I love free samples, but I love connecting with other gluten-free bloggers, friends, and Meetup members even more! This weekend, I was so lucky to see familiar faces and meet new people at the GFAF Expo in New Jersey. It is so awesome when someone comes up and tells me they read my blog or follow me on Twitter. I love meeting each and every one of you. I wanted to start my GFAF Expo wrap-up by sharing my photos of gluten-free friends!
Check out the vibrant Candice of Embrace G-Free rocking her new gluten-free alphabet t-shirt. Such a great smile and a positive gluten-free blogger! Visit Candice's blog here.
Want a t-shirt? Send me an email today! I am extending the sale until August 2nd. Only $17 a shirt, including shipping. Email me today: gfreefun@gmail.com
What a nice surprise I got yesterday when Google alerted me that I was picked for CeliAct's "30 Best Gluten-Free Blogs, Websites, and Tweeters to Follow in 2012." I am in great company on this list which includes some of my friends such as Josh from GFreek and Karen of Gluten-Free Travel Site. Considering there are hundreds of gluten-free blogs out there, I am very honored to be on this prestigious list.
I first learned about Food Fête a few months ago via Twitter. Soon, I was digging around on the Food Fête website and learned "Food Fête is all about helping food, beverage and kitchenware companies connect face-to-face with top food writers and bloggers." I love meeting new vendors and people in the gluten-free community so these events sounded perfect for me. After contacting Jeff Davis, the organizer of Food Fete, he suggested I sign up for the Food Fête focusing on products for people with allergies. Perfect! This was definitely my type of event and I had the honor of attending this event last night.
I knew it was an exclusive event based on the website summary, but I wasn't sure what to expect. When I was pleasantly greeted by Jeff at the door and then handed the list of attendees, I knew this was going to be an exciting evening. I immediately saw familiar faces which is always comforting. Sloane Miller, the Allergic Girl, was the first person I stopped by to say hello to when I walked in. Just last week, I realized I got a mention from Sloane in the acknowledgements section of her new book so I had to give her a huge thank-you hug in person. She had a lovely display of Allergic Girl and was also giving out allergen-free lollipops. Too cute! I continued walking around saying hello to friends such as Bruce and Pedro from Everybody Eats, Amie Valpone from The Healthy Apple, and Rachel Begun, RD who was showcasing Enjoy Life Foods with Joel Warady, CMO of the company. I also stopped by to see my favorite gluten-free bread friends at the Rudi's Gluten-Free Bakery table. Also manning the table was the always animated Dan from Renegade Kitchen.
There were some exciting announcements and new products at last night's event. Here are the highlights:
General Mills has just relaunched their Live Gluten Freely site as GlutenFreely.com. They are now endorsed by the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research and The University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center. In addition, they have partnered with other gluten-free food companies to open an online store on their new website.
Enjoy Life Foods is launching three new products next week at Expo West including Chocolate Granola, Crunchy Cookies, and Mega Chunks which are large chocolate nibs to be used in cooking and baking. I also learned that Enjoy Life Foods is also adding celery to the list of their allergens that are not included in their products. Apparently, celery is an allergen that is being added to the "NO" list throughout the UK so Enjoy Life is being proactive and not including it in any products.
Pasta Prima hands-down has the most delicious gluten-free ravoli that I ever ate. Right now they are available at Costco on the West Coast, but they are hopeful to expand their product line throughout the United States soon.
Rudi's Gluten-Free Bakery has just launched gluten-free hamburger and hot dog buns. I had a portobello mushroom "burger" on a new Rudi's gluten-free hamburger bun but ate it too quickly and didn't get a photo. So delicious!!! Rudi's will also hopefully launch some new gluten-free products this fall which sound very exciting. Stay tuned Rudi's fans!
Green Valley Organic had lactose-free yogurt and sour cream. At their table, I learned that adding lactase to dairy products helps digest lactose therefore making their products lactose-free. This is great news for those who cannot tolerate lactose. I also loved the Green Valley Organic tag line which is "Peace. Love. Dairy".
I have been a big fan of Mary's Gone Crackers since I met Mary and Dale in 2008. Last night, I tried their N'Oatmeal cookies for the first time and I was not disappointed. These cookies have an oatmeal cookie taste (from what I can assume, since I don't eat oats) but have no oats in the ingredients. Mary Anne, the Mary's Gone Crackers representative, was clearly passionate about her role at Mary's company and was fun to talk to during the event.
My favorite sample of the night came from Lucini Italia. This was a "new to me" company and I am glad I met this company. Lucini Italia introduced the new Cinque a Cinque chickpea frittata mix which was amazing. The only ingredient is chickpea flour. I cannot wait to use this mix ASAP.
