Gluten-free Girl

Have I told you that I hate peanut butter?

It's true. When folks offer me things with peanut butter I always decline. People in America find this rather odd—‘round these parts eating peanut butter and jelly is practically a patriotic act. They often lift an eyebrow. What do you mean you hate peanut butter? Is that even possible?

“Overdose as a young child,” I tell them. This usually gets me off the hook. I smile, they laugh, and we move on to other topics.

What I don’t tell them is that when I was young I had chronic earaches each winter. They were so bad we’d often end up in the emergency room, me wailing in pain and my exasperated mother pointing out the other kids in the waiting room who had actual wounds—blood and all—and yet managed to sit quietly and not make a fuss. I had operations on my ears as well, more than one, but nothing seemed to work. At one point a doctor decided I must be allergic to milk and told my mother to take me off all dairy products.

This meant no cheese for cheese sandwiches, and with no meat because we were vegetarians I ate peanut butter nearly every day: peanut butter and jelly; peanut butter and banana; peanut butter and honey. I eventually grew out of the earaches, but the legacy remains: if you offer me peanut butter, I will turn it down.

(unless there is chocolate involved—then it’s a whole new game and all bets are off).

Why am I telling you this? Because I started thinking about this story as I was reading my friend Shauna’s new book—Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back. I am sure many of you have read Shauna’s website and followed her essays and stories about how she was diagnosed with celiac disease, after years of ill health, and was told to cut out all gluten from her life.

(for the record, gluten is the elastic protein in wheat, rye, barley, triticale, kamut, and spelt—but it can hide in a million other places, like lowfat yogurt, a bag of nuts, or pre-grated cheese).

Many people might think of such a thing as a loss—a grievous loss at that—but not Shauna. If you ask her she will tell you that by cutting gluten out of her diet she has gained—a new life, new energy and vitality, a new career as a writer, and a new and sustaining love. If you’ve read her site you’ll know she finds joy and beauty in many places (even episodes of South Park) and that she relishes both good food and life itself. Her joy and exuberance is a tribute to who she is as a person—and it is these emotions that color both her blog and this new beautiful book that landed on my doorstep this week (and let me tell you, opening a package that holds the book written by a dear friend is a lovely and surreal experience indeed).

As I paged through the book I found stories I could relate to. As some of you know, I too have struggled with ill health and food restrictions. At different times I’ve cut out dairy, gluten, sugar, and eggs from my diet. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s something more and more people are grappling with. I am always amazed to see how many people find this website due to a post I put up earlier this year about allergy-free brownies. The writing group I'm in has five members, and at one point three of us were gluten-free (this is where I discovered the Tinkyada brown rice pasta that I like better than wheat pasta). Food sensitivities are a much bigger issue than most of us realize.

Shauna isn’t here right now as I type these words, but if she were I’m sure she would tell me that this is a good thing. She would say that too many people are walking around feeling crappy and not knowing why (maybe even you). She would say that discovering what is making you ill and how to avoid it opens a whole new world—one that is filled with energy and health and delicious food that will entrance you and intoxicate you and won’t make you sick.

Then she’d tell me that I didn’t have to eat peanut butter every day, just because I couldn’t eat cheese. I could have eaten buttery avocado, oven dried tomatoes sprinkled with flaky Maldon salt, or cucumber with hummus made of white beans and Meyer lemon and fresh herbs. She’d tell me there were options—a whole world out there full of them—and then she’d point me in the direction of some amazing recipes and stores that carry vinegars and oils and spices better than any I have ever tasted, and she’d crack some jokes and make it all so fun that soon I’d be swooning with these new flavors and would have forgotten all about that boring old cheese sandwich I didn’t even like that much to begin with.

At its heart, this is what Shauna’s book is about. It’s a story about how, when one door was closed, she simply walked out another door and found an entire world out there she never knew existed and might not have discovered otherwise. A world full of exotic and exciting food—chicken thighs braised in pomegranate molasses, salmon with blackberry sauce, moist and rich chocolate banana bread (yes, there are recipes included!).

When Shauna asked me to participate in her online book tour today, I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about.

I could tell you about my own experiences of eating with food restrictions—that it can be hard, heartbreakingly so sometimes, and then one day you go on a camping trip with your sweetie and find that this person you love with all your heart has spent two days figuring out how to make gluten-free chocolate chip cookies for you and you feel like the skies have parted and angels might just be singing because not only are the cookies good (yes, gluten-free baking can be good) you also feel so cared for and loved that it makes you want to cry in the very best way possible (true story; I owe A, big time).

I could talk about writing—about how Shauna’s writing is breathlessly beautiful and how she is one of a small handful of writers online whose work has encouraged me to take some writing risks of my own. How I fall in love with passages such as this one:

I raise the berry toward my mouth. Aching beauty. Dark sweetness. A bit of tartness. The entire summer of freedom and loving and laughter and long nights concentrated into one taste. One glorious taste—blackberry.

But in the end I decided that what I really want to say is that this book is the story of one woman learning to live life fully and joyously, and in that sense it is a story for everyone. This evening I had dinner with a friend and our conversation reminded me that we are all trying to grow into our own lives (whether they contain gluten or not) and become who we are meant to be. Shauna’s story of growing into her gluten-free life inspires me to grow into mine a little more fully, to relish it a little more deeply, and to see my own challenges for the opportunities they very well might be—opportunities to learn, to grow, to love.

And did I mention the chocolate banana bread?
Seriously yummy chocolate banana bread.

In honor of Shauna’s book, and in solidarity with gluten-free eaters everywhere, I’ve gone through my archives and labeled all my old posts that contain gluten-free recipes (just promise not to laugh at the awful photos on some of those early posts). If you click the label link at the bottom of this entry that says gluten-free, you’ll get a series of recipes to spark your imagination—including that gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sugar-free dessert that actually tastes good. I call it dessert for everyone—because everyone deserves to have a sweet life. Don’t you think?

For more about Shauna’s book and her experience of growing into a gluten-free life, please visit her blog.