In November I had the honor of giving a talk on gluten-free baking and my book at Google headquarters (aka, the Googleplex) in Mountain View, CA. Wowee! Being asked to do a Google talk is something of a holy grail for an author. I’ve watched many videos of the talks, but never dared to imagine that I would get a chance to do one! I still can’t quite believe it happened, but it did–and the video above is proof!
I was told that my topic should center around my book. I decided to do a talk that I called “The Road to Deliciousness” that chronicled how I became gluten-free, how I learned to bake again after my diagnosis, what gluten intolerance is and who has it, my philosophies around baking, my love of teaching baking, and the principles of community and tradition that I wanted to infuse into my book. I even included slides!
I was met and taken care of by two awesome folks at Google, Jacky Hayward and Nick Miranda. After my talk, Jacky and Nick took me to one of the cafes on the Google “campus” called Root that is gluten-free. The chef at Root is herself gluten-free and she said that she was thrilled that the powers-that-be at Google allowed her to make the cafe gluten-free. The food was excellent–I was quite pleased and impressed. Each dish was flavorful, interesting, delicious, and exciting and there were so many options–I kind of wanted to go back again and again to get everything (I restrained myself). For dessert there were individual gluten-free cakes topped with specialized chocolate bars. Yum!
Thank you, Google!
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Hi Jeanne, thank you so much for all the wonderful information on your site and Google talk. My husband suspects he has a wheat intolerance and I now have to re-educate myself for my baking. The information you provide is going a long way towards helping that path to a new world.
I wish you all the best in your endeavours.
Kristene: Yay! You’re welcome. I am so happy to help. Happy baking!!
Great talk! I loved all the information you gave about the science behind your process for perfecting common (and not so common) baked goods. I related to mourning food. There were so many to say ‘good-by’ to. Thank you for making so I can say ‘hello’ to a lot of them again. My family is so grateful to you for your diligent work. I made the pizza crust this week. It was amazing!!!
Michele: Oh, I’m so glad!
Hello, I would like to encourage you to think about ethnic food for all the Jewish GF people also as our lives revolve around Holidays with their traditional baked goods. Matzo for Passover, matzo balls for chicken soup every Friday evening, noodle kugel, cakes, etc.
I enjoy your blog and books.
Cherie: Thank you for the reminder! I do have a recipe for Matzo on the blog. But, I will work on doing more! Also, note that in my book I have recipes for Sufganiyot, Rugelach, and Olive Oil Cake. I will have even more Jewish favorites in the next book!
I am very grateful for your hard work and have been helped to be a better GF baker because of you. I am Norwegian by heritage and I would like you to consider Lefsa revision as GF. I have been trying to make lefsa with bad results and as you have figured out so many other Scandinavian things I thought maybe this would be in your area of expertise. I look forward to buying your next cook book and I am sure I will use it well like the Holiday one already.
Thank you very much, Julie Melin
Julie: Thank you so much for the idea! I will see if I can incorporate that into the book!
That’s amazing that you got to do such a thing! And I’m sure you were excited to be at an all gluten free restaurant as well 🙂
The Great Zambini: Yes! It was an amazing and wonderful experience!