EVERCLEAR!

I cannot even tell you how excited I am. Tomorrow we are going to a local outdoor music event. We will see a whole long list of bands, including the advanced jazz band from the high school Brick is entering next month. But the one I am most excited about? The whole reason we bought tickets? One of my all time favorite bands ever?

EVERCLEAR.

Oh yes. Everclear. One of the very best music groups to come out of the 90s. One of my personal favorites. Creators of some of the bestest songs ever.

There are just not words to express how incredibly excited I am to go see them tomorrow! And also all of the other great bands which be playing... but... EVERCLEAR! Dude, I am all sorts of over-the-moon here! I love them. The ringtone on my phone? 'Volvo Driving Soccer Moms'. So excited.

And of course that means I had to make the Dude a lunch to celebrate and anticipate:

The cherry and grape tomatoes and the lemon cucumber in the smallest segment of the Easy Lunchbox are from my garden, picked fresh today. Lemon cucumbers, if you've never had them before, are delicious! They have a lighter, crisper flavor than regular cucumbers.

Under the 'Wonderful' chocolate chip cookie, he has a sliced peach. I used silicone baran like these to protect the cookie from peach juice, keeping it from getting soggy.

For the main dish, he has shredded cabbage topped with slices of Italian sausage leftover from dinner, and cheese letters spelling out the title of one of Everclear's most popular songs.

I was also very impressed with the group who is in charge of the event. The festival is a family friendly local event and some of the proceeds are being donated to support local music for children. There will be activities for children at the event, and children under a certain age get in free. The Dude and I have instilled a deep love of music in our children, and they are almost as excited to go as we are. However, there is a strict rule against outside food or beverage at the event. 

And that is where we almost came to a screeching halt. When you have a kid with food allergies to food ingredients which are extremely common, you can never just assume that there will be safe food available for purchase. Unfortunately, there almost never is safe food available from food vendors. And even if they have a gluten-free item on their menu, we have to be absolutely certain that allergy-safe food handling procedures were followed to eliminate risk of cross contamination. Also, many gluten-free snack foods have soy and/or almond flour, are cooked in soybean or peanut oil, contain soy lecithin or garlic... the list of possible dangers goes on and on. Not bringing his food is not an option. 

Full of hope, but not expecting much, I emailed the event coordinators to ask whether exceptions were made for food allergies. In less than five minutes they had emailed me back, assuring me that they most certainly do make an exception for food allergies. They instructed me to let security at the gate know that one of our party has food allergies and there will be no hassle with bringing his food in. Their speedy response and clear reassurance were fantastic and I was very impressed!

Can't wait 'til Saturday! 

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