Gluten-Free Foodies

Three Winning Gluten Free Baguette Recipes for Super Bowl Sunday

2012-01-20T14:00:00.006-05:00

I have to confess right up front that I have never been a televised football fan, even though I grew up in a family with three football fan brothers. I love the Tour de France and actually got a chance to watch some of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge live in Colorado, but football, well, I don't know.

Like the estimated 111 million viewers, though, I have watched my share of Super Bowls. My greatest association with the Super Bowl is when it was played twice right next door to my dorm in the Tulane Stadium (since torn down) while Tom and I were undergraduates. It was the only event that even comes close to Mardi Gras for which I have seen so many revelers in one place. I particularly remember Super Bowl VI, being awakened EARLY on a Sunday morning with the sounds of hoards of people streaming through Tulane’s campus already in a party state.

The best thing about Super Bowl Sunday is that there is something for everyone. Aside from the sports competition, there is entertainment and entertainingly outrageous commercials. It is a time for people to gather, and food-wise, it is the second largest day for food consumption in the US after Thanksgiving.

At Against The Grain, we’ve been developing and tasting scrumptious gluten free Super Bowl foods. This year, we decided to focus on baguettes. Yesterday, Ruth prepared “Fiesta Panzanella,” a Southwestern take on the traditionally Italian salad of bread and tomatoes, and we sampled it throughout the day. We’re in Vermont, after all, where spicy sounds really good on a freeze-dried day. Besides, real tomatoes are scarce, and after reading Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit (a must read,) I’m pretty suspicious of grocery store winter tomatoes.

Recipe I: RUTH’S FIESTA PANZANELLA

2 Against The Grain Original Baguettes (cut in cubes)*
1 cucumber (peeled)
1 head of lettuce
fresh cilantro
½ red onion
1 fresh avocado
1 15-oz can black beans
1 cup corn (or substitute sunflower kernels if avoiding corn)
1 package Mexi-blend cheese
16 oz tub fresh salsa
Additional oil and vinegar (apple cider suggested) to taste (or bottled vinaigrette dressing)

Toss all ingredients, except avocados, together. Slice avocados and arrange on top. Optional add-ins are limited only by your imagination, but how about: chicken, olives, peppers (bell or jalapeno? This salad can be prepared a few hours ahead of time. Unlike other salads, this one improves with time as the yummy baguette soaks up the seasonings.

* Note: To make this a gluten free and dairy free dish, you can substitute Vermont Country Rolls for the bread and omit the Mexican cheese blend.

Recipe II: JOSH’S LAYERED BAGUETTE BOAT DIP

This is a recipe for all of you out there, like me, who need to avoid corn but have been missing nachos. With all the ingredients of nachos, held together with a “U” of crusty baguette, this is a messy but very satisfying gluten free appetizer that everyone will enjoy.

2 Against The Grain Original Baguettes (sliced horizontally)
15 oz can refried beans with green chilies
1 jar salsa
1 package prepared guacamole
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 medium contained sour cream
sliced and pitted black olives

Slice two baguettes horizontally. Divide the refried beans into quarters, and spread a layer of refried beans into the sliced baguette's holes and grooves. Top the refried beans with a layer of salsa, and then top the salsa with a layer of guacamole.

Bake the baguettes directly on the rack at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. The crust of the baguettes will crisp up and the dip layers will warm up.

Remove the baguettes, top with the shredded cheddar cheese, and return to the oven until the cheese is bubbly. To serve, spread sour cream on the top and dot with sliced black olives (Optionally, you could used chopped scallions, chives, or cilantro.) Using a serrated knife, slice each baguette into 1 to 1-1/2 slices, creating a dip-filled “U” and serve with plenty of napkins. Expect to get sour cream on your nose!

RECIPE III: NASH’S PORK BALL CURRY BAGUETTES (gluten and dairy free)

Nash is particularly fond of Anglo-Indian cuisine, which he brings from his native country, the south of India. Here at Against The Grain, he has treated us to some delicious Anglo-Indian Gluten Free Fusion dishes. This recipe, when served on baguettes, will leave your family a guests, full and smiling.
Pork Balls:
1 pound ground pork
½ medium red onion, minced
3 garlic cloves, pressed
½ bunch fresh cilantro, minced
½ bunch fresh mint, minced
2 to 3 small green chilies, minced
¼ tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp sea salt

Curry:
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 whole cloves
3 cardamom pods
1 large red onion, chopped
1-1/2 Tbsp ginger-garlic paste (or ¾ Tbsp each minced ginger and garlic)
1 Tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cayenne
¼ tsp ground turmeric
15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 C unsweetened coconut milk
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp sea salt
½ bunch cilantro, chopped
½ bunch fresh mint, chopped

Make the pork balls: In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix very well. Using your hands, form the mixture into 16 equal-size balls measuring about 1-1/2 inches each. Place on a plate and set aside.

Make the curry: In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon and cook until sizzling and aromatic—about 1 minute. Add the garlic paste and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add the coriander, cayenne, and turmeric and cook, stirring for about 1 minute until the bottom of the pan becomes coated with the spices and very well browned, but not burnt (this is an important flavoring step.)

Add the tomatoes and stir to deglaze the pan. Add the coconut milk and ½ cup water and bring to a simmer. Carefully add the pork balls, one at a time, and bring the mixture back to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and cook for 25 minutes. Add the salt and lemon juice; taste and add more salt and lemon juice if needed. Remove from heat and add the cilantro and mint. Serve as pork ball sandwiches on horizontally sliced baguettes.

Twas The Night Before Gluten Free Christmas

2010-12-24T15:49:00.001-05:00

Twas the night before Christmas…well, actually it was four o’clock in the morning, but technically by the calendar, the night before Christmas. Not a creature was stirring… except Marty and his computer mouse. The children were not all snuggled in their beds; rather, Marty was wide awake talking online to his “Sleepless in Spokane” friend. I woke up, and the lights downstairs were all ablaze, so I sprang from my bed to turn the lamps off. The moon cast long, lavender shadows in the yard below. Tom was wide awake, so I commented on the beauty of the night. With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head, he said, “Let’s go for a walk!” Hearing the word “walk,” Chester sprang to his feet, and down the driveway he flew like the down of a thistle. He would have liked nothing more than to have scared up some reindeer.

Down Ames Hill Road we sauntered in the 16-degree cold, under the light of the moon and crunching snow. Chester barreled ahead, and every so often we gave him a whistle so as not to awaken the neighbors, sound asleep with thoughts of sugar plums and credit card debt in their heads. We turned around at Fox Road and walked back to the top of the porch, through the stone wall. Back inside, we stoked up the fire and had a marvelous early morning breakfast of Against The Grain Dairy Free bagels and eggs. By 9AM, Tom climbed back into bed and shuttered the sash. Although it was Christmas Eve, I’m still a slave to gender stereotypes, so I went down to the basement to put in a new load of wash. In the quiet of the half-sleeping household, I accidentally snapped the dryer door shut with a “pop.” Much to my astonishment,

Up in the living room, I heard such a clatter.

I sprang upstairs to see what was the matter.

When, what horror to my wondering eyes should appear,

But Chester crouched, quivering on the stairs with fear

Strewn across the carpet was the eight-foot tree

The lights all askew, the ornaments thrown free

His eyes how they rounded, his hackles so hairy.

His tail between his legs, and countenance so scarry.

His droll little mouth was as wide as could go,

The color of his nose, blanched like the snow.

Best I could deduce was that the dryer door startled Chester, asleep by the tree. He must have jumped up, entangled himself in a dangling LED strand, panicked, and took the tree with him. Alex was upstairs, so I called out to him for help. He came down the stairs and viewed the wreckage.

“I need some help,” I said, mopping up the tree stand water with multiple dish towels.

“Let’s just throw it back in the woods!” Alex said indignantly, referring to the fact that it has been a family tradition since moving to Vermont, to cut our Christmas tree off our land.

As far as he was concerned, the tree was now “damaged goods,” but he reluctantly held it up for me, as I readjusted it in the stand, and wired it to the wall with some floral wire (no way that puppy is going to fall again, I thought, as the crashing tree was already on the verge of ruining Alex’s Christmas.) I picked up the remarkably intact glass ornaments that skidded to a stop across the room, and in no time at all, had the chaos restored to normal. Chester wouldn’t even enter the room for hours, and still won’t venture within five feet of the tree.

Somehow, when we drift off to sleep tonight with visions of dairy free bagels dancing in our heads, it will seem anticlimactic. Christmas Eve 2010 will be the year we took an invigorating walk in the moonlight, and the tree took an invigorating spill, all before the day got started. Okay, so I have a psychotic dog and a lop-sided Charlie Brown tree, but we have so much more to be thankful for.

Happy Holidays from Against The Grain!

Gluten Free-Dairy Free Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Pudding

2010-12-12T12:25:00.002-05:00

It is trying to snow outside this morning, but it is rapidly turning to rain. It is kind of odd that it is mid-December in Vermont, and the ground here in the southern part of the state is bare. What better thing to do on a damp, rainy day than to bake a traditional favorite that will warm the house with the smells of times past: bread pudding. Bread pudding is an old-fashioned dish that was developed mainly to use up the stale ends of bread, back when bread used to be all-natural and not loaded with anti-molding agents and preservatives.

This bread pudding recipe has a few twists, though. It is gluten free, dairy free, and made from our new gluten and dairy free cinnamon raisin bagels. They’ve been on the market only a few weeks, but boy will you want to seek them out. In our household, where we can choose among all of our bread flavors for breakfast, the cinnamon raisin bagels have risen to the top. For me, a toasted bagel with my homemade rose petal jelly is simply a divine way to begin the day. But I am digressing. For all of you out there who cannot eat dairy, this Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Pudding is the ultimate bread pudding treat.

The following recipe includes an optional ingredient: bourbon. It adds a richness and complexity to the dessert if you want to wow your guests, but it is excellent without it. If you choose to include the bourbon, reduce the coconut milk by ½ C. Move over Paula Deen!

Gluten Free/Dairy Free Cinnamon-Raisin Bagel Pudding

Ingredients:
1 Bag Against The Grain Gourmet GF/DF Cinnamon Raisin Bagels (6)
1 C raisins, pre-softened in boiling water (or soaked overnight in 1 C of bourbon)
3 C unsweetened coconut milk
¾ C brown sugar
2 Tbsp pure VT maple syrup
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla
6 eggs
1 cup toasted coconut (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Slice bagels into ½ to ¾ inch cubes. Toss with raisins and cinnamon and cover the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 baking dish.
3. Heat coconut milk, water, and sugar in saucepan until it begins to foam.
4. Remove from heat and stir in maple syrup and vanilla.
5. Wisk eggs into mixture, beating constantly until uniformly blended.
6. Pour mixture over bagels and top with toasted coconut (optional)
7. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.
(To toast coconut, spread in large skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring often until coconut is evenly browned.)

GF Pecan Pie, a Southern Tradition

2010-11-25T19:36:00.002-05:00

Despite the fact that pies have become the new bakery front fad, replacing all sorts of gourmet cupcake concoctions, I have to admit that I have never been a real fan of pie…except pecan pie. Now that, in my opinion, is PIE. I didn’t even know what pecan pie was until I went away to college in New Orleans, where authentic pecan pie making is considered an art. It didn’t take me long to place pecan pie right up there with boiled crayfish and Oysters Bienville.

There are essentially two kinds of pecan pies: those that use corn syrup and those that use brown sugar. The former comes out a little custardy or gooey, and the latter is more like a praline pie. Once I tasted great pecan pie—the praline kind--I knew I had to find a fool-proof recipe. I found it in the Houston Junior League Cook Book from 1968, given to me by my late mother-in-law over forty years ago. The cook book makes me chuckle for a number of reasons, but it is the pecan pie recipe page that I love. The top billing is for “Southern Pecan Pie” and underneath is a recipe for “Yummy Yankee Pecan Pie.” Guess which one includes white corn syrup as an ingredient? I can only imagine the two recipe authors (probably a native Texan and a “transplanted” Yankee) having a tiff over which was the best pie, so readers are given a choice. The “Yankee” recipe includes maple syrup; I can’t imagine how a) maple syrup could be desecrated by corn syrup, and b) it would taste anything like a real pecan pie. I can just hear my mother-in-law grumbling from her grave about those “damn Yankees thinking they can come down here and improve things.”

We have a Thanksgiving tradition in our household that everyone can pick one food for the dinner, aside from the main course. And yes, we went through a few years when the kids were younger and pizza was on the menu (although I always managed to relegate it to the appetizer category.) I never have to ask Tom his choice. It is always pecan pie, and that hasn’t changed in the six years we have been gluten free. I simply make my no-fail pie crust recipe http://tinyurl.com/2ffxcyy and fill it with my favorite pecan pie recipe. No gluten free compromises here. And what were the four menu choices for 2010, aside from the pecan pie? Potato, bacon and kale (from our garden) casserole, pumpkin pie, and garlic bread made from Against The Grain Gourmet baguettes. Happy Thanksgiving to your family from ours. An d now you know what I do while the turkey is cooking—catch up on my blogging!

Southern Pecan Pie

Ingredients:
1 unbaked pie shell
1 C light brown sugar
½ C white sugar
1 Tbsp GF flour
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
½ C butter (softened)
2 C pecans (1 C chopped and 1C whole for topping)

Directions:
1. Beat brown sugar, white sugar, and flour with softened butter until creamy.
2. Add eggs and vanilla and beat 2 more minutes on high.
3. Fold in chopped pecans.
4. Pour into unbaked shell.
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 50-55 minutes (until center of pie is set.)
6. Top with whipped cream or serve with ice cream, if desired.

Vermont Country Rolls, Where the Roll is Greater Than the Sum of it's Parts

2010-11-18T10:01:00.002-05:00

For several years now, we have traveled far and wide to celiac support groups and gluten free fairs. We never tire of the enthusiastic support that our products generate. It has always been troubling, though, to see a person’s face light up when they see our products, and then get so disappointed when they realize that they contain dairy. We never wanted to produce a product that was a compromise in any way from the real thing; the impetus to create a line of dairy-free products was always there but relegated to the back burner.

