This is Gluten Free!
The Flatheads were gathered at the Diner last Wednesday, their weekly vintage car guyz breakfast that gave the parking lot the feel of a time machine run amok. Most Wednesdays the boyz order ‘the usual’ from Anita or Brenda, both waitresses pretty versed in their preferences. But this last Wednesday Vee Dub Danny asked Brenda if he could get gluten-free toast instead of his usual wheat.
He might as well have backfired a sausage fart. The three tables jammed together stopped what they were saying and all eyes turned on Vee Dub. “What did I do?” he asked the breakfasteers. “I’m just trying to cut out gluten. Jeez … you never heard of wheat allergies?”
Oh, the Flatheads had heard of it all right, they just didn’t believe in it and they certainly didn’t believe Vee Dub had it. “You been eating wheat toast and extra butter every week for years, Danny,” Jerry told him. “Next week you’ll have lactose intolerance.”
“Actually …” Vee Dub started to say but stopped when half the Flatheads smirked at what they thought was coming. Brenda, ever efficient, could see the orders bottlenecking like Seattle traffic. “Maybe take the rye, “she suggested helpfully, but when Vee Dub asked if it had wheat, she said she’d have to look at the ingredients on the bag.
“Take a risk, Dan,” a voice shouted from downwind, “we got to eat before lunch.”
Vee Dub started to look over the menu, probably the first time in years, but he faltered under the collective silence and Brenda’s waiting pencil. “Rye toast,” he announced to the assembled mechanics in a determined voice, then added quietly, “but hold the butter.”
It’s difficult to determine, on the unforgiving South End, if ciliac disease is as epidemic as the 1% of the outside population who are diagnosed with it, but I did notice the Diner doesn’t serve gluten-free anything. Anyway, I figure most indigestion is from too much of their coffee. And peer group pressure.
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