From the February Newsletter

Annual Potluck Dinner
Our first meeting of 2008 is our potluck dinner. It will be held Saturday, March 8, at 1pm. The location is the East Evangelical Free Church at 14725 East Harry. Please bring one or two covered dishes and your own table service. Drinks will be provided. Please provide a recipe for each item. This is important for our members with other food allergies and also, if possible, we like to include the recipes from our meetings in the next newsletter.

Nancy Marrs from Homemade Gourmet will be talking to us about her company's gluten-free mixes and how they can be used to make home-cooked meals easier and faster to prepare.

Directions to the church: The church is located near 143rd St East and Harry. From Kellogg and K-96, go east about 1/3 mile to 143rd St, turn right(south) and go one mile to Harry. Turn left (east) on Harry and the church will be another 1/3 mile. It is on the south side of the road. Enter the church at the double doors on the east side of the church.

Renewal Time
It's time to pay dues for 2008. Our new year begins in January. If you want to continue to receive the newsletter and information about our meetings please bring $12 with you to the next meeting or contact Bev Eades for her address to mail it in, you can find Bev's email address under the contact info.

CEO's (Celiacs Eating Out)
We are planning three dinners out this year. Our first dinner is a pizza party at Bernie's Pizza at 2342 S. Maize Rd on Saturday April 19, 2008 at 2pm. No need to bring your own crusts, we will provide Nature's Hilights crusts at a cost of $3 each. Bernie has a way with a gluten-free crust and his pizzas are always marvelous. Please call Marty Weeks at 684-4017 with your reservation.

Mentors
The group feels it would be beneficial to develop a mentoring program to help those with celiac who have questions or need help with the diet between our scheduled meetings. If you would like to be a mentor or if you would like to have a mentor that you could contact with questions or concerns call Marty Weeks at 684-4017 or email her at martyweeks@cox.net

Prepared Gluten-Free Meals
This item didn't make it into the newsletter so I thought I would post it instead. I have a friend who cooks for me once a month and then puts everything in individual containers. Kinda like homemade tv dinners, all gluten-free. I generally decide on the menu and then she does the cooking.

My friend's name is Nancy and she is willing to cook for others, or at least sit down and figure out if it would work for you. The price would probably depend on how often and how long she cooks. You would supply the groceries (unless otherwise arranged) and she would most likely cook at your house to prevent cross-contamination, but since she currently only cooks for me, she is open to other arrangements. Whether you live by yourself and hate to cook (like me) or you have a family and don't have time to cook, this could be a good alternative to Simple Supers or Dream Dinners and other things like that were you may not have much to chose from. If you are interested give Nancy a call at 440-3934 and tell her you got her name from Staci.

She is not a celiac but she has been cooking for me since August and I have not had any problems. I just make sure I have groceries that are gluten-free and tell her what I want and what I want in it and she goes from there. Again, if you are interested give Nancy a call at 440-3934 and tell her you got her name from Staci.

Thanks!

Staci