A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a photo of a gluten-free pizza they’d just pulled out of the oven. I spent too long gazing at it, my mouth watering, because it looked like a real pizza should. Much to my surprise, she said it was an Against the Grain frozen pizza. Given the limited selection of gluten-free foods in my area, it wasn’t surprising I hadn’t heard of the company.
However…
I did some investigating and found that a few AtG products were available at a store about an hour and twenty minutes away, so the next time I had to be in the area, I stopped in. Alas, they were out of pizzas … but they did have packages of AtG baguettes, and I bought one.
This woman is reviewing the buns, which is (to my knowledge) the same dough used for the baguettes.
Each package contains two baguettes about the size of foot-long sub buns. I ate both in four days. I couldn’t help myself. It was the best bread I’d had in almost a year. I didn’t have to toast it to get it down. I didn’t have to hide the flavor – meaning a little butter worked.
But the idea of driving so far away, and in heavy traffic, wasn’t appealing, so I phoned a health food store about forty minutes away. I asked the manager if they might consider selling Against the Grain product. Lo and behold…they already do. The reason their store wasn’t listed on the AtG website is because they buy from a middleman.
And so I made a trip to Lansing. Did I find Against the Grain products. Yes I did.
But I found so much more!
A huge freezer section devoted to gluten-free foods … and two full aisles. I mean both sides of the aisles. Four long shelving units, four or five shelves high packed with gluten-free food!
Since I first started playing around with a gluten-free lifestyle three years ago (if you remember earlier blog posts, I kept falling off the wagon), and then giving it up entirely last year, I’d never seen so many GF foods in one place.
I sincerely hope no one ever watches their security camera footage from that afternoon because I know I looked like an idiot. I’m sure my eyes were like saucers, and I just kept wandering up and down the aisles saying reverently (over and over again), OMG, I can’t believe they sell this (or this, this, this and this).
Next time I go back (soon, I hope!), I’m going to try to act like an adult and make a list of everything I’d like to try. I already know that the Kinnikinnick chocolate dipped donuts will satisfy all of my cravings for donuts.
Hopefully, I’ll find more foods I’ve been missing. Foods that actually taste good. I’m very much looking forward to trying the English muffins I forgot to pick up. They’re not frozen, and they don’t look like sun-bleached hockey pucks.
Anyway…
If you have to eat gluten-free and haven’t yet checked out a local health food store, it might be worth your while to have a peek. You might be as pleasantly surprised as I was.
