Cybele Pascal - Allergy-free and easy cooking: 30-minute meals without gluten, wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, and sesame

The information contained in this book is based on the experience and research of the author. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other health-care provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a health-care professional. The publisher and author are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of any of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book.

Copyright 2012 by Cybele Pascal
Photographs copyright 2012 by Chugrad McAndrews
Foreword copyright 2012 by Sarah M. Boudreau-Romano, MD, FAAP

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher

eISBN: 978-1-60774-292-0

v3.1

This book is dedicated to my late mother-in-law, Wendy, who bought me my first Vidalia Chop Wizard, and to my mother, Susanna, and my father, Eric, who started me peeling carrots when I was three years old.

It was a cold and Chicago-crisp Christmas morning. The sky was piercing blue and the snow was blown in gentle drifts. My family was all gathered together at the table and before we ate the beautiful breakfast that sat in front of us, I raised my glass to toast someone. In a Midwest condo, on Christmas morning, a family with three severely food-allergic children was toasting Cybele, a woman we had never even met who lives across the country. We were toasting her because we were eating milk-free, wheat-free, soy-free, nut-free, egg-free vanilla scones and we were eating those scones together. Let me explain.

We have a family tradition that we all sleep at the same house on Christmas Eve so that we can wake up together on Christmas morning and share the joy of giving and receiving. For the first four years after the children were diagnosed with multiple food allergies, we did just that except that as soon as the gifts were opened, the rest of my family promptly left. They didnt leave because they wanted to, they left because they had to. The food that I was about to whip up for breakfast would be nearly inedible.

You see, I didnt expect to be cooking top eight allergen-free. I didnt expect to be making every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home. In fact, I didnt expect to be at home for lunch at all. After my pediatric residency training at Childrens Memorial Hospital (CMH), Chicago, I completed an allergy/immunology fellowship at CMH and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago. Around this time, I found that three of my four children had such severe food allergies that I felt that I had no choice but to stay home with them. I couldnt see myself at work taking care of children with allergic disease while my own children were carrying the burden of allergic disease themselves, requiring daily antihistamines, steroid creams, and, all too often, epinephrine. I didnt feel like I could create a safe enough environment in which to leave them. So I put my career as a food allergy expert in the hospital on hold and instead became a food allergy expert in my own home and in my own kitchen.

Oh, my kitchen. My newly, and quite forcefully, arranged marriage to the kitchen has easily been the most challenging lifestyle change to which I have had to adjust. Having children with multiple food allergies literally plopped me in the center of a world that was completely unfamiliar to me. I was entirely lost in the company of pots and pans, peelers and processors.

Dont get me wrong; I enjoy food. I enjoy good food. In fact, I have historically been a pretty big eater. But when we were growing up, my sisters were the ones to help my mom cook and bake. That simply wasnt my job. I did not envy their cute aprons. I did not want to crack eggs. I didnt want to poke the cake with a toothpick (I didnt know what in the world that was supposed to tell you anyway). I had no desire to join them. I would help my dad clear the table, and I was very good at running to the grocery store to pick up missing and necessary ingredients. I loved and was good at these jobs. All this is to say that food preparation does not come easily to me. I wouldnt do it unless I was forced. And then, there I was. Being forced.

Being a pediatric allergist provided me with no training in how to cook for my own food-allergic children. My mom was my savior and constant companion in the kitchen since the minute I was forced there, but both she and I were running out of ideas. We were on our own until my friend bought me Cybele Pascals Allergen-Free Bakers Handbook . I figured my friend had wasted her money, as I had done so many times, on cookbooks that were way too complicated for the novice and filled with recipes that could not ever have been taste-tested. Boy, Cybele proved me wrong! Every recipe in that cookbook is both delectable and well loved by my family. We often can be found eating Blueberry Boy Bait several days a week!

But my children are ever-hungry and weve become busier and busier. Theyve got soccer and basketball, all at different times. Ive got school pick-up during that crucial hour before I put dinner on the table. I needed more quick, go-to meals that were equal parts efficient and delicious. When Cybele told me this was exactly what she was creating, I realized she knows me without ever having met me in person. She knows what food-allergic families want and need. We cant get enough of her thinking I would have leftovers, but every last bite was nibbled up! I can make each of these amazing meals in about thirty minutes, and thats with four little kids climbing the cabinets, asking to help stir, and begging me to hurry because theyre starving! Shes even got me wearing an apron. I couldnt ask for anything more.

Thank you, Cybele. That early morning holiday toast to you was only the first of many.

Sarah M. Boudreau-Romano, MD, FAAP
The Allergist Mom, LLC
TheAllergistMom.com

This book is for all of you out there who might not feel like cooking tonight. I know: Ive been there, time and time again. For many people, when you dont feel like making dinner, you just order takeout. Or you go out. Or you defrost something from the freezer. But what about those of us living with food allergies or food intolerances? Just picking up the phone and ordering Chinese food is not an option. So, most often, we have to cook, even when we really dont feel like it. This book, comrades, is for you. Its a collection of seventy-five allergy-free but flavor-full meals that can be whipped up in thirty minutes or less, to help simplify your complicated life. As a working mother, I know that most nights the last thing I want to do is spend an hour or more preparing dinner. I just dont have the time, energy, or inspiration. But like it or not, Ive got a food-allergic household, and something safe, healthy, and delicious has got to land on that table.