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A new friend asked me why on earth I would start a gluten-free bakery. You can skip my answer - it’s pretty long - but I’d thought I’d add it to the archives.
I always wanted to be in business, I don’t know why. Maybe not a bakery, but something. Not enough to go to business school - that seemed the corporate thing, and definitely not what I wanted. I didn’t really know WHAT I wanted, so I drifted for a long time.
I did not “go into” teaching, I got a job as an assistant teacher when I had four kids in day school and we needed the tuition break. (I had been a secretary at a Jewish school in Vancouver BC before I got married, so it didn’t seem like much of a jump.) I was really happy to stop, to be honest. Teaching, even just assisting, is draining work.
I once read a book called “Growing a Business” by Paul Hawken. (Once? Well, ok, maybe like a dozen times.) In it, Hawken talks about how to choose which business to open. He says (I’ll paraphrase) to look for places ‘where the shoe doesn’t fit,’ look for things that frustrate you or that are missing in your own life. If you find a way to solve your problem, & if you can help other people solve that same problem in THEIR lives, then you may have a business.
Hawken also says a good business idea will arise naturally out of your life. I always assumed that I’d end up in some kind of publishing venture, since I always loved to read, I love books, I even love touching paper.
Instead, what happened was my husband got Hodgkin’s. After he recovered, he was left with stomach issues which he was obsessive about resolving, since he couldn’t stand not being fully healthy anymore. Turns out in retrospect, our kids’ GI doc tells us, that “most likely” Aron’s life-long gluten-sensitivity CAUSED the cancer.
I was surprised, because usually you only hear about intestinal lymphomas being associated with celiac disease. (People with undiagnosed CD are 33 times more likely to develop intestinal lymphoma than those who can tolerate wheat.) But the doctor said people with undiagnosed CD are 3 times more likely to develop ANY kind of cancer - often lymphomas (Hodgkins is a type of lymphoma), but possibly any kind.
This is all out of order - that conversation took place June 2006, Aron was sick in 1999, recovery took all of 2000 and into 2001, when he was still bothered by stomach issues, but the tip-off wasn’t just in his stomach… let me tell you [warning: new tangent ahead!] there may be no body more documented on the face of this planet than my husband’s. When he was sick, but not yet diagnosed, he went to TWELVE different doctors to figure out why he felt like crap, and that’s not counting the two shrinks me and my in-laws sent him to because we were sure after doctor #7 or 8 that he was crazy.
And it’s normal for cancer survivors to get obsessive about their health afterwards - they don’t ever want to get sick like that again. Imagine surviving cancer; every little thing becomes cause for alarm - not just ‘worry’ but CAT scans and blood work and multiple doctors offering multiple opinions.
So not only can I tell you that as a child my husband was always small for his age (like 5th percentile), always anemic, always got canker sores (NOT cold sores, there’s a difference), got lots of cavities and had slightly discolored teeth (he bleached them when he grew up), always had stomach issues as a child which got better as he got older, which are all classic signs of celiac disease; but I can also tell you that he had elevated liver enzymes, high “alk-phos” (whatever that means), had been diagnosed with osteoporosis like having the bones of a 65-year old-man before the age of 40, anxiety, eczema, bacterial overgrowth, gastric reflux, allergies, joint/bone pain, and other lesser-known, possible symptoms of celiac.
When Aron’s niece was diagnosed with celiac disease in January 2002, our son was just undergoing a colonoscopy/endoscopy due to his frequent stomach aches, which turned up nothing. I looked into celiac a little and became convinced that Aron had it, and in the summer of 2002 when his whole family got tested for celiac, Aron went with our kids. Not one of our household tested positive, but Aron’s father did. (He’d actually been diagnosed with CD when he was a young boy, but as he matured he was told he had grown out of it. Turns out you can’t “grow out of” celiac disease, but he’d arrived at the age of 60 without any noticeable signs beyond recurrent heartburn.)
Even though Aron tested negative (twice!), by the end of 2002 he went gluten-free. Also dairy-free, which he basically was already, but now it was official. At first, I confess I was ANGRY at him - I thought this was another “mishegas,” worse than all the others in that it impacted on ME! - I had to learn a whole new way to cook, constantly shlep to Whole Foods, spend an arm and a leg on specialty products, blah blah blah. But you know what? He really really started to feel better, for the first time in a VERY long time.
