Dairy-Free | The Dinner Special podcast

092: Emma Galloway: Learning to Cook with Food Intolerances

November 18, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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My Darling Lemon Thyme

Emm went to culinary school and worked as a chef for almost eight years in restaurants, the pastry section of cafes, and catering companies in Australia and New Zealand. She left when she became a parent and discovered that not only do her children suffer from gluten and lactose intolerance, but so does she. Emm started her blog in 2010 to share gluten-free vegetarian real food recipes, and stories and tips on organic gardening. Since then, she has written a book, My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen, and her blog was the 2014 Saveur Blog Awards Winner for Best Original Recipes Blog.

I’m so excited to have Emma Galloway of My Darling Lemon Thyme here with me today.

(*All photos below are Emm’s.)

On Her Interest in Cooking:

I grew up on quite a large property, where my parents grew heaps of vegetables and fruit that we had. And being vegetarian, my mom used to put a lot of time and effort into preparing most of what we had from scratch. So it was part of who we are, and my family, I mean, we’re all into cooking, and from a very young age, I knew that I wanted to be a chef. So, even though a few people told me not to, because that’s a pretty crazy profession, long hours and stuff, I didn’t listen and I just followed my heart and did what I wanted to do.

On Working in Restaurants, Cafes, and Catering:

My preference was working in smaller cafes, so that’s where I worked in New Zealand, mostly it was smaller cafes. Smaller cafes, you generally have only a couple of you in the kitchen, so you’re basically covering all bases yourself, you’re doing everything. Sometimes, even doing the dishes as well, which is actually how I started off in the industry. Restaurants tend to be divided into sections, so you’re only in charge of the one section. And catering companies are quite similar. So I was in charge of the pastry section when I worked for two catering companies in Sydney years ago.

They all have their challenges. It’s a pretty high stress environment, working in the kitchen. Especially when, like I said, if you’re working in a cafe, where there’s only one or two of you in the kitchen and you’re doing two, three hundred covers a day, it’s a lot of work and a lot of stress and a lot of running around. So, yeah, they’re all pretty high stressed.

I think cafes in the winter time generally are nice and calm and that’s when you have your time to play and be a little bit more relaxed. I don’t know if it’s the same in the States, but in New Zealand in summertime, if you work in a cafe, it’s extremely busy, especially if you’re in a cafe anywhere near the ocean, which is where I used to work. People are always going to the beach in the summer and then they’re wanting to go and eat, so it’s pretty busy.

On Starting Her Blog:

When I left the kitchen when my daughter was born, I didn’t even know what a food blog was. We’re a little bit behind in New Zealand and Australia. Five years ago when I started my food blog, there was probably only two of my friends that had ever heard of a food blog before. Even though, I mean, there’s people like Heidi Swanson in the States, who have been blogging for well over 10 years. We’re a little bit behind here, so I had no idea when I left the kitchen at all. And it was actually from finding Heidi Swanson’s cookbook in the library and then getting onto her food blog that I even discovered what food blogs were. So that was only five years ago.

For years I’ve always recorded recipes. If I find a great recipe in a magazine, I was always the crazy person who would be frantically writing out recipes and trying new things. And after I got onto food blogs, I thought, “Well, I’m at home.” Just looking after my kids, my kids were four and two at the time when I started it, so I wasn’t working professionally. And then I missed that creative side of cooking, where you can just experiment. So, at the start I had no clue of what I was doing, didn’t really know how to take photos, but just started.

On Recognizing Her and Her Children’s Food Intolerances:

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had basically just a sore tummy the entire pregnancy. I just thought that’s just what happens when you’re pregnant. Being my first pregnancy, I had nothing to compare it too. And then when my daughter came along, she was extremely upset 24/7, wouldn’t sleep and was just in a lot of pain, basically. And so, my midwife at the time suggested that maybe I try cutting out some of the foods in my diet that might be affecting her through my breast milk. So, that’s when I cut out gluten and dairy, but I’d always been interested in alternative food. Being vegetarian, I’d always look to vegan foods and loved seeing how people get creative with vegan food, but the whole gluten-free thing was quite a challenge at the start.

I didn’t really know what I was doing and I don’t think I was 100% gluten-free, because I hadn’t figured out that it’s in basically everything at this stage. So, when my son came along two years later, and showed a lot of the same symptoms as my daughter had, I got quite serious and went and got us allergy tested. That’s when it showed up that we can’t handle any gluten. We can handle small amounts of dairy, and more so as the kids have gotten older, but yeah, gluten is not our friend.