We’re pleased to announce that we have just introduced our first dairy free offerings, and we owe a lot of that to Emily, a wonderful young woman who has worked for us for two and a half years. Emily is both gluten and dairy free and could never taste the products we produce. Over the years, Emily and I have had conversations about how she might go about making a dairy free version of our products at home. We are a soy free, yeast free, corn free, and peanut and tree nut free facility, so our gluten free palate of wet and dry ingredients was always limited. It was Emily that got me thinking that coconut milk just might be the answer for creating a tasty bread with the same look and texture of our other products.

Coconut milk is a very interesting food indeed. A number of health claims have been made for coconut milk, and some have been substantiated by medical research. Some refer to it as a “miracle food,” but I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that. Although it contains a saturated fat, the fatty acids in coconut milk are medium chain triglycerides, unlike the long chain triglycerides in other fats and oils. As a result, they are more easily metabolized by the body instead of stored as fat. Coconut milk also contains a significant amount of lauric acid, which is thought to have immune-boosting properties.

So, when the time comes to chow down on left-over turkey, you can have a sandwich that will make your non-gluten free friends and family drool. It doesn’t get much better than Turkey with Lettuce and Tomato on a Vermont Country Roll. Pure simple ingredients. No industrial additives, no binders, no enzymes--just delicious ingredients where the roll is greater than the sum of its parts!

Ingredients: Tapioca starch, organic coconut milk, whole eggs, non-GMO canola oil, water, molasses, sesame seeds, flax seeds, salt, cocoa, poppy seeds.

The Unintended Consequences of a Gluten Free Diet

2010-11-15T21:00:00.001-05:00

It was almost exactly six years ago that our family of four made the switch to a gluten free diet. For three years Tom’s had a “possibly celiac” diagnosis and had tried to restrict the amount of gluten he ingested. But it wasn’t until our younger son, then 13, was diagnosed with celiac disease, that we made the decision for the whole family to go gluten free. With two of the four of us requiring a gluten free diet, two teenagers, and the risk of contamination, we decided to make our entire household gluten free.

That first Thanksgiving in 2004 was a different one for us. Our younger son wrote up the menu, as he had done every year since he learned to write. The 2004 menu says it all: “Now Gluten Free.” That year, we made a wild-rice and pecan-based stuffing (our menu author didn’t even know what that was!,) since we hadn’t found any gluten free bread we liked. By the next year, we were making stuffing with our Rosemary Baguettes, and what a difference that made. Even our non-gluten free guests always begged for more, and rosemary baguette stuffing has become a tradition. (We also make a tiny slit in the top of each side of the turkey breast and insert a sprig of fresh rosemary. There is nothing like rosemary flavor flowing through with the juices.)

In those six years, some amazing things have happened. We ended up starting Against The Grain Gourmet one year after our son’s diagnosis. And what a ride it has been. With absolutely no experience in the food manufacturing business, I can honestly say that we have built a company that lives up to its name: Against The Grain. Not encumbered by preconceived notions of how to mass produce food at the lowest possible cost, we have created artisan products and sought out the highest quality ingredients. Along the way, we have supported a lot of family farms and independent producers. Since our inception, we’ve been on a mission to make high quality, tasty products that are naturally gluten free.

The other amazing thing that happened is that our older, non-celiac son, who has lived with a life-threatening seizure disorder since 18 months of age, stopped having seizures once on a gluten free diet. He has now been seizure-free for six years. Before going gluten free, he never went for more than six months without having a seizure. I know that critics like to bash Elisabeth Hasselebeck for suggesting that everyone should try a gluten free diet (http://tinyurl.com/33d859c,) but honestly, we never would have figured out how to control our son’s seizure disorder had we not placed him on a gluten free diet.

I get pretty exasperated with those who believe that non-celiacs on a gluten free diet are compromising their nutrition or that it is “bad” for them. Statements like "cutting gluten out can be dangerous " puzzle me. When celiac expert, Dr. Peter Green is asked, "Are there benefits to adopting a gluten free diet?" He answers, "Not that I'm aware of." Tell that to my seizure-free son. Tell that to the 60% of children on the autism spectrum that studies have shown have a "leaky gut."

A gluten free diet is not entirely healthy?? I mean, how hard is it to figure out how to supplement the vitamins, and sprayed on or "fortified" vitamins in many wheat-based products? Fiber concerns? If people are relying on their bread, pasta, and cereal to meet their fiber needs, they don’t have a very balanced diet. One thing that is clear to me is that we know a miniscule amount about the effects of eating highly processed/modified foods on our health. Heck, We don’t even know definitively how our health is related to what we eat. If a gluten free diet makes you feel better or even think you feel better, why not? Your choice is not in any way taking away from the seriousness of the celiac disease that afflicts my husband and son.

GF: Pass The Monocalcium Phosphate Please

2010-10-31T13:36:00.000-04:00

As gluten free consumers we have a lot of choices these days when it comes to baked goods, pastas, mixes, and prepared dinner entrees. That is quite an improvement over just five years ago—new products are entering the marketplace nearly every day, produced by both small suppliers and mainstream food giants. And every day, these new products are reviewed by hundreds of celiac sites and food bloggers. Of course, there is no accounting for differences in taste, but the most useful reviews I’ve seen lately are blind taste tests. A great example is “Gluten Free Pancake Mixes: A Blind Review,” on the Breaking Bread Blog http://www.breakingbreadblog.com/2010/10/gluten-free-pancake-mixes-blind-taste.html

This is not some sort of paid review, inside deal, or infomercial. This is a thorough and thoughtful review of nine different mixes (plus a homemade version.) I wouldn’t call it a scientific study, but it was comprehensive with a taster panel of eight adults and ten kids ranging from ages 3-8. Sad thing is, I pretty much knew what the results would be before I read it. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed it, but when it comes to these types of line-ups, products made by the industrial food giants always seem to win (Bisquick was the winner, in case you were wondering.) That makes me wonder whether we, as consumers of prepackaged and processed goods, have developed a taste for industrialized food, and the “real” thing now tastes less authentic or tasty to us. Compare, for instance, the ingredients of Bisquick and Pamela’s Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix:

Bisquick: Rice Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Modified Potato Starch, Salt, Xanthan Gum.

Pamela’s: Brown Rice Flour, White Rice Flour, Cultured Buttermilk, Natural Almond Meal, Tapioca Starch, Sweet Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Grainless and Aluminum-free Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum.

Not only does the Bisquick contain modified flours, sugar is the second ingredient. Want to know where the fluffiness in the pancakes comes from? It is the monocalcium phosphate, and one of the major users of this chemical is McDonald’s for their Big Mac hamburger buns. Sodium aluminum phosphate is a chemical leavener and acts as a buffering agent in flour mixes. Similarly, in some mass-produced gluten free sandwich breads these days, enzymes and “natural” mold inhibitors are used to the same effect. The result in all these cases is better texture, and according to a myriad of taste-testers, better taste. Make no mistake, though, these are industrialized ingredients that you won’t find in your health food store or coop’s bulk ingredient bins.

Another case in point: Recently, a reviewer of our new gluten free Three-Cheese Pizza commented that the sauce tasted too sweet to her. That blew me away and really got me wondering what we have inadvertently trained our taste buds to expect. Our tomato sauce is nothing but vine-ripened fresh tomatoes and naturally-derived citric acid. To some, the sauce may seem “sweet” because there is no added salt, no added sugar, no calcium chloride, no chemical citric acid, and no spices. We don’t use inferior tomatoes, and we went to great lengths to find the cleanest, premium, full-bodied flavored tomatoes.

There is no question that taste is just about as individual as fingerprints. One of the hardest things when first going gluten free is that non-wheat-based food just doesn’t seem to taste as good. Or is it that it tastes different? Kind of like natural peanut butter is an acquired taste. After years or a life-time of eating wheat (and often processed foods,) your palate has come to expect certain taste sensations. Industrialized food giants know all about this, and food chemists have developed an arsenal of ingredients to tickle every pallet. Now they are adding them to gluten free foods. They’ve even created taste sensations not found in nature. In the words of one of my co-workers when discussing Halloween candy, “My favorite flavor is purple.” For many on a gluten free diet, changing habits means conscious eating and eating healthier foods. For many, it means getting used to the taste of “real” food again.

Halloween at Against The Grain Gourmet

2010-10-29T13:00:00.002-04:00

Did you know that your favorite gluten free products are made by the neatest, most caring, and intelligent staff one could assemble? It is absolutely a joy to come into work everyday and bag, bake, or mix alongside such an interesting group of people. Every year at Halloween, we let our silly sides hang out.

The challenge is to come to work in a costume that is still production-floor legal, meaning we have to wear head covering, no jewelry or bangles are allowed, and we still have to wear protective clothing. Well, in truth sometimes some of us have to jettison part of our costumes to work on the production floor all day. This is our third costume Halloween, and it is still as entertaining as ever.

This morning, a cowboy was already on the floor when one guy came in wearing a black satin slip over his apron, with a black skullcap, carrying a fake cigar. Deadpan, he says:

“Guess what I’m sexed, I mean dressed, as?

“I’m a Freudian dick, I mean slip.”

It was only after I got over the shock of his costume and was practically falling on the floor in laughter that I noticed the name-tag affixed to his slip, which said “Sigmund.” And he thought we wouldn’t “get” it when he delivered that monologue? What a hoot! Over the years, we’ve had some pretty funny costumes, including Santa Claus, a pumpkin, a graduate, Michael Jackson, the Witch of the West, a winged monkey, a golfer, a yachty, a surfer dude, and a safari adventurer. No one yet has attempted to be a bagel, a baguette, a roll, or a pizza. I’m sure that day will come, though.

Work is work, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. Happy Halloween from all the ghouls, goblins, and assorted miscreants from Against The Grain Gourmet!

Some of the brave ones at Against The Grain

Sonnet For the Gluten Free

2010-10-27T08:04:00.002-04:00

Some GF breads even contain lupin flour. These were blooming last summer

at Exit 3 of I-91 in Brattleboro

Okay, since National Celiac Awareness month is almost over, I've decided it is the right time for a silly-yak post. So, here's my sonnet for the gluten free.

Oh chewy, crusty, yeasty loaf of bread
Kneaded flour, webbed proteins, sheared off villi
Glutenous fingers that clasp, rise up high
How could they destroy colons, scramble heads?

The smell of comfort, grandma’s apron... dread?
A world without wheat, barley, oats, and rye.
For celiacs, new and ancient grains to try
Hearty loaves of buckwheat and millet bread.

Nut flours and root flours, and even sunflowers
Bloom in baguettes baked with wheat-free grains.
Ingredients for baking gluten free
Include courage, vision, and extra hours,
A sprinkling of madness, some honesty--
To heal bloated bellies and foggy brains.

Peas Let Me Carry on My Gluten Free Food

2010-10-24T15:30:00.003-04:00

October is an important month in the gluten free food business. Not only does it herald the beginning of “food season,” which lasts from about October 1 through January, but it is also National Celiac Awareness Month. Our business goes crazy, and at the same time we find ourselves traveling to lots of vendor fairs, as well as sampling our products at many in-store gluten free tasting events.

Over the past couple of years, more and more local support groups have been organizing gluten free vendor fairs, and the number of attendees is skyrocketing. For us, it has become increasingly more challenging to take enough frozen product with us on a plane to sample for crowds of 800-1000 attendees or more. You know the airline checked bag regulations—a 50-pound limit, two bags, and the length, width, and height must measure 62 inches or less. Pack in 12-18 of our new 24-ounce pizzas, and there is not a lot of room left over.

A couple of weeks ago, I was planning my trip to the Wisconsin Gluten Free Vendor Fair, and I was shopping for a plane-worthy wheeled cooler ( past experience told me that I had better get another one before the winter set in—here in New England, coolers in the winter are about as scarce as batteries in a power outage.) I spied a squarish, wheeled cooler that looked like it would pass the size requirements of a carry-on. Even better, it was the perfect size to fit a dozen pizzas (minus the box) on their side.

So now I had a plan. I would check through a 50-pound cooler of bread, and carry-on a dozen pizzas. The only problem I had was that it would take me over seven hours of travel time to get to the Central Wisconsin Airport, assuming no delays or missed connections. If I put ice packs in the cooler, they would bust me at the Hartford Airport security screening gates, and I would be ice-less for the remainder of the trip. Asking for a soda with ten pounds of ice just wasn’t going to work, and besides it would melt and get very messy.

And then it occurred to me: frozen peas. Ice packs are potential explosives, but food is food. I bought five packages of frozen peas (petite ones in case I ended up eating some of them,) packed my carry-on, cued up to the screening gates, and held my breath. The peas didn’t even get a side-ways glance or a pause at the x-ray machine. The pizzas and I traveled together in the cabin, and I checked through the bread. So, the next time you need to travel with some have-to-have frozen gluten free goodies (e.g., Against The Grain’s awesome Rosemary baguettes,) pack them with frozen peas. And the next time you get impatient with the lady in front of you on the plane struggling to get her overhead baggage down, have heart. It just may be me with a dozen of the world’s best gluten free pizzas.

Yummy GF Crystallized Ginger Carrot Cupcakes

2010-10-17T16:43:00.002-04:00

A relaxed mind is a creative mind
-Yogi Tea bag

I don’t know about anyone else, but sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep, I start creating new baked goods in my head. It was wakefulness that had me up at 5AM a recent Sunday morning to try out a carrot cupcake recipe I had been mulling over. Several weeks ago, we harvested the carrots—an entire row of them—which yielded over 30 pounds of carrots (as an aside, don’t listen to them when they tell you to thin the rows since we didn’t, and our carrots were massive.) Ever since then, I have been mining carrot recipes. We’ve had roasted carrots, steamed carrots with rosemary, carrots and summer squash, and sherried carrot sauce. Chester, our Golden, has eaten his share of them, and Alex has taken them to horseback riding lessons for his pal, Norfy. I still have about 20 pounds left!

Something sweet and carrot-y was in order, and I decided to work on a muffin-like variation on a carrot cake. Carrot cake seems to me like it has the potential for the perfect marriage of sweet and healthy. I even remember the first carrot cake I ever ate. It was sent to me for my first birthday away from home in college by my sister, who was also in college. Although it was scrumptious, I think she was more interested in mailing a cake using a newfound packing method—the cake was sitting in a box totally surrounded by popping corn (popped, of course!) I remember opening the package to what looked like a massive popcorn ball. But was easy to brush the popcorn from the cream cheese icing, and by that time, my room mate was drooling and oohing and awwing “Oh, yummy, a carrot cake!” It was then that I had my first bite of carrot cake, and it has been a favorite ever since.

