Jennifer Fisher - Surprise! Its Gluten Free!: Entrees, Breads, and Desserts so Delicious You Wont Know Whats Missing

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It All Revolves Around Food

Food is so much more than fuelits intertwined with family, friendships, holidays, and memories. As an adult, when I eat the same foods my parents fed me as a childstir-fry, white chicken enchiladas, sloppy Joes, chicken divan, and enchilada pieit takes my memory decades back.

When I think of gathering with family and friends for the holidays, I think of the Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream my family would eat every Easter brunch, or the cheesy potatoes served alongside the ham at Christmas dinner. Cinnamon rolls always remind my husband of Thanksgiving dinners in his grandma Helens dining room. Ive even carried on the tradition of baking a birthday cake for Baby Jesus every Christmas morning.

I love how the smell and sight of certain dishes (recipes for many of which are in this book) flood me with nostalgia. There are more than 100 recipes in Surprise! Its Gluten-Free!, and almost all of them have deeply-rooted ties to my family and friendsthe incredible people who originally started making these (usually gluten-containing) recipes over the years. Ive turned these tried-and-true dishes into gluten-free renditions. If you or someone for whom you cook has a gluten allergy or wants to change their eating habits, I gift these gluten-free recipes to you. I hope you find joy, tradition, and comfort in the same foods that are so important to me.

Cooking & Eating! Theyre in my Blood

I developed a love for cooking at a very young age. My mom was always whipping up yummy treats in the kitchen, whether it was a birthday, holiday, or a Sunday family dinner, and I loved spending days in the kitchen with her.

I can remember making peanut butter balls and rolling them in a dozen different toppings, or helping my mom to recreate family staples to be cholesterol-friendly for my father (and they tasted just like the amazing original recipes). Cooking was a bonding activity that always produced yummy results.

Not only do I love to cook anything and everything, but I have also always had a crazy love for eating any and all baked goodscream puffs (my mom made the best ones), pies (again, moms apple pie is the best), cakes (its why I go to weddings), and donuts (oh my! donuts!). I was a child who always ordered waffles, or French toast, or cinnamon rolls, or anything that involved bread or dough for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, I always wanted pizza, pasta, rice, or anything with carbs as the main ingredient. I would go to certain restaurants because of the bread they served before the meal. Little did I know, all of these carbs had a grave effect on my body.

Mysterious Symptoms

For the first 22 years of my life, I had never heard the word gluten. In my early twenties, I began to experience debilitating symptoms that affected my day-to-day experiences. I had no explanation for them and not the slightest idea they were tied to gluten, but they lasted for years. Severe anxiety, panic attacks, crippling gastrointestinal (GI) upset, daily headaches or migraines, constant canker sores, joint pain, persistent nausea, cramping, body aches, extreme fatigue, weight loss, and brain fogthey were my normal. I was afraid to go to sleep at night for fear of waking up an hour later, sick to my stomach. I even feared leaving my house after dinner, developing something called agoraphobiaan anxiety disorder characterized by an extreme fear of public places.

I sought medical help and underwent so many tests, none of which revealed any clear insight into what was wrong. When I started to stumble upon the foreign words gluten and celiac associated with a list of symptoms that matched my own, my doctors were dismissive. At the time, celiac disease and gluten sensitivity were poorly understood in the mainstream medical community, and as a result, I was lumped into the general diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and told to try yoga and find other ways to relieve stress.

Over the years, anytime I thought I found the solution to my years of pain and uncertainty, more medications would be thrown my way and my symptoms would improve slightly, but I would still have bad flare-ups, receive a round of steroids, and start over.

As a young adult, I was barely able to manage my symptoms. I continued looking for answers, and every time I researched, I would come across gluten and celiac disease. Although my symptoms matched, my doctors would say, No, thats not it. They also advised, Dont give up gluten. In fact, eat more whole wheat. Its good for your colon.

I had decided that this was my life: weird diets, constant research, and the prospect that I would live the rest of my life feeling sick and defined by my anxiety.

Surpise! Its Gluten-Free! | Introduction

No More Wheat?!

I remained resigned to what I had come to believe was my fate until I had kids. That changed everything, and I recommitted to fighting for my health. I wanted to be the active mom, the fun mom, and the spontaneous mom. I had a mentor in my life at the time who was a nutritionist and natural wellness practitioner in town, so I set up an appointment with her, and the first thing she told me was to stop eating gluten (a term that was ever so slowly becoming a household word).

Oh my word! My life changed. My health changed! Within months, my headaches were gone, my heavy-feeling body was light, my foggy brain was clear, and all of my joint pain subsided. Im still healing from years of damage, but my severe GI symptoms have gone away. My life definitely changed when I cut out gluten, and I never looked back.

Good Food, But Make It Gluten-Free

Going gluten-free was extremely difficult for me because of the centrality of food tradition in my life. However, the alternative (eating gluten and feeling awful) was so much worse than the lifestyle change. I know because Ive cheated a few times and paid the price in misery.

I officially went gluten-free in 2008 when there were very few gluten-free alternatives on the grocery store shelves, and most restaurants had no clue how to accommodate a growing generation of gluten-free individuals. On the rare occasion I found gluten-free snacks or baked goods in a store, they were outrageously expensive, and I would often toss them out because they were so far from the tastes and textures I loved in their gluten-containing counterparts.

After spending unsustainable amounts of money on food I wasnt eating, I decided to use my love of cooking in a new way. My mother had bestowed on me such a strong culinary instinct, and I knew it was time to start experimenting and creating all the foods I was missing.