Thanks to our friend at avoidingmilkprotein.com, we have traversed the city in search of peanut free confections! Last summer we tried to find Loostsalicious, the peanut free ice cream parlor. To our dismay it was closed, however we hopped back in our minivan to visit Richman’s Bakery. We overindulged on cookies, cakes, breads, muffins, cupcakes, donuts- did I miss anything?

This summer we had the pleasure of overindulging in The Cupcake Shoppe’s delicious cupcakes. The kids’ favorite was the gumball topped cupcake! Mine was the chocolate chip cookie dough flavored cake with matching frosting!

In addition to cupcakes we purchased chocolate confections at Lollicakes, an adorable little shop in a section of Toronto called Davisville. When we return for chocolates, I will most certainly build in time to shop around this great neighborhood!

But beyond sweet treats we have found some great restaurants and attractions. Most recently we dined at Live and Breathe, aka L.A.B. an up and coming Toronto gastronomic hit! The chef/owner and staff are very friendly, preparing fresh, seasonal, “molecular gastronomy” to excite the taste buds! They provided us with an exceptional meal and were extremely accommodating of our allergy.

Pizzaria Rustica is another allergy friendly establishment, with 2 locations near the Rogers Center. Their pesto is void of nuts and they have gluten free options available.

I also subscribe to “Toronto for Kids,” a great weekly enewsletter highlghting weekly family events in Toronto.

We have had some great adventures in Toronto! It is about what we CAN do!

The next step in your magical journey is with dining reservations, 407-WDW-DINE, and notifying the agent of your special dietary restrictions.  The agent will direct you to contact Special Diets at 407-939-3463 or SpecialDiets@DinseyWorld.com to coordinate your dietary needs with your hotel chef and with the chefs at your specific reserved locations. The Special Diets department is fantastic!

Special Diets will send forms to your email address requesting a list of each of your reservations, the number in your party and the specific special dietary requirements. They will also provide you with a list of quick service restaurants available to accommodate special dietary requirements. Within a short period of time, the majority of the chefs will contact you by telephone to discuss your needs and accommodations. They will also leave their direct phone number in the event of further questions or needs up to and during your Magical stay.

It may also be reassuring to contact the chefs a couple days before each reservation to confirm your reservations and ensure there are no surprises, such as changes to menu items available on a buffet line.  An insider tip: try to make reservations early in the meal service. Restaurants can more easily accommodate during off meal times.

Upon arrival at the restaurant, notify the host/hostess of your allergies and request to speak to the chef. Typically as with any restaurant, the busier the restaurant, the longer the wait to speak to a chef. In our experience, the buffets had the longest wait for a chef and the greatest opportunity for cross contamination.  Whereas the restaurants preparing all their meals from scratch were the most accommodating and the most knowledgeable. For example, our food allergy is peanuts; some restaurants thought the Mickey Macaroni and the child’s pizza dough were unsafe, while others considered them safe. We found this disconcerting considering the typical children’s menu offerings at the majority of restaurants was Mickey Mac n’ Cheese, Personal Pizza, or Chicken Nuggets for both lunch and dinner. Over the length of your stay, you may want to present your children with some variety, which can be better accommodated at scratch restaurants. The restaurants specializing in items from scratch have the ability to prepare exciting dishes that were not on the menu, in a safe, healthy and delicious manner!  No matter where a food allergy family goes, they need to be within their own comfort level. 

Within your own hotel, get to know your dining manager. They can introduce you to the chef in your hotel’s quick service restaurant, assisting with alternatives to the typical children’s fare. Also ask for their input on substitutions to the meal plan. Most meals come with an entrée, drink and dessert – the dessert can be substituted with an additional bottle of water or to satisfy a sweet tooth, Divvies (www.divvies.com) products may be available at the venue.

For quick service dining within a park, consider dining at off times. For example, lunch service begins at 11:30. Arriving early allows for time to avoid the lines, get a manager’s attention, review the ingredient binder, order and eat by noon.  A little pre-planning is very helpful, make sure to print out the maps online and highlight the safe restaurants in order to be in the right place at meal times.

Another thing to consider within the park is that all straws are unwrapped. Disney takes great pride in cleanliness, paper and plastic wrappers cause a great deal of litter. However, straws at the hotel are probably wrapped, so grab a few of those and maybe some pre-wrapped plastic ware to carry with you through the park.  Depending upon how hot the weather is, it may become necessary to buy a slush or soda.