So here is the product of my early-morning musings, and it is actually reasonably healthy as baked goods go. The recipe produces 24 standard-size cupcakes. The recipe contains far less fat than most carrot cakes, with the fat coming from only ½ C canola oil and 4 large eggs. Of course, frosting changes all that, but you certainly don’t need to frost them. The twist in this recipe is the use of crystallized ginger and orange juice, which results in kind of taste bursts of ginger against a carrot-orange backdrop. I’ve been doing my best these days to avoid corn, so I used a gluten free flour base of 1/3 rice flour, 1/3 tapioca flour, and 1/3 arrowroot starch, as well as tapioca-based powdered sugar (by Wholesome Sweetener.)

Crystallized Ginger Carrot Cupcakes (makes 24)

Ingredients:
3 C GF flour blend (I used 1 C rice flour, 1 C tapioca starch, 1 C arrowroot starch)
¾ C sugar
¾ C powdered sugar
1 C finely shredded carrots (about 4 medium ones)
1/3 C finely chopped crystallized ginger
½ C canola oil
¾ C orange juice
4 large eggs (room temperature)
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp fresh nutmeg

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Blend all dry ingredients together, except baking soda.
3. Add in wet ingredients, as well as carrots, and mix on high for 2 minutes.
4. Mix in baking soda, and spoon/ladle into cupcake pans.
5. Bake approximately 28 min @350 degrees.

Ice with vanilla or cream cheese icing (I used vanilla icing with crushed pineapple.)

A No-Fail Gluten Free Pie (Part II, The Apple Pie)

2010-09-12T17:58:00.006-04:00

Preschool apple-picking circa 1995

Alex has always found great delight in the story of Johnny Appleseed. As the Vermont nights turn cooler, and apples begin appearing at road side stands and the Brattleboro Farmer’s Market, it triggers Alex’s preschool memories of apple-picking for the Annual Cider Sale. First he tells and retells to almost anyone who will listen, the story of Johnny Appleseed. Then, I know what is coming next, “Mom, can we bake an apple pie?”

Two years ago, Alex had accumulated a little money from birthdays, recycling cans, and doing household chores. One day, when discussing what he might want to buy with his money, I suggested that maybe he would like to buy an apple tree. He jumped right on that one, and pretty soon, we had two fledgling apple trees (a Paula Red and an Empire for pollination reasons.) We planted them side by side in the backyard, not far from the garden. The first year, the Empire tree had barely any blossoms and zero apples. The Paula Red was a bit more successful. It blossomed out, bees pollinated it, and while a dozen or so nascent apples began to form, only three made it to adulthood. Alex would go out and delight at the sight of the growing and reddening apples on his tree. Actually, the apples almost made it to adulthood because, although we enclosed the tree in the electric fence, it was a tad too close to the edge. We neglected to take into account that deer necks can extend a long ways, and that people sometimes forget to turn back on the electric fence. Not only did Bambi pluck the forbidden apples, but he or she ate half of the upper tree, trunk, branches, leaves and all.

Our entire 2010 crop!

This past year, we moved the electric fence back (and lowered Alex’s expectations) given that we now had an amputee tree. Both trees blossomed out, and again, the Empire’s apples fizzled. But the Paula Red formed four promising apples. Alex was delighted and announced that we were going to make those apples into a pie. One day while checking the progress of his apples, he reached up to look closer at an apple. Plop, it detached and fell to the ground. With it went 25% of our apple crop. I’m happy to say that the remaining three apples made it to picking time, and guess what was on the Alex’s docket today? Making an apple pie.

Peeling with precision

It turns out that making the apple pie is only the side show to using that “clever device” (in Alex words) the apple peeler. My brother Geoff gave it to us for Christmas just after we moved to Vermont, and Alex considers it among the family’s crown jewels. Three apples didn’t quite make a pie, so we added to it a few wild apples we picked on the side of the road and a few from an orchard. The pie has just come out of the oven, and I wish there were a scent-equivalent of a web-cam. It smells just like Fall in here. Thanks, Alex.

Gluten Free Apple Pie

Ingredients:
2 Never-Fail GF Pie Crusts http://tinyurl.com/2ffxcyy
About 8-9 medium size crisp apples
2 Tbsp sugar+ sugar to sprinkle on baked crust
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp GF flour
1Tbsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp milk (optional, to brush on crust)

Directions:
1. Preheat Oven to 450 degrees.
2. Peel, core, and slice apples, and then toss with sugar, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar.
3. Prepare and roll out two gluten free pie crusts.
4. Peel the top layer of plastic wrap off the rolled-out GF pie crusts.
5. Line pie plate with GF crust, peeling off the plastic wrap. Trim the shell edges.
6. Fill pie shell with apples, and moisten the rim with water (this makes the upper crust bond with the lower crust.)
7. Drape second CF crust over top, peeling off the plastic wrap. Flute edges by hand, trim excess, and cut vents in the top. (Alex is always partial to an “A” because it not only signifies “apple” but “Alex.”)
8. Bake pie on medium rack for 10 minutes.
9. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake approximately 1 hour. Brush lightly with milk and sprinkle with sugar midway through bake time.

Yum!!!

A No-Fail Gluten Free Pie (Part I, The Crust)

2010-09-12T16:24:00.001-04:00

Perhaps the question that I am most asked at Fall gluten free vendor fairs, apart from questions about our products, is “How do you make a pie crust?” Yesterday was no exception at the Amherst, MA Atkins Farm Country Market’s Food Allergy and Awareness Sampling Fair. As always, I found myself saying “I only wish tasty gluten free breads were as easy as pie crust.” Before I knew it, the customer had pulled out a pen and a tiny spiral notebook and had me repeating the steps.

Truth be told, I have a LONG history with pie crust. I remember coming home in 2nd grade and telling my dad (he was the principal baker and cook in my family) that I needed to bring a cherry pie for a PTA Cake Walk fundraiser the next day. (I guess I’m dating myself here since I haven’t heard of one of those in over 50 years.)

“Sure, you can bring a cherry pie, and I’ll tell you how to make it.” I was stunned. Me, make a pie? I was eight years old, and that was they very first thing I ever baked. I was one proud 2nd grader when I took the pie to school the next day and announced that I had made it all by myself.

So, you think I’d be an expert at pie crust after starting out so young? Well, believe me, I was not a prodigy. Fast forward to our first winter in Vermont in 1992. We had just moved to Vermont from New York City, and we had enrolled Alex in a wonderful country preschool in Marlboro, VT. Very quickly, I learned that fundraising is an important part of country preschools, and we had a very small window in the Fall to attempt to unload the pockets of leaf-peepers travelling through our beautiful state. The Annual Columbus Day Cider Sale was a Meetinghouse School Tradition. It was a family event where we set up tents and pressed cider the old-fashioned way on the side of Route 9 (the major easy-west highway in southern Vermont.) We sold the cider and as many baked goods as the dozen or so parents could possibly bake.

It was because of the Cider Sale that I found myself at Andrea’s house with a half-dozen of so other moms in a marathon baking session in which our goal was to produce 55 apple pies during the three hours our kids were in school. Our directives were to show up and bring a rolling pin and a pastry cutter, if we had one. Hey, I’m on top of this, I thought. At least know what a pastry cutter is, since I had inherited a pastry cutter from my dad (and it probably was the same one I used for my first cherry pie.) Andrea, as accomplished a task master as one could imagine, demonstrated how to mix the dough and roll out the crust. In seconds she had whipped up the dough, rolled out a perfect crust, and filled the shell with apple slices. That looked really easy so I rolled up my sleeves and went to work. Actually, it wasn’t so easy. I rolled the dough, it sprang back like a rubber band. I mashed it down again, and it coated my rolling pin like a “pig-in-a-blanket.” I scraped it off and started again. At that point, Andrea came over and took over my crust saying, “You can’t keep rolling it; it will make it tough.” I was given the task of filling the pie shells with apple slices. Man did I feel like a “flatlander.” I had failed at the most basic task of making a country apple pie.

Then one day, someone told me how to make a fool-proof pie crust. The directions were so simple, I could actually remember them:
1 C flour
1/3 C salted butter
Up to 1/3 C cold water, as needed.

With that recipe, I started making pecan pies that became legendary among my friends and family. When we gave up gluten, we weren’t about to give up holiday pecan pies, so I decided to see how fool-proof the pie crust recipe was, and I was amazed at how I could make it with most any gluten free flour blend. And, it didn’t require the use of xanthan gum, which I really dislike. Made only with brown rice flour, it makes a tasty, delicate crust. Made with a blend of 1/3 rice, 1/3 cornstarch, and 1/3 tapioca flours, it is a bit more flexible for topped pies, like fruit-based pies.

There is one secret to this recipe, and it is an important one: although your mom (or in my case, my dad) may have taught you to roll out pie crust between two sheets of wax paper, USE PLASTIC WRAP INSTEAD. Gluten free pie dough is tender, and the plastic wrap gives you the flexibility to carefully peel it away.

Gluten free or not, my pecan pie is in high demand, just as always.

Early Bird Gluten Free Thanksgiving Planning

2010-09-07T14:50:00.002-04:00

We spent Labor Day on the St. Lawrence River with friends. Since the weather looked iffy from the start, perhaps an indirect effect of Hurricane Earl, we decided to embrace the shift in temperature and plan a Thanksgiving-like Labor Day meal. After all, we still had a wonderful Stonewood Farms antibiotic- and hormone-free Vermont Turkey in our freezer, and Thanksgiving 2010 was just around the corner. We planned a simple meal based around the turkey, stuffed with Rosemary Baguette stuffing… and tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. Our garden back in Vermont was bursting with tomatoes, as was our friend’s. Thus, tomatoes had to be on the menu in some way as well.

The weather turned out far better than we expected, but it was a weekend of violent fronts moving in across the River, white caps, and some of the most spectacular sunsets.

At times, it seemed as though we went through three seasons in an hour. In the end, it was perfect roasted turkey weather, complete with a fire in the woodstove. So, in time for early-bird Thanksgiving planning, here is our recipe for awesome turkey stuffing—guaranteed to please the most gluten-free hostile relatives.

Gluten Free Rosemary Stuffing

Note: This recipe is based on the 13.5 pound turkey I happened to have. Stuffing amounts needed to be adjusted according to the size of your bird. This amount of stuffing was perfect for a turkey of this size; however, the next time I will double the recipe and bake some more stuffing separately. It disappeared on our table in nanoseconds!.

Ingredients:

2 Against The Gain Rosemary Baguettes, sliced and lightly toasted
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 ribs celery, finely chopped
½ stick butter
1 large egg
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Toast rosemary baguette slices for approx 15-20 min @ 250-300, and dice in approx ½ inch cubes.
2. Melt butter in frying pan; add chopped celery, onion, salt, and pepper and sauté for approximately five minutes.
3. Toss butter and vegetable mix with bread crumbs; add raw egg until evenly moistened.
4. Stuff turkey cavity and place in preheated oven (I cook my turkey at 325, but follow directions on turkey packaging.)
5. Bake uncovered for 1 hour. After one hour, cover breast with a small piece of muslin, and baste as needed until done, pouring off juices as necessary. You don’t need to cover the exposed stuffing if you like the surface to be slightly crispy.

Original Rolls or Original Baguettes will work just as well for the stuffing recipe. If you specifically want rosemary stuffing, add a Tbsp of fresh chopped rosemary to your sautéed vegetables. Rosemary rolls may be substituted for rosemary baguettes.

Bad Eggs: Not in this Gluten Free Bakery

2010-08-30T16:49:00.001-04:00

Long ago, long before our celiac diagnoses, and long before we ever imagined we would be running a gluten free bakery, we developed a distrust of the food supply. It was almost exactly 17 years ago that our oldest son lay in the pediatric ICU of Boston Children's Hospital, barely hanging on to life. He had contracted an E.coli 0157 bacterial infection, and of the 13 children also with E.coli infections, he was the only one that lived. We never definitely determined the source of his infection, but it was most likely a nasty hamburger from a diner in Maine that left me doubled over in abdominal pain for two days before he fell sick.

I must admit that every time I read about an E.coli outbreak or a food safety recall, I get flashbacks to the Pediatric ICU and the horror of being told that our four year-old son would most likely die. You’d think after 17 years, things would be a lot better, that citizens would have far greater food safety regulations. We don’t.

The most recent recall of 550 million eggs, potentially tainted with salmonella bacteria really got my attention. We use a lot of eggs, and believe me, I am so glad we buy fresh eggs, and we buy local. We could be buying our eggs for half the price if we got them from a place like Hillandale Farms in Iowa with 2,000,000 hens. I don’t know about you, but even the thought of a 2,000,000 hen operation makes me shudder. We know and understand our local ingredient suppliers, and it is well worth the additional cost to ensure the safety of the products we produce.

I’m also really glad we use whole eggs after reading that the potentially tainted eggs (every day 2,000,000 more eggs roll out of the Hillandale plant alone) are being redirected to “breaking plants,” where they will be pasteurized and turned into liquid eggs to be used in ice cream, mayonnaise, cookies, cakes, breads, pet food, food services and restaurants. Commercial bakeries (but NOT OURS,) are one of the biggest users of liquid eggs. According to the USDA, pasteurization will undeniably kill the bacteria. But I still find it horrifying that knowingly tainted eggs are being sold into the food supply. It also doesn’t make me feel much better to know that the suspect eggs will be segregated from other eggs and subjected to a second inspection to make sure they are salmonella free. If pasteurization is 100% effective, why do we need a second inspection?

According to MSNBC chief medical editor, Dr, Nancy Snyderman, the FDA cannot mandate that the farms get rid of the tainted eggs. She also suggests that the USDA and FDA need to get together to protect our food supply. I couldn’t agree more. Getting food safely from farms to table is one more reason to BUY LOCAL

Gluten Free and The Man

2010-08-20T14:16:00.004-04:00

Before founding Against The Grain, we'd done a number of different things: we’d worked in academia, big business and small business, and sold our souls on Wall Street. Despite over three decades of work experience, nothing much had prepared us for the kinds of issues we deal with as a wholesale gluten free food manufacturer. Fundamentally, we jumped into this business for two reasons: 1) we developed a premium bread product that we thought should be available to all who wanted it; and 2) we didn’t want to work for “The Man” ever again—we wanted to build a business with a conscience and provide a positive, growth-oriented work environment.

