I’ll admit that after my initial diagnosis I wasn’t really taking this gluten-free thing that seriously. I had already decided that every third Friday was “Gluten Gorge Friday” and a cupcake from Magnolia every now and again wouldn’t kill me. Then I had my sit down with my GI doctor where he scared me straight. See, I’m incredibly lucky that I — unlike many celiac disease peeps — was only sick for about three months before getting my diagnosis. And I started to feel better even before my diagnosis, and abrupt change to my diet. Sure I lost a weird amount of weight in those three months, and I was a total mess of a girl, but after coming out on the other side I quickly forgot the pain that pasta could bring. Then the doc showed me my non-existent villi in my small intestine and started throwing around words like, “diabetes” “osteoporosis” “stroke” and the dreaded “cancer.” Which prompted me to go to Whole Foods and come home with this: I don’t even know what I’m thinking about doing with almond flour, but I’ve got it. Also, gluten-free donuts, pretzels, and granola. Nevermind that I haven’t eaten donuts, pretzels or granola in the past year, I suddenly needed these options. (By the way, pretzels — awesome, donuts — blech.) I’ve had more gluten-free beer in the past month than I had regular beer in the past six months. I’m suddenly stuffing gluten-free cupcakes down my gullet in far greater quantities than I dared to do pre-diagnosis. In short, I’m losing my mind. I understand this is normal’ish. My fear of food deprivation shall pass. But in the meantime, I’ve got a regular test kitchen going on here and I’m determined to re-create my old gluten-filled favorites in the most delicious way. If I seem a bit manic about this undertaking, remember, I must complete the taste tests before I completely forget what real breads/pancakes/cakes tastes like. So here we go! (A zillion fried, caked, and sickeningly fattening recipes to follow.)

And please, send me your favorites as well. I’m dying here.