This year my Mom and I headed to Oaks for the
Gluten Free Expo. It was held on Saturday May 18 10:30am until 4pm. We arrived just before 10:30 and had to stand in line but it was a lovely day and we met a nice family in line who I chatted with about all things gluten free.
Once inside my Mom was ready to go get everything but I had to calm her down and mention that I wanted to try and get a gluten free funnel cake this year. We missed out last year and I had been thinking about it every day since then. So we walked down to the food truck and found a line BUT not as long as I thought and not as long as it would become not too much longer after we got in it.
Our friends from the entrance line ended up two people behind us and we chatted some more, this time about our excitement for gluten free funnel cake. Also available at the truck were dounut holes, corn dogs and pizza. We heard nothing but rave reviews for all of it but couldn’t wait to have our own opinion in about 10 minutes after ordering I was holding my holy gluten free grail.
It was warm, light and absolutely delicious. I must have had mis-remembered thoughts on funnel cake because I really thought we could never eat the whole thing and not be so full we couldn’t eat the other samples but I was wrong. It was very light and it while a good size it was not overwhelming. I got teary as I thought how wonderful it was that I could eat this and someone took the time to figure out how to make it for us. I watched families with little children able to enjoy what everyone else was enjoying and it was just so heart warming.
Then we were off to try everything else. And everything else we did indeed try. Everyone was so nice and everything but one thing was delicious. We had Petit Pot pudding, cheesecake, three kinds of pizza, BBQ chicken (my favorite sample), Happy Mixer everything, Buddha bread (one of my favorites from last year), soft pretzels, and I think more than I can remember. No Promise Bread unfortunately as that would have been a large purchase if they were there again.
The one thing I definitely did not like was the Nomato Ketchup and Nomato Sauce. I was very hopeful that it would be good because I know a few people that can’t eat tomatoes so I thought this would be a nice change. I don’t even think I could guess what it actually tasted it like but it did not taste like tomato but it didn’t taste like the veggies that were in it either. So glad they had samples because I would have been very disappointed if I bought this and took it home.
We didn’t win any door prizes and while we bought some things it was way less than last year. There did seem to be less free samples to take home compared to last year also but honestly that was fine with me. Last year hubby and I ate way too much there and brought way too much home so I was good to be able to find places to put all our wares this year :)
Free Samples
Coupons and Reading Materials
Our purchased items
I highly recommend this expo if you are gluten free. It is only $10 and it is a great way to try some new things and learn all about celiac and gluten free. There are panels too throughout the day but I did not attend any. I hear they are very good.
It is just so amazing to look around the expo center and know I can eat everything in the building. A freeing time for sure.
Lastly I recommend that if you want anything from the food truck that you head there right away upon entering the expo or buy a VIP ticket and use it to be able to buy the food at the food truck. They sell out of things and the line at one point was taking 1.5 hours to get through. Now while I think it is I worth this wait I wouldn’t really want to wait that long and miss out on the other things. So prepare or divide and conquer if you are going with other people.
Oh and bring bags and in our case my Mom’s rollator was a HUGE help with said bags. You get a bag when you enter the expo but you mostly like will need more than that one bag :)
