Silly Yak

Do you know what this is???

This is a container of rice spaghetti noodles, as in - not made from wheat, but rather from rice. MMMMmmmmm! These are my sister’s and my mother’s noodles for dinner. We went to Macaroni Grill to celebrate iNik’s birthday. Because iNik suffers from Silly Yak disease, she cannot eat wheat (the spaghetti noodles the rest of the world eats). She has a gluten (wheat protein) allergy.

I’m pretty sure when she was diagnosed by the doctor, he did not say: You have Silly Yak Disease. I’m pretty sure he said Celiac Disease. But if you’re not going to be able to eat wheat for the rest of your life, shouldn’t your disease have a much better name than Celiac? Hence, the Silly Yak Disease was born.

Now, you could focus on all the things you can’t eat if you suffer from Silly Yak, but look on the bright side: iNik still eats: potato chips, chocolate, and ice cream. So it’s not like she’s REALLY suffering. And through the years she’s found better tasting food. I mean, seriously, that first loaf of bread she found, that she was soooo proud of, tasted like Styrofoam and kinda looked like it too. But now she makes mean spice cupcakes and if you didn’t know they were gluten-free, you sure wouldn’t be able to tell by the taste. She claims her bread now is really good, but after the Styrofoam bread, I just can’t bring myself to try it again.

Raising children is much, much easier if they don’t have Silly Yak disease. iNik kept Almost Mine on a gluten-free diet until he was 2. You actually have to be eating gluten to be tested for Silly Yak. He showed up in my pantry and discovered cheerios, goldfish, pretzels, cheese-its and he LOVED them. After introducing these finest of delicacies, what were we going to do if he DID have Silly Yak? I mean, how do you tell a 2 year old, thanks for playing, but you’re not a winner? Thankfully, he does not have Silly Yak and all is well with my pantry.

When iNik was first diagnosed, it was before the Atkins Diet. You would be amazed at the number of fast food employees we could baffle by ordering a cheeseburger with no bread, or a roast beef sandwich sans bread.

You mean you don’t want any bread?

Right.

No bread?

No, no bread thank you.

You just want a hunk of meat on the plate.

Yes, just a hunk of meat, with all the trimmings. Thank you, this is exactly how I envisioned my dinner – hunk of meat….

You would not believe the number of times we have received that hunk of meat – without silverware. Now, just how did they think she was going to eat that hunk of meat?

But at Macaroni Grill, aahhh, life is good with our rice noodles!