NFCA GREAT Kitchens Gluten-Free Dinner at Imperial

Disclosure: This meal was complimentary, but I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.

I was very fortunate a few days ago to be invited to attend a five-course gluten-free chef’s table dinner with Chef Jehangir Mehta and Portland’s Chef Vitaly Paley of Paley’s Place, Imperial, and Portland Penny Diner. Both have been on Food Network: Chef Mehta may be recognizable from being runner up on Next Iron Chef and competing on Iron Chef America (Battle Coconut), and Chef Paley also has done battle on Iron Chef America (Battle Radish. BTW if you come here, make yourself order the Radish Walks Into A Bar cocktail with radish gastrique, it is stunning and super delicious).

 

The event was part of the GREAT Kitchens Gluten-Free Chef’s Table Tour (#gfchefstable), sponsored by the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA). After kicking off in New York City last week, the second stop on the 10-city national educational tour was our very own Portland for a few days! Earlier that day Chef Mehta hosted a meal with Chef Naomi Pomeroy at Beast, and marathon-ed on to join with Paley at  Imperial, and then the next day he worked with Portland State University to speak to students and work with dining staff.

Chef Jehangir Mehta, NFCA chef ambassador: “We hope to educate chefs across the country about the need for gluten-free menu items and open up a new culinary world for those who must avoid gluten.”

The goal of the gfchefstable is to educate restaurants and schools on how to provide safe gluten-free dining experiences. The tour also include Chefs Mehta partnering with local chefs to demonstrate gluten-free restaurant dining experiences.  Of course the initiative also raises awareness for celiac disease, which affect an estimated three million Americans or 1% of the general population – and that’s not counting other gluten-related disorders even if you do not have celiac disease (an estimated 18 million or 6% of the population). 30 percent of Americans are avoiding or eliminating gluten from their diet because of gluten sensitivity.

About Gluten-Free

Gluten can be found in wheat, rye, barley, and triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye) and oats (because of how they are processed). Avoiding gluten can be more difficult than just avoiding foods with flour- baked goods, anything with dough like bread, pasta, pizza, and beer being the most obvious. For instance gluten can also show up in processed food, varying from sauces (soy sauce, ketchup, salad dressing for example) and seasonings to candy! So asking about specific ingredients and handling is important for a gluten-free diet, which can be hard because those working in the service industry may not know all details if not all everything is made from scratch themselves, and/or there might be mistakes in cross-contamination (like using the same cutting board as gluten products).

I am not a gluten-free diner, but I am certainly aware of limiting my intake- I don’t usually have much gluten (I don’t eat many baked goods- things like bread, pasta, and pizza I might have every few weeks. My carb vice is rice.). Because of how often it is in food though, I would be kidding myself if I didn’t admit I am probably having some every day. Most noticeably for me, though I have not had it officially tested, the affect I see is from drinking beer, which I do a couple times a week. I have noticed in the past few years how it has nothing to do with the alcohol but it gives me consistent digestive issues and I get quickly fatigued if I have more than 1.5 pints (yet, give me a half bottle of wine and I’m fine!), so I might have a sort of gluten sensitivity. I’m very fortunate that it seems I can have some gluten and not notice much, with one possible exception.

But there’s no official definition for gluten sensitivity, or diagnosis – there is a blood test for celiac disease though it still remains undiagnosed for many people!

I certainly sympathize with the cause, and support the NFCA campaign. Going to a gluten-free diet is very difficult- there isn’t much labeling on processed foods or in restaurant menus, and cross-contamination is a common mistake. For someone with celiac disease, the consequences can be disastrous- even a small amount can affect them for more than a month, and not be out of their system for half a year. It’s serious stuff- some people need to avoid gluten as seriously as those with nut or dairy allergies since it can lead to infertility, reduced bone density aka getting osteoporosis and broken bones, neurological disorders, and some cancers. Yet there is not a lot of awareness because the effects build, rather than the immediate reaction you visibly see to allergies, even though the person can feel quite sick from the gluten.

One new learning I walked away with is that the NFCA has Gluten-Free Resource Education and Awareness training available via GREAT Kitchens, and has recently added online training modules for food service professionals. If they complete all the courses they get a special sticker to place in the restaurant so you know they have gone through training on gluten-free food preparation and cross-contamination avoidance. It also puts them as a listed resource here if you are gluten-free and traveling/looking for a safe gluten-free eating place. Sadly, you can see that this is a program that is not being taken advantage of, which is how you encounter common problems such as contamination where a gluten free bread is created, but then cut with the same knife as other breads! So thank goodness for this Table Tour! During the Gluten-Free dinner at Imperial, Chef Paley, whose wife is gluten-free, pledged that he and his staff are going to take this training!

