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THE GOOD WORD Vol. 17: Michael Savett of Gluten Free Philly
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THE GOOD WORD Vol. 17: Michael Savett of Gluten Free Philly
The Good Word is a weekly Meal Ticket feature where we ask Philadelphia food people questions. We�re going to start by highlighting the city�s many excellent food writers and bloggers, with eventual plans to extend beyond the scribeosphere. The questions will be different every week unless we come across a really sweet one we want to reuse. Want to nominate a future Good Word candidate (yes, you can nominate yourself), or submit ideas for questions? E-mail drew.lazor@citypaper.net.
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In this installment of The Good Word, we�re chatting with Michael Savett, founder of the blog Gluten Free Philly, A partner in a Philadelphia law firm who resides in Cherry Hill, Savett founded GFP in March 2009. Updated about thrice weekly, the blog explores and chronicles gluten-free dining options in the greater Philadelphia area.
What is your personal connection to celiac disease and what motivated you to start the site?
My older son, now 8, was diagnosed with celiac disease at age 3, so our family is well-versed on the gluten-free diet. I started Gluten Free Philly because I wanted to establish a resource not only for residents of the Philadelphia area, but also for visitors and tourists. My wife and I like to travel with our kids, and I have frequently found myself going to enormous lengths to track down "safe" restaurants in cities we would be visiting. I maintain links to gluten free-friendly restaurants, markets and the like in the tri-state area on my site so that people can find places near where they live, work or visit that can accommodate them.
How prepared and willing have you found Philadelphia-areas restaurants to be in accommodating gluten-free restrictions? Are more restaurants are becoming sensitive to celiacs as awareness of the disease grows?
The biggest hurdle for restaurants willing to accommodate gluten-free diets is in educating the kitchen and service staff. For people with celiac disease, it's not acceptable to eat a burger or chicken breast taken off of a wheat bun or gluten-free pasta boiled in water used for wheat pasta because of the cross-contamination. Some restaurants, like Lolita in Philadelphia and Pasta Pomodoro in Voorhees, N.J., get it. Restaurants who make it known that they have separate prep areas and different pots and utensils are going to do better because of the confidence that gluten-free diners [will have]. Iron Hill Restaurant, which has locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, recently introduced a two-page gluten-free menu with about 40 items, including chicken wings. I see more chain restaurants adding gluten-free items all the time, so I think the independents will follow suit. I'd like to see some place in Center City serve gluten-free pizza � that's the Holy Grail for me.
You're a lawyer by trade but you also write about food, just like other attorney/dining scribes like Jeffrey Steingarten or our own David Snyder. Is this coincidental, or is there more common ground between legal work and food writing than meets the eye?
I think it's a coincidence. While it helps as a lawyer to be a creative thinker, in my view the profession doesn't really allow for creative writing. Writing about food allows me to get away from jargon, so I can be more creative when working on my blog postings.
While your 8-year-old son is gluten-intolerant, you, your wife and your other son are not. Does this pose a challenge when cooking at home? Do you prepare dishes for everyone that are across-the-board gluten-free, or do you cook separately to accommodate everyone?
Sometimes our meals at home are completely gluten-free, and other times not. We have a double oven at home, with one used just for cooking gluten-free food, along with a separate toaster, pizza cutter and cookware, so we're able to prepare my older son's meals separately without a hassle if need be. I know some families who have completely gone gluten-free even when not all members need to be, but it can get really expensive really quick. A store-bought loaf of gluten-free bread costs around $5-$6 and gluten-free bagels run about $1 each. A large bag of gluten-free pretzels is $8. We are extremely careful about cross-contamination in our house, so we've chosen to not to go that route.
Social comments and analytics for this post... This post was mentioned on Twitter by mealticket: It's Friday, which means it's time for THE GOOD WORD. This week we're talking to Michael Savett from @GFPhilly: http://is.gd/4P1H4...
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