The most important tip of all is to have FUN!!!! Enjoy the magic that is Disney.

Walking into the lodge, it is packed with families, kids, luggage. It looks like mass chaos! Moving further into the great hall, the talking moose & tree draw the kids into what will be the greatest weekend of their lives!

Descending the stairs, the water park comes into view. It is the most efficiently laid out stadium of waterslides, forts of water works, wading & wave pools! It is unimaginable!!! I can go on for days about this fabulous world of water. My kids loved it! Mom and Dad had individual opportunities to sneak off onto water slides as well! I think our favorite was the wave pool. It reminded me of the Town of West Seneca wading pool, however it started at 0 depth all the way to 5ft and every 15min or so it became a WAVE pool! It was AWESOME! There was something for everyone - waterslides of all sizes – toddler to adult!

I was very surprised we didn’t need our water floaties. It was very clean, organized and although crowded none of the attractions were uncomfortable. On the way to our room we passed the arcade, fitness room, spa & Cub Club. All of these places were CLEAN & FUN!!! For the volume of people in this hotel everything was VERY clean!

Our room was spotless. It consisted of the usual bed & bathroom, but the sink was outside the “water closet” area. GREAT idea! We had a fridge & microwave, kitchen table, fold out couch, queen bed, balcony & the Kid’s Camp!!! The boys had their own little area with bunk beds & a tv!!!!

But what everyone wants to hear is whether or not we ate the food – and YES, we ate the BUFFET!!!! They assured us we would be fine. We had to stay away from the bread & the desserts because there was possible cross-contamination with peanuts. The children had their own buffet at their height: chicken fingers, french fries, mac n’ cheese and carrots. Eddie ate it all (not much, he was too tired)!!!  They even brought us fresh potato chips from the kitchen. For the adults, they had very nice options- a carving station, made to order station, soups, salads, pizza and several pasta dishes . The food was surprisingly nice for a kiddie hotel. We enjoyed both dinner & lunch, however purchase the meal plan – it’s much less expensive & get the paw pass upon arrival too ( it adds 2 hours to your stay, 10 tokens(costing $5), free plush & inner tube, 10% off all purchases).

We had a great time!!!!    AND WE SURVIVED!!!! We ate at our first buffet!!!!

About 1/2 an hour drive from the Blue Jay’s stadium, located in the Jewish section of Toronto is an modest store front with the words 100% NUT FREE on their sign! Excitedly I whisked the boys into the bakery & to my surprise my little peanut allergic child broke out in frantic tears, chanting “I can’t be in here!” It was both a proud and sad moment, he understands his allergy, but lives with it too. The next 20 minutes were a challenge, but soon the wonderful ladies behind the counter made him feel at ease, offering free samples of frosted & sprinkled cookies! What did this mommy do next, but spend over $40 purchasing at least two of each item. We began with the chocolate chip cookies, larger than their heads. We also purchased muffins, bagels, croissants, smaller cookies, bread, cake slices, cupcakes – Never have I been so excited to step foot in a bakery!

By the time we returned to the hotel I really wished I had packed my dust buster. My minivan was trashed!!!  The boutique hotel was very helpful tidying their car seats. It’s an extremely clean, new & familiar hotel, although we cannot eat any of their room service they did offer to purchase items from Richman’s Bakery for us and have them waiting on our next trip. As a city, Toronto really understands food allergies and makes every effort to accommodate them.

After a short nap we took a walk to the firehall on Adelade Street. We took pictures of the trucks and the firemen made balloons out of latex gloves for each of my boys!

For dinner we settled on McDonald’s for the kids. They were tired & starving. We snuggled in bed and watched Bugs Life.

The next morning we made our journey to the Toronto Islands & the Centreville amusement park. If I have not mentioned it before, I personally feel Toronto is the most friendly city on the continent. Of all things we lost a shoe on our journey to the ferry. A wonderful young man ran up to me to tell me but I couldn’t find it. I panicked and began looking for a place along the way to purchase flip flops. He kept an eye out to make sure I found the shoe & when he realized I didn’t find it he ran back & grabbed it for me. I was so grateful for that shoe!

