Cooking Allergy Free

Last week, I was honored to speak and be part of planning a Blogger Summit here in New York City with Mylan Specialty (makers of Epi-Pen). Part of the event was a dinner with everyone the night before and then breakfast and lunch the day of. We worked closely with the Chef of the Strand Bistro, Kelvin Fernandez, whom you may remember I did an Allergic Girl Dines Out Video with last year.



Chef Kelvin’s shellfish allergic so he really understands food allergies, issues of cross contamination and building a delicious menu. Over the course of two days, we collated every diner’s food restrictions, created a safe-for-everyone menu and vetted over every single ingredient and sub-ingredient of every dish.

Here are some gorgeous shots of the chef and I in his kitchen during that vetting process. (Photographs courtesy of Noel Malcom):

For a food allergic group like ours, he opens a new salt to use!

For any dish that used a "processed" food, we looked at each and every label.

Chef always changes his gloves. He also has latex-free gloves for patrons and his latex-allergic sous chef.

The final result was a dinner everyone could enjoy as there were several allergic and intolerant girls at the table.

*Stay tuned for a blog post of the OMG delicious short ribs he made.*

Thank you Chef Kelvin and the Strand Bistro!

PS: Planning a trip to NYC? The Strand Bistro is one of my go-tos for my concierge clients. More about the Chef and the Strand on this blog post.