How we became Not Just Gluten

My first cooking lesson came when I was five years old. I was staying with my grandma, who was not a very good cook. She asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I said “Bacon, eggs and toast.” She said “Sounds good…make me some too.” Well, I didn’t burn anything and I didn’t break any yolks.

Fast forward to high school. My brother, the chef, and I were home alone and it was getting dinner time and he asked me what I wanted to eat. I don’t remember what I asked for but it was something he had made before that I liked. He said, “Sounds good…make me some too.” My response was, “I don’t know how to make it.” He asked me what was in it. I said “I don’t know.” Then came my brothers finest Mr Miyagi moment. He told me to close my eyes and describe how it tastes. I did. He said, “Now you know how to make it… Make me some too.” I remember it not being as good as my brothers but pretty close.

Twenty years later my wife and I watched the movie Fire Proof. It promoted a book called “The Love Dare.” She got the book. Me, being the book person I am, did not. Instead I did a meditation on God’s charge to husbands. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her.” Out of that I came up with a formula:

     Needs, wants, desires. Not mine. Hers.

In the case of food, her need was to eat. Her want would be for someone else to cook. So what would her desire in this area be? At first I thought her desire would be to go out to the best restaurants in town. However, that was not in our budget.

I thought on it a bit longer. I could up my cooking game, cooking to her tastes – and do it well. The first few times she got impatient with me as it was taking an hour and a half or more for me to make dinner. Then she notice how much better my cooking was getting. Over the years I perfected my homemade breads and pastas as well as many other things she liked.

Then, a few years ago, my wife figured out she was wheat intolerant. Thus started my journey for cooking not just for her tastes, but also for her needs. I spent the next few years trying to re-master my breads and pasta. I would go to sites that said you had to use this starch or that starch and some pretty complicated recipes to say the least.

One night on my way home from work I was wondering what I was going to make for dinner. I knew my wife wanted tacos. Every wrap we tried from the store fell apart. Then it hit me. How do you keep breads moist. Dairy. That night I made tortillas using yogurt…they didn’t fall apart.

All it was was one part GF flour to one part yogurt. It was so simple. It got me thinking that I was over-thinking the whole process of cooking for all sorts of food intolerances. I went back to cooking like I used to, leaving out the things she couldn’t have and learning the things I could substitute for them. In other words, going back to thinking through the tastes like my brother had taught me, doing it with foods she can have.

Currently, my wife can not have wheat, corn, nightshades, and onions. She used to have issues with dairy, but has recently been able to put some of it back in her diet. I am wheat intolerant.

So…long story short, we hope the videos we make and the recipes we share will help OTHERS learn that cooking for food allergies/intolerances does not have to be difficult at all.

Welcome…and ENJOY! test