The distance from the hotel to the ferry was rather great considering the heat, the weight of the double stroller and kids and…we took the wrong ferry! The Toronto Islands are broken into 3 sections. Centreville houses the amusement park and has the most crowded ferry. The other two islands are more park-like with paths and places to sit and stop along the way. I guess my map was upside down and we took the ferry that was the absolute FURTHEST from Centreville – this must explain why there was no line for this boat. We walked for over an hour to arrive at Centreville.

On our journey we found fire department for the island. We stopped and took pictures, sat in the trucks. The boys had a great time! Forever and a day later we came upon the boardwalk & the amusement park. I purchased a sheet of 50 tickets for $40 http://www.centreisland.ca/default.aspx and we proceded to the rides. They were cute, child size rides – boats, antique cars, antique firetrucks, and a few bigger rides for the kids & adults together. We had a great time, however from a food allergy standpoint there was nothing we could eat. I had plenty of wipes. But I was rather surprised seeing as Canada is so conscious of their food allergies. And wouldn’t this be the trip I forgot to throw a handful of Quaker Canada Peanut Free Granola Bars in our bag! We got caught without our favorite snack or a McDonald’s. It was definitely a learning experience.

Before we crossed the border back into the US we stopped at Wal-Mart Canada to stock up on Quaker Canada Peanut Free Granola Bars, a little more Nestle Canada Peanut Free Candy, Dare crackers…and next door at the No Frills – Chapman’s Peanut Free Ice Cream!

We had a great time! Things I would change on the next visit: maybe the hotel, cab it to the ferry, take the correct ferry & have plenty of snacks in our bag!!!

I’m in the process of launching a website where families with food allergic kids/parents can write reviews about restaurants they visit. There are fantastic online resources reviewing restaurants and hotels, (Tripadvisor, Yelp, VirtualTourist, etc.) but because I couldn’t find any that consolidated the experiences of those with food allergies, I decided to create an interactive database where we can review restaurants, hotels, airlines, and kid-friendly venues (like Disney). Wouldn’t it be great to give a shout out to a place that did a great job helping your child have a safe meal, or warn others of a place to stay away from at all cost?

The web address is www.lonelyplate.org. I’m asking friends and food allergy support group members to publish the first posts or send me (so I can post for them) reviews of businesses they’ve visited. This kind of information-sharing is crucial not only to keep each other safe but also can be a message to restaurants that we are a consumer community worth catering to.

Among the Washington, D.C. support group members, we have been exchanging this kind of information for years (as I know many of you do in your locales), but we never shared this information with food allergic families in other cities and countries, something I aim to accomplish.

 Please share your experiences with us. Looking forward to hearing from you.

We took our first family out-of-town weekend trip and it was reaction free!  We went to Pittsburgh and it included a MLB game (they were playing the Cardinals and my husband and son Walt are HUGE fans).  We went to the zoo on Saturday and then to the baseball game on Sunday.  My youngest, Grant, who just turned two, has an egg and peanut allergy, so I was obviously pretty worried about both destinations.  But I made sure I packed enough food and snacks for the kids to eat so we didn’t have to chance it.  Plus I made sure I had enough baby wipes with me to go around.  However, we went to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner on Saturday night in Station Square and they were wonderful!  Our server was very understanding and even brought out labels for me to read.  They told me to stay away from anything in the fryer…they don’t use peanut oil, they use soy, but apparently the company they get the oil from also manufactures peanut oil in that facility.  It was actually nice to hear they did their research and made me aware of it.

Oh, and towards the end of the game on Sunday, we discovered the boy sitting in front of us, who if I had to guess was about 10, has a peanut allergy.  Thankfully no one directly behind us had peanuts so we had a nice buffer for Grant.  I will say though, the sigh of relief didn’t come until we left the ballpark because as you all already know, you never know what could happen.

Hope you are all having a fun & safe summer!

Our first night we inteded to have ice cream for dinner at Lootsalicious the peanut free ice cream parlour, only to find out it was closed. I was horribly disappointed as it was the main reason for our trip. We ate dinner at the old stand by – McDonald’s. I had my list of nut free bakeries with me, but wasn’t up for a new challenge.

