birthday for a blog

Today is the first day in the life of my blog. I want to pause and acknowledge this because it has been brewing inside me for a long time. I feel that I have an approach to gluten free living that makes it enjoyable, interesting, varied, balanced, and normal!

This is a month of birthdays in our family. Birthdays inevitably mean cake. Perhaps this is the first year that you are living gluten free and you feel you don't know how to celebrate your birthday now in a way that is familiar. The thing is, you can have your cake and eat it too! The first thing to do is to identify what you want your birthday to look like -- culinarily speaking. Do you want an extravagant meal out? Do you want pizza and cupcakes with the kids? What kind of birthday celebration feels like yours?

Once you identify what it is you want, it's time to make it happen. There are a number of amazing store bought cake mixes that are gluten free and no one would know it. It's important to know that you can use a gluten free cake mix and still please the crowd. You will not be depriving others of a delightful celebration because the menu is gluten free! There is no need to make two cakes or offer a gluten-ful option to the crowd. I promise you, it is not necessary.

For my son's birthday I used Pamela's Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix and Dark Chocolate Frosting Mix. I followed the directions for cupcakes and it was so great to be able to sing "Happy Birthday", indulge in some decadent chocolate cake and know that there was no compromise for any of us in the celebration. I knew that I didn't have to be deprived. I wasn't tempted to indulge, only to feel sick later. I knew that it wasn't necessary to waste time making something that I could eat, along with gluten-based cupcakes for everyone else. You can find Pamela's products at The Community Food Co-op or at Fred Meyer in the Natural Foods section.

For dinner we had a very rich, traditional homemade lasagna. It was a special occasion and so my focus wasn't necessarily making it "health food". I followed the recipe exactly as it was written in The Taste of Home Cookbook, which is not a gluten free cookbook. The only substitution that I made was to use Tinkyada brown rice lasagna noodles, which I also bought at the Food Co-op.

So, in the end I didn't really have to do much differently than I would have before I stopped eating gluten. I only needed to change a couple of things to make my son's birthday feel like he wanted it to feel, while still making all of us feel good! Happy Celebrating!