By Danielle Walker
I can trace my passion for cooking back to a failure in the kitchen when I was in college. It was my first time attempting a meal totally on my own, and I vividly remember proudly serving a platter of Chicken Parmigiana to a houseful of college boys. After anticipating a delicious, home-cooked meal, they cut into their chicken only to find that it was grossly undercooked. I later learned that the chicken breasts needed to be pounded into cutlets to ensure even and quick cooking.
That was the first of many culinary failures, but it sparked a hunger in me. The Food Network became the background to my studies, and cooking magazines smothered my textbooks. I had a newfound interest in how and why dishes worked or didn’t, but out of fear of poisoning everyone around me, I spent the remainder of my college years cooking what was familiar and comfortable.
It wasn’t until I graduated that I started to actually experiment with new foods. But not by choice. After a few months of experiencing gastrointestinal upset, fatigue, and unexplainable anemia, I received a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis — an autoimmune disease that attacks the intestines. I was prescribed a myriad of harsh medications to be taken multiple times a day but still experienced terrible symptoms. My various doctors refused to speak to me about dietary changes and assured me that food could not cure the disease. Through my own research and reaching out to others in online communities, I discovered that I could, in fact, drastically change my approach to eating to alleviate my symptoms.
To my dismay, I learned that I needed to remove grains, lactose, and refined sugars. Gone were the days of convenience when a meal could come from a jar of spaghetti sauce, a package of pasta, and frozen hamburger meat. All-purpose flour and white sugar, which had been staples for me, were no longer options. Whatever I knew about cooking would no longer serve me. It was back to square one.
After trying a few recipes I found on the Internet and tossing them in the trash because they were inedible, I came up with a mission: to never again miss the food I once loved. I set forth to create grain-free, dairy-free dishes that were reminiscent of the standard American diet, but were wholesome and made from fresh ingredients — things that would leave a person feeling satisfied rather than deprived.
But let me backtrack a bit, because it is important to comprehend the gravity of my pain and suffering to understand why this mission became my passion.
In 2007, a mere two months after graduation from college and marrying my high-school sweetheart, I found myself in the emergency room suffering from unbearable pain in my abdomen and a slew of digestive complications. Until then, I had been a perfectly healthy young woman, with no family history of digestive disorders and only the occasional stomach upset as a child. The hospital discharged me without a diagnosis and gave me a prescription for medication that ultimately intensified my symptoms.
A few agonizing weeks, three specialists, and one lengthy hospital admittance later, I was finally given a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis — a disease similar to Crohn’s disease. I was again discharged with a handful of prescriptions and a promise that, while there was no cure for the disease, I could ultimately live a very “normal” life. The doctors didn’t discuss the symptoms I might experience or even the side effects the drugs might cause.