The other day I read a story in The New York Times about the striking workers at Dr Pepper Snapple Group Mott’s apple juice plant near Rochester, NY. Talk about “The Man!” Despite reporting record profits (net income of $555 million in 2009,) management is attempting to cut its labor costs by reducing workers’ annual salaries by $3,000, freezing pensions, eliminating pensions for new hires, reducing retirement
contributions, and making employees pay more for health benefits. The real corker, however, was a union bargainer who said of the plant manager, “He said we’re a commodity like soybeans and oil, and the price of commodities go up and down. He said there are thousands of people in this area out of jobs, and they could hire any one of them for $14 an hour.” Boy, I can’t wait to drink apple juice made by people treated like soybeans.

Sometimes I wonder whether customers really care (or even think) about the people behind the products they eat. A lot of attention has been given to fair trade, and the market has shown that consumers are interested in buying imported foods for which the workers are fairly compensated. But, does anyone think about production workers in an apple juice plant or production bakers in gluten free bakeries? Do consumers care if their food is made by workers who don’t make livable wages and work without any
benefits? Is cheap gluten free food more important than food made and handled by caring workers? I sincerely believe that there is a certain energy, a sense of mission that goes into every product we produce. We’re not cutting corners on any of our ingredients, and believe me, in a GF bakery, caring workers are very much one of the ingredients.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Journey Into The World of Gluten Eaters

2010-08-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

From time-to-time, I believe it is a good idea to serve gluten free fare to gluten-eaters. That is what happened last night at the Taste of Vermont reception in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, hosted by Senator Patrick Leahy. A group of Vermont specialty food producers journeyed to the nation’s capital to sample their products, and others sent their products for inclusion in the menu. About 400-500 guests ate, drank, and were quite merry.

We weren’t the only gluten free bakery—West Meadow Farms Bakery from Essex Junction (westmeadowfarmbakery.com) sent samples of yummy granola, and other companies with gluten free fair like Cabot Cheese, Maple Grove, Dakin Farm, and Bove’s of Vermont were represented as well. At our table, we gave out samples of our two new pizza flavors: pesto and cheese. The wheat-eaters raved about both flavors, and many declared it the best pizza in the place, but people were most effusive about our new 12-inch nut-free pesto pizza. A number of tree-nut sensitive guests were thrilled to be able to eat pesto pizza as well.

At another table, our baguettes were served as bruschetta, topped with Maple Grove Balsamic Vinaigrette (maplegrove.com, ) fresh mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm (mountainmozzarella.com) of Bennington, Vermont Hydroponic tomatoes ( http://vermonthydroponic.com/ ) and a leaf of fresh basil. Those tomatoes, folks, were the most unbelievably “real” hydroponic tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. The bruschetta were gorgeous and disappeared almost instantly; we sent 24 baguettes to the caterer! In that huge crowd, I think I talked to less than ½ dozen who were gluten free. Everyone else ate and effusively complimented our baguettes, no small feat for a gluten free bread. We’ve always prided ourselves on our bread with “the look, taste, and texture” of real bread, but it is always a good idea to do a reality-check with gluten-eaters.

Our pizza station was located right next to Rock Art Brewery beer (that’s the brewer of Vermonster beer, which caused such a flap,) but alas, it was not gluten free. But, I did discover that the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, which has brand new micro-brewed beer, Trapp Lager, is working on a gluten free beer. It can’t get much better than a gluten free Vermont micro-brewed beer. The folks from the Trapp Family Lodge assured me that they would keep me posted on its development. Think of it: gluten free Vermont pizza and gluten free Vermont micro-brewed beer. I assured them that Against the Grain would be willing to do some joint marketing events in the celiac community.

Surprises of the Garden: GF Sherried Carrot and Kale Lasagna With Rosemary Garlic Bread

2010-08-18T15:00:00.001-04:00

Dinner last night used four items from the garden: carrots, kale, garlic, and rosemary. We were making rosemary rolls at work yesterday, which got me thinking about how good rosemary tastes with carrots, and before I knew it, I had planned a dinner based upon the two. It didn’t hurt matters that the carrots in the garden were maturing, and it was time to pick. Actually, this is the first time in over 15 years gardening in Vermont that we have grown decent carrots.

Of course there are the funky carrots that mange to grow around rocks in the soil (lots of rocks,) but we’ve never grown decent sized carrots before the first frost until this summer. Maybe it was the hotter than normal weather or the quality of the seeds (High Mowing Seeds from, you guessed it, Vermont,) but boy are we getting the loveliest, tastiest carrots. (Chester, our Golden, also loves carrots. He lurks in the drop zone, and is happy to snack on the peels, so no need for a compost bin with him.)

To build the lasagna, I used a sherried carrot sauce instead of tomato sauce, and added chopped kale to a blend of ricotta, egg, and parmesan cheese. When I went to prepare the sauce, I got a big surprise. Perfectly camouflaged on the carrot greens was a beautiful green and black striped caterpillar on the move.

The vertical striping, much like that of a zebra, has the effect of visually breaking up the image for any predators (or cooks.) Of course, Alex was delighted by the caterpillar surprise, so we immediately had to go online and find out what kind of butterfly it would become. It turned out to be a black swallowtail butterfly—how cool!

Gluten Free Sherried Carrot and Kale Lasagna
The sauce:
3 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/3 stick butter
½ C cooking sherry
1-1/2 C water
1 tsp freshly ground pepper

The ricotta filling (blended:)
1 15-oz container of ricotta
1 cup shredded Parmesan
1 large egg
2 C chopped raw kale

Additional lasagna ingredients:
1 12-oz package Tinkyada lasagna noodles
2 C shredded mozzarella cheese
½ C kalamata olives (chopped)
1 tsp freshly chopped rosemary

Directions:
1. Saute onion in melted butter until transparent.
2. Add chopped carrots, sherry, pepper, and half the water. Bring to a boil and let simmer adding the balance of the water and the sauce reduces. Simmer until carrots are tender (about 20-25 min.)
3. Remove mixture from the heat and puree in a food processor or blender until smooth. Set aside for building lasagna.
4. Spread approximately ¼ of the sauce in the bottom of a 9x12 baking dish, then place a layer of uncooked lasagna noodles on top of it.
5. Spread approximately ¼ of ricotta mixture on noodles, and top with ¼ of shredded mozzarella.
6. Repeat process, building layers. End with a layer of shredded mozzarella. Sprnkle kalamata olives and fresh rosemary on top.
7. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.
8. Uncover and bake 30 additional minutes. Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before slicing.

Gluten Free Garlic Rosemary Bread
1. Slice Against The Grain Rosemary Rolls into cross sections approximately ½ to ¾ inch thick.
2. Finely chop one garlic clove and add to several tablespoons of butter.
3. Brush butter and garlic on tops of slices.
4. Bake on sheet pan for approximately 10 minutes at 400 degrees (until lightly toasted.)

All Natural Liars

2010-08-15T14:27:00.001-04:00

Vermont is home to a lot of great entrepreneurs, particularly food entrepreneurs. Perhaps it is the inspiring natural environment, or the quality of life, or even the disproportionate amount of smart folks with Yankee (often acquired) ingenuity, but some really great and original products have come out of this tiny state.

No food company has been more visibly the “face” of Vermont than Ben&Jerry’s. Ben&Jerry’s story is now legendary—childhood friends move to Vermont, build a premium brand ice cream empire on original flavors, funky names, and a commitment to social conscience. And then the rest of the story unfolds. The company is bought by Unilever (which also owns brands like Dove, Lipton, Axe deodorant, and Hellman’s) in 2000. The sellout path is not an unusual one for a number of other original Vermont food companies like Green Mountain Gringo, Putney Pasta, Annie’s Naturals, and most recently Magic Hat Brewing Company. Most conglomerates (usually public,), and venture capital- backed companies are motivated by money and increasing shareholder value. Making the world better for customers and/or celiac sufferers is typically way down on their list of priorities.

When we started out in business, we modeled a lot of our core values on Ben&Jerry’s sense of social and product mission. From their website:

Product Mission: To make, distribute, and sell the finest quality all natural ice cream and euphoric concoctions with a continued commitment to incorporating wholesome, natural ingredients and promoting business practices that respect the Earth and the Environment.

So, it was quite a shock to read the most recent report from the Center for Science in the Public interest (http://www.cspinet.org/new/201008121.html) publicly calling on Ben&Jerry’s to drop their prominent “All Natural” claim from their label. It turns out that 48 of their 53 flavors contain substances not found in nature at all. While acknowledging that the ingredients they used were certainly safe, the CSIP stated that “these ingredients come from the factory, not a farm.” Good line, I’d say. In particular, the CSIP took issue with Dutch processed cocoa (processed being the operative word here), partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and corn syrup being listed as natural ingredients. On top of all that, the CSIP first alerted the company and the FDA in 2002 to “the deceptive use of the ‘all natural” claim.”

Which begs the question: Who is monitoring food labeling, anyway? I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen some questionable labels. For example, I once saw a company advertise that its crusts were lightly dusted with cornmeal, yet corn was no where to be found in the ingredients (I’m sensitive to corn, and always look for it on labels.) The proliferation of engineered GF flours, enzymes, and miracle formulations that are hidden behind a “clean label” are troubling as well. What constitutes “clean” and how is “natural” defined? Can we trust companies to label products honestly? I’m not so sure.

Gluten Free Baked Goods: Want a Cleaner Label?

2010-08-04T16:24:00.002-04:00

So, I was leafing through a baking journal and came upon an ad for “Squeaky Clean Labels” by a company named Watson Inc:

Let us help you to change existing ingredient labels and remove chemical dough conditioners, such as Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Mono and Diglycerides, Azodicarbonamide or DATEM with Softn’Mighty (proprietary enzyme technology.) Watson can also replace Calcium Proprionate with our No Mold (cultured wheat) and Potassium Bromate with our Natural Oven Spring 910 (proprietary enzyme technology.) Most importantly, it can be done without compromising product quality!

The global market for industrial enzymes is estimated to be $2.9 billion, larger than the entire gluten free market. Oddly enough, no one seems to be questioning their use in either traditional or gluten free baking…not in this country anyway. In the UK, however, an organization called the Real Bread Campaign (www.sustainweb.org/realbread/) calls enzymes “baking’s dirty secret” and asserts that the industry is reluctant to tell consumers that they use them.

The latest buzz word in baking ingredients, and surely a sign of industrialized food manufacturing, is “enzymes.” Enzymes are potent biomolecules derived from protein that act as catalysts for the chemical reactions involved in the baking process. The right combination of enzymes produces springiness in both wheat-based and gluten free breads. Enzymes also keep baked bread from going stale, eliminating the problem of starch in the dough crystallizing and becoming dry, certainly an asset for gluten free breads. From the bread manufacturer’s perspective, though, the greatest benefit is that they leave a squeaky-clean label.

Don’t think that the “clean” label you’re reading means that the baked goods were made with the same natural ingredients in your grandmother’s kitchen. You won’t find "enzymes" on the spice shelf, slotted nicely between dill and fennel. These are big business ingredients. Genetic engineering is used in the development and manufacture of most commercially available enzymes used by the food and beverage industry. The reason for genetic engineering is mostly economic--without genetic engineering, naturally occurring enzymes in microorganisms cannot be fermented in a cost effective manner.

Both traditional and gluten free baked goods consumers are insisting on clean labels and are becoming increasingly weary of chemical additives and dough conditioners. This demand is driving ingredient makers to engineer products that increase the springiness, improve the texture, and extend the shelf-life of baked goods. Gluten free consumers can certainly benefit from these improvements, but at what cost? Innovation doesn’t have to mean the industrialization of food, serious food processing, and ingredient engineering. At Against The Grain, we have one of the cleanest labels in the gluten free baked goods category, and we do it it old-fashinoed way.

Gluten Free in College

2010-08-02T14:55:00.002-04:00

There are pregnancy books and parenting books and books on how to pick the right college, but no books that really prepare you for the moment when you pack your teenage child in a car and leave him or her off at college. Last fall, our son headed off to college, and I must admit that it was one of the most emotionally charged moments I have experienced as a parent…and I wasn’t even the one who dropped him off! Add celiac disease to the fledging drama, and it produces a whole new layer of anxiety.

Actually preparing for my celiac son in college began over a year before. We visited a half-dozen or so colleges in his decision process, and he got used to me asking about special dietary needs. Luckily, he didn’t have to make his decision based upon his dietary needs. He found a school that felt just right, applied for early decision, and was done with the college application process by December 15. When we visited the school for admitted students’ day, we asked for gluten free lunches, which to their credit they were able to provide. Then we toured the main dining hall with a staff member and noted that there was no dedicated toaster, no stash of gluten free breads on the line, and no separate condiments. Clearly, I had my work cut out for me—I needed to impart in my son the importance of advocating for himself, and I had to take the initiative in opening the dialogue for him.

About a month before he was to begin his first semester, I e-mailed the dietician listed on his school’s dining hall website and addressed my concerns after visiting the dining hall. She responded to my concerns, and informed me that her organization, Bon Appetite Management Company, was in the process of beginning a celiac training initiative company-wide. The dietician also put us in touch with the college’s executive chef. By the time my son arrived on campus, a lot had changed, including the debut of a dedicated GF toaster. At orientation, my son and I met with the executive chef and discussed how to manage my son’s dietary requirements. This had the effect of opening up a student/chef dialogue. The chef asked my son to set up a time for coffee, and they walked through and discussed all campus dining halls. The executive chef was very student-friendly and offered to have his staff make anything my son wanted and to prepare gluten free versions of meals ahead of the other meals they were making. I am happy to report that my son was not once glutened in the campus dining halls.

Despite a tremendous working relationship with the chef, gluten free dining in college for my son was not without its challenges. Getting him to advocate for himself took time. For example, my son sometimes found himself in the position of holding up the service line of hungry students and stressed out servers, so he just ate yogurt and salad instead. And meals are social times at college; the offer for made-to-order gluten free meals was great in principle, but when my son was dining with friends, they were often finished eating by the time he got his meal.

I had another conversation with the dietician after school was over for the summer, and we reviewed my son’s dining hall experience. I shared a number of my son’s observations, like “Why does barley have to be sitting in the middle of the salad bar where students can accidentally drop it into other offerings?” By the time he starts school again in several weeks, the salad bar will be organized to minimize contamination, and the staff will make an attempt to bake some extra gluten free meals, “fast food,” that can be micro-waved or minimally heated in a pinch. We couldn’t have asked for a much better gluten free college dining service.

