Challenge accepted.

Wheatless bread buns and pancakes with blueberry yoghurt and organic honey.

A bit over a year ago I was diagnosed with wheat allergy. And barley, and rye and even oats. Since childhood I always thought I had lactose intolerance, and as I also have atopic allergy, no doctor ever took me seriously. In December 2012 I was finally sent to allergy tests for the first time in my life, and the results were a bit shocking.

I had no lactose intolerance or any allergy that has anything to do with milk products altogether. On the other hand they did find quite a lot of other allergies: perfumes, spices, metals such as nickel, chrome and cobalt, some plants and the aforementioned grains.

My first reaction was disbelief and confusion, and a deep sorrow: no more pizza, pasta, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, bread… I’ve always LOVED bread; I used to say that I could live on toast and butter. After a while I decided I won’t let this bring me down, and started to experiment in the kitchen. Some experiments have been more or less catastrophic: cookies that fall apart when touching them so you couldn’t lift them from baking tray, stone-hard pizza bottom, and buns that won’t rise so they were more like pancakes, to mention a few.

But I’ve also had a lot of success. And I thought I would start to share these small glimpses of joy with you. Who could have thought that a baking tray full of perfect bread rolls would bring tears to my eyes and a happy dance around the kitchen? OK, let’s be honest: around the whole apartment!

PS. My overall health has been tremendously better after I cut wheat from my diet. My skin is better, my stomach is not constantly bloated and upset, and I used to have sinusitis 3 to 4 times a year, during the past year and a half, I’ve only suffered it once. I’ve also started to replace my knitting needles with wooden ones and stopped using green eye shadow (it contains chrome oxide pigments) to avoid contact allergy with metals.