On Tackling a New Approach to Cooking and Food (with Food Intolerances):

I think the easiest way to approach it, is to focus on what you can eat, rather than being all upset that you can’t eat that donut in the store. Although, there are a lot of gluten-free donuts and things around these days, but I think focusing more on what you can eat, and naturally gluten-free and dairy-free things.

I’m very lucky in that my husband is Vietnamese, and so, all of our night-time meals are based mostly around rice, which is gluten-free and dairy-free. So I find that eating a more Asian-inspired diet or a Mexican diet, where the core ingredients are naturally gluten-free is usually the easier way to go to begin with, until you get your head around working with different gluten-free flours and dairy-free alternatives.

I’ve never really used the pre-packet gluten-free flour mixers, I prefer to just use my own individual flours. I think, when you’re first starting out, by all means, if you’re overwhelmed by gluten-free, then going that way is totally acceptable. You’ll probably get to a certain point where you would love more flexibility to add different flavors or different nutritional qualities to what you’re making. So that’s when you can use your own flours, but it’s totally acceptable at the start. When it all feels too much, I just think, do whatever you can do to make it easier for yourself.

On Some Good Resources to Learn More About Gluten-Free Cooking:

The main one that I have used over the years is glutenfreegirl.com. Shauna’s recipes are extremely well-tested. I guess with her teacher background, she’s extremely good at explaining everything, and why she uses certain flours, and for all the basic things that you’re missing, like pizza and bread and all those things. She has brilliant recipes on her site and in all of her books as well.

On Her Book, “My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen”:

After a couple of years of blogging, I pretty much had made up my mind that I wanted to try and get published. Over the years, there were a lot of recipes I had been holding back from putting on the blog, because I thought they’re too good to share in this capacity and I wanted to save them for a book.

And so, I spent about a year trying to approach publishers and see if they were interested. And I got turned down by every single one. Basically, at that stage, this was probably going back at least three or more years, probably four years nearly even. At that stage, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian food was a little bit too specialized for most publishers, so they turned me down saying, “It’s just all too hard.” And basically, I was in talks with one publisher in New Zealand at the time, who said, “We’ll publish a gluten-free baking book if you’re interested in that.” But that’s not really what I wanted to do for my first book.

And so, I was extremely lucky when I was nearly giving up hope, Harper Collins, New Zealand, who I hadn’t approached, because you had to have an agent to approach them and I didn’t have one at that stage, they actually approached me from seeing my blog. So it all worked out well in the end – very, very happy and thankful.

The book is filled with a hundred of my favorite recipes. Most of the recipes in there are recipes that I have been making for a long, long time. Some are inspired by recipes my mum made when I was little and I’ve adapted them to be gluten-free. And there’s a lot of base recipes, which is what I wanted my first book to be, so that anyone can pick this up, that’s new to gluten-free, and it covers all the bases.

There are numerous breakfasts to choose from. There’s pizza. There’s a homemade sourdough. There’s how to make your own yogurt from scratch. Tomato sauces, everything like that. The whole book is vegetarian and gluten-free, and then most of the recipes are dairy-free also. There are little bits of yogurt and butter, which is what my body tolerates, so that’s in there.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I do watch MasterChef.

There are a lot of professional chefs that think cooking shows like that are just slightly embarrassing, but there’s a lot of talented people that go on MasterChef. Some of the dishes they make a lot of professional chefs would struggle to make. So, I quite like it.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I’m terrible, I don’t actually read heaps of food blogs. So, 101 Cookbooks is the number one, I don’t think I’ve ever missed a post of hers in the five/six years that I’ve been reading it. I love The Vanilla Bean Blog, Oh, Ladycakes, The First Mess and With Food and Love. All of those blogs, they make food that I want to eat, even if I can’t, like The Vanilla Bean Blog, my friend Sarah writes it. Most of it I wouldn’t even be able to eat, because it’s not gluten-free, but I just love looking at her gorgeous photos.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

Green Kitchen Stories Instagram’s feed is amazing, absolutely amazing. Tara O’Brady, Seven Spoons. Luisa Brimble, Australian food and lifestyle photographer, her stuff is always amazing, and both on Pinterest and Instagram, she has amazing stuff on there. And Sarah Kieffer as well, from The Vanilla Bean Blog, her Instagram and her Pinterest even more so, it’s just amazing.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

That would probably have to be all the vintage props that I’ve acquired over the years. I have a wee thing for bowls and plates and glass jars.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Mushrooms. That would probably be one of the vegetables I didn’t like as a kid, but now I can’t get enough of them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I love, I’m not sure if it’s available in the U.S., but it’s called Vegies, by an Australian chef called Simon Bryant, that’s one of my favorites. Heidi Swanson’s book, Super Natural Every Day is another favorite, and Afro-Vegan by Bryant Terry is another good one. I have so many cookbooks it’s hard to choose. I have stacks of them all around my house.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Anything reggae. So, I really love listening to Burning Spear, any of his albums when I’m cooking, it just makes me happy.

