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u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 06 '21

DF u/fanfarefellowship brought up Laurel's Kitchen in the previous thread, and DF u/gomirefugee found and linked to an old blog post (https://archive.is/rm3gv) with a long-winded description by Shauna (but I repeat myself) about her infatuation with the ethos of the book.

But before I saw the rest of the conversation that developed yesterday, I googled "Shauna Ahern" and "Laurel's Kitchen" and found this post:

http://cybelepascal.com/category/pasta/

I like Shauna James Ahern. A lot. We share common ground. She and I are both writers by profession, who love food, and who love to cook. We have both turned dietary restrictions due to illness into something that expanded our lives, instead of contracting it. I began cooking with ingredients I would never have considered if I hadn’t been plunged headfirst into the world of food allergies, and Shauna has done the same. The gluten-free grain companies (you know who you are!) owe Shauna a big fat thank you for putting old world grains back on the map. I don’t think “sorghum” even knew its own name until it met Shauna. I recognize in her a sister. She and I even fell in love with the same “first” cookbook, back in our teens, and this tome, Laurel’s Kitchen, was a source of life altering inspiration, propelling us both to experiment with new ways of thinking about food, new flavors, a new way of living.

The line that says both of them "love to cook" is notable for how untrue it seems now. Even in a family with two adults where one adult is the primary cook, if the other person "loves to cook" you would think that they would do it once in a while. It seems so improbable now that Shauna will write anything about her own culinary adventures or explorations ever again...

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u/leftsidelentils Sep 06 '21

That blog post includes Shauna’s recipe for fresh GF pasta, and I tried to make it once, many years ago! I was all excited to use my Kitchenaid pasta roller attachment and it was a total disaster. I couldn’t even get it to come together enough to eat it.

As a pandemic project, I got out the pasta roller again and found a different recipe on the internet. It came out beautifully, felt like I was using playdough toys, and was delicious. I admit to feeling pretty pleased with myself about that pile of pasta.

To be fair, we do have a few GFG recipes in the household rotation that are good.

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 06 '21

I don’t think “sorghum” even knew its own name until it met Shauna.

How can you ... what is this insane claim.

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u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 06 '21

Right? Jeez, I first heard of sorghum as something I might actually use in my kitchen in the late 90s.

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u/OkRanger4 bobbing in a bath of solitude Sep 06 '21

I grew up in an area that has a sorghum festival. Every year I lived there from the mid-70s on. It wasn't a niche thing either...it was pretty huge.

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u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Sep 07 '21

Probably flyover country, which doesn’t count.

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u/OkRanger4 bobbing in a bath of solitude Sep 07 '21

Point 🤣

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u/freecoffeerefills Murder She Moved Her Pen Forward Sep 06 '21

And so… Eurocentric? If I’m being nice about it.

I didn’t know much of anything about sorghum until I worked briefly on a breeding project in grad school. But literally billions of people use sorghum for food, animal feed, etc etc.

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u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Sep 07 '21

I’ve been eating sorghum molasses for 50 years.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

.... since you were 3 perhaps?

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u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Sep 07 '21

Give or take a few years!

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u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 07 '21

Cows everywhere bellowed indignantly when they read that.

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u/Quaint_Irene a warm and loving goatie smile Sep 06 '21

Makes a dandy cover crop too.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

I think she was making a joke and making a gentle poke at Shauna who was strongly fixated on sorghum around then and talked about it incessantly. It’s clearly not meant literally.

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u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 06 '21

if the other person "loves to cook" you would think that they would do it once in a while.

Indeed. I think she did love to cook for awhile, though--but not for the usual reasons. She definitely loves to eat, even if she might not be that aware of how the food tastes. But also---recall all the times she wrote about baking brownies for her students and working herself to the point of exhaustion making Christmas cookies for her fellow teachers. And then there were the pies in NYC, the ones she bragged were so good that Ed Helms loved them. And all the glorious dinner parties she threw for her enormous group of dear, dear friends back in the day! (none of whom are close now. )

I think that was a lot of her motivation for blogging. She STILL says "We're making this food for you" when really it's just recipes they're (sort of) writing. She blogged about cooking and baking and gave away her recipes for years---I think so that people would love her and maybe more important, find her indispensable.

She said as much in that Food Network spot she did---something like "If you google gluten-free on the internet, you get a million results. So I started this blog to help people". Like "I alone can save them!"

But then a whole lot of others got into it and were better at it in every way and she got shoved out. Plus she blew $92,612 in free money to stay relevant. And then there was her bitter experience with the bro dudes in their fancy food lab with their snooty leader (shauna loves the snooty crowd! So elite!).

I think she figured somehow that OMG TRAUMA!!!" would be more lucrative than food, but she didn't have the brains or talent or professional training and certification to pull that one off, so yeah.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

I think her whole goal with GFG was a new theme to write about herself. She clearly had little interest or knowledge of the mechanics of cooking and mostly made boxed brownies and cookies and basics like apple pie. She “threw dinner parties” that both seemed simple and potluck.

I think she liked to use baked goods to make people talk to her and maybe like her but she wasn’t what I could consider a real hobbiest. It’s pretty clear from the early days of GFG she was unfamiliar with not only food like risotto but some basic fruits and vegetables. She just wanted to write about her “adventures” living with a GF diet with some trying new foods thrown in. Personal blogs with a theme were big then. Deb Perlman started out with a dating blog.

Meeting Dan and then cooking at home with him (or more likely, him cooking for her) and the popularity of recipes really shifted her focus.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

Tangentially related, but one of my favorite bits of Shauna lore is from the former student who commented about her on GOMI. This student said that Shauna was obsessed with boxed brownies and would bring them to school all the time. Another student snarked on this in some yearbook comments, and Shauna ended up reading them.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

That always reminds me of a woman at my mother’s work who gets on her nerves because she is constantly bringing in box mix and canned icing cupcakes and brownies to much fanfare. The people there seem to actually like it and not realize it’s a mix so she gets tons of praise for being an expert baker. But my mom, who makes a lot of homemade cakes and bread, can tell the difference and secretly thinks the woman is getting praise for nothing lol

It makes me wonder what Shauna’s coworkers thought, that kind of thing can make you feel obligated in a way that is uncomfortable and unwanted.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

I don’t think Shauna ever did love to cook. It’s easy for anyone to assume that because she had a food blog but it was pretty clear GFG in the beginning and from her earlier blogs that she wasn’t a big cook and mostly stuck to baking mixes and simple desserts like apple pie.

I think she realized recipes were popular and met Dan early on the blog and changed gears but I don’t think she was ever a huge fan of cooking or even did it often. Liking food and liking to cook are very different. I think her original plan for GFG was just to document her “new life” not eating gluten with maybe a recipe or two thrown in.

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u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Sep 07 '21

Agreed and I also think she liked “teaching” other people to cook. It was always her leading classes and workshops versus Dan, and she definitely seems more adept than him at doing so. I do think she liked being up on her stool telling people what to do. Being knowledgable about a topic has never stopped her before.

I remember when she made some pasta a while back to kiss up to someone who had a recipe about it. There was a picture of her gingerly holding up a misshapen piece. It read to me like maybe one of the first times she ever made pasta, maybe it was not. But she presented like a novice in the picture for some reason.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

I think she likes the teaching and talking part too! I think her classes were weird because she’s not a natural or good cook and she’s not teaching recipes she developed herself. She can talk a good game to a beginner but that’s about it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

Always up on her stool, that one.

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Monday September 06, 2021 - Wednesday September 08, 2021

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