The dining halls of the following schools are managed by Bon Appetite:
American University
Biola University
Case Western Reserve University
Dominican University of California
Emmanuel College
Goucher College
Hamilton College
Lesley University
Lewis & Clark College
Macalester College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mount St. Mary's College
Northwestern College
Oberlin College
Reed College
Seattle University
St. Olaf College
University of Pennsylvania
University of Redlands
University of San Francisco
Washington University in St. Louis
Whitman College
Woodbury University

Running a Gluten Free Business

2010-07-29T22:45:00.003-04:00

A few Sundays ago was the 30th Annual Tibbetts Point Lighthouse 5K/10K Run in Cape Vincent, NY. Since I was in the Thousand Islands for the weekend, I decided on a whim to run the 5K leg of the race. It is a small, scenic, family-oriented race that runs through a residential portion of the town and along the St. Lawrence River.

Over the years, I have run the race a number of times in all kinds of weather conditions. What was different this year was that I hadn’t run a race in over two years. Actually, since starting the business, I have found it harder and harder to find enough hours in the day to do all the things I want.

Although I told myself that I was just running the race for the camaraderie and to enjoy the optimal weather conditions, I felt some of my competitive spirit kicking in at the line-up. The woman next to me struck up a conversation, and I learned that she was almost exactly my age, and she, too, was running her first race in several years. Her name was Gail, and she told me she just hoped to break 30 minutes

“Well, don’t follow me,” I laughed as we took off with me following her. I was feeling pretty good-- not beating any land speed record-- but we hadn’t even gone a quarter of a mile before I passed her by. All went well for about ¾ of the race until I hit a long, unshaded stretch. It was HOT!

“I don’t have to do this,” I said to myself. “I don’t need to prove anything,” and I stopped running and started walking. Physically I was fine, but mentally I just wasn’t there. Just after I started walking, another silver-haired woman, ran by. I had been walking only a minute or so when I heard footsteps, and a voice called out,

“You can’t stop now. I’ve been pacing on you the whole race. Come on we’ll run together.” It was Gail, and she and I vowed to cross the finish line together. It was a scene demonstrating just why I love the friendliness of this race. Right after crossing the finish line, the grey-haired woman who passed me walked up and said ,

“Good race. I was so surprised when you stopped-- I was following you the whole way.”Gayle and I barely missed her 30 minute goal, and in that half-hour, I learned several life lessons that are particularly appropriate to my role as an owner of a gluten free business:

1. PEOPLE YOU DON”T EVEN KNOW RELY ON YOU. In that small race, I had no idea that not one, but two runners my age were relying on me for pacing. I would never have stopped and walked had I known. Every day we get calls and e-mails from fans of our bread, but at least once a week, we get an impassioned plea to “never stop making your bread.” People all over the eastern part of the US have come to rely on us for the taste, quality, and purity of our gluten free bread. That is a lot of responsibility, and we take it very seriously.

2. MENTAL STRENGTH IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS BEING STRONG. There was absolutely no reason physically why I stopped and walked towards the end of the race—my head just wasn’t into it at the moment. In fact, Gayle jokingly admonished me for not even breathing hard. In fact if I hadn’t stopped and walked, I would have finished third in my age group. Instead, I literally let someone pass me by. In the gluten free business, we need to be agile. It just isn’t enough to be out front, operating from a position of strength. As a gluten free manufacturer, we need to constantly strive to improve our products without compromising the quality and integrity of our ingredients. We need to look at baking new and innovative, naturally gluten free products without relying on ingredient science to trick the palate and extend shelf life. At Against The Grain, we are always looking 12-18 months out at new product development (our new Nut-free Pesto Pizza, for example, was several years in the planning.) Stay tuned for some really innovative gluten free products!

Post Script: Last weekend I bumped into Gail again at The Save The River 5K in Clayton, NY. The humidity was a killer, but I beat the 30 minute mark by 30 seconds. Gail, on the other hand, came in third in our age category with a terrific 28:06. Way to go Gail!

Tour de Gluten Free

2010-07-12T18:04:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, Alex and I decided to go out tandem bike riding. Although Alex will be 21 this month, he has never had the balance to be able to ride a two-wheel bike by himself. But that doesn’t stop him when it comes to tandem bike riding.

Starting out from Against The Grain's parking lot

He’s a real trooper, and both of us are suckers for what we call “river rides.” Those are looping bike trips that cross over a river, and then cross back at another point. By far, our most ambitious ride has been 70 miles, with two international crossings of the St. Lawrence River into Canada and back. Locally, we have a neat Connecticut River ride that takes us into New Hampshire, across a lower ridge of Mt. Wantastiquet, and back into town. This past weekend, we tried a new one—the West River ride.

The first bridge crossing

...and the second

The Dummerston Covered bridge was easily Alex's favorite part of the ride

The challenge in this ride was crossing up between Black Mountain and Prospect Hill on the East West highway in Dummerston, VT. The elevation gain was 400-plus feet over one mile, and it took a lot of team work in the 90 degree heat for us to keep moving forward and up. About 1/4 mile from the top, I had to resort to reminding Alex of the story of The Little Engine That Could. He started pedaling to the cadence of “I think I can, I think I can” and we made it to the top in style.

It occurred to me that our biking, and the teamwork involved, have a lot in common with Against The Grain. My favorite metaphor for starting our business was a trip we made to NYC with the then pre-teen boys for the Five Borough Bike Tour. At my brother’s suggestion, who had done the ride the year before, we didn’t start in Lower Manhattan; rather, we pedaled over from our hotel to join the tour just below Central Park. When we got to Sixth Avenue, there were barricades and people pedaling along the Avenue. We squeezed between two barriers, hopped on our bikes, and joined the crowd…or so we thought.

Within minutes of pedaling, we were startled by the sound of a bull horn announcing the arrival of the fast-moving, lead peloton. With barricades on both sides, it was either pedal as fast as we could and hope they could dodge us or get run over, a situation not at all unlike the current gluten free marketplace. Yep, initially we pedaled leisurely right into the front of the gluten free peloton. As a small, artisan manufacturer, we’ve been pedaling the bike really hard ever since. And there is a lot of creative problem-solving and team work involved in making our products a success. We work in small batches that require close coordination and timing between our bake team members. Baking with farm-fresh ingredients means we also work closely with our suppliers to make sure we have fresh ingredients on hand just when we need them. John,” the egg man” from Maple Meadow Farms, for example, monitors our supply and adjusts his deliveries with a certain degree of wizardry that always works.

Using team work to power a bike to the top of a steep hill feels really good. So does building a business from scratch with highly committed employees and crafting a premium product with team work, ingenuity, and clean ingredients.

Gluten Free Eating From The Garden: Rainbow Chard and Kalamata Olive Pizza

2010-07-11T11:26:00.002-04:00

It has been the hottest I ever remember in Vermont this past week. For three days, the temperature hovered in the three digits…and it was humid, like New Orleans humid! Never has going to work every morning seemed so appealing—leaving a hot, humid, home in the hills for an air-conditioned baking floor. Warmer weather has come earlier and hotter by Vermont standards, and our garden has been the major beneficiary. For several years now, we haven’t seen ripe tomatoes until September, just before the first frost. Not this year.

New to our garden this year is rainbow chard, a mix of red, orange, pink, yellow, and white with bold and streaked leaves (organic seeds by High Mowing, one of Vermont’s finest organic farms.) The chard is both visually appealing and abundant. For dinner the other night, we made a rainbow chard and kalamata olive pizza on an Against The Grain Gourmet pizza shell. We all agreed that it was one of our best veggie pizza combinations yet.

Instead of using a tomato base, I sautéed fresh small white onions with rainbow chard and topped the pizza with a one-to-one mixture of low fat mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

And while I can’t claim that the veggies were entirely local because I can’t grow kalamata olives here in Vermont (well, maybe I will someday if the trend toward hotter and hotter weather continues in Vermont,) my brother is growing a bumper crop of them in South Carolina.

Photo by Geoff Woodard

Rainbow Chard and Kalamata Olive Pizza

Serves 4 with two ample slices each

A good handful of rainbow chard (approximately 30 leaves with stalks)

Six small white onions

2 Tablespoons canola oil

1 C cheese mixture of low-fat mozzarella and freshly grated parmesan cheese

½ C chopped kalamata olives

1 Against The Grain Gourmet Pizza Shell (defrosted)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Sautee onions and chard in canola oil until the stems are barely tender (approximately 10 minutes.)

3. Spread sautéed mixture evenly on pizza shell.

4. Sprinkle cheese to taste and top with chopped olives.

5. Bake directly on middle oven rack for 25 minutes.

6. Go outside and sit on the porch while it is baking ‘cause the kitchen gets HOT.

7. Allow to cool for several minutes, slice, and enjoy!

Is There a Celiac in the House?

2010-06-30T13:30:00.001-04:00

A number of years ago, we moved to New York City from Central Pennsylvania, and I needed to find a new family doctor. Not being very attuned to city life, it wasn’t the easiest of things to do. Although there are a gazillion physicians in New York City, finding a good one to whom I could relate was a challenge. I made an appointment with a family medicine specialist near our apartment, and showed up on time. The waiting room was empty, which should have been a clue, but that was before I learned life lessons like you never eat at a restaurant with an empty dining room or ride in an empty car on the NY Subway. I waited, and waited. About 35 minutes went by. No one came in, no one left, just the receptionist behind her glass window (bullet proof?) and me. Suddenly the front door opened and an office assistant walked in carrying the morning mail.

“Just give me the financial magazines, and throw the rest away,” the receptionist said. “The doctor doesn’t care about anything but the financial ones.” Whoa.

I promptly got up and walked out, thus continuing my search for a family physician. I didn’t think I was asking a lot to want a physician who was motivated by practicing medicine more than money.

I guess I feel the same way about gluten free good manufacturers. I prefer to patronize a company run by someone who is gluten free or otherwise dietary-challenged, who is passionate about making a difference. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against companies motivated by a business opportunity who leverage their gluten-based brand names to promote their gluten free brands. But, there is a special connection in celiac-run companies between the company and the customer that promotes a feeling of commitment and trustworthiness.

As more mainstream companies produce gluten free alternatives, I fear that we are losing that connection. What’s worse is that some of the gluten free pioneers are falling by the wayside. In the words of Tiffany Janes at The Essential Gluten Free Blog, “Like it or not, large companies that can make a ton of food for less money than the ‘little guys’ will hurt many companies. The ingredients that larger companies use might not be as healthy, but many people are more concerned with paying less than buying healthier products.”

That was also precisely the topic of the editorial in the latest issue of Gluten Free Living, which lamented the closure of Mr. Ritts. Today, June 30, is the last day of baking for Paul Kelty, a gluten free pioneer and founder of Mr Ritts, a Philadelphia area gluten free bakery (although he will continue to market baking mixes.) Mr. Ritts is not only an exceptional gluten free baker, but also a warm, generous person who provided invaluable advice when we began our operation more than three years ago. Mr.Ritts, we wish you the best of luck in the newest iteration of your business.

A Berry Delicious Gluten Free Day

2010-06-20T14:09:00.006-04:00

Yesterday Alex and I celebrated the summer solstice (a little early—we took advantage of the perfect weather) by hiking up to the top of Mt.Wantastiquet. It’s a great mountain just across the Connecticut River from Brattleboro, VT with a carriage trail built in 1891 that switches back and forth to the summit.

It was hot, and we didn’t bring water, so we were thrilled to discover that we were the first to find ripe wild blueberries growing around the boulders on the summit. They were warm and sweet and tasted just like summer.

I always get a thrill when I come upon naturally growing berries. It’s like eating local at its ultimate best. Our scene was right out of Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal, except that our blueberry picking solitude was interrupted not by a bear, but by a Jack Russell terrier and a guy sitting on the summit monument talking for at least fifteen minutes on his cell phone. Welcome to the “connected” world of 2010.

As if that weren’t enough, on our way down, we came upon a young family of four heading up. Alex stopped dead in his tracks, and in his unvarnished directness, accosted them with “Your dog is wearing shoes!” No kidding, their boxer (I think they called her Lily) was wearing what looked like red Mary Janes called Bark’n Boots ($59.95 at Eastern Mountain Sports if you care.) Admittedly, our Golden, Chester, has some sensory issues, but all I could imagine was him rolling in contortions trying to simultaneously chew and scrape those shoes off. Besides which, how can a dog respectably give a squirrel a run wearing shoes with Vibram soles?

A shoe-clad dog is definitely an oddity in Vermont, and between the “bear” and the dog with shoes, we laughed all they way down. Along the railroad tracks in Brattleboro on the banks of the Connecticut River, we found MORE wild berries. This time, they were black raspberries. We picked a nice cup of them and brought them home to make GF raspberry muffins for Father’s Day. So here is my version of wild raspberry gluten free/casein free muffins…enjoy!

Wild Raspberry Gluten Free/Casein Free Muffins

(makes 20)

2 ½ C GF Mix (1/3 rice flour, 1/3 cornstarch, 1/3 tapioca)
¾ C sugar
¾ C powdered sugar
4 large eggs
½ C non-GMO canola oil
1 C fresh raspberries
¾ C chopped pumpkin seeds (or seeds/nuts of your choice)
2/3C orange juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

Directions:
Combine all dry ingredients; then add wet ingredients and beat on high for 2 minutes. Fold in raspberries and chopped pumpkins. Ladle into greased cupcake pans ( ¾ full.) Bake at 350 for approx 20 minutes.
Note: this recipe does not use xanthan gum.

A Wake-Up Call for Gluten Free Ingredients

2010-06-13T11:07:00.003-04:00

This past week, those of us who bake and eat gluten free received a wake-up call when it comes to ingredients. Actually, by the time the week was over, we had received THREE wake-up calls: three separate news stories related cautionary tales for those of us who bake and eat gluten free. The first was a report that a virus called “brown streak” is decimating tapioca crops in Africa, and some are likening its potential to the great potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s. Most people don’t realize that after rice and wheat, tapioca (also known as cassava, manioc, and yuca) is the largest source of calories in the food supply.

