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.

I'm home! Juliana is here, and we are going to watch TV.

Hooray! And also hooray for good sentinal node news!

I had a houseguest (Carole Blymire, Nora!) in July who has Celiacs and it was actually kind of fun to figure out what to have on hand for her. We ended up eating really well (thanks to her doing all of the cooking - I got a little taste of what Jilli and Pete got when they had their friend the nutritionist living with them!) and I surprised her by having Bob's Red Mill gluten-free steelcut oatmeal AND some Mrs May's snacks.

(thanks to her doing all of the cooking - I got a little taste of what Jilli and Pete got when they had their friend the nutritionist living with them!)

sobs

Our Heather has gotten her own apartment! I'm very happy for her (and she's still nearby), but oh lord, I miss having someone who cooks staying with us.

How white is your neighbourhood? Detroit actually made me gasp out loud.

I sometimes ask if the menu is already selected. I do live in TX and I don;t eat red meat or pork.

There's some pretty good Indian around town. Also Thai. You might like this place as well [link]

How white is your neighbourhood? Detroit actually made me gasp out loud.

Wow, fascinating. Baltimore is still very segregated (not shocking, it's pretty hard to not realize this).

I mean, I knew that about Detroit. I lived there. I read the articles. I got the stares. But every time I see the pictures it makes me so sad.