And then our son, who is actually pretty stoic (I remember him breaking down when he was six or seven and telling us how much he suffered from stomach aches, and I took him to his pediatrician, who talked to him and couldn’t find anything specific, so the doctor said, “kids get stomach aches, it’s normal,” and sent us on our merry way, and Yitzchak suffered in silence for another two YEARS before Aron got him that endoscopy/colonoscopy when he was nine) anyway, he tried the gluten-free diet and immediately found relief as well. (Finally!)
And then our youngest also was complaining of a stomach ache every single day… that she went to school. She was fine on the weekends. I said for sure it was stress, because this was her second time through kindergarten, and she still wasn’t doing so well. Turns out it was the pizza bagel I sent her every day for lunch. She had to go gluten and dairy-free, too, but then she blossomed not only in health but in school - within two years she went from “remedial reading” to “advanced reading” and has stayed there ever since.
It’s funny but it wasn’t until last summer (2007) that our oldest went gluten-free, even though I always suspected she was the most gluten-sensitive of all our kids. In fact, when I left teaching in June 2006 I made her get tested again and she STILL didn’t have celiac. That’s when I had that conversation with the doctor, when he said that Aron probably got cancer because he had been eating gluten. Our third was also tested normal at that time, but we’ve never suspected any gluten-sensitivity with her, so she still eats wheat.
At that time I got tested myself. Since I had been essentially eating gluten-free for a while (you can barely get me to make ONE dinner for the family, I am certainly not making TWO!) I had to do a “gluten-challenge” where I ate substantial amounts of gluten every day - a bagel, a slice of pizza, some pasta - for six weeks. Sounds good, right? I got SO SICK! I was stunned - I NEVER suspected I might have issues with wheat! But you know what? I do NOT have celiac disease. (I also still eat wheat. A little bit here and there doesn’t seem to do me too much harm.)
Anyway, there are clearly more people who suffer from eating wheat & gluten than just those with celiac disease. Celiacs are less than 1% of the population (and even that’s huge! Until 2003 they thought celiacs were 1/5000 people. Then they found out it’s 1/133), but there must be double or triple that number who need to eat gluten-free. I’ve read estimates that go as high as 30%, but that’s just crazy talk. (I believe it, but I won’t admit it in public.)
So what we had here, was a situation where the “shoe didn’t fit” on a whole lot of people. I knew how hard it was to find products like kosher / gluten-free / dairy-free bread for sandwiches, to make lunches for school every day. Somehow the bread I made without gluten or dairy tasted pretty good. And the rest was history.
Did I think it would be this hard to run a business? Well, obviously, now that we’ve been in business since January 2007, and open since June 2007, I can tell you that it is one thing to be able to BAKE gf-bread; and another thing to get OTHER people to bake gf-bread, CONSISTENTLY, in a real-life kitchen where equipment breaks and deliveries come late; another thing to package gf-bread and market gf-bread and deliver gf-bread, to bill for gf-bread and pay for the ingredients to make the gf-bread.
But Paul Hawken did warn me that business is people, and it would be the PEOPLE who would surprise me the most, both for the bad and for the good. I think business has been rewarding for me because the people it has brought me have for the most part been exceptionally good.
Also; you know how sometimes authors will say that their characters take off in ways that surprise them (the authors)? The bakery keeps doing that to me. The business plan called for a strictly WHOLESALE bakery (what else can you do with a bakery that is closed Saturdays & obscure Jewish holidays?) but from the day I pitched the idea to our investor, until right this very moment, it is fighting to become a retail bakery, even a cafe. (I sometimes consider getting a beer & wine license!) It is our retail customers that have carried us through this past year of product development, for sure.
THANK YOU, WONDERFUL CUSTOMERS! We LOVE you and APPRECIATE your coming back! And any readers who made it down here - THANK YOU FOR READING!
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Great story. Out of love for helping your family get healthy, you’re helping so many more of us do the same. Thanks.
Sandee Brooks
Virginia
May 24th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Thank YOU!! It was a pleasure to meet you the other day! You’re the first Sandee (besides me) that I’ve EVER met! BTW — How was your cake?
May 26th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I’m a single mom struggling to figure out why my kids keep getting sick. My oldest also has ADHD(at 5yrs old). Stan Kurtz my sons preschool director has suggested a gluten/dairy/casein free diet A friend suggested checking out your website. Looks great, a breath of fresh air. Hope to visit soon!
May 26th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I look forward to meeting you! Where does your son go to school? Kudos to Mr. Kurtz for the suggestion - I hope it helps!