The next morning it was raining! So we hopped in a cab and visited the Ontario Museum of Science. We had a great time riding the “magic stairs” aka escalators. There were a couple food areas in the museum, however there were also allergen signs mentioning they food labels were available. We didn’t stop for a snack, we went back to the hotel for lunch. They boys enjoyed eating their spaghettios in the cafe. They felt like real business travelers! After lunch they went back to the room to play in their “office,” the desk and chair. I think my son’s favorite part about the trip was the shower! It is pretty magnificent.

Later that afternoon the concierge made a few phone calls for us regarding dinner. She found several restaurants able to accomodate our allergy. We chose PizzaRustica (www.pizzarustica.ca) It is an upscale pizza parlor with a French flair. They do not use pine nuts in their pesto and actually mention food allergy accommodations on their menu. The owner was very knowledgeable and understanding. They also deliver. I took the boys to eat pizza outside just as the Blue Jays game let out. Lots to watch while we waited for our pie! It was very tasty, flat pizza with sauce, sausage and mozzarella cheese. They boys ate 1/2 a piece each, however it was comforting to have a place close by where we could safely eat and take leftovers back to our room for later.  

Our trip consisted of hours of walking. We had a great time in the Eaton Center, although I still don’t understand the elevator system.  And then there was the ice cream. My kids loved the big fountain in the center of the mall, as did all the children in the mall and all the children had ice cream. Again we had to talk about our allergies. But they forgot about it rather quickly. Daddy met us for a walk and we went back to our room to jump on the bed and watch a movie!!

Our last day I needed a Starbucks! Since they are on every corner, I believe it was the power of suggestion drawing me to it. The boys have never been in a Starbucks and those baked goods looked very appealing! We talked about our allergy again and I promised to make muffins for breakfast when we returned home. I bought them a banana for $1.00. I believe that was the best banana they ever ate. It was gone in 10 seconds & no waste! We walked by the fire department and actually had the opportunity to experience the fire brigade head off to a call!

To put Canadian food allergies in perspective, I was approached by 2 different people asking from where I ordered my son’s rubber allergy bracelet. I now know it was www.Statkids.com my apologies for not remembering.   

I learned from this trip, dining out at restaurants isn’t important. The kids are happy with experiences, seeing things for the first time – a cab, an escalator, a hotel room. Next time I will pack more fresh fruit & spaghettios. I realize Toronto is very allergy friendly, but my kids are 1 and 3. They will be happy with whatever I provide off their typical menu of 5 things. They love pizza, but only the pizza from one specific pizza parlour. It is my guilt as a parent pushing me to try new things. If nothing else, I feel less guilty about my children missing experiences.

However, mom and dad still need to eat. So it is very important to find a safe restaurant to deliver room service. Our hotel had some delicious items on the menu, much of it was lighter fare such as sandwiches and they could not guarantee the safety of the bread.  Overall we had a great trip. I cannot wait to do it again!!

Now I know the thought of summer camp causes an immediate “no way” reaction for many food allergy families. But what if you could feel confident of a safe experience? Wouldn’t it be great?

My name is Sue Lein. I own Camp Emerson, a summer camp for girls and boys, age 8 -15 in Massachusetts. My parents started it in 1968. We have always had a reputation for paying attention to the details that help each child to succeed. Part of this approach has been to tailor our food choices to the needs of our campers. Twenty years ago, I remember we had our first camper who was allergic to wheat and gluten. Back then, all the great gluten-free options we have today didn’t exist and his choices were much more limited. But we worked hard to ensure that his dining experience was as positive as everyone else’s by providing him special meals that matched his needs.

Today, I am proud to say we have as many choices in food as we do in activities – something for everyone. We offer gluten-free meals and can support all major food allergies. We work with each family individually before camp to understand your child’s specific concerns. You should see the smiles on the campers’ faces when I tell them that their menu will mirror the regular camp menu, they are so amazed!

Westchester Parent Magazine recently published an article about how food at summer camp has changed. Camp Emerson’s support of food allergies and dietary needs was highlighted for being progressive and inclusive. To learn more about how we could provide you and your child with a worry-free summer camp experience, look at our brochure, Camp Emerson – The Food Allergy Specialist or call me.

Please share this information with any friends and families you think might be interested.
Thank you.
Sue
P.S. I have food allergies and so does my son.
Sue Lein
Owner/Director
Camp Emerson
www.campemerson.com
800-782-3395