On Keeping Posted with Emm:

Instagram is a daily update, so probably Instagram. On Facebook as well, but yeah, Instagram is probably the best one.

057: Grace Rusch: Finding a Diet That’s Right for You

July 8, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Sunday Table

Grace is a self-taught cook and a holistic nutrition consultant. She feels that our diets should be personalized, with a balance between food that makes us feel good and food that is healthy. On her blog, Grace features seasonal, organic, and whole-food ingredients, and she follows a mainly gluten-free, dairy-free, plant-based diet.

I am so happy to have Grace Rusch of The Sunday Table here on the show today.

(*All images below are Grace’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

I’d say it was just a matter of wanting to continually be inspired by new recipes or new ingredients. It helps me keep things interesting and that way I’m looking at new cookbooks, new recipes online and trying different ingredients.

I’m always inspired by seasonal ingredients, as well. So, the blog is really just a vehicle for me to constantly come up with new things for dinner and for breakfast. That way food’s not boring.

On Her Interest in Food and Cooking:

I’ve had a long-time interest in food and cooking.

I started cooking at a young age, just helping my mom in the kitchen. So, it probably stems from that good foundation that she built and instilled in me. And then, I got a lot more into it in college and high school. I really started to get into nutrition and thinking about how the food we eat affects how we feel and our bodies. So, that really is what, kind of, jump-started my interest in cooking. Through that, I’ve discovered how food actually made me feel. And through that, I found out I was gluten and dairy intolerant. So, it’s just been a journey.

When I moved to California, this “California fresh” fare was really inspiring to me. I come from the Midwest; I’m from Minnesota. And not that we didn’t eat healthy growing up, but it wasn’t quite the same cuisine. So, in college in California, I really started to use fresh produce and make that the foundation of my meal. Since that was something that was relatively new to me, it really inspired me to find new recipes.

Finding food blogs was also an inspiration to me, as a source for new recipes.

What else inspires me is just the food that makes me feel good. I try to eat food that’s healthy, but also tastes delicious. I definitely wouldn’t say I only eat for nutrition. Sure, that’s my basis, but it also has to taste good, because I also really enjoy eating.

What pushes me further is the fact that I have some dietary restrictions. And so, I have to constantly be creative and be adapting recipes to make it something that I can eat that’s not going to hurt my stomach.

On Experimenting in the Kitchen:

I’d say I’m a creative or curious cook. I just throw things together. I don’t have too many total flops, but that’s because I love adapting recipes that I know work. Or, I just throw things together that are super simple, like oatmeal or an egg bake. There’s a lot of really simple foundations that you can build on to make something healthy and delicious. I’ve definitely had major flops, though. Especially in baking. There’s trial and error, for sure.

I think if you find recipes that you like, just try swapping out an ingredient. Like, having that curiosity. If you switch vegetables in a dish, that’s a pretty safe swap. Just start experimenting. If you add additional spices, that’s a pretty easy way to explore. Baking it’s a little harder. But for cooking, it should be fun and it should be kind of an experiment.

Just having the curiosity of “What happens if I add these spices?”, or you switch up the vegetable or you switch up the meat. Don’t feel like you have to have exactly what’s in the recipe, unless that’s exactly what you want to eat.

I think I look a lot to the online community. There’s so many people doing really amazing things. So, I’m continually inspired by other food bloggers. I have a lot of cookbooks and I cook from a lot of them here and there, but I don’t have one in particular that really inspires me.

On Some Good Resources for Learning to Cook:

I am a 100 percent self-taught cook in the sense that I never really looked up the science behind cooking or baking. I think you learn that over time. So, I don’t think that I went to one resource. 101 Cookbooks, Heidi Swanson was definitely a first food blog that I found. Sara Forte from Sprouted Kitchen was another one.

