Brave new world & breadsticks

NEWS that a posho West End restaurant has been forced to close its doors wouldn’t usually fill me with glumness. But, oh, how I am bemoaning the loss – temporary or not – of Locanda Locatelli.

The celebrated Portman Square hangout has been left homeless following a gas explosion in the five-star Hyatt Regency Churchill hotel that houses it.

And now its chef-patron, Giorgio Locatelli, says he may abandon the site and try to re-open elsewhere.

So why my gloom? Well, because a visit to Locanda Locatelli last year marked the beginning of a brave new world for us as a family. It’s where we ate our first meal out, fully catered for Sidney.

We cannot guarantee…

SO today I had a call back from the head of the primary school we expect Sidney will be going to.

I had a mini tour of it a few weeks back and it seemed very warm and jolly. We were shown round by some older kids who were pretty clued up when I asked if any pupils had food allergies; I also spoke to the SENCO (the Special Needs Co-Ordinator) at the time, and she said all the right things. As soon as I walked into Reception I clocked the tots playing with egg boxes and lentils (!) but she assured me that equipment and lessons would all be made safe.

Then the head rang me today, because I requested a quick chat with him before we apply in January, and the first thing he said was: “It’s about allergies, isn’t it? Well, I have to say we can’t guarantee anything.”

Living on the egg-dge

SORRY, sorry. Just trying to find a way to express how daring my day was. Because today I took Baby Two for scrambled eggs.

It’s been almost exactly a year since the last time we managed to get some scramble down her – last December, on my birthday, during one night away from Sidney when Sadie was still too small to be left with her grandparents overnight.

Since then it’s been playing at the back of my mind. Every few months some article or other pops up on my Twitter feed proclaiming that avoidance of certain foods could actually lead to the development of allergies.

Hello…

Dear readers, I do confess, it’s been seven months since my last posting… What can I say, other than a demented 18-month-old, a four-going-on-14-year-old and the paid work I can squeeze into the moments when they are both asleep (ha!) mean I have reluctantly neglected my station?

There’s been so much I’ve wanted to blog about, too. This has been the Year of the Allergy Mama on a Mission. Our grassroots campaign to fight Alpro’s decision to merge nut and soya milk production and slap a ‘may contain nuts’ warning on all their soya products resulted in victory when they backtracked and agreed to keep the lot, bar chilled yoghurts, free from cross contamination.

Yes peas

DID IT! Passed our hospital green pea challenge! Three pots of peas scoffed before lunch and all is good. We now have to wait 48 hours to ensure no delayed reaction, then come Saturday we can embark upon a pea frenzy. I think the key to our success this time was the dress code. I can strongly vouch for the curative powers of a top hat.

 

 

The Allergy Appointment Day Special

WHILE Sidney has been going to see his “Dr Bob” ever since he was six months old, it’s only been during the last two or three hospital visits that he has really understood what is going on.

Until our most recent round of skin prick tests, he would sit cheerily on my knee tinkering with toys and never showing any upset.

This latest time, with Sidney a full year older than the last, we had caterwauling from the outset – but not to the needles. It was the height and weight machines that had him fleeing.

Nearly. But not this time.

GAH, WE fell at the final hurdle. We failed the baked egg challenge.

It was so close. Over the course of the morning, Sidney managed a whole muffin with no reaction and we were five minutes from being given the all-clear to go. In fact, the nurses had written his letter confirming a successful trial and we were gathering our coats when The Hive appeared.

The challenges of an egg challenge…

TOMORROW we are going into hospital for a ‘baked egg challenge’. This means that Sidney will be fed a pre-baked, egg-containing muffin in incremental doses to see if he reacts.

Apparently 80 per cent of egg allergic children can tolerate baked (i.e. “extensively heated”) egg.

‘Do You Want My Family’s Business?’

SO, YESTERDAY WAS my debut into the (sorta) professional world of allergy. I was a guest speaker at a seminar for the catering industry on the upcoming changes to food labelling.

Despite my strong views on the subject, I wasn’t there to pontificate on the rights and wrongs of the new labelling legislation – I reckon that would only confuse the catering delegates even more, and I can tell you after yesterday that many of them are already confused enough about existing, never mind impending, allergy regulations.

I was invited as an ‘Allergy Mum’ by the organisers FATC to speak about the daily struggle to find safe places to eat, and food to buy, for my child.

So below is my presentation. It wasn’t slick, and my PowerPoint skills are rudimentary, but I hope it got some people thinking about the struggle we face to find allergy safe food. It is, as fellow speaker Michelle Berriedale-Johnson of Foods Matter succinctly put it, a “pain in the balls”.

Skin prickles, Peppa Pig, peas & more: allergy tests at three

IT’S BEEN a year since we last had Sidney skin prick tested and in that intervening period we’ve come on in leaps and bounds.

The wheat allergy bit the dust this summer and, since having a succession of negative and low skin prick results, we’ve been able to introduce some new foods: cannellini beans, butter beans, baked beans, coconut, mango, pineapple, melon, kiwi… The culinary world is opening up, and for that I am hugely grateful.