Cooking Class: $800 Will Buy You A Comprehensive Gluten-Free Education
Unless you don't have access to the Internet, in which case you're not reading this, you know there are few bigger food trends than gluten freedom. That's not to say the diet's trendy — it isn't, because it doesn't involve a new form of cured, smoked, heirloom or otherwise awesome pig and it's also no fun — but there's no denying that it's here, no beer, and the market topped $4 billion last year. Thomas Keller himself invented the first flaw-free gluten-free flour.
If you're a buyer of gluten-free pretzels, misshapen loaves of hole-riddled bread, frozen pizza crusts, baguettes made of mozzarella and the like, way to dedicate all your money to still being able to eat pretzels. That stuff is very expensive, so NYC's Natural Gourmet Institute is obviously about to make bank on their $795/weekend Spectacular Gluten-Free Intensive, where they'll teach you to make your own.
Gluten-sensitive cooking enthusiasts can plain old forget about that extra few days of vacation and instead embark on a journey to get friendly with alternative flours, guided by gluten-free chef, baker and cookbook author Rebecca Reilly. Unless of course they have actual Celiac disease, because the facilities themselves aren't gluten-free. Or you can stick to the humongous and minimally restrictive world of naturally gluten-free foods, like all fruits, all vegetables, corn, potatoes, rice, ice cream, most candy, most booze, all meat, all dairy, all chocolate and as many taco truck tacos as you can hoover down, and save your entire tax return for an epic fancy meal somewhere they'll make extra-sure to hold the wheat.
More dispatches from Planet Gluten-Free on Food Republic: