about us 🍓

Our goal

Our goal here at Gnom-Gnom is to create delicious recipes from scratch.

With real food and no artificial additives. Knowing, however, that time for cooking is limited nowadays. And, let’s face it, very few people have the luxury of spending hours towards preparing a meal.

So be it gluten free, ketogenic, or paleo, it’s all about easy, clean and fuzz-free. That’s what we’re all about.

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Why Gluten Free?

A gluten free lifestyle is, for many of us, a necessity not a fad. Celiac disease is thought to affect at least 3 million Americans, with 34% of us going undiagnosed past our 20s. 

Having said that, we are not an exclusive community here at Gnom-Gnom. In fact, we welcome all food groups. 

So whether you are celiac, gluten-intolerant, or just want to switch it up: welcome to gnom-gnom!

 

Why Ketogenic & Paleo?

We follow a permanent cyclical keto diet (for health reasons) here at gnom-gnom. So for us the term woe (way of eating), truly applies. 

We have found that the keto diet, which has incredible proven benefits aside from weight loss (think management of epilepsy and depression), goes hand in hand with a gluten free lifestyle. 

And for those on cyclical keto (like us! 🙋🏿), carbing up with nutritionally-dense gluten free meals is ideal. 

So you’ll find plentiful keto and paleo recipes here at gnom-gnom. 

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The Ingredients

The perks of cooking with gluten free flours, as opposed to refined traditional flours, is that you minimize empty calories. 

A cookie made up of almond, sorghum or garbanzo is of course more nutritionally dense than one with refined wheat flour. So have a cookie. ?

Having said that, we know few people have access to the 20+ gluten free flours frequently found out there. Or the time to mix together 4-6 flours to make a batch of muffins. So we have developed our recipes here at Gnom-Gnom around two of the most frequently found gluten free four mixes in stores, complementing with nutritionally dense flours here and there. 

Also know that we are not sponsored to use any of the products we suggest. We use them, know they work, and are happy to recommend them to you.  

All in all, we aim to use the best ingredients possible. Which does not necessarily mean the most pricey. Rather, it means using the best-tasting produce to yield the best-tasting dish. This generally means staying local, seasonal and organic as much as possible. Nature knows best after all.

And know that going organic and seasonal is not out of being fancy or trendy. But rather about obtaining the highest nutritional values from the foods we eat. 

Take butter for instance: organic grass-fed butter has a completely different nutrition profile to regular butter. It is loaded with Vitamin-K2 (which de-calcifies your arteries), anti-inflammatory fatty acid called butyrate, among many other perks. And you will find this trend spreads across all foods. 

In the world we live today most of the foods we consume, unless we are careful, are highly processed. Hey, even McDonalds prided itself 50 years ago on only using real ingredients. Times have changed. So choose your ingredients wisely. Eat varied. Do not restrict yourself. 

And most important: enjoy!

Behind The Scenes

Hi there! My name is Paola, and when I’m not painting, odds are you’ll find me in the kitchen.  I was born in Mexico City, to a Dutch father and a Mexican mother, and left Mexico City at 16 to study abroad. I lived abroad for a decade between the East Coast of the United States, Scotland (hey University of St Andrews!), and London.

For as long as I can remember I have been whipping up seven-course meals.

No, no I’m totally kidding! I was definitely a late bloomer in the kitchen, and did not become fully emerged in the culinary world well into university (when I had to do all the cooking myself!). Yeah, yeah I know. Shame on me.

Nonetheless, there is something to be said about growing up immersed in such a rich culinary culture, as is the Mexican one. Como agua para chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate) by Laura Esquivel for me is a treasure of how life ought to be lived. And just like Tita, I’m a believer that smells have the power to evoke the past, bringing back sounds and even other smells that have no match in the present. 

I was diagnosed (shall we say formally?) with coeliac disease in 2013, when I had to leave behind all the gluten grains (ahem, home made pasta and sourdough bread…!). It was a year of experimentation and drastic changes. And while I was already dabbling before in the art of ‘gluten-free’ cooking, I suddenly became fully restricted.

The options nowadays, however, are truly fantastic. And this is what Gnom-Gnom is about. Sharing with you the wonderful recipes I have cooked up, and the ones that are still to come.