On Being a Holistic Nutrition Consultant:

I had considered, in college, going to school for nutrition but decided to go to school for business, but I found this holistic nutrition school in Berkeley, California which is where I live now. And so, I kind of made it my plan: “Alright, I’m already in California. After I graduate I’m going to move to Berkeley and do this program.” It took me a few years, but eventually, I signed up to do the holistic nutrition program. It really just stemmed from curiosity of how food affects our bodies and how you heal yourself from the inside out, through food.

I think it’s pretty baffling to me that people don’t have the connection between what you eat and how your body feels. So, for me, it was really just to get that information. I’m a total food science nerd, so I love learning about how what we eat affects our body and then how that affects how you feel. It really is a holistic approach how that affects the rest of your life.

There’s definitely a balance between healthy and food that makes you happy. It’s easy to go too far one way or the other, and finding a balance is really a personal preference. It’s different for everyone. For me, I definitely feel better when I eat a lot of vegetables, but I also love sweets. So, oats with maple syrup is one thing; that, even to me, is enough.

Sometimes I really want dark chocolate and I’m not going to deny myself that. So, it’s definitely different for everyone. That’s my overall philosophy: every single person has a different diet that’s right for them, and food should make you happy. It should be something that you look forward to eating, but it also should be nutrient-rich. It should be something that’s not going to eventually, down the road, make you sick.

I think that is the first question you get asked and it’s the hardest question to answer; is “What should I eat?”. Because it is so individualized. It is fun to navigate that path with people; to help them understand foods they like and foods they don’t like.

If you really hate peas, then there’s no reason to eat them. If you really hate beets…I personally hate beets. It’s really hard for me to want to cook them and eat them. Just because it’s healthy, doesn’t mean you have to eat it. You should definitely find things that you want to be eating that are also healthy.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch any. I have a television, I rarely use it.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Ones that I frequently visit and actually cook from are: Sprouted Kitchen, it’s one of my favorites.

Cookie and Kate, that’s a really good one, I’ve cooked a lot of delicious things from her site.

A Couple Cooks, they have a lot of really good recipes.

Dolly and Oatmeal, she’s also gluten and dairy free, so I always love her recipes.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

I’d say Instagram’s probably my favorite platform, just because I love to look at photography. I actually follow a lot of photographers and travel or portrait photographers on Instagram. I follow the food blog world, too, but those are the pictures that make me happiest. It’s just seeing other parts of the world and little snippits. If you’ve had a rough day and you’re feeling uninspired, it’s so nice to see these beautiful nature landscapes.

One that comes to the top of my head is Jeff Marsh. He’s a Seattle photographer, both portrait and outdoor nature photos. Beautiful, beautiful photos. Aubrie Pick, she is a local San Francisco food photographer; just amazing stuff. Oh, I recently met a photographer from Vancouver Island, Kelly Brown; she’s a wedding photographer and lifestyle. Really beautiful stuff.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I don’t think I have anything too unusual, but I have to admit, my most treasured thing right now is my Vitamix. I use it every day.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Probably, snap peas. I really like them and can eat them raw now. And bell peppers. I kind of have a love hate relationship with them. I’m learning to like green beans; still not my favorite.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Recently, I’ve been returning to Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison; I love that one. The new Sprouted Kitchen cookbook just came out, that’s a really great one and her previous cookbook is excellent. I’ve also been cooking a lot lately from Vibrant Food, which is Kimberly Hasselbrink’s cookbook.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love music. I went to school for music business, so music is a big part of my life. I couldn’t just pick one, but I always go to Motown or old soul or funk music in the kitchen. It’s just fun, upbeat, and inspires you. Right now, I’ve been listening a lot to Brandi Carlile’s new album, The Firewatcher’s Daughter; that’s a great one. So, a big mix.

On Keeping Posted with Grace:

Instagram is my preferred platform. But I have a Facebook page, I’m on Twitter, I’m on Pinterest, and of course the blog.

016: Renee Byrd: Learning to Cook With Food Sensitivities

March 23, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Will Frolic for Food

Renee is a writer, photographer, recipe developer, and chocolate maker. She eats a wheat-free, dairy-free and vegetarian diet, and her blog is a reflection of this. On Will Frolic for Food, you will find recipes for creative, savory vegetarian dishes and occasionally more healthful versions of something indulgent.

I am so happy to have Renee Byrd of Will Frolic for Food here on the show today.

On The Idea Behind Her Blog:

I think the main idea for the blog came from just cooking in my daily life. I am bored very easily so I make a lot of weird, interesting recipes at home, and my now husband, then fiancé, was just really… I would make meals and he would say, “You really need to start a blog about this because people need to know these recipes. You can’t just keep them to yourself. It’s really not fair in a way.”

