.

However, there is a surprising amount of things that are perfectly fine! Many a place sell gluten-free versions of their products (gluten free pizzas! gluten free pasta!), rice is fine, as is corn.

This means that plain flavour Doritoes are fine (other flavours are not due to the flavourings containing flour and such). This means popcorn is fine.

But most importantly, this means BACON, the staple food of geeks, is perfectly safe. In fact, all meat is, as long as it isn't contaminated with gluten by say, crumbing it, or covering it in a sauce (sauce is always questionable). This means there will be much eating of steaks, as well as BACON.

Ahh bacon, saviour of my very existence yet again.

Parties in the City

Apologies for the lack of posting lately, I have been quite, quite busy with things like work, as well as other events.

Friday night, I attended my girlfriend's japanese class' Christmas party. There was an official one held by the actual college (I also attend the same college, a class ahead of her), however, her class had to run one week late due to their teacher visiting home, and their management's inability to replace the teacher for said week. Therefore, he class was actually in class while the party was going on.

To compensate for this, her class organised their own get together, for the following night. I and my class were also invited - probably due to my link to their class. The rest of my class were unable to attend due to varying work, lack of funds and "being busy" (whatever that means).

I attended, however, it was made quite difficult by my current gluten-free diet. You see, we went to a restaurant called Wagaya - Japanese food. Quite nice. However, ordering is done via touch screens - which makes it quite difficult to get hold of a waiter and ask annoying questions about the gluten content - particularly since there were over 300 items on the menu.

Luckily enough, Miwa-sensei (the other class' teacher) was able to assist me greatly with this, due to her being Japanese, and having known people with gluten-intolrances before. She was able to point out to me that soy sauce is a VERY bad thing to have in terms of gluten content, and steered me towards things that I could have.

Which included Ox-tongue. Which was very *interesting*, to say the least.

Following an epic meal (which also included sushi roulette - being a game where you get 6 sushi, one being utterly loaded to the brim with wasabi. Pick a sushi, eat it and hope... I was one of the fortunate survivors), we went to Passionflower for dessert.

Depressing as all hell.

Allow me to elaborate - 95% of the menu items at Passionflower contain gluten. Even the regular ice cream had cookies in it, or was served in a waffle basket and all. And the just regular ice cream in a glass had flavours that were vague and uninteresting. In fact, all I was allowed was a regular ice cream flavour, or a strawberries and plain chocolate fondue dip thing - which I can have any time any where, for cheaper!

It ended in me not ordering anything at all, and instead taking a walk for the majority of that trip in an effort to not lose my ind watching people eat epic waffles and such.

In the end, we had to get a taxi home. This was fun - Christmas parties everywhere, in the city, with lots of drunk people. It took catching a bus to Circular Quay, finding the cab rank nearby, and waiting around 40 minutes to get a taxi home! Gah!

All in all, it was a good night out. Much sake was drunk, a fair few bourbon and cokes were had, and probably too much ox-tongue and scampi was consumed :P

Randomness

Not much has happened the last couple of days, hence the random nature of the last few posts. Today was no exception. I believe a large part of this is spending 8 hours or so at work, then returning home, eating dinner and gaming most nights. The weekends are when things happen. Or when I catch up on sleep from the exhaustion of the rest of the week.

So this post will be about a buncha random things that pop into my head.

It occurs to me that I am quite horrible at wrapping Christmas presents. After finally "finishing" the Chrissy shopping last weekend (I am still on the lookout for an extra for my sister's boyfriend, since he kinda got screwed :P), I finally started wrapping some of the stuff this evening. Or trying to, at least.
Most of it looks like it was wrapped by a 5 year old. It looks horrible! (No photos of them, its embarassing) Hopefully they'll hold until it gts into the hands of the people who are tasked with ripping it to shreads!

Today, I opened up registrations for a new forum RP I'm starting on the Madman forum. I have run a game there before, which was quite successful until stresses from multiple sources caused me to ragequit it.
After some break, and finding out that I'm not likely to be GMing my group's real-life Pathfinder all too often (at least, not consistently for a while), I decided to open a new one - this time based off the Pathfinder ruleset, so that it gives me a chance to learn the ruleset properly, as well as it simply being a ruleset that I enjoy. I do need to figure out how to er... "lighten it up" a little, so that it can be run on a forum. I found no resources on such on the interwebs at all! Once I figure out how I'm adapting things, I'll post that stuff here (feel free to make suggestions!)

Today, we found that we had run out of gluten free ingredients at home. (I'm trialling a gluten-free diet until I get to see the doctor again for confirmation of anything. I feel marginally better so far - a week later) Normally, not a huge deal. Except that I needed some for work.
So I went to work, figuring that when it came time for food, I would find something around that's gluten free. There's a fair bit of choice near the new offices.
Unfortunately, none of it seemed to be suitable for someone on a gluten free diet. Either that or I just don't know about things that seem bad, but are actually ok for me, I mean I've only done this thing for a week!
In the end, I bought a couple of prawn sushi rolls (in rice paper), with cabbage and lettuce from a little place called Kaizoku (that would be Japanese for PIRATE - this makes me happy). It turned out that I didn't particularly enjoy these particular rolls, but I ate them anyway because I was hungry.
And I remained hungry. So, so hungry.
Om nom nom nom nom nom nom.

Anyway, dinner's very soon, so time to wrap this up. Ciaos!