Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef

If there ever was a good story, many a women would agree, it would have to combine romance and food. It seems Shauna James Ahern, known online as the Gluten Free Girl, has done just that. And created a cracker of a love story, part memoir, part recipe book.

Her story begins in 2005 when her long-term, sickly struggles were discovered to be the effects of nasty coeliac disease. All her life, she had been tired, ill and in her late 30’s, unmarried.

After being told she should never eat gluten again if she wanted to save her life, Shauna began a journey of cooking, photographing, blogging her new discoveries and of course, eating again. She took joy in the fact that food could now nourish her, if she did it right. Soon enough, Shauna’s identity became her online alias, Gluten-Free Girl which became a household name in many American homes.

At the time, her internet presence was not restricted to food blogger. At 39, despite her ambivalence, she remained a member of an online dating service and continued to meet unsuitable men. “Every one of them had been a dud” she writes.

That is until she met a chef. His name is Danny but he’s referred to as ‘The Chef’ in her blog and book. Shauna reluctantly met him in a Seattle café and like a young teen, she fell for him hard knowing he was special.

Their book, which shares the same name as the retitled blog, ‘Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef’ tracks the moment Shauna unsuccessfully tried to impress Danny with “a fancy egg dish, baked in a ramekin, with pungent cheese and fine-diced chives” to when the “chef and the gluten-free girl get hitched and run off to Italy”.

Shauna’s writing is poised and sincere. She describes her honeymoon as “a sacred time of fullness, sweet and filled with light.”

However, the best thing about this romantic memoir is that it in fact, doubles as a recipe book. As we indulge in an almost ‘Mills and Boon’ voyeurism into the blossoming lives of the two authors, we are handed over a piece of each chapter to cook at home. At one point in the book Shauna reveals her trepidation of trying Danny’s cooking for the first time, she writes “I took the beans home, nervous the entire bus ride”. Turn the page and you have the braised white bean recipe with an afterthought from the man himself.

Shauna and Danny’s story is perfect. Their success lies in their portrayal of two underdogs that triumph through sickness and loneliness thanks to real, unconventional love and restaurant quality food.

Follow their cooking adventures at http://glutenfreegirl.com/
Or buy their book, Gluten Free Girl and the Chef by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern from Amazon

By Aimee Wagenheim

For more local gluten-free ideas, visit www.ctrlalteat.org