sponsoring gluten-free girl and the chef

If you’ve come to the site today, looking for new recipes, you might have seen a small change in the right-hand column over there. (And if you’re reading this on an RSS feed, you’ll want to come to the site.)

There’s a big link to Bob’s Red Mill there now. Why is that?

Well, you see, we’ve been dreaming of this for a long time. Danny and I both adore this space, this community of people, the chance to do this work. As we tweak recipes and read pages, in the very last chance to make changes to our cookbook, we have been talking about how grateful we feel. As our passion for good food and feeding people safely, great baked goods, and ridiculous stories grows stronger every month, we feel more sure. We want to be doing this for a long time.

We want to write more cookbooks. Danny wants to keep inventing dishes at his restaurant. I want to tackle more breads and cookies and that damned puff pastry. We want to keep talking with you.

We’re also going to be here more often, and more regularly. (You might have noticed more posts this week than most.) We’ll be doing posts here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from now on. We’ll be doing cookbook recommendations, new baked goods, a complex recipe from the chef every other week, a simple recipe from the home cook every other week, island photos, and videos of Danny demonstrating new techniques. We’re excited. And we know we’re going to be busy.

In order to do this well, we need to be able to put our full focus on the work of this site. Rather than chasing after little writing assignments and taking more freelance gigs, we decided to put ads on Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef.

After all, most blogs have ads now, right? You’ve seen them too. Some of them flash. Some of them have nothing to do with the content of the site. A few might feel useful to you. We thought long and hard about connecting with an ad network, letting them do the work, and just take whatever ads we received.

But we couldn’t do it. We found ourselves wincing at some of the ads we saw on some of our favorite sites. You don’t have much control over the ads you get with most networks. And when it came down to it, we just couldn’t have a giant color ad for wheat crackers here.

So we took months figuring out how to create our own ad network. The amazing and generous Amanda Soule gave me guidance on how she doesthis with integrity, as well the stucture of how she runs her sponsorships. We could not have done this work without our incredible website designer, Kaytlyn Sanders of Beneficial Design, and Kaveri Subbaro, the savvy compassionate lawyer whom we met through Kaytlyn. This has been a labor of love for us all over these past many months.

Today’s the day.

Over the next couple of months, we’ll be adding more companies to the site. What felt really important to me and Danny both is that the ads you will see will be of use to those of you reading. If you wonder how to find a flour we mention or a food we really love or a place to buy kitchen supplies that has made our lives easier, you’ll be able to click on the links of our sponsors and find them immediately.

(I always loved that old tv phrase: “And now a word from our sponsors.”)

You should know that we will be limiting the number of sponsored ads here, keeping them only to companies we truly love, the ones who make food we eat happily and do business in a way that makes sense to us.

(If you are part of a company that feels like the right fit for us, let us know.)

We are all a community here. We’d like you to support the companies that help make this community feel well-fed by clicking on the links over there to the right when you can.

Danny and I are both honored and ecstatic that our first sponsor is Bob’s Red Mill.

If you are gluten-free, you need Bob’s Red Mill.

This wonderful company, dedicated to bringing great whole grains to the world, makes over 400 products, some of them organic, and many of them gluten-free. They not only have a deep understanding of how to produce good food that is safe for those of us who cannot get a speck of gluten in our systems, but they also have an entire facility dedicated to producing gluten-free foods. (I love their symbol: a grain of wheat with a big red line through it.)

To quote them:

“Bob’s Red Mill has been praised again and again for our dedication to producing products that are free from gluten. People suffering from celiac disease, gluten intolerance, wheat allergies, or who are avoiding gluten for other health reasons can feel assured by the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free symbol on all our certified gluten free products. This symbol informs those following a gluten free diet that our products are produced in a dedicated facility free from wheat and other gluten-containing grains or derivatives.

We segregate our ingredients and thoroughly clean our equipment between production lines. This symbol also informs consumers that while there is no recognized standard, we only place our gluten free symbol on those products that meet our standard of no more than 20 parts per million which we establish through a gluten test performed in our quality control laboratory. Each product is tested before milling and after packaging.

In an effort to better serve our allergen sensitive consumers, our gluten free facility is also dairy and casein free.

We have hundreds of gluten free recipes available on our website and a customer service staff ready to help customers who need assistance adjusting to this lifestyle.”

One of the highlights of my book tour in 2007 was the chance to make an appearance at the Bob’s Red Mill store in Milwaukie, Oregon. As excited as I was to meet people, I kind of just wanted to wander the store in awe. This is whole grain mecca.

(And I had the chance to meet Bob himself. He was wearing the hat! Did you hear that Bob recently retired and gave the company to his employees? Now that is a mensch.)

Danny and I both want you to know this: there has been at least one package of Bob’s Red Mill flour in our house (and often times, 20 more) every single day since I was diagnosed with celiac.

Honestly, we could not do what we do without Bob’s Red Mill.

Thank you, Bob’s. (And thank you to Cassidy, who helped make this happen.)

If you ever read one of our recipes, and see a flour you don’t recognize or can’t find at your local grocery store, just click on that Bob’s Red Mill link and start ordering.