Category Archives: Gluten Free

A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes gluten, a protein composite found in wheat and related grains, including barley and rye. Gluten causes health problems in sufferers of celiac disease and some cases of wheat allergy. The editor of The Newburyport Blog has been gluten free since 2009.

Apple Pie and Newburyport’s Farmers’ Market

One of my great treats this warm season of 2009 has been a Sunday stroll down Federal Street to the Farmers’ Market at the Tannery in Newburyport, MA (see earlier entry). And my discovery of “the pie guy,” who is actually Cape Ann Pies www.capeannpies.com.

Both my grandfather and my grandmother on my Dad’s side migrated from Canada, and one of the favorite family traditions was pie, specifically apple pie, for breakfast. Good apple pie is hard to find, especially after the Baker Canadian version, and I found great apple pie, by the slice no less, from Cape Ann Pies right here in Newburyport, at our very own Farmers’ Market. Eureka.

If I had known that the slice of apple pie that I had in August was to be my very last slice of apple pie, I would have held a wake, I love apple pie that much. And as a result of the diet from hell, the gluten free diet thing (see previous post), apple pie–nevermore.

I stopped my Sunday ritual of heading down towards the mighty Merrimac River in search of apple pie. I could have gone down for all the zillions of “healthy” stuff, organic vegetable and fruits, etc at Newburyport’s Farmers’ Market–that would have been an obvious thing to do. But the thought of “no more pie” had me in Farmers’ Market avoidance.

But one beautiful Sunday in September I walked to downtown Newburyport, down historic State Street and along winding Water Street, full of its historic architecture, and, yes, there at the Tannery was the Farmers’ Market, teaming with its vendors and their customers.

Crossing the street, I made my way to “the pie guy.” I wanted him to know that I was no longer one of his regulars, not because I didn’t love his apple pie, but because of this “gluten thing,” and my apple pie mourning. And sure enough, he had a piece of apple pie set aside, all wrapped up, hoping that I would “come back.” It was a good thing that I had my sun glasses on, because otherwise he would have seen my eyes well up in tears.

When I told him about the gluten free, no more pie, bread or muffins, fun stuff, his response was, “No, it’s a lie!”

“No, this Celiac stuff actually makes sense,” says myself. And I tell him if he ever comes up with a gluten free pie to let me know ASAP. He tells me that he has tried, and we both say at the same time, “It tastes like garbage.”

Next year, or maybe by the time the Newburyport Farmers’ Market comes to its seasonal close, I will march down and scoop up all the naturally, obviously, remarkable gluten free veggies and fruit. But at the moment, since apple pie was one of my “guilty pleasures” and carrots etc. are not, I may need a little more time to grieve the passing of the “loving apple pie and eating it” years.

Gluten Free–What?? in Newburyport

I open my mailbox, weeks ago, possibly now months ago, checking on when my last posting would be on the Newburyport Blog. There is a fat letter from my doctor. I cannot imagine what it could possibly be. Results from a lab test long since forgotten by moi. Apparently my body is silently destroying itself, ironically because of “comfort foods,” bread, cookies, pasta, crackers–stuff that contains something called “gluten.” I am immediately to go on something called a “gluten free diet.” Accompanying the lab results is a xeroxed list of all the things that are now “verboten.”

I, who always thought I was lucky enough to be born with the “skinny gene,” (see previous post on “shapewear”) actually have something called Celiac, a very unfortunate version of the “skinny gene.” And I who have never had to go on a diet in my life, now get to go on the diet from hell, from this point forth and forevermore, as long as I get to live. Apparently it is the only “cure” for Celiac disease, something that is nowhere close to being on my radar screen.

I immediately sit down to my trusty computer and look up “gluten free” and “Celiac.” Viola, it turns out that one of the grocery stores in Newburyport, MA carries a whole “gluten free” section. I immediately drive North from my abode, and low and behold, there it is, gluten free bread, cookies–I say to myself, “I’ll start with those.” One taste of these gluten free “treats,” out they go, $$ down the garbage hole. (Apparently I am far from alone in this initial outing and response.) I cannot bring myself to go from soft, fluffy bread and crunchy crackers to stuff that has the consistency of sand.

The Newburyport Blog has taught me how to research, and research I do, for weeks, now going on months. My initial research shows that gluten appears to be everywhere, chicken broth, soy sauce, liquorish, cereals, sunscreen, make-up, toothpaste, pudding, gravy, hot cocoa, just to name a few. And I am overwhelmed.

However, it also appears that I not only have a “wicked smart” doctor who has picked up this once possibility, but there is also now a budding gluten free awareness in the USA, and the beginnings of a huge gluten free industry, even as hospitals madly do research in this under-researched item.

And weeks, yes, maybe months after receiving “the letter,” I am not only grateful that this weird thing is not something much, much worse, like a “three months to live” sort of thing, and I am coming out of shock enough to once again post something on the Newburyport Blog.