From my side, I was like, “No, I mean that’s so much work. I don’t want to. I don’t know.” Finally I was just like, “This is probably worth my time to share this with people,” and it totally has been. The community is a major reason I keep going.

I often have recipes that take me over eight hours to do. All in all, like recipe development, making the recipe, photographing the recipe, editing the recipe, post processing, writing; all things that go into it.

It’s so much. I love every second of it, but it’s not easy technically.

On Her Interest in Cooking and Food:

I’ve pretty much always been interested in it. I have a natural affinity towards natural foods and wanting to feel healthy and feel great.

I’ve always associated food with feeling good and being happy. I am sure the majority of that is that my mother is a fantastic cook and taught me how to make a lot of interesting foods and interesting meals out of nothing; out of like, “What’s in the fridge?” “I don’t know. We don’t have anything in fridge. I guess we’re going to make a pizza out of stuff.” She really had a good understanding of flavors and flavor combinations and how to balance meals. From that perspective, I learned all of that from her.

A lot of my inspiration has come from friends who are just passionate about food, from my friends who were basically in this little vegan, raw foods, commune situation in college, because I am just sort of hippy at heart and all my friends are like that. I love the way that they eat.

That was very inspiring to me to be with those people because they were just making these incredible curries, chutneys, and raw date brownies and it just blew my mind; so those people, and of course my mother, who gave me the foundation thankfully. I am very thankful for that.

Beyond that, so much of my inspiration comes from incredible bloggers on Internet who have been doing what they do for so long.

On Her Food Sensitivities:

I ignored most of it. Well, the dairy thing I ignored. Funnily enough, everyone in my family is allergic to dairy; allergic, not lactose-intolerant. Most of them just kind of ignore it and the wheat thing I developed a sensitivity to in my early 20s in college.

I started getting really painful stomach aches and was having really terrible digestive issues; it just hurt. I didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand it and it turned out to be a combination of sensitivity to peanuts and wheat.

I didn’t get officially diagnosed with those things but I essentially cut both of them out, and then suddenly, “Wow. Eating is fun again and doesn’t hurt me anymore.”

I just decided that I didn’t want to feel sick when I ate, and in my life, and I wasn’t going to compromise about that and I did for a long time. I basically was like, “I’ll eat wheat here and there. I’ll eat dairy here and there,” but then I was just feeling sick. It just got to a point where I was like, “I don’t need these things.”

I do eat goat dairy because it doesn’t have the same sugars and proteins as cow dairy. I am able to digest that fine, so you see a lot of that on my blog. You see a lot of chevre and goat cheese, goat yogurt. I think it’s a wonderful food, personally, so I do feature that relatively often.

On Learning To Cook with Food Sensitivities:

There are tons of resources. There are some books that I really, really love that are really on point for teaching you how to make exact recipes. Inspired Vegan is amazing. I love that book. I think it’s Bryant Terry, and it’s so wonderful. Obviously all of the Ottolenghi books, anything that’s naturally wheat-free in there is incredible.

Getting yourself out there and volunteering to help people cook big meals and for gatherings and things is another great way to learn.

Obviously blogs are fantastic resources. I’ve got a massive blog roll of people who are constantly teaching me with their process and their way.

I just have so many things going through my brain right now. I’m allergic to dairy, so the lactose and the casein that I’m allergic to but I eat Ghee. Ghee is amazing. A lot of people aren’t very familiar with it and a lot of people with sensitivities aren’t very familiar with the fact there is something that’s derived from cow dairy that they can eat.

Ghee is a wonderful clarifying food that is good for the joints, it’s good for the skin and helps support the nervous system. You can actually put it on your skin and it’s very calming and moisturizing. It’s an incredible food. I love it. I eat it a lot. I make it at home so that’s something that I use often that I feel like I am probably preaching about a lot.

Ghee is clarified butter.

To make it at home, I get a really nice organic butter. If I can get it from a farmer that’s local — that’s fantastic as well — that I trust and then I boil it over medium-high heat. I skim all of the froth that comes to the top, all of the lactose and casein off of the top. I discard that.

You just keep doing that until all of that frothy stuff is gone. Then you strain it and you pour it into a heat safe jar and you can use it. Generally a very clean organic butter, you’re going to be able to turn it into ghee relatively quickly and then you have this wonderful food that you can keep on your counter. You don’t even have to refrigerate it. It lasts for years — literally years — and it makes everything taste better.

