Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back... And How You Can Too by Shauna James Ahern

"A delightful memoir of learning to eat superbly while remaining gluten free."

—Newsweek magazine

"Give yourself a treat! Gluten-Free Girl offers delectable tips on dining and living with zest–gluten-free. This is a story for anyone who is interested in changing his or her life from the inside out!"

—Alice Bast, executive director National Foundation for Celiac Awareness

"Shauna's food, the ignition of healthy with delicious, explodes with flavor—proof positive that people who choose to eat gluten-free can do it with passion, perfection, and power."

—John La Puma, MD, New York Times bestselling co-author of The RealAge Diet and Cooking the RealAge Way

"A breakthrough first book by a gifted writer not at all what I expected from a story about living with celiac disease. Foodies everywhere will love this book. Celiacs will make it their bible."

—Linda Carucci, author of Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks and IACP Cooking Teacher of the Year, 2002


An entire generation was raised to believe that cooking meant opening a box, ripping off the plastic wrap, adding water, or popping it in the microwave. Gluten-Free Girl, with its gluten-free healthful approach, seeks to bring a love of eating back to our diets. Living gluten-free means having to give up traditional bread, beer, pasta, as well as the foods where gluten likes to hide—such as store-bought ice cream, chocolate bars, even nuts that might have been dusted with flour. However, Gluten-Free Girl shows readers how to say yes to the foods they can eat. Written byaward-winning blogger Shauna James, who became a interested in food once she was diagnosed with celiac disease and went gluten-free, Gluten-Free Girl is filled with funny accounts of the author’s own life including wholesome, delicious recipes, this book will guide readers to the simple pleasures of real, healthful food. Includes dozens of recipes like salmon with blackberry sauce, sorghum bread, and lemon olive oil cookies as well as resources for those living gluten-free.


With a diagnosis of celiac disease comes one large don't: don't eat gluten, which means no more bread, baked goods, or beer. But living gluten-free isn't as easy as just avoiding a few trigger foods. Gluten is everywhere, often hiding in processed foods and in places one might not think to look. Ahern has been blogging since 2004 about living gluten-free on her popular, award-winning food blog, Gluten-Free Girl. Now her story makes the transition to book, and it's a successful venture that centers on the idea of what it takes to love food while living with food restrictions. Readers with or without celiac disease will appreciate the recipes, advice, and inspiration for eating well. After all, "everyone deserves good food." Part food memoir and part how-to, Ahern's story traces her journey from processed-food-fed child to gluten-free gourmet after her celiac diagnosis. Engaging and passionate, this book will make everyone who reads it remember the pleasure of food. Highly recommended for public libraries.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
1 A Brand-Name Childhood 1
2 On My Own 9
3 The Ten Noble Tastes 23
4 Free to Be You and Me, Gluten-Free 53
5 Vegetarians, Please Avert Your Eyes 83
6 Going Against the Grain 109
7 The Pleasure of Vegetables 135
8 Luscious and Sumptuous Fruit 153
9 Truly Tasting My Life 173
10 Guilty Pleasures 185
11 Feeling Comfortable in the Kitchen 207
12 Life, Gluten-Free 231
Epilogue: Yes 253
What Is Gluten and Where Does It Hide? 257
Resources 259
Index 26