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Kirsti
In September 1997, I married a wonderful man, and needless to say, it changed my life. My husband was diagnosed with Celiac Sprue when he was seven years old. At that time he looked like a child straight from Ethiopia. He had the skinny arms and legs; with a big pot belly. His mom tried to cook Gluten free but never had the resources available that we have today. When we got married, I was determined to make eating enjoyable. I did not want to have to cook two different dinners and there was no way I was going to eat the tasteless, gritty things he had been eating. For about the next year I didn't do much. I was so busy with school and work that I just didn't have the time. Then our son, Tyler, was born. When he was about four months old, I began feeding him bread and crackers. He developed diahrea, his stomache hurt and he was cranky! Having a small knowledge of Celiac I restricted his diet to gluten free. The improvement was remarkable. That's when I really began to experiment cooking gluten free. Years later, here I am. It's now a part of my every day life. We did have Tyler tested, just to be sure he had Celiac, and naturally he tested positive. Four out of our five children have now been diagnosed with a positive celiac test. The fifth is only a few months old (as of 2006)and can't be tested. At first, cooking completely gluten free was a hard adjustment.(for me) Now, it's just part of life. I enjoy cooking and more often than not things turn out tasting good. For being Gluten Free, that's a major accomplishment. After I met Betsy in 2000, and discovered that Celiac ran in her family as well, we became good friends. A few years later she asked me to help her teach others to cook gluten free. I was excited. I knew how hard it was to adapt without anyone else's help. And here we are! I hope you find the recipes easy to make and enjoyable. That's been our goal all along. The mixes are for those who want the conveniece. They take half the time and taste great. The recipes are for eveyone to share and pass along. Enjoy the site!!! 
To give you an idea of where I am now in my cooking, I just barely came up with a wonderful chicken nugget recipe. Those who have tasted it(wheat eaters and non) have begged for the recipe. I also just made the most delicious scones for my husband. He called me from work to say thank you- he'd never tasted a scone before. It takes some experimenting, but when it works and it's good- it's worth it. That's my story- why I cook Gluten Free. If there's something you want to learn how to make- please let us know for our future cooking classes. BetsyMy family has known about celiac for a long time. My maternal grandfather had a sister who died of complications from celiac disease in the 1930's. Consequently, he always warned his children to watch out for bloating and frequent diarhea in their children. These symptoms never showed up, so my mother and her sisters never worried about the disease. Unfortunately, these "classic" symptoms of celiac are only a few of the possible symptoms.In 1997, my cousin Jennifer developed a skin rash that wouldn't go away. She was eventually diagnosed with Dermatitis Herpetiformis, a skin disease that sometimes occurs along with celiac disease. She joined a research study at the University of Utah and slowly convinced most of my aunts to join the study and be tested as well. Much to their surprise, three of my grandparents' ten children have been positively diagnosed with celiac. Two others have found significant relief from symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, and general malaise by avoiding gluten (though their blood work did not test positive for the disease). My mother was one of those diagnosed with celiac. She was flabbergasted. She has never had "classic" symptoms, and only had blood work done because my sister was showing some symptoms of celiac and the U of U wanted my mother in the study as well as my sister becase she was the genetic link to my cousin. I had moved in downstairs from Kirsti about 7 months before my mother's test came back positive. I was astonished to learn that Kirsti's family "suffered" from the same "rare" disease that ran in my family. After my mother was diagnosed, I decided that I had better learn how to cook gluten-free foods so I could pass the recipes on to my mother and other family members. Kirsti and I began cooking together 3-4 times a month. We started by making the bread Kirsti had made since she married Ken, but soon we began to experiment with modifying "regular" recipes to be gluten-free. We have had some failures, but we have also had some wonderful successes. (The "Soft Batch" Cookies in the dessert section were a big hit.) Also, I have become rather outgoing in my efforts to share the news about gluten-free cooking and celiac. (I once approached a stranger in the fabric store to ask if her son(who was painfully thin) had ever been tested for celiac.) I talked Kirsti into teaching GF cooking classes at Macey's grocery store, and we set up this website to help share our recipes. We want people with celiac to know that life without wheat is both possible and delicious! |
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