Eight hundred million people in Africa, South America, and Asia rely on it as a food staple. It is also a staple of gluten free flour blends, and the exclusive gluten free flour used by us at Against The Grain. Our tapioca comes from Thailand, where experts think it is highly unlikely the brown steak will spread. However, the virus in Africa has greatly reduced the world supply of tapioca, which is not only used in food and cosmetics, but also in the textile and paper industries. Our tapioca costs have shot up 30% over the past few months. The increased cost of tapioca will also put pressure on other gluten free baked good manufacturers, as well as those selling mixes—not what the consumer wants to hear.

The second wake-up call was the publication of a pilot study by dietician Tricia Thompson, sponsored by Schar, USA and Bia Diagnostics, and published in the June issue of the American Dietetic Association. It looked at the potential for contaminated grains that are normally used in gluten free baking. The results indicated that 32% (or 7 of 22 samples) contained mean gluten levels of greater than 20ppm. The products tested included white rice and flour, brown rice, corn meal, polenta, buckwheat and buckwheat flour, amaranth seed and flour, flax seed, millet grain and flour, sorghum flour, and soy flour.

The authors stress that the sample sizes were not large enough to make any definitive statements about which grains or seeds were more likely to be contaminated, but there were some pretty scary numbers for soy flour. Coincidentally, in our household, we have had some on-and-off reactions to products containing soy. Now, we’re not sure whether it is the soy or contamination or both.

As a gluten free manufacturer, we’re glad we only use tapioca in our products, a starch that is processed totally outside the traditional grain and mill system. But, like everyone else, we are also gluten free consumers, and we buy products containing many other gluten free starches and grains.

The last news story concerned a report (and video footage by CBS) of a makeshift, garage-based milling facility in Iowa that processes gluten free grains. Although the owners maintain that only 1% of their products were processed in that facility, would you want to eat that 1% produced in a facility that had no running water, no hand-wash stations, and no working toilet? Even at a recent outdoor vendor fair in Minneapolis last month, the Minnesota Department of Health required that there be portable hand-wash stations for vendors. I don’t know about the health department in Iowa, but here in Vermont, if we had no running water, we would be shut down in what my mother-in-law used to call “A New York Minute”—that’s faster than fast!

Clearly, gluten free products are coming of age. As more and more industrialized giants enter the fray, I’m afraid we’re only going to hear more reports like these, which aren’t all that unusual in the industrial food chain. As if it isn’t enough that we have to read each and every label thoroughly, we now have to worry about whether the label is accurate as well as the source of the ingredients.

Journey into the World of Gluten-Eaters, Episode Two: Strolling of the Heifers

2010-06-06T09:56:00.002-04:00

The celebrity judge from Against The Grain rates a loaf

In a previous post, I commented that it is a good thing to sample our gluten free bread products to gluten-eaters from time to time. Friday night, we were one of the corporate sponsors of the most gluten-eater event of all: a bread baking contest. King Arthur, another fine Vermont company, was one of the sponsors as well. Even though they now have a line of gluten free mixes, this was a major gluten event. Why, you might ask, would a gluten free bread company sponsor an event like this? It was a benefit for Strolling of the Heifers, a local event that raises money and awareness for Vermont farming, educates youth, and works to preserve the livelihoods of farming families. And, we’re very much about supporting local producers. The bread baking contest was only one event of the weekend, which includes, a parade with 100 flowered heifers marching up Main Street, along with every imaginable parade entry. The event is so popular that over the weekend, the population of Brattleboro swells three to four times. Fun is had by all.

Entries await judging

As a sponsor of the event, we were asked if we wanted to be a judge of the bread-baking contest. One of our bakers whose wife is gluten free, but he isn’t, agreed. He also had been a artisan bread baker in Massachusetts before joining Against The Grain, so he was a perfect candidate. When Dan found out that he was billed as a “celebrity” judge, that added even more seriousness to his purpose. He joked that he would find himself saying, “Well, I’m going to ‘go against the grain’ on this one.” But, he reported that all three judges totally agreed on the top entry, as well as second and third place. Lest we think that only gluten free eaters complain about bread, he reported that they had to sample a number of loaves that were awful. And, no, there were not any gluten free entries.

Ruth greets tasters, 1000+ of them

A number of local vendors had tables at the bread baking contest event, including Grafton Cheese, Cabot Cheese, King Arthur, and us. King Arthur even offered samples of gluten free brownies made from their new gluten free brownie mix. Alas, I didn’t get to taste them since we were trapped behind our table and a swell of 1,000+ tasters. It was pretty amazing to me how many townspeople had never heard of us and were thrilled to try our bread, gluten free or not. We also met gluten free people from distant places like Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and across the border in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, who discovered our product that night and vowed to become customers. One of my favorite visitors was a man who stopped by, tasted a piece of sesame bagel, stopped in his tracks, tasted another, then another, and loudly proclaimed, “I don’t care if this bagel is gluten free or not; it is the BEST bagel I’ve ever eaten in my life!” Like I said before, it can be very affirming to journey into the world of gluten eaters—our products are all about great tasting products…products that just happen to be naturally gluten free.

Gluten Free Pay to Play

2010-06-03T17:12:00.000-04:00

This morning I opened up an email from a national celiac website. It was their monthly newsletter, and it contained the usual mix of articles about food, events, health topics, and other items of interest to a celiac audience. As I scanned the list of articles, my eye was drawn to a prominent review of a new product—a hot dog bun. This is a product we have considered developing ourselves from time to time, so I started reading it with interest. By the time I got to the third sentence, I could see this was going to be a five-star review. They always are, so I hit the “delete” button for the entire email. I wondered if this was another “pay to play,” or in other words, a paid review. It may well have been.

In case you hadn’t noticed, most of the high-traffic informational celiac Web sites and some blogs are now posting banner ads. Celiac events such as vendor fairs, fund-raising walks, and membership meetings have loads of “sponsors” and “supported by” tags. The blogging world is rife with bloggers who eagerly solicit freebies from manufacturers and then tirelessly promote the products online. Gluten-free and celiac Internet forums are full of people who write post after post praising this or that product. Is it because they feel so strongly about the product or because a manufacturer has sent them freebies, coupons, and prizes to reward them for all the buzz they create on the site about the products? A new entrant into the gluten free manufacturing business recently took to the social media network to “advertize” for a product evangelist. This all hits me as kind of weird.

As a gluten-free manufacturer, I receive nearly daily solicitations from all of these sources. One well-known celiac information site has been sending me monthly solicitations with all kinds of juicy offers. In addition to the usual banner ads, I can BUY a product review for $250-$550, depending on how long I would like it to be. No kidding, a product review. Is their “reviewer” going to give my product a bum review? What do you think? Are there any unflattering reviews on their site? I’m sure you know the answer to that.

I don’t mean to sound cynical here, but there was a time when celiac groups and Web sites were a lot more altruistic, objective, and non-commercial. I think we all need to recognize that that time has passed. In some ways, we have become a victim of our own success in creating public awareness of the needs of the celiac and gluten-free community.

But we live in a market-driven society, and big money and marketing directors are moving into this business. The big industrial food companies are buying their way into the public awareness with all the marketing muscle we expect in an advertising-oriented society. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as we are aware of its presence. We all know an infomercial when we see one, but this is something new in the gluten free world. I can’t tell you the number of calls we’ve received from “producers” claiming they are doing a TV segment on celiac disease, and want to tell our story…for money, of course, lots of money. And, when you read a “product review” these days, you have to ask yourself whether it is an infomercial. Was the reviewer a recipient of lots of freebies? Are all the contests and give-aways that require postings and reviews anything more than a manipulation of customers for a manufacturer’s gain?

Big celiac groups are being courted and funded by manufacturers that want them to give their products top billing. Did you realize that manufacturers pay big money (sometimes thousands of dollars) to provide some part of the sumptuous meals that are included with your registration fee at major celiac events and conferences? Who can blame the celiac organization, for these events are often fundraisers for celiac research or education and the more sponsorship opportunities, the more money is raised. But you are not getting an unbiased taste of a new product—you are getting a taste of the product whose manufacturer has paid the most. Pay to play. Let the reader/forum follower/blog follower/buyer beware.

Gluten Free and The Big Three

2010-06-02T09:16:00.001-04:00

A couple of days ago, there was a letter to the editor in our local newspaper from a visitor from Michigan. He remarked that he saw many bumper stickers advising him to “buy local,” and he wanted to understand “just how locally and to what products the fine people of the Northeast extend this philosophy to their purchasing practices.” In particular, he was referring to the preponderance of non-American cars, and he urged Vermonters to take a look at American cars and commented that the big three have made great strides in the last few years.

It was a thought-provoking letter. Six years ago, we turned in a gas-guzzling American SUV with 75,000 miles for a Prius. With 160,000+ miles on the odometer and still going strong, we have no intention of buying a new car any time soon. When we bought our Prius, not only were there few fuel-efficient American vehicles, but the existing SUV’s didn’t hold up well as all-season vehicles on the back roads of Vermont.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering what domestic versus foreign automobiles has to do with gluten free bread. Well, just by chance, I happened to be driving from Vermont to Michigan about six weeks ago for a gluten free vendor fair. I took a route through Canada and crossed into Michigan at the Port Huron border crossing. It was approximating rush hour, and I was stunned that there were no foreign cars on the road. Actually, I made a game of it and counted only seven foreign cars in my one and one-half hour trip from the border to Ann Arbor. It was as if I were in a foreign country (or Vermont is a foreign country!)—I saw models of American cars I’ve never seen before, and the highways were miracles of efficiency.

When I visited a few local health food stores, though, the frozen cases were stuffed with imported bread products and pizzas. While the buy local/buy American sentiment in the Detroit area was obvious for automobiles, local and American gluten free bread products weren’t to be found. A few years back, imported gluten free brands were some of the most palatable (and often the most economical) on the market, but just like in Detroit, a lot has changed in the past few years. There are a number of domestic gluten free bread products that are tastier and a lot more wholesome. So, it occurs to me that the Big Three and domestic gluten free bread manufacturers have a lot more in common than they might think. As a manufacturer, we are in a position of having to dislodge imported brands from the freezer shelves. We do this by letting as many people as possible taste our breads—21,000 celiacs last year alone. Once customers see and taste the difference, they can make a difference by buying a non-industrialized food product made by an American company who cares about not only its customers, but its employees, and the family farms and small businesses that supply its raw materials. And by the time our Prius finally gives up the ghost, I'm hopeful that the Big Three will have demonstrated to me the superiority of their automobiles.

Let Them Eat Cake (Gluten Free, Of Course)

2010-06-01T21:12:00.001-04:00

This morning, I woke up after being away for the Memorial Day holiday and panicked. I realized that it was June 1, and it was the first anniversary of Dan’s hire. We have a small, close-knit group of people working at Against The Grain. I’m not quite sure how it happens, but it doesn’t take long for traditions to become established. And one tradition we observe is employee anniversaries. I make a gluten-free, casein-free cake for every employee’s anniversary, and we all sit around for a few moments and celebrate. And, of course, I never use a mix because I never bake with xanthan or guar gum (I can always taste the gumminess and aftertaste so avoidance has become my obsession. As an aside, other people have written us and said the same thing, so I know I’m not all alone in my gum obsession.) However, there are a number of good gluten free cake mixes out there on the market if you’re not an xanthan or guar gum phobe.

Luckily, I had all the necessary ingredients on hand, so I leaped out of bed and went to work. As I write this blog, I am pacing the floor waiting for the cake to cool in the unusually warm Vermont weather for June. Long ago, I learned the perils of trying to ice a not totally cool cake in hot weather. It just oozes and oozes and makes a total mess! Besides that, as the recipe-developer and inventor of our bread baking process, I feel a certain degree of pressure to make the cake look (and of course taste) respectable. I must admit, I am by far not a graduate of Wilton Decorating classes. The last time I decorated a cake for Sean’s 2nd anniversary, I wrote “Sean reaches the terrible two’s” on the top in icing script. “Huh?” One of my colleagues said, starting to read the message, “Scan nachos? Huh??” We got a good laugh out of it, but I’m still defensive of my primitive decorating skills.

Insisting on baking cakes from scratch certainly has its liabilities, but baking from scratch with simple, fresh ingredients it is the philosophy on which our company was founded. I’m proud to say that I have made every one of my kids’ birthday cakes from scratch, and my oldest one will turn 21 this summer! Only once have I had to resort to a non home-made option. That was last year on my mom’s 88th birthday. She had requested a turkey for her birthday (which I had stuffed with this, moist, delicious stuffing made from our Rosemary Baguettes.) It was only after the turkey was in the oven that I realized that I hadn’t yet baked the cake. In a pinch, I bought some gluten free brownies and some chocolate mint ice cream. Then, using the softened ice cream, I built a cake using the brownies like bricks and the ice cream like mortar. Then I “iced” the entire cake with softened ice cream. After an hour or so in the freezer, I had a passable gluten free birthday cake. Of course, it wasn’t guiltless since I hadn’t baked it from scratch…

So far, our company is small enough that a nine-inch layer cake gives everyone a taste. I’m not sure what will happen some day when anniversaries occur weekly, and it takes far more than a nine-inch cake to celebrate. I’ll figure it out, though, because traditions are part of what makes a company’s culture. Time to ice the cake!

Baked Apple Torte With a Pizza Twist

2010-05-26T11:32:00.000-04:00

What do you get when you combine the cheesy crust of an Against The Grain Gourmet Pizza Shell with baked apples? You get the most amazing gluten free dessert—an apple pie with cheddar cheese taste in a pizza slice. This recipe comes from Kathi Thiboutot, the owner of Healthy Haven, an all gluten free store in Tiverton, Rhode Island. In addition to coming up with a tasty recipe to demo our product in her store, Kathi is a true optimist who opened the first exclusively gluten free store on the east coast and also started a celiac support group. She will be featured in a nationally broadcast television segment called “Smart Woman,” and if you try her recipe, you’ll know why. What a clever (and gourmet) use of our pizza shell.

1 Against The Grain Gourmet Pizza Shell

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place thawed pizza in a round pizza pan.

Arrange the apples in rows on top of the pizza overlapping them. Sprinkle all over with the cinnamon sugar. Dot the apples with the bits of butter. Bake until the apples are soft, about 15 minutes. Cut into 6 wedges and serve warm.

Serve with ice cream on the side (optional).

Serves 6 people

Who Eats a Gluten Free Diet?

2010-05-23T20:13:00.001-04:00

2002 6th and 7th grade Vermont Maple Essay Contest Winners

Can you find the celiac?

