Why am I here?

Now that's a loaded existential question, isn't it?

To clarify, the question really is: Why am I blogging?

After all, there are a million wonderful websites for gluten-free and gluten-free/casein-free cooking, including more blogs than I can count. Why do we need another one?

Well, maybe we don't. But I need another one. I need a blog written by someone like me. Someone who is naturally kitchen-challenged. Someone who once would have cooked everything out of a box if she could have. Someone who used to think that mixing a can of cream-of-stuff soup in with some vegetables and meat actually created a balanced meal.

Someone who, through necessity rather than by choice, has been proven wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I love the contributions of people like The Gluten-Free Girl. I don't know how I could have ever started out on this journey without her, in fact.

But I wasn't a "Foodie" before I went GF; and I'm not married to a professional chef. Sometimes the recipe blogs are just way over my pay grade. Also, I think it would help to learn from other experimenters' failures, not just their successes.

So, this is a blog for other people like me, if they exist. People who are faced with the prospect of cooking everything from scratch, not out of a love of the kitchen, but out of pure, raw necessity. People who have culinary problems to solve, such as:

• What do we eat when we go camping?

• How do I keep from overburdening my family because of one person's special diet?

• What the hell is Kwinoah anyway, and what do I use it for? (Psst. It's spelled Quinoa and pronounced Keen-Wa)

• How do I survive without bread? Crackers? OMG -- PIE!!!!

• But I'm an abject failure in the kitchen! (don't worry -- so was I; well... I still am, much of the time).

• I don't have time to cook!

• But isn't Papa Murphy's an essential food group?

So... This is a general "how do I survive on a gluten-free and/or casein-free diet?" blog. I am not an expert. If you came here looking for expert advice, I will try to get up some links for you later. What I am is a person who has been muddling through the gluten-free world for about three years, and, more recently, the dairy-free world as well. And, so far, not only have I survived, but I eat better than I ever knew was possible before.

So think of this as Beginner's Odyssey in gluten-free cooking. I've learned a lot, but my beginning point was so low, I still have a long way to come. Won't you come along with me and we'll learn together? We'll explore recipes, experiments, kitchen contamination tips, substitute foods, Holidays (THANKSGIVING????), shopping, social implications of the "special" diet, eating out, and all things related to the Gluten-Free lifestyle.

By way of introduction, I will tell you I'm a 30-something gluten-intollerent (possibly Celiac but untested -- we'll get into testing issues some time in the future) mother of 2.5 children (two in high school and one "in the oven"). One of my sons is also intolerant of Gluten and mildly intolerant of Casein; so most recipes will be free of both gluten and casein. I also have an amazing, wonderful, intelligent, and supportive husband who also happens to be a talented cook, and we live on a small hobby farm raising small sheep.