Over the years, we have all endured many food fads, diet crazes and marketing BS from the media.  If you are in my age range, you undoubtedly recall the fat free 80’s and how we became enemies with every kind of fat in food. Then the carb became the enemy and Atkins lettuce wraps became our goal at lunch. I often wondered what diet could boast avoiding a fresh apple but have a bacon covered steak for better health. Then it was the Mediterranean diet (which is really the most sensible and realistic of all) and then avoiding nightshades, and then eat to your blood type, still Paleo and now keto….Everybody seems to be looking for the magic solution that makes them thin, full of energy, and happy.

     And then gluten free took us by storm, except it isn’t just the latest craze or marketing gimmick. For millions of people, it is the unchosen and absolutely necessary new lifestyle they must adopt because of Celiac disease. For those with Celiac, a genetic auto-immune disorder that causes the intestines to slowly be destroyed every time the body ingests even an invisible speck of gluten, it is a daily struggle to avoid something that makes them so sick. On the other side of the coin, there are people who are gluten sensitive and people who choose to be mostly gluten free for a variety of reasons.  This must be very frustrating to those with Celiac who have to be taken so seriously and live a life of paranoia versus people who avoid gluten ‘most of the time’ because they want to lose some weight or see if it improves their migraines.

     As a cook and manager of restaurants in my past experiences, I was very fortunate to be educated about what gluten free means by a coworker with celiac. When we learned how sick she could become from simply setting a stirring spoon down on a counter where a slice of bread had made contact or not washing our hands after touching a flour tortilla, it became clear. She didn’t have to eat a wheat bun to become bedridden for days, she could end up in that situation from breathing in some flour dust or tasting some soy sauce residue left behind in a blender container. We became acutely aware of how to cook gluten free; it wasn’t just using GF bread, it meant getting a new knife, cutting board and washing off the grill. It meant reading labels like a scientist, posting charts about what grains and ingredients we could use and which to avoid. It became routine to thicken soups with cornstarch or replace soy sauce with Braggs Aminos so our daily cooking offered gluten free options with no extra hassle. And soon we became known as a café where you could confidently order a GF meal and not pay the price for days. Word spreads quickly and it becomes a really big deal to celiac diners who rarely get to eat out and have some real choices. I naively assumed all cafes in this GF day and age understood this and if they offered GF choices, then you could eat there confidently.

     Going to school in a new city meant working some summer jobs at both big corporate and small family owned food service. I was quickly enlightened on how untrained, unaware and frankly, uninterested many restaurant cooks are about GF. I gasped when a chef dunked slices of GF bread in the same egg milk batter that he just used for his regular French toast for a customer who requested GF allergy on their order. Using the same spatula to flip a grilled cheese on sourdough that he used to flip a GF reuben. They looked at me with a “What???….” look on their face when I jumped up in alarm. They weren’t trying to be trouble makers, they just didn’t realize it, or make the connection, or have any training. Unless these cooks have regularly cooked for or lived with someone with celiac, they don’t truly get it. It made me feel very nervous for all the diners out there that take their health in their hands when they eat out. Cooking for someone is inherently a most intimate act of trust, making something to be digested into one’s body, but it’s on another playing level altogether with allergies and diseases.

     As I said in the title, I was writing this blog from both sides of the fence to be fair and hopefully enlighten. And unless you have worked in a kitchen, you don’t know our world. The customer is the reason we exist, the customer is always right, and the customer can be a total pain!! There, truth. Anybody who has worked in any field of customer service or the service industry knows this. Love ‘em and hate ‘em but it is all part of the intricate dance in industry. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of making a fabulous meal for diners that had special requests and they end up smiling and appreciative thanking you profusely for your efforts. You made their day and you did your job as a flexible and knowledgeable cook. And then we get the customer who literally walks into the kitchen demanding we open new everything (chips, hummus, salsa, peanut butter, mayo, butter) because of their GF needs, and we see them moments later snarfing down a muffin from our bakery counter. Alarmed we rush out and alert them that the muffin is NOT gluten free, and the lady looks up annoyed and says, “Well, sometimes I treat myself to a little gluten.”  That, my friends, is what makes for jaded cooks and doubting chefs who don’t take GF seriously. Or the customer who is on a different fad and food bandwagon every week and this week it happens to be gluten free everything so it loses its legitimacy for some in the back of house.