The obvious answer to this question is people with celiac disease. In our family of four, it is my husband and my teenage son. Although Tom was first diagnosed with what doctors termed a “bleeding ulcer” at age 15, and had a lifetime of symptoms, it wasn’t until he was 50 that he was finally given his diagnosis. Marty was diagnosed at 13 after he stopped growing. In hindsight, his pediatrician determined that he had fallen off his growth chart between 18 and 20 months of age. In all probability, that is when his celiac disease began. Between contamination issues and teenage sibling rivalry, we decided it would be better for all concerned if our kitchen was gluten free.

And then a funny thing happened (besides starting a gluten free bread company.) Our oldest son, despite being on medication, had suffered from status seizures all his life. One year into the gluten free diet, we realized that his seizures had vanished. Now, four year later, he’s still seizure-free. Recently, genetic testing for celiac disease revealed that he carried the markers, but he’s never tested positive for celiac disease. I, too, realized that I felt much better on a gluten free diet. As a runner, it had become harder and harder for me to run more than several times a week without experiencing significant joint pain. About six months into a gluten free diet, the joint pain that plagued me went away. For me, eating a gluten free diet seemed to have an anti-inflammatory effect, an effect also reported by many others. Now I can run as much as I like, and my only problem is finding the time to do so!

It turns out that a lot of non-celiacs eat gluten free. In addition to the celiac population, it is thought that up to 10% of the population suffers from some form of gluten intolerance, reports Lu Ann Williams of Innova Market Insight Research. And, according to Cynthia Kupper, executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group, surveys show that 15 to 25 percent of consumers seek out gluten free products.

Is eating a gluten free diet harmful to your health? I’m not sure why some believe a diet that is appropriate for a celiac is unhealthy for everyone else. Makes you wonder whether the grain folks are getting nervous about their shrinking market. Like celiacs, those that simply eat gluten free can take the necessary supplements (e.g., B-12, calcium, etc.) –we do. Some say a gluten free diet lacks fiber, as if bread, beer, and pasta give a gluten-eater all the fiber they need for digestion. Um, what about vegetables? Don’t people cook vegetables and make salads any more? Eating gluten free also means eating a lot less processed food, being very careful when eating out, and virtually eliminating fast food in your diet. What could be wrong with that? Recently the New York Daily News ran an alarming article with the screaming headline: “Following a Gluten Free Diet Can Be Harmful to Health.” Really? Tell that to my seizure-free son. We never would have made the connection between gluten and his seizures had we not followed that “dangerous diet.”

Food Transparency in the Gluten Free World

2010-05-21T10:20:00.005-04:00

It used to be that when you talked about food transparency you might be referring to a cooking technique, as in “Sauté the onions until they are transparent.” Today “transparent” has a whole different meaning when it comes to food. Consumers are now far more educated about issues like nutrition, food safety, sustainability, fair trade, genetically modified foods, engineered ingredients, chemical additives, and animal rights. It is a very positive movement as far as we’re concerned. Consumers are demanding transparency, and the result is not only better labeling, but a number of manufacturers have reformulated their products to have (or appear to have) a “clean” list of ingredients.

Over the last six months or so, we have fielded a number of questions from educated customers. One, for example, wanted to know whether the source of rennet in the cheese we use was from an animal source (the answer was “no.”) Another wanted to know whether cellulose was used as an anti-caking agent in our pizza cheese (the answer was “no, we do not use any anti-caking agents.”) It is not only consumers who are becoming more educated—coops, health food stores, and chains are as well, and they are watching out for the interests of their customers. That’s a good thing.

The other day, I had to sign a statement for a retailer guaranteeing that no cloned animals or the offspring of cloned animals are used in any of our ingredients, including milk. Sitting here in Vermont, knowing not only the source of my dairy and egg ingredients, but also the farm families behind them, I wondered why I would be asked such a question. And, I must confess that when I called my suppliers to verify that no cloned animals were used, my egg supplier and I got a big laugh out of it. She said she had been asked a number of questions over the years, but that was truly a first! But it is actually no laughing matter when I think about it. I know my fresh ingredient suppliers, but what if I were buying my eggs from some 5 million hen farm or my milk from some big industrialized conglomerate? Worse yet, what if I were using boxed eggs or powdered egg whites with an extended shelf life or some milk protein isolate? I wouldn’t have a clue about the animals behind my ingredients.

Take our Original Rolls. They are made of six ingredients: tapioca, milk, non-GMO canola oil, mozzarella cheese, whole eggs, and salt. No mystery what any of those are. Then look at some of the competing gluten free bread products/rolls. What you will find is that most other brands have 17 to 20 ingredients. Nice things like tapioca maltodextrin, which gives a product fat-like and stabilizing properties. I’m in the gluten free baking business, and even I have no idea what some of the ingredients are! One of the benefits of eating a gluten free diet is that it has made me a compulsive label reader, and sometimes what I read is disturbing, indeed.

Taking a Day Off for Yourself

2010-05-03T13:48:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite books as a kid was Ferdinand the Bull. Ferdinand was the original “against the grainer.” Rather than fight like all the other young bulls, he was more interested in smelling the flowers. That is what I did the other day. I took Friday off work and drove up to one of my favorite of all places: Thousand Island Park, a Victorian summer cottage community on an island in the St. Lawrence River. It was preseason, so I had the place pretty much to myself…and an explosion of daffodils. Perhaps it was because of the mild winter and the relatively chilly spring, but I have never seen daffodils quite like these.

It was a pretty gray, overcast day when I arrived at the River, and against that backdrop the daffodils practically sang out to me as I passed. It felt really good to get away. Spring on the production floor often can be challenging. Sure, the weather improves and the incredible hues of Vermont spring green beckon us outside. But, the weather also beckons the cows back outside, and the corresponding dietary shift from hay and silage to grass can wreak havoc on the chemistry of milk…and cheese. And since we use milk and cheese in our products, you get the idea. At the River, the worries of the production floor fade away. The only frustration is that the days aren’t longer.

Two days later at the River, the temperature soared into the mid-eighties. Between the temperature and the abundant sun, the daffodils first dulled, and then began shriveling by day’s end. I felt fortunate to have participated in the flowering of spring bulbs in all their glory. As hard as it is when you are running a rapidly expanding business, it is important to take a break from time to time to recharge your batteries and smell the flowers…literally. I’m glad I did.

Vermont Rules for Foodies

2010-04-29T14:02:00.002-04:00

Vermont is home to a lot of artisanal bakers, cheese makers, and food entrepreneurs. In fact, we have an association, The Vermont Specialty Food Association www.Vermontspecialtyfoods.org) and a Food Venture Center (www.vermontventurecenter.org) to assist food entrepreneurs in the start up stage. As small specialty food producers, we find safety in numbers. We share knowledge among us, and when a new food entrepreneur emerges, we go out of our way to help him or her figure out everything from how to source ingredients, to working with brokers, to how distributors work (the answer is “dysfunctionally,” lol.) Several Vermont companies provided invaluable informational support in our startup a little over three years ago, and we always find it heartening to pay back that advice. And, every time we get together, whether it is over association socials, or sharing exhibit space at shows like Natural Products Expo East and the New York Fancy Food Show, I always learn something new from other Vermont vendors.

Our state is also very supportive of food entrepreneurs. After all, specialty food is the fastest growing segment of the retail industry, and all of our little businesses add up when it comes to employment. Recently, for example, the state and the local development authority managed to attract a new organic yogurt company to locate in Brattleboro, VT. They will use the milk of 3,000 cows daily and provide 24 jobs over the next three years.

And every year, Senator Patrick Leahy holds a showcase event called “Taste of Vermont” in the US Senate Office Building, to which all Vermont food vendors are invited to participate. He hires a wonderful Vermont catering firm to prepare dishes from our foods, and invites about 500 Washington, DC law makers, restaurant buyers, food professionals, and press members to attend. This year, they will again serve our cheese pizza and pesto pizza (last year we were next to Magic Hat Brewery—what a combination!), as well as our baguettes made into bruschetta with fresh Mountain Mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm (www.mountainmozzarella.com/) in Bennington, VT.

Vermont is a great place to work and run a food-related business. We attract the neatest, most caring, and most creative workforce. We can grow kitchen herbs outside our factory door, picnic in organic grass for lunch, and go for a run or bike ride at the end of the day, practically outside our front door. Our dog can even come to work with us (except that he’s restricted to managing the office, not the production floor.) Vermont Rules for foodies!

This is Phood

2010-04-28T16:52:00.001-04:00

The other day I was minding my own business (read: working the phones, calling stores about getting them to carry our products), when a salesman for an ingredient company showed up and wanted to talk to me about buying from his company. Among other things, we buy a lot of tapioca, literally a truckload of it at a time. We also buy large quantities of expeller-pressed, non-GMO canola oil and all natural mozzarella cheese. Word gets around. Sales people are often soliciting our business.

This guy starts his pitch and of course wants to know from whom we currently buy our ingredients and how much we pay. All good and fine. He then whips out his glossy sales literature to show me the kinds of stuff he can sell me. I start looking through the five-page catalog while he peppers me with questions. Do we use any dough conditioners? Or binding agents? Stabilizers? Nope, nope, and nope. The more I read, the more amazed I become. Just the categories of substances were unbelievable: acidulants, excipients, humectants, phosphates, to list a few. Yummy things like benzoic acid, propylene glycol, and calcium sulfate. We see these ingredients in processed foods all the time, and every now and then I have wondered where do you get stuff like this? Now I know.

I began to really joke around with the guy. “Man,” I say, this is like I am reading something from Dow Chemical. You really expect me to put this stuff in our bread?” In fact, his company is mostly a chemical company, except that this is stuff you can legally put in food. “Look at this, what’s a ‘humectant?’” One of our staff folks, Ruth, is sitting at a desk across the room, overhears this and pipes up,”Oh, I know what that is, it’s in my hair conditioner!” Oh boy.

I couldn’t help imagining how this stuff must be packaged. In big metal drums, like chlorine for swimming pools? Or in heavy-duty plastic bags like you find lawn fertilizer and weed killer? Or perhaps thick plastic bottles for detergents and the stuff that unclogs your drains or cleans your toilets? I won’t be finding out. We don’t touch this stuff. And I have to keep reminding myself: This is food, this is food, this is food. No, wait! No, it’s not. It’s Phood! PHOOD!!!

Say “no” to industrialized phood.

The Way We Eat is Political

2010-04-27T08:16:00.001-04:00

I’ve recently been reading about Alice Waters and other culinary-minded radicals of the 1970s. What were they doing that was so radical? They were cooking with quality, fresh ingredients and shunning supermarket uniformity and mass-produced, overly-processed, flavor-enhanced foods of the post-World War II era.

I see some interesting parallels in the gluten free world today. When my family members were first diagnosed with celiac disease almost ten years ago, we were pretty much on our own. Although there was a smattering of commercial gluten free baked goods, they were rarely found in traditional supermarkets--basically we baked everything from scratch. Even though that took a lot of time and effort, we developed some pretty tasty gluten free alternatives. Then we took the step that a number of other celiac families have, we became gluten free food entrepreneurs. Making delicious gluten free baked goods in our home was one thing. Retaining that home-baked look and taste while making them available to customers across the country was, and remains, a daunting challenge. There is no getting around it, working with fresh ingredients is a fickle process.

Specialty food is the fastest growing segment of the retail industry and within specialty food, gluten free items are the fastest growing. Even at the 2010 International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas last month, gluten free pizza was one of the hottest topics of discussion. More and more companies seem to be jumping on the bandwagon every day… and gluten free food is becoming far more convenient. But are we sacrificing quality and fresh ingredients in the process? Chemical dough conditioners and preservatives are even creeping into the gluten free labels of companies that were previously known for their all natural, gluten-based ingredients. Another company has even boasted that their gluten free products “represent the very best available science.” Yikes.

In the 1960’s, one voice speaking out against artificial ingredients and big food companies was Helen Evans Brown. The author of Breakfasts and Brunches for Every Occasion, she railed against toast “made from bread that looks and tastes like facial tissue.” Why do we have to fill gluten free food with the substances Twinkies are made of? Some things never seem to change.

On the Road to the Gluten Free Fair

2010-04-21T06:25:00.004-04:00

I guess I have Gluten Free Vendor Fairs on my mind. That is probably because we will be traveling to Gluten Free Fairs almost every weekend from now until the summer. We are a small, family-run business, and we have a close-knit team of bakers, so it is a big deal for one of us to be on the road. It is also a pretty big deal to get to shows with all the frozen samples and gear needed to display our products.

We often drive when the event is not more than a long days worth of driving. In the process, our SUV is transformed into an ice cream truck/kitchen/furniture/accessory vehicle. It was Paul of Mr. Ritts GF Bakery in the Philadelphia area who first let us in on the secret of taking frozen products on the road: take the back seat out of your SUV, have an inverter installed, and plug in a chest freezer. Voila, you have an ice cream truck. Of course, that works great when you are moving, but it does get a little challenging when you have to stop for the night. So, we travel with a 50 foot extension cord and find a motel where we can back the car close enough to plug in.

The inverter is a great invention, but I must admit that our Golden, Chester, is not a big fan. When we first had it installed, Chester, like any Golden pup, decided to lick it. Mistake. Boy was he startled. I guess he knows what those invisible dog fences feel like now.

Into the car, we pack a microwave oven, a convection oven for preparing our truly yummy pizzas, all the cutting boards and utensils for slicing and preparing bread, and plates, linens, some lovely-looking flowers (the nice touch,) and our corporate banner. Well, we’re not a CORPORATION—far from it—but what else do you call those roll-up things with your logo on them? We also put in a small cooler with gluten free snacks and caffeine, a GPS, some CD’s, and if we’re really organized and have the time, some books on CD from the library. By the time we’re done, we can barely see out the back, and by the time we get to the show venue, we’re experts on NPRs major topics of the day.

And so we do it over and over, a lot of the time by plane, once in a while by train, and often by driving lots of miles. If you stop by our table, you’re meeting the real people behind our breads, not some professional demo coordinator. To us, the meeting between manufacturer and customer is part of what makes our company special. Last year, we presented our products to over 21,000 celiacs. Yes, that’s a lot of people…and a lot of miles. See you in at the TCCSG Fair in Farmington Hills on Saturday!

Who Goes to Gluten Free Vendor Fairs?

