My Blog

It was the Valentine's Day of the year I was to be married. My then-fiance and now-husband pulled off the most brilliant gift a celiac could ever want.

Since I had been diagnosed with celiac disease mere months after graduating from college, I really had survived my college years on a strong pizza and beer diet. Part of my gluten-free depression that had set in had to do with knowing what I was missing from the gluten-filled real world. And topping my list was knowing that I would never have a Mabe's Pizza from my wonderful college town of Decorah, Iowa. My fiance, who was still totally embracing the idea of romantic Valentine's Days, secretly set off at lunchtime for the 2-hour drive to the town of my alma mater, Luther College. He entered Mabe's and announced that he wanted to buy a bucket of their sauce, a bucket of their cheese and enough toppings to fill out one gluten-free Mabe's Pizza for his bride-to-be. The confused folks at Mabe's obliged, and Steve was soon on the road home to surprise his mopey bride-to-be.

He did have to call in a favor from my mom since he had not yet mastered the art of gluten-free baking. My mom secretly set to work preparing a gluten-free pizza crust, and Steve rushed in to top it off ever-so-perfectly.

I was brought to the dining room table, knowing that Steve had a food surprise of magnificent proportions for me. What could it be? A great loaf of bread? A cinnamon roll? An Egg McMuffin? What item was I missing greatly that my fiance could possibly produce in gluten-free form? When he asked me, in front of my parents, what I missed most, I decided to make it too hard to for him to succeed and I rudely said, "A Mabe's Pizza." He couldn't possibly produce that. I was sure to put them all in their place and remind them of the horrible situation I had been handed.

But then, around the corner he came, in full pizza delivery stature. Not only did he have a gluten-free Mabe's Pizza, but he delivered in a Mabe's Pizza box. Yes, there were tears -of joy. Yes, he succeeded in showing me that I could live well as a celiac. And yes, he set himself up to have to outdo himself the next year...and he came quite close.

The next year, we made a gluten-free trip to Olive Garden...