Seeler, I agree it's a good to do things like that for a potluck!  My mom has to eat the plain stuff most of the time too.  Meals at my parents have become fairly flavourless most of the time, but she still goes all out for Christmas.

Mike: barnbrack -- i'm not a fan of citron, but the bread sounds good. Do you think you could substitue other dried fruit?..

As a vegetarian, I almost always offer to bring something to the meal - even if it is not potluck. This way I am not making the meal creation more difficult for the host - and I know that there will be at least one main dish that I can eat (like Chemgal said - subsisting on things like bread and salad is not so much fun at a meal like Christmas Dinner).

That's a great thing to do somegal.  When I am hosting a dinner I'm finding it increasingly difficult to prepare for large groups - so many people don't eat this or that.  Common ground seems to be thinning!  It's disappointing  to take extra care to prepare in consideration of all the retrictions and then still have people decline what is on offer.   So as a hostess, I would certainly receive your offering most thankfully :-)  

I also have some dietary restrictions - and often bring along substitutes - eg if it's a hamburger BBQ I'll tuck in my own bun & quietly present it to the cook; these are usually welcomed by the host.  I do try not to make an issue about it. 

If it was dairy or something, I would see the issue.  I thought the no fish would be ok, and I talked to MIL about it already including foods that commonly have it.  That was over a month ago.

Since then they have frozen some meals to take back with us that I can't eat, and it was just a few days ago I found out about how that turkey, stuffing & gravy would have all had fish/been in contact with fish.  The way things are handled some of the other side dishes would have been contaiminated too.  lol I guess it's good to pay attention to nightmares sometimes!

Ping: There are orange and lemon essences you can get and orange flower water which gives a pleasant tangy flavour. I use fresh orange peel, de-pithed with sharp knife and very finely sliced.

Or you could leave it out and get fruit bread instead. 

A lot of the pleasure for me is emulating a "foreign" flavour… and I have yet to encounter a culture that's proud of a food creation that tastes "bad". My turkey phobia comes from buying a whole turkey and a bag of rice when I first arrived in Canada becuase it was the stuff I could get most of with the very very mimited funds I had. I spun it out too long and suddenlt found myself convulsing, vomiting and, in the end, dehydrating and hallucinating. I'vr got over it… pretty much. But I still don'y LIKE turkey.

I knew a man with ALS.  He had his meals poured into his stomach through a feeding tube.  He loved to join with the family for birthdays and celebrations.  I'm sure he missed being able to eat the meals like everybody else.  He could probably smell the turkey cooking, or the barbeque, or whatever.  He remembered ice cream on a hot day - and chocolat.

He had been the family cook on weekends or his days off work.  He continued to make special meals for his wife every now and the.

It must have been hard. 

Hard? Maybe a joy?

Making a meal can be enjoyed as a creative act of love. 

Mike, I am like you, I think. I do love to cook and to figure out recipes.  Good point regarding it wanting that citron flavour. Homemade citron would be good, it's that purchased stuff that just doesn't appeal.  May give it a go over Christmas while I am off.

Right now, I am reviewing recipes to build the grocery list.  A variety of items of cooking dinner.  I have family bringing dessert, other than a trifle.  

When my son was little and we would go to my Mom's she would try to make stuff without nuts.  We realized at Christmas that the cookies weren't as good as they were designed to have nuts, ditto on not having chocolates with nuts, etc.  Everyone was losing out and most times he wouldn't eat the items anyhow. We came to realize it was easier for all if he ate specific items that were safe and we didn't have most of the cookies and grandma went back to her old recipes.  Grandma made one batch for him that were nut free.  It worked.

Chemgal, so it is all fish that you are allergic / sensitive to, or just shell fish?  Unusual to have both cause issues.  Is there anything else anyone would need to ocnsider?  Would you consider offering to make a ham and doing it in a slow cooker when you arrive? 

Of course, I do get tired and then sometimes have to say "guess that isn't happening", or...dang ...we will have to celebrate the 12 days of christmas....it was tougher when the kids were little, but also soooo much fun.  The trick was to learn to go with the flo.  If someone got sick, then it was time to watch movies and wrap gifts. If someone needed to go to hockey, then shopping was done from when dropped off to when picked up.  Planning started early...church helped for that, because got a bunch done with the first week of advent.

It's fish that's the problem.  Shellfish is ok, except for shrimp.  I used to just pick shrimp out of dishes but have gotten sick from that too, it's not a breathing thing though.

