Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Out of Print
HI Everyone, I'm sad to say that the book will no longer be available for sale. It is currently out of print. To be honest, the costs of printing are far too high so I will be giving the book a vacation until I am able to afford to buy more. I have completely sold out right now but if anything changes I will update this site. In the meantime if anyone knows a publisher that would be willing to take over the book I would greatly appreciate it!! Thanks for all of your interest and let me know if you want to go on a waiting list for my next printing if I decide to go ahead with it again. Thanks!!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Featured on CBC Thurs. Dec. 11th @3pm
I have my second show on CBC television coming up. Here is more information:
Recipes from Sweet Alternatives will be on CBC Television’s Living in Ottawa Living in Ottawa, your guide to living it up in the city is back for its third season on CBC Television.
The show's new host Maureen Welch is your personal tour guide to the hidden gems, delicious eats and of course fun things featured right in your community.
Watch for great tips on living well, living actively and even stylishly, starting with a story that features a gluten-free almond shortbread cookies from Allison Wood’s cookbook Sweet Alternatives. That segment airs on Thursday December 11th.
If you miss the segment or would like to catch more, all of our episodes are available online at www.cbc.ca/livinginottawa.
Remember you can watch Living in Ottawa every weekday at 3:00pm on CBC Television.
Channel 8 - Rogers Cable
Channel 208 - Bell ExpressVu
Channel 303 - Star Choice
Channel 4 - with antenna
Channel 2 - Videotron Cable - Gatineau
Hope you have a chance to watch!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Where to Buy the Book
For those who are looking to buy the book, it can be purchased on this site using paypal. It is also available at the following stores in Ottawa:
Carleton Place- Reads Book Shop- 130 Lansdowne Avenue
Stittsville- Browns Independent Grocer (at the customer service counter)
1251 Stittsville Main St.
Kanata- Natural Food Pantry- 442 Hazeldean Road
West End- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- Bells Corners- 3657 Richmond Rd.
West End- Mother Earth Natural Health- 747 Richmond Road
West End- Rainbow Foods- 1487 Richmond Road
West End- Natural Food Pantry- Westgate Mall- 1309 Carling Ave.
West End- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- 1568 Merivale Road.
Central- Natural Food Pantry- Billings Bridge- 2277 Riverside Dr.
South- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- Southgate, 2515 Bank Street.
Glebe- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- 841 Bank Street.
Downtown- Singing Pebble Books- 202A Main Street.
Downtown- Market Organics- 126 York St.
New Edinburgh- Nature's Buzz- 23 Beechwood Avenue.
Orleans- Pantry Plus Foods- 2433 St. Joseph Blvd.
Newmarket, Ontario- Nature's Emporium Wholistic Market, 16655 Young St.
This is just the beginning, more locations will be added as I go along!
For those of you buying the book from this site please note that all purchases are through my paypal account for my counselling practice. All correspondence will be through awcounselling. I just want to make sure no one gets confused.
Thank you for your interest.
Carleton Place- Reads Book Shop- 130 Lansdowne Avenue
Stittsville- Browns Independent Grocer (at the customer service counter)
1251 Stittsville Main St.
Kanata- Natural Food Pantry- 442 Hazeldean Road
West End- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- Bells Corners- 3657 Richmond Rd.
West End- Mother Earth Natural Health- 747 Richmond Road
West End- Rainbow Foods- 1487 Richmond Road
West End- Natural Food Pantry- Westgate Mall- 1309 Carling Ave.
West End- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- 1568 Merivale Road.
Central- Natural Food Pantry- Billings Bridge- 2277 Riverside Dr.
South- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- Southgate, 2515 Bank Street.
Glebe- Kardish Food and Nutrition Store- 841 Bank Street.
Downtown- Singing Pebble Books- 202A Main Street.
Downtown- Market Organics- 126 York St.
New Edinburgh- Nature's Buzz- 23 Beechwood Avenue.
Orleans- Pantry Plus Foods- 2433 St. Joseph Blvd.
Newmarket, Ontario- Nature's Emporium Wholistic Market, 16655 Young St.
This is just the beginning, more locations will be added as I go along!
For those of you buying the book from this site please note that all purchases are through my paypal account for my counselling practice. All correspondence will be through awcounselling. I just want to make sure no one gets confused.
