Gluten-Free Bakery Review: The Flying Apron

festivas is upon us and the goodies are beginning to surface. I, the next month and half we will honor 5 birthdays, Thanksgiving, Gingerbread house making and Christmas.

We are notorious for particularly enormous sweet tooths (teeth) in our family. My mom takes the cake; literally, as the supreme duchess of dessert. So, each event is generously lavished with excellent sweets.

So, think of poor Shea; last time we just let him eat the normal (wheat) birthday cake. Oh sure, we steered him toward the frosting. As if that was somehow better for him. But, of course, we saw his pre-diet pallor and behaviors crop right back up again.

Now, we are a bit more seasoned; we have been on the wheat/gluten/egg/soy/whey/peanut/rye/barley/spelt free diet for almost 5 months and try real hard not to "fall off the wagon".

I have been wanting to check out The Flying Apron bakery in Fremont, (3510 Fremont Ave. N. Seattle, WA 206-442-1115) for quite a while. They neighborhood is very groovy and fun and they are apparently now quite famous for their excellent variety of wheat/gluten free and many vegan goodies. They popped up prominently during my first feverish googling after we found out about Shea's food allergies. Since then I have read and heard many wonderful things.

Now seemed like a real good time to try them out with Shea in tow. We sampled a wide array of treats, everything looked yummy. The bakery is very cute, warm and inviting and the staff was friendly. We got muffins, cookies, some little chocolate cakes, a loaf of apple bread and a small blackberry pie. My personal favorite were the chocolate chip cookies (big surprise) and the Apricot Thumbprints but there was a lot to choose from. They also do fancy cakes too and seem to be doing a lively business.

I was disappointed for one reason but it wasn't their fault. I have been searching for a good loaf of bread. To be honest, wheat and gluten free breads have a pretty weird texture understandable considering gluten is the thing that makes bread really fluffy and wonderful. Breads without gluten tend to be very dense. So, I am always looking for a loaf of bread that Shea will eat. I consider a personal mission.

I was looking forward to trying their "house bread" but they were out on this Friday mid-afternoon which may very well be a good sign. If you check their website, they offer "mail order" so I might just order a loaf to give it a try.

All in all it was a successful excursion and I would highly recommend it to folks who are dealing with the wheat and other allergies. I would definitely come back and will probably get Shea's birthday cake from The Flying Apron Bakery next time around.

How is that new diet going?

Oh, you mean the one with no wheat, gluten, soy, rye, barley, eggs, dairy (whey) or peanuts?

Amazingly well, actually. Right away we started seeing real differences. First, his complexion and pallor normalized, skin tone now has a nice pink healthy color. Then we noticed he was able to pay attention and focus like he had never been able to before. Concentration was better and for much longer durations. He was attempting to say things that he wouldn't even try just a few days earlier. He was trying to say everything, any word we asked him to say. This was very new and different. Literally, we saw a difference in just a couple days. By the time we made it to the 3 week mark where all the allergens are supposed to be out of the system, we were sold. No going back. We saw amazing results right away, his teachers and specialists noticed too. This wasn't just us parents wishful thinking.

So, now we just needed to gather and expand the food options. Remember Shea has always been a super picky eater. So, finding foods that he could eat, that we could make was a big challenge. Seriously, at the beginning with all his "taboo foods" we were wondering what he could eat; potatoes, corn, oats, rice were all safe.

To start, we promptly changed to Rice Dream milk. No problem; Shea didn't even seem to notice any difference. I even found that they sell the the original flavor at Costco by the case. Easy to cook with, tastes good, affordable; basically that was a home run right out of the gate.

We have tried the Rice Cream (ice cream alternative) with less happy results. My daughter says it has a weird after taste, Shea is pretty luke warm about it. And, that is never good when dealing with ice cream. But, we found a Rice Dream Vanilla bar dipped in chocolate. Those get a big, sticky thumbs up from the little man.

Cliff Bar makes a kids energy bar called Z Bar which Shea loves. He could eat 10 a day if I let him. They are gluten free, 3 g. fiber and 3 g. protein and have all sorts of vitamins and minerals in them. These are a no-brainer for school snack times and easy access, on the go snacks. We go through a lot of them so I found a place I can buy them by the case for a lot less money, even with shipping included (Gotbody.com)


We discovered a great little company here in the Northwest, Wow Baking Company. They make a wide selection of cookies and brownies all wheat and gluten-free. You can find them individually at grocery stores or purchase by the dozen through their website. I also just found out that they will be selling cookie dough so you can bake them at home. Now, that will make holiday cookie time a little funner for Shea.

I am finding and trying new products all the time and will continue to share the good, the bad and the ugly.

Food allergies? Anyone?

Shea has always been a picky eater.

Actually, I didn't think much of it because Jake is too, sort of. I mean, Shea always had his little food quirks. For example, he doesn't like fruit. Weird, I know, what kid doesn't like fruit? He will ONLY eat apple sauce. But, you know how it is, you get used to it. You conform to your kid's tastes.

After I went through the whole UW CHDD experience, the Pediatrician had suggested a Nutritional evaluation in the final report. Good idea, why hadn't I thought of that? I had been concerned about his pallor. He seemed pale; seemed to consistently have a wan complexion. Sometimes he would get these bright red "apple" cheeks and I had wondered if it was due to food allergies.

So, I took Shea to an on island Naturapath that I knew and liked. I gave her the history; told her about the recent diagnosis, our visits to both Children's and UW CHDD and gave her Shea's vaccination records.

I haven't brought up vaccinations before now but both my kids had the full schedule starting as early as 4 months. I thought about it but I trusted my doctor and felt that the risks of not vaccinating far outweighed the risks of getting the shots. Since then I have met and heard of many stories of children regressing back after vaccinations but honestly I never noticed anything like that with Shea.

But, like the Naturapath said, "How would you really know when they start at 4 months?" True.

We got direction on how to do a 5 day food diary and talked about an allergy test. It was easy enough to do; pin prick on his finger, blood samples on little strips mailed off to a lab, we would hear results in 2 weeks. While I was there, I asked about heavy metals testing. Nothing really worried me except our polluted arsenic soil here on this island. Oy! Come to find out, a heavy metals test is even easier to get; just a little hair sample. So, she took that too, just in case nothing showed up with the food allergies.

Then I waited. Actually I was expecting to hear something. Perhaps Shea was allergic to dairy. I mean I figured there was something going on but nothing prepared me for what I finally did find out.

I like to say that Shea got the Allergy triple crown. He showed strong allergic reaction to wheat, gluten, barley, soy, rye, eggs, dairy (whey) and peanuts. I sort of sat there in shock.

"You have got to be kidding?" I mumbled, barely coherent. Poor Kelly, what could she say? I just remember her nodding sympathetically and steering me toward a good cook book.

Cook!!?? Me!!?? My kids don't eat what I cook. Oh, they eat my Annie's cheesy noodles but that is not really cooking. And, NOW even those were verboten! What the heck was I going to do?

That's when I hit the internet and found The Gluten Free Girl. A Northwest girl who had literally been through hell before she realized she had celiac desease. Her book is a real good read. It tells her absolutely harrowing tale, has some wonderful recipes and includes a generous helping of optimism. True, she is married to a chef which has got to help but her book was just what I needed at a pretty crucial time.

I started to recover from the shock. This was not the end of the world; this was just another bump on the road. Hope is always just around the corner, if you just look for it. I picked myself up and started again.