Not another gluten free recipe book you groan... well hold that thought because you might be pleasantly surprised by The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread: Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Egg-free by Laurie Sadowski.

The book contains useful information that, while it might seem obvious to experienced coeliacs, will be useful to those people new to gluten free. And although the recipes are vegan, as well as gluten free, we think it would be easy to substitute butter or milk for vegan buttery spread or non-dairy milk if you don't have vegan versions available, the book gives tips.

How many of you miss bread since going wheat or gluten free? And if you've read our previous blogs you'll no doubt agree that decent gluten free breads are few and far between.

So can you imagine our excitement when we were asked to review a new book called "The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread" written by Laurie Sadowski? It's a whole book dedicated to gluten free, dairy free and egg free sweet and savoury breads.

There doesn't seem to be any consistency in the various gluten free breads on the market. Why? If some gluten free bakeries can do it why can't others? There are still gluten free breads being sold that are just the same hard, crumbly brick they have been for the last 10 years.

Although I try to steer away from too many sweet things I do find that granola bars are a useful "get you out of hunger" standby, especially if you're out and about and there's no wheat free or gluten free foods available.

Anyway I got really keen on the JK Gourmet gluten free granola bars, my favourite being the Nuts & Cranberries. At $2.99 each they are a little steep in price, but very tasty.

If you read my previous blog on the GF Patisserie then you'll know how impressed I was with their great bread. Really good tasting bread that didn't crumble or need toasting.

An impromptu visit to Calgary saw me heading home via Cochrane today to pick up a supply of their yummy bread and burger buns.

Chef Damian Cardone admitted on his Facebook profile on March 10, 2011 that he thinks coeliacs on gluten free diets, who request gluten free meals at the restaurant he works in, are timewasters and it’s all in their "disturbed little heads". He freely admits to serving high gluten pasta to anyone asking for gluten free.

There are a lot of books on the market that are dedicated to gluten free living, wheat allergies or intolerances and how to potentially live a healthier life by removing grains from the diet. The problem comes from trying to decide which books to buy and whether they will answer the questions that you have.


HealthNOW sent us a copy for review of The Gluten Effect: How “Innocent” Wheat Is Ruining Your Health by Drs. Vikki & Richard Petersen DC, CCN and Founders of the HealthNOW Method .

As you walk into the GF Patisserie in Cochrane, Alberta the first thing that assails your senses is the amazing smell of freshly baked bread. With (non-coeliac) bakery needs catered to by the supermarkets and far too few real bakers, the homely and very appetising smell of baking is a lost experience for most of us, and especially for those who can’t eat normal bread.

So what makes the GF Patisserie special? Well it must be the fact that it’s owned and run by a coeliac who is passionate about baking good, healthy, preservative free foods.

I was at the dentist today for my bi-annual cleaning and polishing and an interesting issue arose with the polishing compound.

Because of my severe wheat reaction the hygienist always uses toothpaste for the polishing rather than the standard polishing compound. The reason is because although the ingredients don’t list wheat we just don’t really know, so better safe than sorry.

Seriously though, do you ever see someone sitting down to a meal in any of the soap operas, sit coms, reality TV etc saying they can’t eat wheat, or checking the meal is gluten free?

In Stargate SG1 did anyone have to risk offending the hospitality of an alien species by asking if it was gluten free?

It’s funny how some things jog your memory and get you reminiscing. My husband is keen to get rid of our Subaru because it’s a money pit. It wouldn’t be so bad if every time we paid for repairs at the local garage they actually fixed the problem, but they take our money, do half the job, and we have to pay again later on to get the repair repaired.

So I’m seriously thinking about getting another motorbike if we go down to just having the truck for motorised transport. Not having ridden for 6 years, and in the meantime having left the UK and settled in Canada I don’t have a bike licence anymore so I’ll have to do training and a re-test.

Anyway bear with me I’ll be getting to the point soon.

I was interested to see that Boston Pizza now offer gluten free pizza in all their restaurants. However, how do you really know that the prep of the pizza is still going to be gluten free?

Why do some food manufacturers make it so difficult to find out nutritional info?

I wanted to buy some chocolate the other day and the wrapper had no nutritional info on it, it simply read “for nutritional information visit our website”.

Montreal, Quebec now boasts a restaurant that many food allergy sufferers are enviously hoping will franchise to their neighbourhood.

Zero8 Resto-Bar provides world cuisine without the eight most common food allergens; fish and seafood, peanuts, nuts, sesame seeds, milk, soya, eggs, wheat or any grain containing gluten (barley, oat, rye and triticale).

Many of you have probably read my blog on just how great Calgary’s only gluten free restaurant, A Tasty Menu, is (read it again). So we were sad to find out recently that it’s for sale due to family circumstances.

It’s been a rare treat for local Albertans with wheat allergy or intolerance, or coeliac disease, to be able to go into a restaurant and choose absolutely anything from the menu, safe in the knowledge that every ingredient is wheat allergy/coeliac friendly.