In early October I spent a week in Tuscany, cooking amazing gluten free dishes with the inimitable Carla Bartolucci, owner of Jovial Foods, at her Gluten Free Culinary Getaway near Lucca. I made pasta and pizza, savory dumplings and sweet cakes, pies, and cookies using Carla’s formulas and her gluten free rice flour, which will be coming to market very soon. Carla taught me a few new pasta sauces, my favorite being a broccoli and anchovy sauce that I featured a few weeks ago on Recipes for Health.
Although I have no problem with gluten, most of the other people at Carla’s culinary getaway do, and for them it was such a gift to be able to spend a week in Italy and not have to worry about finding enough to eat; the kitchen at the villa was a gluten free kitchen, and Italians in general are gluten-aware, with gluten-free choices on their menus.