Point taken. And a good point, too. There is always a risk when not
preparing ones own food, and an even greater risk at places that specialize
in cheesy foods.

We try to balance that against the fact that restaurant food can be quite a
bit more tasty than we can prepare, and the risk is sometimes worth it, to
live slightly more "normal" lives. There are so many sacrifices that we
have to make that sometimes it's worth it to us to risk exposure.

On the other hand, my son is so hair-trigger allergic to eggs that we never
go out to a restaurant for lunch that is still in the process of serving
brunch - there's just too much of a risk of cross-contamination on the
grills. I guess it's an individual thing to assess the degree of risk and
to decide just how much risk is tolerable. We avoid extreme risks, and
carry medications always because, no matter how careful we are, there is
always some degree of risk.

Both my son and I have had relatively good experiences, and find that, for
the most part, Bertucci's does a good job of preparing foods dairy-free
when requested to do so. Neither of us is so hair-trigger that a few
molecules will trigger anaphylaxis. A good dose, though, is a problem, and
that's where we would prefer some predictability in the process.

In fact, that's the issue that I discussed with them, and they were quite
receptive. I even asked what the baseline recipe for this item was supposed
to be, and asked if it was reasonable to request a special order on this
item; I said that if was not a reasonable request, I'd happily stop
ordering it. It turns out that the baseline recipe does have Romano cheese
on the bread. The problem was that there was not only little consistency
with that recipe, but that it was our experience that it was very rarely
prepared with the cheese. There was also confusion in the restaurant as to
the preparation of the food, and a breakdown in their handling of special
requests. All of this came as a surprise to the Risk Management person, and
she appreciated these as contributing to a lack of predictability and
therefore an increase in risk.

In this era of growing prevalence of severe food allergies, restaurants
need to have some clear means of handling them, and clear policies and
procedures. Even if their policy is to say that they can't cater to these
requests, or that they can't guarantee the allergy safety of foods would be
better than a policy of saying it'll be fine and then having it not be.
Both we and those serving us bear responsibility in preventing crises.

Mark

At 11:58 PM 1/17/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Mark Feblowitz wrote:
>
> > Just wanted to tell you what happened with me and Bertucci's this week.
> >
> > My boss ordered us all dinner. I requested the Bruschetta, and, having been
> > burned there before, I asked him to make sure the it had NO CHEESE ON IT. I
> > even told him to shout it, because he would have to, to get the message
> > through. He did, three times, even telling them that the person eating it
> > had a serious dairy allergy. He was told "we don't make our Brucschetta
> > with cheese." Still, he insisted that it get recorded on the order.
>
>I've never heard of Bertucci's, but assuming is the Brick Oven Pizzeria I
>found via a google search, why would you eat food prepared there if you
>have a serious enough milk allergy that you carry benadryl and an epi-pen?
>
>All I get from a single exposure is canker sores, and I eat at Italian
>places maybe once a year if that frequently.  I generally avoid eating out
>at any places other than a few steak places or Chinese, Japanese (sushi),
>or Thai, and even at these places you have to be careful and can get
>screwed since some steak places will normally dip steaks in clarified
>butter before cooking them, many Chinese places (the more Americanized
>ones) have at least some items with dairy in them, and the Americanized
>sushi places make some rolls with cream cheese, which presents a possible
>source of cross contamination.
>
>I used to order pizza without cheese...but cross contamination seems like
>such a likely occurance, I stopped years ago.  I won't even go to Subway
>anymore for the same reason.  Last I looked (several years ago), their
>bread was safe (non-dairy), but so many times I've been to Subways where
>they've managed to sprinkle grated cheese all over (the prep board, the
>vegie containers, etc.) that they're simply incapable of making food I can
>safely eat.
>
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