Nearly Normal Cooking for Gluten-Free Eating

Nearly Normal Cooking for Gluten-free Eating is written by Jules E. D. Shepard, a woman that suffers from celiac disease.  There are many cookbooks out there on the topic and this one is probably the most annoying.

I haven't yet tried any of the recipes in the book so I can't comment on taste. Nearly all gluten-free cook books have a section dedicated to baking and alternative flours. Wheat bread seems to be the most difficult thing to replace due to taste, ease of baking, and cohesion. Nearly every gluten-free cook manages to develop their own mix of gluten-free flours and they are all very similar. Shepard comes up with her own mix that she felt she needed to protect with trademark protection. Recipes are generally not protected by copyright. In order to protect her mix, she took extraordinary effort to trademark the name of the recipe. She then uses the trademarked name throughout the cookbook.

There were a couple other annoyances. Tips are added to the bottom of the recipes. In one instance she tells you to wear rubber gloves while handling chicken that is already sealed in a zip-loc bag. In another she tells you to use a certain brand of paper towels. Really?

The recipe book has no pictures, which IMHO is a big recipe book failure. I can find enough gluten-free recipes on-line with pictures that it makes no sense to buy a book without any.

Book Rating: 2 stars if you are desperate.