Gluten-Free Makeovers (2 page)

“That’s Julia Child’s taster,” Beth whispered.

I wondered what must it be like to have one’s very own taster.

A few minutes later, La Julia, in all her glory, swooped in, greeted Beth and plucked a brownie from the tray.

“Are these fat-free?” she asked Beth (I’m sure she was suspicious of anything that did not contain a pound of butter).

“No, but they’re gluten-free.”

“Magnifique,”
trilled the legend, raising her eyes heavenward.

And with that, Julia Child eyed the wastebasket, spat out the brownie, and was gone.

“Did the woman who taught us how to bone a chicken and spied for the free world, just spit out her food?” I asked.

“If she ate everything,” Beth said, sputtering with laughter, “she’d be the size of a house, wouldn’t she?”

The point is, Julia Child didn’t know from gluten-free. But she knew excellence when she tasted it.

Beth and I met at a conference in Baltimore in l995. My first book,
Against the Grain
, had just been published and the fates allowed tables next to one another. We told each other our stories and laughed about our responses to celiac disease. We nibbled her goodies until we thought we’d burst, and embarked upon a friendship that continues today, born of a determination to see what we can have versus what we can’t, and a commitment to putting celiac disease on the map.

I still turn to Beth’s gnocchi for a special dinner; its textural secret just the right mix of rice flour and potato starch. I crave her quick breads warm from the oven and her amazing General Tso’s chicken with jasmine rice to soak up the heavenly ginger and garlic sauce. Ditto for her Pad Thai, soul satisfying, spicy and sweet, a savory sauté of rice noodles with shrimp and bean sprouts studded with peanuts. And I love that she uses nutritionally dense whole grain flours like sorghum, amaranth, chickpea, and teff, and with her trademark magic makes everything moist, light, and full of flavor.

Gluten-Free Makeovers
is a major event from a major chef whose talent and ease in the kitchen has nurtured many of us for a long, long time. Be prepared to discover how easy it is to make over every dish you thought you could no longer have in your new gluten-free life. This is much more than a cookbook; it’s a blue-print
for your own kitchen adventures, one you will turn to again and again. It’s the next best thing to having my amazing friend Beth looking over your shoulder, letting you know there is no such thing as can’t.

—Jax Peters Lowell

 Acknowledgments

Thank you to
my testers: Janet Alquist, Beverly Chevalier, Pablo Douros, Sally Ekus, Daniel Hudner, Jennifer Hudner, Andrea Levario, Betsy Mantis, Brooke Mommsen, Debbie Stein, and Lisa Turcotte.

A very special thanks to Beverly Chevalier and her granddaughter, Brooke, who tested my recipes endlessly and asked for more. Beverly, Brooke, and the entire New Haven Celiac Group have a warm spot in my heart. I can’t thank them enough for their support and for consuming all those calories on behalf of this project.

And to Oksana, Tom, Mikey, and Katie Charla whose enthusiasm and expert tasting bolstered me throughout. Heartfelt thanks to Oksana Charla who went way above and beyond in styling and photographing the food within these pages. I am fortunate to count the entire Charla family as part of my extended family. Where would I be without my agent Sally Ekus at the Lisa Ekus Group who believed in me, my project, and the wonders of great gluten-free food. I think Sally can relate when I say that “gluten-y is its own reward.”

A big thank you to my editor Renée Sedliar who loved the concept from the first moment on and to the entire team at Da Capo who made this book so much better in every way. They are the frosting on my cake.

A special note of gratitude to my dear friend Jax Peters Lowell, author of
Against the Grain
and
The Gluten-Free Bible
. The moment Jax confided in me that she carried a caviar spoon in her purse when she went to parties, I knew I had met a kindred spirit. Whether it’s caviar, sweet rolls, or birthday cake, the glass is always half full when I’m with Jax.

Grateful acknowledgment is also given to:

Glutino,
GlutenFree.com
, and Laura Kuykendall. A version of the following recipes first appeared at
glutenfree.com
: Apple Clafoutis, Auntie’s Apple Cake, Grandma’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake, Grilled Scallion Bread (Asian Pizza), Key
Lime Bars, Mexican Pizza, Healthy Oat Bars, Peanut Butter Bars, and Vanilla Blueberry Bundt Cake.

Kevin Harron and Denise Baron Herrera of Burton’s Grill, Bob and Sue Spector at Nature’s Grocer, and Alfred Chong at Lilli and Loo, for the scrumptious treats they offer the gluten-free world and the recipes they contributed to this book.

Susan Petragallo for the Baked Pasta recipe that graces the cover of this book.

Lisa Turcotte who introduced me to pierogi through her recipe for Cheese and Potato Pierogi.

Denise Appel, chef extraordinaire at Zinc restaurant for Charred Vietnamese Chicken and Lemon Sauce.

Living Without—
Robert Englander, Philip Penny, Tom Canfield, Oksana Charla, Timothy Cole, and Alicia Woodward who supported me all the way and gladly allowed the epithet,
Food Editor
, to spill over into my cookbook. I am honored to have that affiliation.

