Successful baking: measure equal parts science and passion, mix and bake

As my first post, I thought I'd give a brief introduction. For all intents and purposes, my name is Chunchie. I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in the Spring of 2002 and have been gluten free ever since! I grew up with a love of food, cooking, baking, the works. My fondest memories from my childhood are those in the kitchen. My mother is an incredible cook and always showed her love for us kids through the food she made for us. My father is the master barbequer and chinese chef. So, in translation, for me, food is love.

I first moved away from home in 2000 and had a rough transition. Needless to say, I was eating all the wrong things (bagels, pasta, bread, etc) and feeling worse and worse - deep depression from a normally very happy girl, exhaustion, intestinal cramps, diarrhea, constipation. I literally felt like I was drowning, sinking deeper and deeper with no way of swimming to the surface. Luckily, my family's physician ran blood tests to screen for lyme disease and he decided that, on the off chance, he'd run one for wheat. Lo and behold, the wheat came up positive and, after gastrointestinal biopsy, I was confirmed as having Celiac Disease!

I was half horrified at the magnitude of the diagnosis - no cake! no doughnuts! no pizza! no beer! - and half relieved - I could finally breathe again, the world felt manageable. A couple weeks after my diagnosis, I received a package in the mail from my mother. Homemade gluten free chocolate cookies. Soft. Chewy. Delicious! I already knew she loved me, and this is how she showed it. But this gift was even more touching. It meant she had my back. She wanted to help. From then on, there was always gluten free pasta at the dinner table, or recipes were altered so I could be included. She taught me that this was manageable, too, and also very delicious! From that point forward, well maybe a few weeks after I decided that I could approach Celiac Disease from two angles: one, I could whine, and complain, and get upset at all that I was missing out; or two, I could pick myself up, dust myself off, and get to the kitchen! Well, I picked the latter, and have truly found so many culinary delights along the way.

Fast forward six years, it's 2008 and I'm working in outside of New York City at a corporation, in a cubicle, earning money, but longing...longing...longing for that cute little corner bakery, filled with delicious GF goodies that everyone will want to eat (not just celiacs!). Eventually I pack up my bags, apartment, precious kitchen appliances (please don't break! please don't break!), and ship out west to Los Angeles. But, all that distance, for what purpose? Among others, culinary school. Yes, culinary school. For baking and patisserie to be exact. I know, I know, hours each day spent toiling over my worst enemy, gluten. But it is totally worth it.

Ultimately, I want to learn how to bake. Bake really, really well. Gluten free. I figure learning the techniques at school is worth the looming risk of getting sick. So far so good. And in the end, I hope I can translate my skills into Gluten Free baked goods. I know, it's gonna take hours and hours of toiling in the kitchen. Lots of recipes thrown away because they are too grainy, or crumbly, or just plain bad. But in the end, food is love. And I love to bake. Maybe one day I'll have that bakery. It's gonna be a long, long road. But I'll share it with you, with this blog, the diary of my adventures in gluten free baking.