I was tested against all seafood, and it all came back negative.  Then I had a bad allergic reaction to salmon.  The second set of testing came back positive for salmon and cod.  The allergist wouldn't even tell me which came back positive the 2nd time beside confirming salmon.  Since the first set of testing wasn't accurate when it should have been for that severe of an allergy and cross-reactivity does develop I have to rule out all fish.

The inlaws are willing to accomodate for this, but they need to pay attention if that's what they decide to do.  I don't understand how they can do gluten free for people who are really sensitive to it but are clueless about fish after I've told them about the things it would probably be hidden in.

chemgal, it sounds like you're taking it a bit personally that they don't yet fully understand how to accomodate your dietary issues.  It's complex & takes time to learn & understand - I hope you can be graceful in teaching them and not feel insulted as they try to do what they can, but still make errors.  

This thread really has turned into a big food allergy thing, and it really isn't the biggest issue with being Christmas-ed out, although I am annoyed about this happening with the testing.  It would have just been better to have not gotten the testing, and gone on as I had before, not eating fish as an entree or something really obvious like that.

I actually get along really well with my inlaws, so it doesn't come down to a personal thing, but I am honestly confused.  The Celiac thing is relatively new, I think this is the 3rd Christmas and the person doesn't live with them, but they all are in the same city.  I would put that more into the difficult to accomodate category.  I thought a quick mention about this would be easy when they have already gotten into the habit of checking labels and even calling manufacturers when necessary.  Fish is at least something that needs to be on a food label, unlike gluten.

It is difficult sometimes to tell exactly what is in some purchased items.  That was why I chose to organise fairly simple dishes and leave condiments and extras for others to decide on.  One person is deathly allergic to fish - but the meats will be safe (can't imagine hiding something fishy in the roast!) so will the vegetables.  That person can at gluten but the other one will have to go without some things - cake for example - but he says that will work for him.   When we spoke about this situation he said - I'll bring some gluten free bread along and if you provide some meat, fish, cheese, fruit and veggies I can choose what I want and it will work out  great. 

Chemgal, I'm confused, there is fish in the turkey?  I 've heard of turducken but never turfishen.  Does the dressing have shrimp?

Worcestershire sauce in both the stuffing inside the turkey and the gravy.  The same utensils also end up in the carrots, potatoes, etc.  FIL is no longer planning on using it since Chemguy called specifically about Christmas dinner, but I will be double checking once we're there.  It is a bit concerning, as that was the main ingredient that I brought up about a month ago when I first brought up the allergy, and Chemguy has mentioned it since then too, we just didn't have a discussion about turkey dinner specifically until this week.

It was a bit weird, I had the nightmare and the feeling nagged at me all day.  When Chemguy got home I asked him that his Dad wouldn't do something silly like putting the sauce into the gravy or something, right?  I've never made gravy unless the packaged stuff counts.  Chemguy thought I was being silly but called FIL anyway and sure enough...

To give him the benefit of the doubt, it is possible he would have read the label right when cooking and noticed it then.  They like to do big batches of soups, stews, etc and freeze some for us to take home though and everything that has been done for us has it in them.  Chemguy will still enjoy them!

I thought the same thing until the dream Kay!

Chemgal, for the utensils, ask to do what we always did, serve yourself from the pot.  

Everyone serves themselves from the pot, and utensils go from one thing to another during cooking most of the time when nothing is raw.  Things should be good as long as FIL remembers, and since I'm there pretty early I should be able to remind him before things get going.

The entire way they used to do things in the kitchen isn't great for allergy suffers, they bought new stuff when the Celiac diagnosis was made.  My sister had keys to our place and when she lived further away she knew she could stay if the roads were bad or she was tired.  One year she left a few days before us after Christmas.  I was at the inlaws when I got a call from my mom that she was going to stay at our place for the night.  I quickly called her to tell her not to eat any jarred honey or jam - it was all contaiminated with peanut butter.  Chemguy has told me if I develop a peanut allergy that's it, we can't live together.  He gets that stuff EVERYWHERE!  lol We grew up with very different kitchen habits.  I use a new knife and cutting board to cut up 2 different types of cheese unless I'm using one up.  He thinks that's nuts.

Hopefully we can all get some good weather tomorrow.  It's about -20 (-30 with windchill) but there's a freezing rain warning for overnight.  Weird for here when it's this cold.  I'm going to head to the hospital first thing, hopefully can get through that relatively quickly then will come back home to pack to leave.  Does anyone have any idea how busy the outpatient lab services will be?  I figure it will be one extreme or the othere - really busy or really quiet.  I usually avoid the mornings if I can as it tends to be busy because of the fasting tests, but ideally we'll be on the road in the morning.