Work Trip to Bethlehem, PA - Food Diary

Hey followers! If you follow me on Twitter, or know me personally, you are well aware that I was concerned about my trip to Bethlehem, PA (city of about 70,000) and what I could possibly find to eat in a small, rural city. I have to say it was a challenge, but luckily I had a patient co-worker, Google, and a cell phone to help.

Traveling is the worst. It is challenging and on top of having to organize your itinerary, your flights, the rental car and the hotel as a Celiac you have to plan out your meals. I've gotten used to flying and the fact that there aren't really options in the airport, so that wasn't too bad...but upon arrival we had to start working almost immediately which left little time to do research.

Luckily, between the two of us we called some of the local places we'd passed on the way to Lehigh University (where the conference was being held) and found a place called Molly's Pub that was willing to work with me. It is quite surprising that a pub would have ANY knowledge of gluten-free or have home made burgers but they did. I ended up with a cheeseburger (no bun of course) and their hummus with veggies. It settled way and I knew I could check one meal off the list.

The next day we got free breakfast at the hotel and it was fairly decent. They had some Fruit at the Bottom yogurt for me along with hard-boiled eggs and juice. No complaints.  At lunch we wandered around near campus, block after block, and finally found an organic cafe called BlueSky Cafe. This was BAD news.

BlueSky Cafe had no idea what I could eat. After going back and forth to the kitchen and dealing with some very unfriendly and unhelpful kitchen staff members they determined that I could have some chicken and vegetables cooked in a pan with potato chips. Please note this was not on the menu...there were tons of things that could have been made g-free but they were unwilling to work with me on it. Anyway, got the meal, started eating and a frazzled woman (come to find out, the owner) runs up to me and says "STOP eating the chips they have gluten in them". OMG...are you serious? We have a presentation in 15 minutes and I could not get sick...luckily I had only had 4 chips and the issues were minimal, phew.

Okay...so after quite a scare at lunch we thought it best to go with a place that we knew had gluten-free menu items, Sagra Bistro for dinner. It was fantastic, but unfortunately a little higher priced (figures). I got the lemon zest chicken, melted mozzarella with tomatoes and even blackberry sorbet for dessert. It was SO nice to have a full meal that I could safely eat and not worry about afterward. I would highly suggest this place if you visit this area.

Last but not least...Sunday. We were done with the conference early and decided to head back toward Philly where we were flying out. We did a search for gluten-free in Philadelphia on Urbanspoon and had a lot of options show up. We ended up visiting a small town on the way called Doylestown...they had TWO pizza places with gluten-free crust. Our first choice was Baked on Main but they weren't open, so we hit up Jules Thin Crust right down the street. It was fantastic...see below:

I was so pleased, I want to open a franchise here! The last mountain to climb was flying home. I got a pleasant surprise when I asked my Continental flight attendant to see the cheese plate...the crackers are separately packaged and it's only $6.95 - whooo! Celiac's go ahead and fly Continental because I can't have anything on any other flights. See below...

So, that was my trip. I avoided getting sick and conquered middle of no where PA. I hope this helps others either at Lehigh, around the area or who may be traveling that way!