Dairy-Free

Thumbnail image for play and play and play

play and play and play

I’ve been playing a lot lately. When Lucy is home, she mostly wants to play hide and seek with me. (And with her daddy when he is home. That’s a fine game.) Generally, she doesn’t quite understand the concept: “You count, Mama, and I’ll hide in my room!” I play along because she takes such [...]

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smoked paprika-chipotle sauce

It started innocently enough. A few weeks ago, we had a picnic at the beach. Some good friends decided that the summer ending called for a little gathering. Three moms, one dad, and a bunch of kids playing on driftwood and chattering happily. We talked and laughed. We ate. I brought a pan of grilled [...]

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peanut butter pie, gluten-free

Today, all over the world, people are making a pie for Jennifer Perillo’s Mikey. We made one yesterday, so we could freeze it, take it on the airplane for our trip to Utah, and eat some on a family picnic. (The Aherns are gathering. There will be hiking and white water rafting.) I believe we’ll [...]

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gluten-free fresh pasta

No food has ever given me such fits, or taught me as much, as fresh gluten-free pasta. When Danny and I developed the recipe for fresh gluten-free pasta for our cookbook, we made it over and over again, almost obsessively. There are so many good gluten-free packaged pastas on the market that we both wanted to [...]

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Good Fish

How do you feel about fish? We’re big fish eaters around here, particularly in this season supposedly called summer. (64 degrees today. Well, at least there was some sun.) Halibut and salmon are back in season. The grill on our front porch has a full tank of propane. In this time of light until 10 [...]

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Thumbnail image for linguine with shrimp and slow-roasted tomatoes

linguine with shrimp and slow-roasted tomatoes

This has been a heady few weeks. Our trip to Washington D.C. followed my trip to Google, which was followed by my time with Penny de los Santos. We’ve been home for a week, working hard, and we leave today for Austin, Texas. (It’s 100 degrees in Austin. Here it has not risen above 65 [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free ice cream sandwiches

gluten-free ice cream sandwiches

For awhile there, we were giving you recommendations here, of foods we like and products that arrived at the house that we would buy again. You can see the tab up there, the one that says RECOMMENDATIONS. However, we sort of tailed off eventually. This morning, I was trying to figure out why. Then it [...]

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gluten-free in airports

When the airplane’s wheels left the land, I looked over to see Lu’s eyes wide. Danny and I both smiled. She has been on a lot of airplane trips, this kid, but not in awhile. This is the first time, it seems, she was able to take it in. Flying. We were actually flying in [...]

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how to live gluten-free

In a few weeks, it will be six years since I started this website. Six years! Folks, I can’t believe it. This past Friday, I flew down to San Francisco and back the same day, to speak at Google headquarters about the need for increased awareness about celiac and gluten sensitivity in this culture, in [...]

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baking without eggs

It’s late as I write this. The weekend is a blur of sunshine on green grass, kids with ice cream faces smiling through tiredness, trips to the city to help a friend celebrate the publication of her book, buying honey sticks at the farmers’ market, planting a garden, ferry rides, a meal at Danny’s restaurant [...]

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Thumbnail image for prosciutto-asparagus tortilla

prosciutto-asparagus tortilla

What do you think when I say, “He eats alone”? Did you feel pity for that person? A little sad? Does it remind you of yourself? Did it scare you? We have such specific images of someone who eats alone. Think Bridget Jones, crying into her ice cream about being a singleton. Or the woman [...]

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how to cook and bake without dairy

I have fallen in love with creme fraiche lately. Have you made some for yourself? It’s so ridiculously easy — more so than anything I have made from scratch — that you would be silly to not make it. Ready? Pour a pint of good cream in a jar. (The less pasteurized the cream, the [...]

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Thumbnail image for homemade walnut butter

homemade walnut butter

I made walnut butter for the first time. It won’t be the last. Growing up, the only nut butter I ever ate was peanut butter. In fact, I didn’t know there was such a thing as nut butter. Peanut butter was its own entity, a world unto itself. I didn’t know that it was something [...]

