Being able to live day-to-day without having to cope with dietary sensitivities, allergies or intolerances is a privilege that most of us take for granted. And, like white privilege or male privilege, the consequences of not enjoying such status can sometimes be perilous, even life-threatening. Imagine how your life would’ve been different if taking a bite out of a peanut butter sandwich could send you to the emergency room, or if every morsel of bread or pasta to pass your lips caused the villi coating your intestines to wither away.
The latter effect is what happens to people with celiac disease, the human body’s most extreme form of hypersensitivity to the gluten found in wheat, rye and barley. It’s an autoimmune response in which one’s immune system misidentifies the protein molecules found in gluten, called gliadins and glutenins, as hostile invaders. Antibodies are formed, which attack and inflame the villi. The short-term results, most typically, are pale-colored diarrhea, bloating and abdominal pain, sometimes accompanied by skin rashes or lesions. Over time, the digestive tract’s ability to absorb nutrients is compromised, and celiac disease patients may lose weight, feel chronically fatigued, lose bone density or become anemic. When it happens to children, they may fail to grow at normal rates.
Short of full-blown celiac disease, in which ingesting even a small amount of gluten can necessitate immediate hospitalization, growing numbers of people are developing gluten sensitivity that impacts quality of life in a negative way. Melody Brooks isn’t eager to share her personal hypotheses about why this is happening more often in contemporary society, but she knows from experience how profoundly it can change one’s life. “I have a lot of sensitivities,” she says. “It came on when I turned 30. It was like a switch.”
Her first clue was coming down with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, another autoimmune condition in which inflammation — in this case, of the thyroid gland — can be triggered by gluten intake. Many of her symptoms resembled respiratory allergies, and she started experiencing joint paint. “My body does not like it, and it tells me so,” she says ruefully. Her diagnostic regimen included a variety of elimination diets, which pinpointed gluten and, to a lesser extent, dairy products as triggers for her flareups. “Anyone with an autoimmune disorder, their doctor is going to recommend that you stay away from gluten and dairy.”
The need for radical changes to her diet triggered a bold new career path for Brooks as well, turning a hobby into a specialized sideline. She has been a fiscal assistant in the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office for 24 years now, but she has spent the last 12 of them also running a gluten-free baking business called 4 the Love of Cupcakes out of her home, selling her wares at crafts fairs, farmers’ markets and culinary events such as the Gardiner Cupcake Festival. “I’ve been baking for over 20 years and gluten-free and dairy-free for 15,” she explains. “Having to cook or bake for me, I recognized what people have to go through.”
While diseases involving dietary sensitivities are more readily diagnosed today than in decades past, the market for safe food products and cooking ingredients has failed to keep up. Brooks says that people who need to stick to a gluten-free diet often find it a challenge to shop or dine out locally, and have to order ingredients online. She decided to use her own kitchen experimentation to help fill that gap. “I try out recipes by recommendation, or that I find online, or from my family,” she says, noting that she has successfully replicated her mother-in-law’s coffeecake and her mother’s pumpkin pie. “I test them and swap out ingredients until I get as close to the real product as I can. It has to taste good. Most gluten-free products are flavorless or dry.”
That cannot be said of 4 the Love of Cupcakes, which now has its own brick-and-mortar outlet at 3215 Route 9W in Saugerties, near the intersection with Spaulding Lane. The tiny shop, set in a parking lot backed by St. Mary’s cemetery, was the original home of Meltaway Bakery before it moved a few hundred yards down the road. There’s no competition between the two bakers, Brooks says, and they happily refer customers to one another. “Drew and I have a good rapport. He does the standard stuff and I do only gluten-free stuff. I don’t encroach on his business.”
Her shop, which opened to the public on December 16, offers counter service only — no tables. It also functions as a dedicated kitchen, enabling her to guarantee to wary celiac patients that there will be no cross-contamination in her bakery treats. Besides catering to folks who need their food gluten-free and dairy-free, she is also able to create products that are soy-free, corn-free, nut-free or vegan. “My favorite part is to watch people come in and say, ‘Oh my god, I have so many choices!’” she says. “People are really excited about the options, the dedicated kitchen, the location. This community really needed it.”
The icing on the cake, if you will, is that these baked goods are truly excellent, indulgent eating. There’s no sense of compromise when you bite into one of them. We tried Brooks’ three top-sellers and loved them all: a remarkably moist coffeecake with a crumbly cinnamon streusel topping; perfectly spiced cinnamon rolls made from a slightly chewy oat flour with a non-dairy cream cheese icing; and a creamy, nut-forward chocolate/peanut butter mousse parfait that’s served in heart-shaped cups to reflect the company logo. All are flavor-packed without being cloyingly sweet, and the textures are as interesting as the flavor combinations.
Cupcakes are the specialty of the house, of course, with the selection varying from week to week. We especially liked the apple pie cupcakes, which have a juicy little pocket of apple bits in the center, and the cupcake-shaped servings of what might be the richest, tenderest carrot cake ever. When it comes to ensuring that these “substitute” products don’t have the dry, mealy mouthfeel sometimes associated with GF foods, Brooks truly takes her mission seriously. Anyone, regardless of dietary needs, could find something to love here.
Four the Love of Cupcakes also carries bagels, muffins, brownies and blondies, cookies, slices of cake and pie and a variety of other pastry delights, with a menu that’s constantly changing. Since Brooks still works full-time for Ulster County, she only opens the shop on Saturdays and Sundays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Special orders can be accommodated, however, and she has long-term plans to market her products to restaurants and wholesale suppliers. “If they’re prepackaged, there’s no chance of cross-contamination. Maybe people with celiac will be more comfortable about eating out.”
To place an order, call (845) 416-3491 or e-mail fourtheloveofcupcakes@gmail.com. To view the standard menu, visit the website at https://fourtheloveofcupcakes.com. Ever-morphing weekly specials are listed on the company’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/4theloveofcupcakes?mibextid=ZbWKwL.
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