Tips for Cooking Gluten-Free or Dairy-Free for the First Time:

Trust simple recipes. Starting with that, if you’re cooking for somebody who has allergies, trying to start out with doing a complicated baking recipe especially if you don’t have all of the ingredients and aren’t willing to follow all of the directions exactly, it’s going to be very frustrating.

I just remember back to when I was first learning how to do gluten-free cooking a couple of years ago how angry I was. These recipes weren’t working for me but I always want to try something that is more complicated because I want to be the best at it right now, but I don’t know what I’m doing.

Trusting simple recipes and finding a recipe developer that you really trust and that you really respect. I feel like I sorted through blogs and authors for years before I found people that I felt like I could trust their recipes. I wish I had a list of bloggers that I think are awesome and that I really trust their recipes. Actually I do have a list of inspiration on my blog of a bunch of different blogs that I love; not all of them are gluten-free but I definitely trust all of them. It’s just under the inspiration tab.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch a lot of cooking shows but I could tell you that I want to watch a really cool cooking show that is all about seasonal eating but it’s fun and there’s traveling involved.

I don’t have anything that I watch regularly. I watch YouTube videos of folks sometimes doing their thing. Green Kitchen Stories has some really cool videos.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

Oh my god. Yeah, hundreds of them. That’s a terribly hard question but what pops in my mind, let’s see. Two Red Bowls — super awesome, gorgeous photography; hilarious and just wonderfully inspiring recipes.

Dolly and Oatmeal, I love Lindsey Love’s recipes. They all are gluten-free, they are generally dairy-free, too; very creative and beautiful photography as well. I take a lot of inspiration from her recipes, so I just have to stress that.

Let’s see, so many of them. Obviously, Local Milk. I mean do I even need to say it? She’s the best ever that ever existed. I want to be her.

Eva Kosmas Flores of Adventures in Cooking has the most gorgeous photography in the world ever.

I am trying to think of other gluten-free bloggers here. I am always super in love with My New Roots. Everything is great on My New Roots, and Green Kitchen Stories, and Sprouted Kitchen. If you do not read those, you’re a crazy person. They’re just so good.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

Also a very hard question. Instagram, I follow a lot of people, a range of folks who do everything from food to really wonderful landscapes and stuff. Again, Eva Kosmas Flores has a wonderful Instagram.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

Coconut oil, quinoa, always gluten-free pasta is a go-to for sure, and fantastic quality olive oil and sea salt are better than anything. I actually use JQ Dickinson sea salt which is a West Virginia sea salt which is very flaky. It is a little bit lower in sodium and has of mineral quality to it. I love it. When I’m out of it, I cry a little bit.

Olive oil, I use Zoe’s because it’s really affordable in large amounts and it is really good, just delicious. I just feel like with good oil and salts you can make anything taste good.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

The JQD sea salt pretty much. I bring it with me everywhere.

Pretty much anytime I say coarse sea salt, I’m talking about that salt.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, Inspired Vegan, BabyCakes Covers the Classics by Erin McKenna is the foundation of gluten-free desserts in my mind. She is such a genius with gluten-free desserts. I pretty much owe that cookbook everything. My basic understanding of how gluten-free baking works and what you need to make it work. I’ve definitely branched off from that but that’s the foundation for sure.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Everything by Kishi Bashi. His most recent album, I can’t remember the name of it. Yeah, I just want to dance around my house and cook.

Keep Posted on Renee:

Other than following my blog, at willfrolicforfood.com, I am always posting on Instagram and Twitter. My handle is @FrolicChocolate. I have a Facebook page, too, but definitely Twitter and Instagram are the best ways.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

On Working in Restaurants, Cafes, and Catering:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Recognizing Her and Her Children’s Food Intolerances:

On Tackling a New Approach to Cooking and Food (with Food Intolerances):

On Some Good Resources to Learn More About Gluten-Free Cooking:

On Her Book, “My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen”:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Emm:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Her Interest in Food and Cooking:

On Experimenting in the Kitchen:

On Some Good Resources for Learning to Cook:

On Being a Holistic Nutrition Consultant:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Grace:

On The Idea Behind Her Blog:

On Her Interest in Cooking and Food:

On Her Food Sensitivities:

On Learning To Cook with Food Sensitivities:

Tips for Cooking Gluten-Free or Dairy-Free for the First Time:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Renee:

Have One of Renee’s Delicious Soup Recipes Sent to You Now: