The Muffin Lady was created because I started baking a variety of muffins….sexy was added….because to me cooking is sexy! Hence one of the reasons why I married my husband (He’s a chef)  🙂

I was diagnosed with Celiac as a child, a time when it wasn’t common at all and hardly anyone knew what “Celiac” meant let alone “Gluten Free”.  There weren’t any gluten-free restaurants, items in grocery stores or anything on menus.  You were on your own to figure it out.  It was a completely unknown world.  So much so that even my mom and I were uneducated on the subject.

When I was young, and I was going to attend a friend’s birthday party, my mom would call ahead of time to find out what the dessert was going to be so she could duplicate it for me in a “gluten-free” version…..so amazing!!  I would never know this until I got older.  As I started getting older and my mom wasn’t there making my meals and/or choices I wanted to eat what everyone else was eating; pizza, bagels, muffins, burger king (bun and all), donuts (OMG I LOVED munchkins). I would get sick all the time and just learn to deal with it.  Not realizing that I was actually killing myself slowly with long-term health effects…..which if you read up on Celiac then you know what I am talking about (http://celiac.org/celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease/).  This isn’t a dietary restriction this is a way of life.

I moved to Los Angeles from New York in my 20’s.  LA was always more health conscious than New York to start with, but I really started getting into nutrition, reading labels, and exactly what I was putting in my body.  Clean food versus processed food.  Wow what a discovery, processed foods are disgusting, the sodium, the by-products, sugar, the list goes on…..  As I am living in LA making all these food discoveries, I get a call from my mom. She tells me she recently was talking to a woman about how I “used to have” celiac but “grew out of it” (as I wasn’t getting physically sick as often as I was when I was younger).  And this woman replied “You don’t grow out of Celiac, there is no cure!”.  So from that conversation on I never (intentionally) ate anything that was not gluten-free ever again.  We both started researching Celiac and reading all the long-term health effects it has if untreated (meaning you stop eating gluten).  And it explain a lot of symptoms I was dealing with, which we didn’t at the time correlate to Celiac.

Ok, we moved on, and I realized I would have to start making ALL my own food. And let me tell you, you become pretty creative when you can’t eat what everyone else is eating.  Plus since I am a foodie, I need my food to taste good, not bland and not boring.  I started looking online for ideas from other people who were gluten-free.   It’s definitely trial and error when it comes to cooking with different types of flours as I am sure it is with anything.   Between having to cook my own food, being creative and not ever wanting to eat fast food or processed foods again my love of cooking began.

Why the blog? I’ve been working in reality television for over 13 years, which gives you quite a view of what people like to see.  I love the outlet, of letting others “see inside” so to speak.  People love to see what other people are doing, saying, thinking etc… Other walks of life that you may never come into contact with, you now can see (of course through the directors eyes) that different type of life style.  It’s almost voyeuristic, and you don’t want to watch, but you can’t take your eyes off of what is about to happen.

With everything said above, I plan to share yummy gluten-free recipes, amazing places to travel and also accommodate a “gluten free” lifestyle, and I’m sure other opinions, stories that I feel like getting off my chest.

Do you know the Muffin Lady??