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Thumbnail image for baked halibut with asparagus, leeks, and dill

baked halibut with asparagus, leeks, and dill

We’ve been longing for spring around here. Rain. That’s what we’ve had. Rain. I don’t complain about the rain. We live in the Seattle area. It rains here, especially in the winter. We don’t have banks of snow or days so cold we have to bundle up the child in so many layers that her [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free lemon poppyseed bread

gluten-free lemon poppyseed bread

In the past few days, I’ve made three batches of lemon poppyseed bread. Each of them was quite different from each other. Each of them was delicious. For one batch, I replaced the butter or oil I would have used with an equal weight of applesauce. I know this is a popular solution for people [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free crepes

gluten-free crepes

A couple of weeks ago, we had our friends Tita and John over for breakfast. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. These are two of our favorite people in the world. However, it was Tita’s birthday recently, so this was a special occasion. We wanted to fix her whatever she wanted to eat. She thought when [...]

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braised fennel

Lu grabbed the bulb and ran to the porch shouting, “Fennel! Fennel!” I laughed as I walked behind her, remembering how many bowls of fennel salad I ate when I was pregnant with her. By the middle of the afternoon, as I moved from my first trimester into my second, I stood in the kitchen [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free blueberry clafoutis

gluten-free blueberry clafoutis

Words rattle around in my head all the time. Sometimes my brain repeats words that sound good: prestidigitation, mellifluous, voluminous. Other times, my mind worries over names that snake in there: Christianne Amanpour, Shmuley Boteach, Prunella Scales. Once in awhile, when I’m stressed, I catch my brain repeating b i c y c l e [...]

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Thumbnail image for spicy escarole with sausage and tomatoes

spicy escarole with sausage and tomatoes

A few years ago, if you had asked me to identify the vegetable up there, I would have scrunched up my face, looked at it sideways, and said, “Really good green leaf lettuce?” Nope. It’s escarole. I first ate it only a few years ago, thanks to Danny. This is the first winter that I’m [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free Mexican hot chocolate cakes for Valentine’s Day

gluten-free Mexican hot chocolate cakes for Valentine’s Day

You all blow me away. This past week has been extraordinary, for a number of small reasons. However, mostly it’s because my life has been imbued with your love stories. Every day, I have been coming here to publish comments and ended up in tears. Happy tears, mind you. Your vulnerability, generosity, and humor has [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free cake pops

gluten-free cake pops

This is a cake pop. It’s a cake pop made by my wonderfully talented and lovely friends Jessie (also known as Cakespy) and Megan (also known as Not Martha).If you are lucky enough to know people who want to spend the afternoon with you crumbling up cake with their hands, manipulating marzipan, and making zombie [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free coconut sugar cookies

gluten-free coconut sugar cookies

These cookies may not look like much, but they are really quite wonderful. They are also gone. Danny and Lu nibbled them during an afternoon snack, after my photo session, as they lay on our bed together reading an I-Spy book. Weak winter sunlight spilled into the room and on their toes. I had so [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free, vegan pie crust

gluten-free, vegan pie crust

Thank you to everyone who contributed such delicious recipes for our gluten-free Thanksgiving challenge. My goodness, people! Not only did the original bloggers who posted about their own gluten-free baking challenge blow me away, but the hundreds and hundreds of links to great gluten-free food in the comments could keep anyone baking for months on [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free crabcakes for my love

gluten-free crabcakes for my love

This morning, I watched this man bend down to grab the hands of our daughter and slowly go around in a circle with her while they sang Ring Around the Rosie together. (There’s no need to tell her yet how creepy that song really is.) Right now, he is taking her on their morning date: [...]

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Thumbnail image for homemade granola, gluten-free

homemade granola, gluten-free

This is Sharon. Sharon makes me laugh. Sharon has a kind heart and an absurd sense of the world and a flirty style that leaves its impression on everyone who meets her. In the past few days, Lu has been starting to laugh. Really laugh. She has been giggling most of her life. However, now [...]