Thank you for your interest.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Writing a Cookbook
What a journey it has been. I never would have guessed that I would publish my own cookbook. To be honest, I am not someone who has loved baking and cooking all of my life. This makes far less sense than that. I was just very motivated to find foods that I could eat. After being put on a very strict diet (no yeast, dairy, wheat or refined sugar) by my nutritionist and scouring the isles at the health food stores I discovered that there weren't many options for me. If I did want a muffin I was going to have to pay as much as $4 for it- no way! Even when I did give in and buy the muffin I was often disappointed- yuk, it tasted like health food. I needed to find a way to eat what I wanted and stick to my diet. It wasn't easy and I had a lot of learning to do but creating recipes became a passion. I spent hours in the kitchen trying to make cookies, muffins, cakes, pies that I could eat to satisfy my need for dessert. Let's face it, most people don't succeed at changing their diet because they feel deprived. I refused to be deprived. I was also motivated by the fact that I felt so much better when I ate better. I slept better, I was in a better mood, I didn't get drowsy during the day and best of all when I was eating healthy desserts, no matter how much I ate, I didn't gain weight. Now that is a bonus.
I had loved sweets all my life, I was raised to eat dessert after lunch and dinner. Realistically my snacks were sweet too, I liked granola bars and cookies between meals. I was upset enough to have to give up white bread, I was not going to give up the other good stuff. I was pleased to discover that with a lot of work I could make cookies and eat them without guilt. Not only was I sticking to my wheat free, dairy free, sugar free diet, I was eating healthy so I could eat more than one- now that made it even better. One problem though, I still wasn't completely convinced that they tasted good to the average person. I had been eating healthy for a while- did I know what good dessert tasted like any more? I feared that not eating sugar for so long had distorted my perception of what "good" is. I knew that I was happy eating my recipes but the real test was feeding it to people who didn't have to eat this way. So, cautiously at first I started giving friends and neighbors samples. I was pleasantly surprised. People became very excited, they loved the food and couldn't believe it was good for them. I soon realized that I actually made recipes that many people can enjoy. In fact, the people that were the most interested were not people with food sensitivities but people that just wanted to eat better.
The final push to boost my confidence was a cookbook party that I held several months ago. I invited friends and friends of friends and I put 13 of my recipes to the test. What a reaction- people were so enthusiastic about the food!! They were ordering books in advance. Within weeks of the party I had over 130 copies sold and I hadn't even finished the book. I also hadn't done any marketing, I had simply invited 35 people to my house to try the recipes. It was a great start and enough for me to get up the guts to finish the book and send it to print. I never would have guessed this would happen- it has been such an exciting time for me and now that the book is available for people to purchase I can't help but wonder what will come next...
I had loved sweets all my life, I was raised to eat dessert after lunch and dinner. Realistically my snacks were sweet too, I liked granola bars and cookies between meals. I was upset enough to have to give up white bread, I was not going to give up the other good stuff. I was pleased to discover that with a lot of work I could make cookies and eat them without guilt. Not only was I sticking to my wheat free, dairy free, sugar free diet, I was eating healthy so I could eat more than one- now that made it even better. One problem though, I still wasn't completely convinced that they tasted good to the average person. I had been eating healthy for a while- did I know what good dessert tasted like any more? I feared that not eating sugar for so long had distorted my perception of what "good" is. I knew that I was happy eating my recipes but the real test was feeding it to people who didn't have to eat this way. So, cautiously at first I started giving friends and neighbors samples. I was pleasantly surprised. People became very excited, they loved the food and couldn't believe it was good for them. I soon realized that I actually made recipes that many people can enjoy. In fact, the people that were the most interested were not people with food sensitivities but people that just wanted to eat better.
The final push to boost my confidence was a cookbook party that I held several months ago. I invited friends and friends of friends and I put 13 of my recipes to the test. What a reaction- people were so enthusiastic about the food!! They were ordering books in advance. Within weeks of the party I had over 130 copies sold and I hadn't even finished the book. I also hadn't done any marketing, I had simply invited 35 people to my house to try the recipes. It was a great start and enough for me to get up the guts to finish the book and send it to print. I never would have guessed this would happen- it has been such an exciting time for me and now that the book is available for people to purchase I can't help but wonder what will come next...
Friday, May 16, 2008
trial and error
Gluten-free
I thought I would start by discussing some of the learning that has occurred during the creation of my recipes. I didn’t realize what a learning curve is has been until I started talking about it with a friend. I have learned a great deal, mostly because I didn’t have a choice, I wanted to make healthy desserts for myself and I had to learn through trial and error. I wanted to share some of these insights.
