Let’s break the ice, so to speak. (Ice is gluten-free, if done right.)
Welcome to Tia’s Kitchen™.
My name is Tia Hain, and I am one of the founders and the “face” of Tia’s Kitchen™ and Glügle Gluten-Free™. Well, and the “helping hands”, too. We got some behind-the-scenes people, but they don’t like the spotlight as much as I do. (In other words, my husband and tech guy likes being “behind the scenes.”)
I’ve been doing this food blogging thing since 2009, even though I wasn’t so sure about it back then. I realized I love coming up with different recipes and writing about them. (I am related to Mark Twain, after all. I guess it’s in the blood. The writing part. I don’t think he was a recipe maker. But who knows?)
Anyway, let’s get to the questions you probably have.
“What is Tia’s Kitchen?”
Simple, tasty, allergy-friendly food.
Easy-to-make recipes of really good tasting food. It just so happens that almost everything is allergy safe in one way or another.
But even if you don’t have food allergies, everything here is really good and super simple. Even a novice could do it. And isn’t that how we all start out, anyway?
“Why is there Tia’s Kitchen?”
I come from a family with lots of different food allergies, so I have grown up being alert and diligent about food.
My mom is allergic to onions. (Yeah, those are in everything, just about.) My FIL is allergic to peanuts. My SIL is allergic to honey.
And, now my oldest son is allergic to pistachios and cashews. Anaphylactic allergy. I carry an Epi-Pen (Auvi-Q, now) around with me everywhere we go. And now, my allergy to eggs and yeast, as well as having to be gluten free.
But I love to cook and make new stuff, so this blog will be all of my recipes. And these recipes have been taste tested by some of the pickiest eaters. My boys.
“Who is Tia?”
I’ve been gluten-free since the summer of 2006. I have been blogging over at Glügle Gluten-Free™ since 2009 about recipes my journey with gluten free. (That website was stolen and the company that hosts it now wants me to pay them a bunch of money to get it back, so I’m sticking with Tia’s Kitchen.)
I had been living with sharp, stabbing stomach pain, little painful blisters all over my fingers that made it hard to use my hands, insomnia that only prescription medication could help, etc. I had seen several doctors for each of these things separately, but no one could ever figure it out, let alone connect that they were all from the same source.
Then, thank goodness, my husband and I watched a special with Dr. Mark Hyman. Before he was even a big gluten-free advocate, he told a story about a woman who had all of the same symptoms as me. Nothing helped her either until she went gluten-free. LIGHTBULB!
(Unfortunately, I didn’t know about testing for Celiac Disease until after I had been gluten-free (and living pain-free) for quite a few months. I was not willing to go back to eating gluten for a month and feel like crap to have the official diagnosis. So, I am convinced I have Celiac Disease looking at my and my family’s history, but I will never know for sure.)
After 8 years of living gluten free and feeling great, I started to get sick again. I found a wonderful doctor who ran an allergy panel on me. (the IgG ELISA for those who are curious.) It came back that I had an allergy to eggs and yeast. So, now I can’t eat those either.
But I have always loved food and loved to cook/bake. So, I will continue my passion and make delicious recipes that are now allergy friendly.
