Growing up, I never gave much thought to what I ate. If it tasted good, I ate it! Of course, like all good parents, mine taught be the importance of eating a balanced and healthy diet.

However, being one quarter Italian, going gluten free never crossed my mind. I mean, how could I possibly live without my pastas? Gluten free would mean cutting out fettucine alfredo, spaghetti, lasagna, tortellini, and pretty much every favorite food I have ever had. I thought all the Atkins followers were crazy!

And then, I met Evan. It wasn't love at first sight, but we became fast friends. We were working on a class project together, and after a work session with our friend Claire I asked him if he wanted to get Starbucks. He told me he would go, but he wasn't going to get anything. After another work session, we were both hungry so I suggested Italian food. He declined my suggestion, and asked if I might like Thai food instead. So he took me to Thumra Thai, a place I had never tried before (as it turned out, this was our first date. He didn't tell me he was going to pay until the check came. He can be very sneaky sometimes!). I ended up loving it!

Reader, you are probably wondering at this point what Evan has to do with being gluten free. Well, let me tell you.

Fast forward 3 years. Evan and I are engaged, and our wedding date is set for July 31, 2010. I am SO excited. He is an amazing, loving, godly man who has been an enormous blessing to me. However, this marriage means that I, after about 18 years of loving every Italian food I could lay my hands on, will be going gluten free.

Why would I do this? What could possibly drive me to make this decision? Well, Evan did. You see, reader, Evan had Crohn's Disease, a disease which as of today is incurable with Western medicine. We know very little about the disease and how people get it. Evan, however, with self-discipline, supportive parents and the realization that Western medicine just wouldn't cut it, has been able to beat Crohn's by going gluten free.

So, the purpose of this blog is keep telling you his story and our story together. We will be posting gluten free, low sugar recipes that tantalize even the gluten savvy tongue. We hope that others with Crohn's Disease might be inspired by this blog to realize that it doesn't have to end with Western medicine. You don't have to live with Crohn's.

Until next time,