To Andrea Levario, Executive Director of the American Celiac Disease Alliance, and Stefano Guandalini, MD, Professor and Chief, Section of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Founder and Medical Director, Celiac Disease Center, University of Chicago, for their help in verifying information in the section about gluten, celiac disease, and frequently asked questions.

And to the great bakers and cooks who inspired me. Thanks to P.J. Hamel and the crew at the
King Arthur Flour’s Baker’s Catalogue
for inspiring delicious recipe ideas and techniques including Pumpkin Whoopie Pies and Apple Caramel Monkey Bread. P.J. is the one who instructed cooks to spray the inside of cupcake liners so the cupcakes and muffins would not cling to the paper. Although others might have suggested it, I have to thank her for bringing tricks like this one to my attention. Technique is as essential to good baking as is a good recipe.

No one cooks alone and I have the entire culinary world to thank for inspiring my ideas, formulas, recipes, and simply enriching my cooking life. This includes but is not limited to: Lora Brody, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, Marion Cunningham, Dorie Greenspan, Maida Heatter, Neil Kleinberg (Clinton St. Baking Company), Priscilla Martel, and Susan Purdy, who are among my culinary heroes. I would be remiss if I did not mention colleagues and gluten-free cookbook authors, Rebecca Reilly, Carol Fenster, and Robert Landolphi who inspire me with their words, recipes, and passion.

Like their authors, cookbooks are precious jewels to me and I could never part with any of them. Among the general baking books that I consult regularly are
Pillsbury: The Complete Book of Baking, Great Baking Begins with White Lily Flour
, and
The New Joy of Cooking
. And lastly, I must thank food writers and editors at the following magazines:
Eating Well, Bon Appétit, Gourmet
, and
Good Housekeeping
, for I cannot pick up a food magazine without being inspired to cook.

Introduction

I began cooking
in earnest in the early seventies inspired by Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
, a gift that arrived just before I was diagnosed with celiac disease.

At the time, I was living in Frankfurt, Germany, a new and foreign city to me, and figured I could meet all my neighbors, German and American, if I threw a cocktail party. I cooked my way through Julia’s book and created a feast that people talked about for months afterward. I loved the rewards, both to my tummy and my social life.

But, oh, the tummy—it had been a problem for years. Several doctors made my acquaintance over that time and each sent me away with a vague instruction—avoid milk, see a psychiatrist, take antacids. Finally an astute physician took my case and ran every test imaginable, eventually giving me a flexible tube (the Crosby Capsule) to swallow. Several hours later, he took a biopsy of my small intestine and, on my next visit, announced triumphantly, “It’s celiac disease.” The doctor handed me a photo of my biopsy, blunted villi and all, and told me I would recover completely as long as I followed a gluten-free diet. Then he turned me loose with these words: “Just avoid gluten.”

It was 1976 and I was alone, no cooks by my side, no support groups where I could have my questions answered and no products to purchase. I was feeling healthy but isolated. One week on the diet and I was a new woman, but with an appetite that I could not satiate. The prospect of eating naked burgers, plain steaks, and baked potatoes for the rest of my life was not appealing. Through Julia Child, I had seen a new world of food. My taste buds were enthusiastic; my fingers, eager stewards. What had been awakened and excited could not be put back on the shelf because of dietary restrictions. So I created a plan.

I would go to culinary school and learn to eat defensively. I would learn how dishes were made, how soups were thickened, which meats were dusted in flour.
I would learn how to ask the crucial questions when I ate in restaurants. I was determined that being gluten-free was not going to stop me from enjoying life and food.

Being a glass-half-full person, I quickly realized that the recipes from cooking school held other secrets. I was standing at the back door of the culinary world looking in at the elements of baking and of cooking. If I removed flour and other offending ingredients and replaced them with the ingredients that were safe, I could create a recipe that came close to the real thing, only gluten-free. I would simply learn to make the same recipes, but make them differently—without gluten. Voilà! I did not need to give up eating good food after all.

I could omit the flour if a stew called for a roux and thicken it with cornstarch. I could add rice flour and cornstarch to a soufflé or a génoise and the results were perfect. Success after success, tasty treat after tasty treat, I was making over regular recipes so they were safe for my gluten-free diet.

The next step was discovering that a blend of gluten-free flours worked better than using straight corn flour or rice flour. The grit and crumbly texture could be overcome when I used a blend, preferably one that contained a high protein flour (see chart, page 14).

At that moment, I did not realize my future was in these recipes and techniques. But when I began blending dry ingredients for breads, pancakes, and cakes, something much larger was developing. These principles became the foundation for the Gluten-Free Pantry, a gourmet baking mix company that I started in 1993.

Soon, I was making big batches of dry ingredients for myself and a few others and one of the first gluten-free companies in the United States began. Not only was I enjoying convenient, great tasting baked foods, but I was giving that pleasure to other people who needed a gluten-free diet. The gift of my experimentation was seeing that enjoyment on their faces and hearing it in their voices.

Making over mainstream recipes has been my passion, my personal challenge for thirty-five years. When I see something I want to try, I simply reinvent it so it is safe to eat. I delight in creating everything from coffee cake to croissants, breads to scones, and everything in between. And I’m the first in line when the sampling begins. Gluten-y is truly its own reward.