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C is for Cooking

Before Lu was born, I didn’t realize that cookbooks are great toddler reading material. Our friend Matthew, in his book Hungry Monkey, told us that his daughter Iris loved looking at Martha Stewart’s Cookies. Eventually, she had all the cookies memorized and could point out each kind: milk-chocolate cookies, hazelnut jam thumbprints, and ginger cheesecake [...]

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corn tortillas

People, I have a problem. I’m in love with corn tortillas. Oh, I’m still in love with my wonderful husband, who takes our daughter to the playspace on the island — to climb jungle gym equipment and feed pretend tea to her dolly — every morning about this time so I can settle in front [...]

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Thumbnail image for baked kale chips

baked kale chips

I don’t know why I resisted making kale chips for so long. For months, even years, I’ve been reading raves of this healthy snack from bloggers across the country, and the world. Maybe it’s this stubborn quirk I have. If too many people extol the virtues of something, I resist it. This is why I [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free crusty boule

gluten-free crusty boule

If you don’t want to eat this bread, I’m going to have to check your pulse. This is gluten-free. I wrote the sentences for this piece in my head, long before today. However, they have all disappeared in a haze of too-much coffee, too-little sleep, notes scrawled in orange marker, and a darling toddler interrupting [...]

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making mayonnaise

We finished the United Way Hunger Action Week yesterday. We were never hungry. Instead, we feel humbled. If you have not read the piece I posted about why we did this, please do. Mostly, I want you to read the comments. People, you amaze us every time. Your generosity in sharing your stories, your tips [...]

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Thumbnail image for broccoli winter slaw

broccoli winter slaw

My goodness, people, you certainly love broccoli! If you haven’t had the chance to read this piece on broccoli, go there now. Not so much for my writing — you can skip that. Jump right to the comments and see what the community of people reading here has recommended to each other. Roasted broccoli, broccoli [...]

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Thumbnail image for wild rice salad (gluten-free and vegan)

wild rice salad (gluten-free and vegan)

There’s a funny way of looking at food when you first find out you can’t eat a certain one. I started dividing food into two categories: can and can’t. I can eat roasted potatoes, Alaskan salmon, fresh quince, raspberry jam, teff porridge, and duck confit. I can’t eat bread or pasta or pizza or pie [...]

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Make It Fast, Cook It Slow

In 1977, my 11-year-old self felt daring by staying up late for Saturday Night Live. Those were the best years, the Gilda Radner as Emily Litella saying “Never mind” years, the Wild and Crazy Guy when Steve Martin hosted years, the John Belushi as samurai guy years. You know, the funny years. For some reason, [...]

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Soul of a New Cuisine

Two autumns ago, when Danny was still working full-time as a chef, and we were still living in Seattle, I sat in a Starbucks in Madison Park, excited. Marcus Samuelsson would be there soon. His glorious cookbook, The Soul of a New Cuisine, had come out the year before, and we had been dog-earing pages [...]

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Modern Spice

Fresh curry leaves. Pomegranate seeds. Turmeric that leaves little trails of neon-yellow dollops on saucers. Brown basmati rice. Fenugreek. Coconut milk-simmered chicken. Cardamom pods. These have been the flavors of our kitchen this week. What a feast it has been, thanks to Modern Spice. You see, Danny and I are still deep in the throes [...]

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Thumbnail image for sliced tomatoes (and smoked tomato salsa)

sliced tomatoes (and smoked tomato salsa)

Remember winter? When everything came in shades of grey? When the world felt silent, waiting, dormant beneath the earth? When nothing had a smell and we longed for something, anything to release its scent? Here is the color we longed for then. A rioutous shout of reds and yellows and greens. The slightly acidic tinge [...]

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I made pickles.

There’s something satisfying about a kitchen project. Instead of racing to the next place we have to be, or sitting hunched at the computer completing another assignment, or trying to figure out what to have for dinner in ten minutes, a big project forces us to slow down. Focus. Be there. All that work can [...]

