Sentinel-node free sounds like another mark against super powers. But I understand it's a good thing.

Plus, as a general rule, I usually have several thoughts for dishes, and it would be easy to make something vegetarian, or without cheese or pork or whatever.

Right? Unless it's something like my mom's annual latke party (if you don't like fried potatoes, you're going to leave hungry), it's not difficult to design a dairy-free/vegetarian/no-peanuts/whatever menu.

(Gluten-free is trickier because gluten hides in places you'd never think to look unless you were also gluten intolerant, but at least knowing in advance gives me the chance to look stuff up before I make bread pudding for dessert.)

That's sad. I can at least handle bacon-level of nitrites, although I try and only buy the nitrite-free stuff for home. However, somewhere I read there's not really any such thing. What's marketed as nitrite-free just means none have been added specifically.

Well, I know that when he has tried stuff that isn't marked nitrite-free, it's like he comes down with a mild flu for three or four days, plus depression. Which makes life oh-so-fun around our house, let me tell you.

Perkins, I am so happy for you!

Whoo, home!

I don't have any food allergies. But I would cry if someone wanted to serve me a big bowl of beets of something. Or really spicy food, that's an issue, because I just can't handle the heat. But still, not allergic.

I empathize, javachik. I have always been a picky eater. I hate that I am, but I am. I've tried things and my tastes have gotten a bit broader as an adult but I still feel on guard about eating at someone's house. It's even worse when I'm good about eating low-glycemic because my choices are then even more limited.

Plei, my mom has that adult-onset onion thing. Actually, it's a reaction to sulfur in them so it extends to bell peppers, hot peppers, etc. It used to be enough if she just didn't eat any but now we can't even prepare them with her in the house. I'm really hoping I didn't inherit that particular trait.

Vegetarianism (or avoidance of any particular meat) is super-easy for me to accommodate. I have the opposite problem when my mother or in-laws are in town - to them (I guess a generational thing) a meal is not a meal unless there is meat, AND nothing can be spicy at all, and my mother is lactose intolerant, so nothing creamy or cheesy. I find it hard to come up with enough variations on meat plus starch plus veg that are fast and not stunningly boring for the average 4-dinner visit, and meat is so expensive!

Glad it went well, Perkins, and that you now have juliana's company to boot.

Plei has actually found wheat-free noms that I keep in the pantry now. She did have to wrest a cupcake from my grasp and nudge me toward the just-for-me wheatless cake on one occasion, but the cake was surprisingly delicious!

The next-door neighbor has been dithering about having us to dinner--"But what *can* you eat?" Any meat, fish, or poultry, any veg except onions, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, and tomatoes. Plenty of rice pasta around, or even rice, brown or white, your choice, or neither. I've learned to live without white food. So, grilled chicken or fish, corn on the cob (which is in season now) or off, steamed string beans, broccoli, leaf greens, sweet potato, carrots, cabbage, green peas, brussels sprouts, raw zucchini and summer squash, your choice. Please no beets, turnips, parsnips, rutebaga, or cauliflower. Hummus and celery sticks are good. Hummus and pita, NSM. I could eat dip with a spoon, I reckon, since chips are out, but it sort of negates the whole chips and dip thing. Or we could skip it and just do crudites. There's lots to eat, once you get marinara and wheat pasta, or meat and potatoes off the list.

Now that I am willing to learn to pipe up, what is the absolute most polite way to say it?

"Thanks for the invitation -- I should let you know that I'm a vegetarian*. I can't wait to see you!"

And I second everything Vortex says about hosts *wanting* to know people's needs, and also what Plei says about having the food-prefs-rolodex of regular guests in one's head. Being veg is not at all being rude or picky or imposing on your hosts. And I'd have you over for scads of non-meat, seafood optional and sustainably caught only, any time you want.

* For relatively foodie areas/hosts, "pescetarian" is also totally understandable, but I'm not sure that, say, my in-laws would know what it means.

Other likes/dislikes I think are context dependent. If you know they're having pizza, I don't see anything wrong with saying "can I make a request for please no mushrooms?" If it's more a dinner party, I'd let it go and assume I could eat around them in most cases.

Heh. I agree with this and it's my usual policy re: Stuff I Don't Like, but it did result this past weekend in going to a friend's house for dinner (she knows I'm a vegetarian) and eating a dish of eggplant, tomato, and mushrooms -- pretty much my three least favorite foods. I mean, I ate it, of course, and it was actually fine, so I suppose even in this case it wasn't a bad policy, just kind of funny. (Plus, yes, I know tomatoes & mushrooms are just about the most ubiquitous vegetables there are, and I'm not about to ask people to cut them out when cooking for me; I don't mind eating them in small quantities, or prepared certain ways, anyway.)

A group of my friends put together a google doc a while back that listed all of our food intolerances/dislikes/restrictions. Very handy when cooking for a group that includes vegetarians, vegans, one person with a major nut allergy, and, er, picky ol' me!

When the onion in a cheddar onion brat is enough to put it off limits?

But... but onions aren't even, like, a real vegetable! They're just flavoring! Mmmmmmm, onions.