Gluten-Free Dinner at Imperial Recap

But now let’s look at the food right? What a fabulous meal this Gluten-Free Dinner at Imperial was, and it’s all gluten free, all these courses, all! And I love that Imperial has lighting so you can enjoy the colors and presentation of the food! I was at a table full of other PDX bloggers, and it was fun as we all pulled out and snapped photos with every single dish!

First, we kicked off with a cocktail called the Rickshaw. It included a special Paley’s sorghum whiskey with bonal quinquina, cocchi americano rose, and hibiscus rose bitters. The sorghum whiskey was a very special bottle for Vitaly Paley that was distilled from Bob’s Red Mill sorghum and prepared at the gluten free brewery facility Harvester Brewery (I love their chestnut gluten free beer) and then fermented, distilled and bottled by Clear Creek Distilling. Essentially, this sorghum whiskey is an American version of Baijiu, which is a Chinese alcohol. Go teamwork! Unfortunately, this is his last bottle because it was a one time thing… unless we create demand for them to make more!

Then, we shared several appetizers

• Spiced Popped Sorghum- fun little bites like popcorn, but more flavorful and healthier!
• Shrimp and Chickpea Pancake
• Curried Squash and Goat Cheese Fritters with a green goddess sauce. This was my favorite of the three- so often at a restaurant the batter for fried foods is not going to be gluten-free, but this was so delicious! I may have had 3.

   

For the First Course, we enjoyed a refreshing delicate Oregon Albacore Tuna Sashimi with orange yogurt and tapioca scales and chips. The tapioca was cooked down with chili and cumin, and the two presentations of soft “eggs” and crispy scales gave us great textures of the soft melt in your mouth sashimi contrasting the crunch. This was paired with a crisp white wine, which I took a photo of the bottle but apparently the cameraphone was still “processing” even after the snap so all I have is a motion blur! I am trying to find out what it was. And what poor design is that to have the camera not have taken the photo but giving all other feedback like it has except for a processing text and a progress bar… GRR. The wine was delicious.

Next, the Entree Course was a Slow Roasted Breast of Veal with beef fat roasted sweet potatoes, bordelaise, smoked marrow butter, and grilled frisee, paired with a Helioterra Mourvedre 2011 from Columbia Valley Washington.

   

The Dessert Course was spectacular. It included this Milk Chocolate Icebox Cake with roasted banana, walnuts and toasted meringue, as well as macaroons plus little mini date and almond cakes. That Icebox cake was marvelous, and undeniable proof that you can have delicious and gluten-free food, even in commonly conceived courses like dessert which have traditionally been an area generalized that gluten-free versions are like rocks.

 

The Fall tour continues with them in Seattle until Nov 1 (today), then off Nov 11-12 in San Francisco, and Nov 13-14 in LA, and more dates to come for the other cities!

To find out more:

• National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) for a celiac symptoms checklist as well as  helpful tools, guides and lists to help you live gluten-free or learn to be more aware of your gluten intake. The NFCA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that drives diagnoses of celiac disease and other gluten-related disorders and improves quality of life for those on a lifelong gluten-free diet.  NFCA owns and operates GREAT Kitchens, a web-based gluten-free training program for foodservice professionals.
• Jehangier Mehta and his restaurants in New York, Graffiti Food Wine Bar and Mehtaphor
• Vitaly Paley and his restaurants Paley’s Place, Imperial, and Portland Penny Diner
• Follow NFCA’s Gluten-Free Chef’s Table Tour and join the gluten-free conversation on Twitter through @CeliacAwareness and @jehangir_mehta or by tweeting #GFChefsTable or #GREATKitchens.

I should also plug in that this weekend, on November 2, if you want to find out more there is a  Healthy Living and Gluten Free Expo at the Salem Conference Center in downtown Salem that includes 9 expert speakers and over 50 vendors. You may also want to join the local Facebook group, Gluten Intolerance Group. There is also coming up on Nov 11-17 an online free Gluten Summit.

• You can find more photos from this day in PDX at the Great Kitchens FB page
• Another blogger’s coverage: the content owl
• Beautiful photos at the blog recap of this event by Thyme of Taste
• A recap by fellow PDX blogger Spicy Bee!

Disclosure: This meal was complimentary, but I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.