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early summer vegetable love

Danny’s at the kitchen counter, chopping and humming, the sunlight flooding in. Little Bean is standing at her wooden stove, just behind him in her room, banging out a rhythm with a wooden spoon. I’m bustling around them, rinsing the dishes or putting something on Twitter or opening the refrigerator to see what I can [...]

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silly for strawberries

Some of you might remember that 1970s commercial for sugary cereal: “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!” That’s how we feel right now. We’re senseless for strawberries in June. I miss strawberries all year long. A sweetness far deeper than sugar could ever dream. The red juice smeared on my lips. The little grit of small [...]

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a thing for pickles

I have always had a thing for pickles. (When I taught high school English, I wrote a list on the blackboard at the start of every September, words that the students were not allowed to use: thing, stuff, get, very, nice, really, pretty, extremely, and cool. By the end of the first month, they could [...]

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Thumbnail image for chorizo sausage (made for stuffing)

chorizo sausage (made for stuffing)

We often have a strange assemblage of items on our kitchen counter. But this one was the most intriguing lately. Time to make sausage and stuff it in a pork tenderloin. (I love seeing what’s in other people’s kitchens, like this gorgeous Polaroid from Ab Chao. In fact, I’ve started a group in Flickr, called [...]

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the grace of salisbury steak

I once knew a girl named Grace. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t really know her. I sat across from her in Mr. Lester’s fifth-grade class. She knew most of the math problems we figured out on the chalkboard. She had an odd, intermittent giggle, like helium escaping from a small balloon slowly. And [...]

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Thumbnail image for banana cream pie, gluten-free and dairy free

banana cream pie, gluten-free and dairy free

(We’re thrilled that this recipe is being featured at Oprah.com’s roundup of holiday recipes for 2009. For more of our featured posts, visit Oprah.com today.) Pie. If I want to crack up the Chef, all I have to do is look at him straight on, and say “Pie.” He laughs, every time, his head bending [...]

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frikadeller is my new favorite word

Long before I became pregnant, I was curious about other women’s food cravings. Popular culture says that we’ll all slaver over pickles and ice cream. But I don’t actually know any women who were desperate for either when they were pregnant. Not me, certainly. I’ve always loved pickles anyway, but I’m much more excited by [...]

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quiet on Christmas eve.

Life’s pretty quiet around here. Oh, don’t misunderstand —there’s plenty to do. The Chef’s restaurant has been packed with people who leave the front door rubbing their bellies and proclaiming to the cold air how happily full they feel. I have been writing and planning and creating, to the point that it’s sometimes hard to [...]

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Thumbnail image for hands hard at work making food

hands hard at work making food

These days, it seems, my best ideas for food comes from other people’s hands. Have you ever watched the hands of someone who really knows how to cook? Ask him about how to prepare a recipe, and he’ll start pinching salt in the air. He scoops up sausages and flings them into hot fat, flicks [...]

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mucking about in the rain

You may have heard. Western Washington is wet. Splashing in puddles, squelching of tires, slapping drops on the top of our heads — we are sodden around here. For days, the skies splayed grey and the sump pump in the basement groaned with the extra load of work. People, every myth you’ve heard about Seattle [...]

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back in Italy (if in memory only)

It has been nearly three months since we returned from our honeymoon in Italy. (And the book has been out for nearly two months?!) Life continues to amaze us with its pace. Tonight, the Chef and I stood behind a table at Palace Ballroom, for hours, surrounded by some of the best chefs and writers [...]

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gluten-free holiday baking

(We’re thrilled that this recipe is being featured at Oprah.com’s roundup of holiday recipes for 2009. For more of our featured posts, visit Oprah.com today.) It turns that being sick sometimes pays off. Last week, the Chef spent his only day off sitting in doctors’ offices with me. We were waiting to have my blood [...]

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feeeling the food beneath my fingers

When we were in San Francisco a few weeks ago, the Chef and I walked into the small green room at KGO radio station. We had just come from the farmers’ market, where I had been dazzled by all the selections and fierce farmers who grow food. Everywhere we looked in San Francisco – food. [...]

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