We're on our first vacation since the beginning of our new lifestyle. I've traveled gluten free for over a year but now that we eat organic — no soy, dairy, yeast, vinegars or fermented foods and no sugar in addition to gluten-free — this is our first venture beyond our home comfort zone. Before leaving I googled health food stores, organics and gluten free. First I found a gluten-free bakery, The Wooden Spoon, in Charleston, SC. I emailed the owner to see if she baked with agave nectar but no luck. However, now that I was communicating with someone in the city who understood gluten free I asked for recommendations and she gave me tons. Thanks Amelia!
I also found a Whole Foods and Earth Fare store in Charleston, SC, which is about 2 hours from where we were staying. ROAD TRIP on vacation! So we loaded up the car and headed south. While the boys went kayaking I went hunting. While exploring Earth Fare I came across a really cool book, Vegetarian Restaurants & Natural Food Stores in the US by John Howley. What a great resource to have.
We stopped for lunch at one of Amelia’s recommendations that was also in the book, The Mustard Seed on Maybank highway. Our waitress lives gluten-free so she was a big help! My vegetarian son and I had really great black bean cakes but my youngest ate nothing as he is way too picky. Then we headed to another of her recommendations, The Healthy Sprout. That was very cool. Everything was wheat, soy, dairy and sugar free. We had landed in paradise. We gathered up some great snacks, a smoothie and we were headed to the grocery. At Whole Foods we loaded up on all of our favorite organic foods that fit our diet. How silly are we, that visiting organic stores is our idea of fun on vacation.
We spent most of the vacation cooking our own meals and enjoying the sun. We head home tomorrow with our first trip under our belt and better prepared for the next adventure.