Thank you Jeff and his Food Fête staff for including me in such an exciting event.
If you are reading this blog, hopefully you are a fan. It is my fans that helped me win Best Gluten Free Website, Blog or Social Site Winner at GFreek.com in the beginning of the year. You all voted and I won, which was such an honor. Thank you all!
Now, it looks like some fans have nominated me in the Women's Health blog contest. Until a blog reader emailed me to tell me about this blog contest and that she voted for me, I had no idea it even existed. I think it would be wonderful if a gluten-free blog made the Women's Health blogroll, especially if it is Gluten-Free Fun! I encourage you to vote today!
Nominate your favorite blog for the Women's Health BLOGS WE LOVE round up! We're looking for the best fitness, health, weight loss, and lifestyle blogs on the web and we need your help!
Just submit your favorite blog in the entry form below (you can submit as many as you like). Then come back to vote on the top submissions at the end of March!
Want to nominate your own blog? Go right ahead! If you're selected as one of the BLOGS WE LOVE 2011, we'll share your story with our readers and send you a nifty Women's Health badge for your page!
Remember to share this contest with your followers and friends and be sure to use #WHbestbloggers to track the conversation on Twitter.
I am excited to announce that I am now part of the Gluten-Free Global Community. This is a comprehensive list of gluten-free and celiac-related blogs from across the globe compiled by Carol Kicinski of Simply Gluten Free.
I appreciate Carol taking the time to blog and tweet about such a dynamic community. I often find gluten-free bloggers to be competitive with one another but Carol could not have been more gracious about adding me to this list.
If you are a gluten-free blogger and you would like to join theGluten Free Global Community send Carol an email at Carol@SimplyGluten-Free.com with "GFGC" in the subject line and include the following information:
The name of your blog Your blog url Your blog logo or a photo of you Your first name A couple sentences about your blog. If you host any community activities such as weekly or monthly round-ups, contests, etc. let me know that too and include a link to the information page.
Hope to see you on the Gluten-Free Global Community soon!
I am happy to announce I am now on Facebook. I am still trying to link up all of my technologies, but slowly I am getting there. I refuse to Tweet, so for now it is Blogger and Facebook and a few other things I have up my sleeve. Please join me as a fan on Facebook today!
Gluten-Free Fun has just received a 2010 Top Allergy Blogs award! I am not sure how I was nominated, but this is my first blog award and I am really excited to be on the top 25. Thank you to all of my readers and commenters over the past three years!
I have made many friends through the online community over the past few years through this blog as well as through the NYC Celiac Disease Meetup group. One of my biggest supporters and online friends is Tiffany Janes, of Triumph Dining. Last week, I was thrilled to find out the Triumph Dining chose me to be their Gluten-Free Blogger of the Month!! Please visit the Triumph Dining site to read the article and my interview with Tiffany.
Rachel, a friend of mine from the NYC Celiac Disease meetup group, recently started a blog called The Gluten-Free Cooking Club. She has been in a cooking club with her friends for a couple of years and they are always so accommodating to her gluten-free diet after her diagnosis. You may remember Rachel from an earlier post. Check out The Gluten-Free Cooking Club.
The Crispy Cook put together a fantastic list of over 100 gluten-free blogs. This is, by far, the most comprehensive list of gluten-free blogs that I have ever seen. I am thrilled that Gluten-Free Fun is part of this list. Please visit The Crispy Cook's: 101 Gluten-Free Food Blogs today!
After a really ugly loss of template, my blog is back and looking just as pretty as before. I tried adding AdSense to my blog at the thought that it might enhance the user experience. I give it a big thumbs down. The placement, display, and use of the AdSnese was just screwing up my page. I was always anti-ads on my site but I thought I would give it a try. It didn't work and I lost my entire template. I had to revert to one of the ugly Blogger templates for a while and I was disappointed with the look and feel of my site, it just wasn't me. I tried reaching out to Zoot Designs, the designer of this template, but I had no luck. I was finally able to resurrect an old template I had saved somewhere and put my HTML skills to work piecing this site back together. I hope you like this layout as much as I do. It is much more reflective of my personality.
The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness had their first NYC cooking spree on March 2, 2007 at the Institute for Culinary Education. I Thought the evening was quite fun, but my most exciting part of the night was meeting so many great people in the Celiac community. I was extremely proud to talk about our NYC Celiac Disease Meetup Group as well as my blog. It was terrific to finally put faces and names together of fellow bloggers and Meetup Group members.