When creating my recipes I was experimenting with different kinds of flour. I was on a wheat free diet, not a gluten free diet but some of my gluten-free friends mentioned Quinoa flour. I gave it a try in one of my recipes. Yuk!! The aftertaste is terrible. I much prefer buckwheat flour, light buckwheat that is, the dark has too strong of a taste for my liking. I also really like barley flour; it does have gluten but is safe for some gluten free diets, depending on a person’s degree of sensitivity. Did you know that many people on gluten-free diets have been only tested for their allergy to wheat gluten? So many people may not be allergic to all types of gluten; in fact it is highly likely that they are only allergic to wheat gluten. Consequently they can eat everything else but wheat. That makes sense doesn’t it? It’s no wonder when one of my friends brought one of my spelt muffins to work and gave it to a friend on a gluten-free diet (mistakenly telling her that it was gluten-free) she ate it and had no problems- hmmm, very interesting. She may only have wheat gluten sensitivity.
I thought I would start by discussing some of the learning that has occurred during the creation of my recipes. I didn’t realize what a learning curve is has been until I started talking about it with a friend. I have learned a great deal, mostly because I didn’t have a choice, I wanted to make healthy desserts for myself and I had to learn through trial and error. I wanted to share some of these insights.
When creating my recipes I was experimenting with different kinds of flour. I was on a wheat free diet, not a gluten free diet but some of my gluten-free friends mentioned Quinoa flour. I gave it a try in one of my recipes. Yuk!! The aftertaste is terrible. I much prefer buckwheat flour, light buckwheat that is, the dark has too strong of a taste for my liking. I also really like barley flour; it does have gluten but is safe for some gluten free diets, depending on a person’s degree of sensitivity. Did you know that many people on gluten-free diets have been only tested for their allergy to wheat gluten? So many people may not be allergic to all types of gluten; in fact it is highly likely that they are only allergic to wheat gluten. Consequently they can eat everything else but wheat. That makes sense doesn’t it? It’s no wonder when one of my friends brought one of my spelt muffins to work and gave it to a friend on a gluten-free diet (mistakenly telling her that it was gluten-free) she ate it and had no problems- hmmm, very interesting. She may only have wheat gluten sensitivity.
Why I wrote a cookbook
After several years of struggle and a diagnosis of Systemic Candida I was put on a very strict diet. Once I recovered from the Candida I was told by my nutritionist that I would have to maintain a wheat-free, dairy-free diet with no processed or refined sugar on a long term basis. Desperate for sweets and desserts I began to create my own recipes to satisfy my sweet cravings. Eventually it became a passion and I began to create more and more recipes. Sometime later it was suggested by a colleague that I put my recipes together in a book so that other people can benefit from my personal experience.
As a therapist I have always had an interest in helping others and it just made sense to share my recipes with other people. Since working on the cookbook and telling my story I have realized that there is a need and a demand for these kinds of recipes. Not only are there many people with similar food sensitivities to my own but others have expressed an interest in the book for other health reasons. For example I have talked to many people- mothers, pregnant women, people that are becoming more health conscious who have said that they want to eat healthier and decrease their sugar intake.I am glad to see more people thinking about what they put into their bodies and I'm pleased to be able to offer alternatives dessert options.
Overall, I am excited about this book and feel that many people would benefit from the recipes. All of the recipes in the book are wheat-free, dairy-free and are sweetened with natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave, brown rice syrup and stevia. The book focuses specifically on desserts since this was the hardest part of my diet to replace with healthy options. As a result the book contains recipes for cakes, muffins, cookies, squares and other sweet treats. I am proud to announce that it will be in print by the end of July of this year.
As a therapist I have always had an interest in helping others and it just made sense to share my recipes with other people. Since working on the cookbook and telling my story I have realized that there is a need and a demand for these kinds of recipes. Not only are there many people with similar food sensitivities to my own but others have expressed an interest in the book for other health reasons. For example I have talked to many people- mothers, pregnant women, people that are becoming more health conscious who have said that they want to eat healthier and decrease their sugar intake.I am glad to see more people thinking about what they put into their bodies and I'm pleased to be able to offer alternatives dessert options.
Overall, I am excited about this book and feel that many people would benefit from the recipes. All of the recipes in the book are wheat-free, dairy-free and are sweetened with natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave, brown rice syrup and stevia. The book focuses specifically on desserts since this was the hardest part of my diet to replace with healthy options. As a result the book contains recipes for cakes, muffins, cookies, squares and other sweet treats. I am proud to announce that it will be in print by the end of July of this year.
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