2010-04-19T11:13:00.003-04:00

(yep, that's snow)

It is Gluten Free Fair/Celiac Walk season, and no matter where you live, there are many big, successful events to attend. In some part of the country, there is one to attend almost every weekend between now and the end of June. For us as manufacturers, it is always a pleasure to visit with those loyal customers who buy our bread, at the same time meeting new faces and newly-diagnosed celiacs who will become customers.

Yesterday, we divided forces. Tom was at the Gluten Free Cooking Expo in Lisle, IL, and I went to Healthy Villi’s GF Fair in Wellesley Hills, MA. Boy, the Boston Marathoners are in for a real treat today—the spring greenery and flowers were stunning.

At the risk of sounding like Barack Obama, I’d like to mention two typical celiacs I met. The first was Penny from NH, who has been eating gluten free for 10 years, and buying our bread since we started the business. She said she was just turning 70, but clearly a gluten free diet agrees with her—she looked at least 10 years younger! Before we had finished chatting, I had seen pictures of her adorable kilt-clad grandsons who live in Scotland and had learned that her daughter by chance had to come up with a snack to feed an unexpected visitor-- Prince Charles (she gave him strawberries and crème fraiche.) Can’t wait to tell this story to my college-aged son. We’ve always stressed the importance of table manners, and he’s always answered, “Yes, I know, in case I ever have dinner with the Queen.” Well, here was someone who had to dig in her pantry to feed a hungry would-be King. You just never know.

And then there was Everett, a totally charming gentleman, who was a fan of our bagels. He was diagnosed almost 21 years ago, when there was very little knowledge and even less gluten free options. Going on 89, he still drives—told me he’s driven over a million miles, 220,000 of them pulling an Airstream camper, and has log books to prove it. He listed off all the family members and former wives he’s outlived, and it was more than the number of daffodils that are blooming so far in my Vermont yard! Everett left me with typed copies of a few of his recipes. One is for a grits-based breakfast mixture, which I’m sure Tom (the hot cereal fanatic in our household) will love.

Going on the road is not easy, but the joys of connecting with the people whose lives our bread has changed, makes it worth it. Next stop, Detroit.

Just What Kind of Person Works in a Wholesale Gluten Free Bakery Anyway?

2010-04-16T13:01:00.004-04:00

We're located right near the banks of the Connecticut River in Brattleboro, VT, and Amtrak trundles by twice a day!

Starting our own business from scratch (with zero experience in the food industry) and hiring and developing a staff we can trust has been an amazing experience. Everything we bake is made in small batches with fresh ingredients, and there is a lot of our staff in every bag we sell. (Of course, I’m not referring to their hair or anything like that--joke.) Much thought goes into what we bake, and there is considerable team interaction involved before our products land on the shelves of a retail store or a food service counter. Our products most definitely reflect the personalities behind them.

The only commonality at Against The Grain seems to be that everyone is an intelligent foodie in some way. They are master problem-solvers, and they get giddy when we work on new product development. One could say that everyone’s input is “baked into” the final product. We work really hard, show tremendous respect for what we bake, and even find time to goof around.

Among our staff, we have someone who was an opera composer and is a performing pianist. We have a philosophy major, who is an expert in healing herbs and is currently working on a master’s degree in nutrition. There’s a professional puppeteer, and an ethnomusicologist, who is also a reggae drummer, a glass blower, and has his own radio show. Then there is an environmental ecologist, who is also a fine arts painter. We also have our own mini-version of Donald Trump (well, he’s a lot nicer than “the Donald,”) who has a black belt in Taekwondo and is on his way to becoming a real estate mogul. There’s a comparative religion major, someone with a doctorate in animal behavior, and a single mom who has lived in a kibbutz in Israel and on a Hare Krishna dairy farm. We also employ a young man who attends a local school for autism; he’s a train fanatic and a master storyteller. Chester, the office Golden, scares away salesmen, jumps all over ornery truck drivers, and has been known to chase bankers back to their car.

What do all these people have to do with gluten free bread? They are some of the most creative people you’ll find, and all of us that eat gluten free know that it takes a lot of creativity to make a premium product.

"Good Food Costs Less" Really?

2010-04-15T12:33:00.000-04:00

The other day, as I was walking along the highway near work, an 18-wheeler from a regional grocery store chain whizzed by. Boldly plastered on its side was the slogan, “Good Food Costs Less.” I thought about that a minute. What exactly does that mean? It can’t be a thinly-veiled advertisement for health care, as in, if you eat “good” food, you will be healthier, and your medical costs will be less. But if I interpreted it literally: the better the quality of the food, the cheaper it is, then it made no sense at all. Good food, pure and simple, costs more, and there is a reason for it.

Good food relies on wholesome ingredients, and fresh ingredients are even better. Good food is minimally processed and preservative free. And good food is made by people who care about their jobs. All of those things come at a cost. Flavor chemistry is cheap. Dried, powdered, processed, and modified ingredients are a lot cheaper than their fresh counterparts. Adding preservatives is cheaper in the long run as well, since it increases the shelf life of products. Paying food processing personnel minimum wage is cheap; so is letting them fend for themselves when it comes to health insurance.

Who comes up with those slogans anyway? Then again, who is going to patronize a grocery store with the slogan “Good Food Costs More?” It’s true, but not a Madison Avenue slogan that is going to give you an edge on the competition.

BUSTED!!

2010-04-13T21:25:00.002-04:00

The other day, I needed to set up a pizza photo shoot, so I announced that I was going to the store to pick up some fresh items like tomatoes, a basil plant, and some garlic. Dan, our online media guy, suggested that I take some pictures since the produce displays might be good for a rich backdrop.

I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I grabbed my pocket-sized Canon and headed for the grocery store. The door opened into the produce section, and right there in front of me was a huge display of vine-ripened tomatoes. The color, shapes, and texture all were very appealing. So, I whipped out my camera, started to focus, and then realized that there were these annoying stickers on practically every darn tomato. I scanned the pile for a shot where there were the least stickers, and “click” took my first photo. Not thinking, I forgot to turn off the flash, which with the overly-lit store gave my photo a greenish-gray tint not unlike the way a dog is thought to perceive color. I quickly switched to manual mode, and just as I snapped the second picture, a manager appeared next to me. You would have thought that I was trying to smoke in an airplane bathroom from the way he swooped down on me. At first, I thought he was going to try to confiscate my camera. Mind you, this is a store where you never see a manager (even when I rounded a corner one day and slipped in a split open container of yogurt on the floor and went flying.) He very calmly informed me that I was violating store policy, and when I pleaded ignorance, he said that a notice was posted in the lobby. Guess I wasn’t looking for that one. Although he did his best to be polite and avoid a scene, I felt like a criminal and was terribly paranoid that I was being watched as I went through the store picking out the items I needed.

I guess what I found kind of strange about the incident was why a store would have a policy like that. Did they think I was a terrorist casing out a place to plant a bomb? Or perhaps working for a competitor and trying to unlock the secret of how to create a tower of tomatoes? Or was I some kind of investigative journalist looking for evidence of mislabeled country of origin or (horrors) a wilted tomato vine? Just last summer, NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont) invited customers to photograph produce at Vermont Farmer’s markets and make a video. They even had the videos posted on youtube for the whole world to see. So, on the one hand, we had food producers/sellers who were proud of their produce, and on the other, a grocery store whose policy it was to prevent photographs. What gives there? And why do I still think that manager perks up behind his two-way mirror every time I walk in the door and watches to see that I’m shopping for produce, not images?

And besides all that, I still have the photo, and here it is for the world to see. If I could only get rid of those unsightly stickers!

Gluten Free Bread Art--Signs of Spring

2010-04-09T09:57:00.002-04:00

Sometimes our bloopers are like a Rorschach's test, and we all suggest the image that comes to mind. Sometimes, our bloopers are unmistakably a figure or animal. Here's a rosemary baguette from yesterday that looked like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. It is finally Spring here in Vermont, so we gave her some blooper sesame bagel wings today, and she was transformed into a butterfly.

Speaking of Spring, here are some hollow rolls that became bird nests after we stuffed them with end-of-the-day dough balls. Stay tuned for baby bird gluten free bread art. Gluten free baking should be fun...and it is!

Bloopers...What's a Blooper?

2010-04-08T09:46:00.001-04:00

Bloopers, or rejects, are an inevitable part of our baking process. We bake with fresh ingredients, and as we have come to realize, cows have good and bad days, so do laying hens. Fresh ingredients are never exactly the same and are an interesting variable in the baking process. And then there is tapioca starch. Made from a tuber, it has different properties depending on the rain cycle of the season in which it is grown. Like many other flours, including gluten free ones, tapioca also behaves differently depending on the weather outside. Our manufacturing facility is in Vermont. Need I say more? But this is what artisan baking, as opposed to industrialized baking, is all about.

We could more precisely control our ingredients by using powdered milk, boxed or powdered eggs, and cheese chock full of natamycin, a questionable anti-fungicide, and milk protein concentrates. We also could employ all sorts of dough conditioners and stablizers to make the dough behave. We don’t. All of these stabilized ingredients would make our products a lot cheaper, to both us and consumers. But, we are committed to baking honest products using the freshest possible ingredients. It is not only about taste, but it is also about doing the “right” thing. We care deeply about the animals and people behind our ingredients.

What does all of this have to do with bloopers? Well, we have a lot of them. Instead of scooping them up and filling landfills with our rejects, we donate them to local food banks and shelters. On a typical week, we donate over 200 pounds of bread, that go to all sorts of people, not just gluten intolerant ones. We’re proud of the nutritional quality of our products and glad to add them to the diets of those less unfortunate.

What constitutes a blooper? It just doesn’t meet our quality standards. Among other things, it can be too artisan (read: ugly) or it can rise too much or too little. We entertain ourselves with all sorts of names for the bloopers like “volcanoes,” “puffers,” “baked potatoes,” and “tennis balls.” And of course, some of the bloopers end up in the home kitchens of our staff, including us. Volcanoes (aka known as rolls) are, in fact, great for stuffing with tons of veggies and humus—ugly, but oh so utilitarian.

Gluten Free Meatball Hoagie

2010-04-05T21:28:00.001-04:00

Rosemary baguettes are not only tasty bread, but they make the most flavorful, moist meatballs and stuffing mixtures. One of our favorite simple meals is a rosemary meatball hoagie made with extra sharp Vermont Cabot cheddar cheese.

Ingredients:
1 rosemary baguette
1 medium onion
1 egg
1 pound very lean ground beef or bison
1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce.
15 oz organic tomato sauce
2 slices cheddar cheese

1. Defrost baguette on counter for ½ hour or in microwave, following the directions on the package.
2. Cut baguette in two and save half for hoagie.
3. Finely chop ½ baguette and onion.
4. Mix thoroughly with hands all ingredients.
5. Form into balls a little larger than golf balls (makes 12+/-)
6. Brown meatballs in skillet.

7. Add tomato sauce, cover, and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes

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8. Meanwhile, cover open-sliced baguette with cheese slice and place in 300 degree oven to melt.

9. Make sure you accidentally drop something for Chester, who is watching intently.

10. Spoon as many meatballs as you can fit on open-faced baguette.

ENJOY!!

Don't Eat Anything Your Great-grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food

2010-03-29T12:37:00.001-04:00

I’ve always been a health-conscious person, mostly from the perspective of eating a balanced diet and getting plenty of exercise. But it wasn’t until our family of four had to begin eating gluten free almost six years ago that I became a compulsive label reader. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood in the grocery store, reading a label, and had someone come up and say “you don’t want to know what’s in there!” Actually, it happened only several days ago, when my son needed to buy some beef jerky for a college event, and I was looking for a gluten free variety. The guy was right; I did not want to know what was in the jerky. I also needed to have a Blackberry with me to look up half the ingredients on Wikipedia to truly understand what was in it.

On the plus side of eating gluten free (and, yes, there are some plusses,) we eat far less processed food than we once did. I make almost all of our meals from fresh ingredients these days, including our baked goods and snack items. One would think with all the improvements in gluten free products and the sheer number of them, this would not be the case. But as the gluten free marketplace has grown, so have the additives in gluten free foods. There are additives to extend shelf life, additives to retard mold growth, flavor enhancers, and all kinds of engineered compounds that act as dough conditioners, binders, and texture-enhancers. Makes me wish I had paid better attention in high school chemistry class. As a wholesale baker, we are bombarded with all kinds of ingredients manufacturers peddling their wares. Perhaps the scariest of all are the chemically modified food starches—tapioca, potato, corn and rice.

Cultured dextrose, glucono-delta-lactone, sodium alginate, modified cellulose, monocalcium phosphate, ascorbic acid, sodium carboxy methylcellulose, sodium stearayl lactylate, microbial enzyme, poly dextrose, mono and diglycerides, tapioca dextrin, methyl-cellulose, and agar-agar. These are some of the additives commonly found in gluten free food. Why? Some will argue that they improve taste, others texture, and shelf life. But, gluten free food doesn’t need these additives to be great tasting. In the words of Michael Pollan, "...There's a lot of money in the Western diet. The more you process any food, the more profitable it becomes.”

At Against The Grain, we subscribe to another piece of Michael Pollan’s advice:"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."

It's all about the trucks

2007-05-16T22:38:00.000-04:00

Building a gluten free facility, buying a ton of equipment, developing the products, testing the market, finding decent suppliers, scaling up the recipes, hiring a staff, designing and developing the packaging. You'd think this would be the hard part in getting going in the gluten free food biz. Nope. It's getting the stuff into the stores. Distributors. The proverbial middleman. We run into lots of retailers who view the distributors as the evil empire. Many stores say they'd love to buy direct from us, as would the customers. But how to get our stuff from our shipping bay to their stores? It's all about the trucks. Unless I want to get into the trucking business (which I don't), we have to have distributors get it to the stores.

But wait! What about online sales? Cut out the middleman right? Not so fast. You still have the trucks, whether UPS, FedEx, or whatever. And then there's the minor matter that all our stuff is shipped and sold frozen. We have to get it to customers frozen, which means it has to go very fast, and we have to use all this environmentally hostile packaging. I mean, really, I wouldn't want to get these expensive, obnoxious styrofoam boxes every time I ordered our stuff. What do I do with them? These would have to be even more irritating that those hateful styrofoam peanuts. (Hell has a special guest suite awaiting the inventor of those things.) Guess we better figure this out. Stay tuned.