April Peveteaux - Gluten Is My Bitch: Rants, Recipes, and Ridiculousness for the Gluten-Free

AS 18 MILLION GLUTEN-INTOLERANTS and 3 million celiac disease sufferers in this country can tell you, having to live gluten-free is not a whole lot of funbut at least April Peveteaux has managed to make it funny. Gluten Is My Bitch is a brutally honest, entertaining look at what living a g-free life entails. As an antidote to the tragic news that, no, you will never eat regular doughnuts again, April provides 50 gluten-free comfort food recipes that will make even the most frustrated gluten-intolerant smile with relief. Also included are sections on gluten-free cooking at home, eating out at restaurants, what to do when youre traveling, what happens when your kid has to go gluten-free, how to be vegan while gluten-free, and much more. Hilarious and irreverent, Gluten Is My Bitch is a must-have guide for anyone who is giving up the gluten.

Published in 2013 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS

Copyright 2013 April Peveteaux

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peveteaux, April.
Gluten is my bitch : recipes, rants, and ridiculousness for the gluten-free / April Peveteaux.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-61769-030-3 (hardback)
1. Gluten-free dietRecipes. 2. Gluten-free foods. 3. Comfort food.
I. Title.
RM237.86.P48 2013
641.563dc23

2013006605

Editor: Jennifer Levesque
Designer: Rachel Willey
Production Manager: True Sims

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For Mom.

(Sorry for all the cursing.)

Chapter One
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOURE CRAPPING YOUR PANTS

Chapter Two
SO YOU CANT EAT GLUTEN ANYMORE

Chapter Three
RECIPES FOR THE DOWNTRODDEN (AKA THE GLUTEN-FREE)

Chapter Four
WAITER, THERES A POTENTIAL ALLERGEN IN MY SOUP

Chapter Five
WHATS VEGAN, PALEO & CROSSFIT GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Chapter Six
HOLY CRAP, MY KIDS A CELIAC

Chapter Seven
TRAVELING WHILE SPRUEING: PARIS DOESNT HAVE TO SUCK, BUT IT MIGHT

Chapter Eight
JETPACKS FOR CELIACS

A re you perusing the special diet section of the bookstore right now, picking up gluten-free tomes and trying to figure out if this is the book that will be useful in your gluten-free quest (or forcible life sentence)? Let me go ahead and answer that question for you: It totally will.

Im guessing youre looking for a little guidance, maybe some crazy delicious recipes, and a whole lot of poop jokes. Youve come to the right place. But wait, theres more! Im also here to offer you hope. Hope that someday you will feel normal again, and be able to go back to avoiding any section in the bookstore that uses the word health as a descriptor. Hope that even though youre giving up gluten now, you can still enjoy devils food cake. Maybe even hope that, while you go about the business of discovering what is up with gluten-free doughnuts, a REAL doughnut might be in your future. Just wait until I tell you what medical science is up to in celiac research. Yeah, it is awesome, and Im stoked to take you on this journey to Hopesville.

You may be wondering why I am spending my time trying to make youthe gluten intolerantfeel better about your current situation. That is a very good question, my brand-new and incredibly good-looking friend.

It was only a few years ago when I found myself in your position; wondering how I had fallen so far from being the new fiction browser in the store to now standing in front of the diet section looking for answers to questions about my jacked-up digestion. Sure, I was able to score some great books filled with gluten-free recipes and a few celebrity-penned tales of gluten gone wrong. Yet what I really needed was someone to tell me it was going to be all right. Not Its going to be great! Why dont you go ahead and cut out dairy, casein, sugar, and all fun? Instead, wondering why no one else seemed pissed off about this situation, I left the bookstore with another Swedish mystery in hand and an incredible sense of inferiority about my bad gluten-free attitude.

Just like your therapist would tell you, sometimes you have to be your own BFF. I went home and created my blog, Gluten Is My Bitch, and started talking big-time smack about gluten and the celiac disease that had suddenly appeared and taken away my villi. It helped. It really helped when I started experimenting with my deep-fat fryer, and even more so when people seemed to enjoy learning how to make gluten-free cakes, pies, and cookies as much as I enjoyed eating the creations. And thats why this book is sitting in your hands. The gluten-free people want to eat cake. The fact is, more and more people are going gluten-free and all of them arent into mixing twenty-eight flours to make the perfect souffl, or chanting Im Grateful while they dine out. Those people need some Gluten Is My Bitch in their lives. Just like you do!

Lets bring it down for just a minute. Heres the thing about going gluten-free, whether youve been given a celiac disease diagnosis or just know you feel better when youre not enjoying cinnamon rolls for breakfast, flatbread pizza for lunch, and a pile of spaghetti Bolognese for dinner: Its fucking hard. I wont sugarcoat that for you, so if youre looking for a book to cheerlead you all the way to Vegantown, maybe look up and to your left. (Note: I do have some amazing gluten-free and vegan recipes inside these pages, cuz Im all-inclusive like that.) Smiling through the pain of watching your friends enjoy unlimited breadsticks while your plate sits empty does not change the intensity of our shared gluten-free torment. Lets own that pain and complain about it until were asked to leave the party. Its not all about wallowing in self-pity, though plenty of that is certainly in order. You are giving up chocolate croissants, after all.

Gluten Is My Bitch: Rants, Recipes, and Ridiculousness for the Gluten-Free will try a little bit to make you see the bright side, but if you dont want to, I wont dismiss you as difficult and will instead take you out for tequila shots (naturally gluten-free, yall!) and tacos. Ill also tell you plenty of off-color jokes on the way to conquering your gluten-free diet, and hold your hair when you throw up. We are a unique people who cannot enjoy the best of what the bakery has to offer any longer, and so therefore we deserve special treatment, yet no one really wants to give it to us. But I will. In fact, I am! Im ready to pamper you and poke with a stick anyone who dares get in my way. Thats just the kind of gal I am.