People come from afar to eat gluten-free food

By Jennifer Mastroianni

REPOSITORY FOOD WRITER

ALLIANCE With Ohio's only gluten-free bakery a half-mile from his restaurant, Gary Barnes wondered about adding gluten-free items to his menu at Pisanello's Ristorante & Pizzeria.

After all, people from around the region drive into town to visit Kathy's Kreations, the bakery that offers bread and other baked items free of wheat, rye, and barley.

"The day I stopped in to talk to Kathy, there was a couple from Columbus, a couple from Pittsburgh and a man from Copley in there," said Barnes. "I genuinely was surprised at the business she gets from people all over."

The more Barnes learned about the autoimmune intestinal disorder called celiac disease and the number of people who suffer from it (one out of 133, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation), the more he was convinced that gluten-free pizza and other items would be a welcome addition to his menu.

Was he ever right.

"I had a couple in here on Sunday who drove all the way from Cleveland to get a pizza," Barnes said recently. "They thanked me for having it on the menu."

Word is spreading via celiac support groups, and Barnes sells up to 30 gluten-free pizzas a week. He has expanded the menu to gluten-free pasta, meatballs, meatloaf, even gluten-free beer.

Plenty of such foods are available in specialty stores (Raisin Rack has 2,000 items) and increasingly even in traditional supermarkets. However, the restaurant industry has been slower to accommodate needs of celiacs.

"That's the thing," Barnes said. "They can't go out to eat at a restaurant like normal people."

Denise Ramey is excited to eat at a favorite restaurant again.

"We ate a Pisanello's pizza once a week for years," said Ramey, of Sebring. "But I was diagnosed six years ago with celiac, and my life came to a screeching halt. One thing was no more Pisanello's pizza. It's great now that I can go out to dinner there with my whole family."

She has another reason to be thrilled. Not only is Ramey a longtime customer of the 50-year-old eatery, she is the gluten-free products buyer at Raisin Rack in Canton, a celiac support group leader and an advocate working to get more gluten-free food on restaurant menus.

"Educating restaurants is my love," Ramey said. And slowly but surely she is making headway.

Kathy's Kreations provides the breadcrumbs for Pisanello's meatballs and meatloaf, as well as baked crusts for the pizza.

"The crust is made of garbanzo flour, fava bean flour and tapioca flour; it's more of a thin and chewy crust," said Kathy's Kreations owner Kathy Kilchenman. "I make it and bake it off here to avoid any contamination with his regular flour."

To avoid contamination, Barnes has a separate system for preparing and cooking gluten-free foods.

"We're very serious about it," he said. "Even though we don't have to worry about airborne contamination, the waitresses aren't even allowed to take a basket of bread out on the same tray as gluten-free foods."

Gluten-free items cost about $2.50 to $3 more than the regular items. For instance, regular spaghetti and meatballs is $5.95, gluten-free is $7.95.

"They're doing an incredible job with the pasta," Ramey said. "Taste-wise, I don't know that (nonceliac sufferers) would know the difference and you could eat the meatballs and not tell a difference, but not having that gluten in there makes all the difference in the world to us. The regular stuff is toxic to us, it makes our bodies turn on itself, and it damages and destroys the small bowel."

The gluten-free meatballs have been so popular, Barnes sells bags to go. The eatery is at 2023 West State St., in the same plaza as Texas Roadhouse. Visit www.pisanellopizza.com for information or call 330-823-7271. Kathy's Kreations is about a half mile east down State Street, at 2010 Crestview, in a plaza just east of Papa John's Pizza. The phone number is (330) 821-8183.

Those seeking to learn more celiac about gluten-free foods may want to attend programs at the 2007 Celiac Disease Conference on March 20 and 21 at NEOUCOM (Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine at 4209 state Route 44 in Rootstown. Featured speaker is Dr. Peter H. R. Green, director of The Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. Also, Pisanello's is among 38 vendors that will offer gluten-free food samples. For information, visit www.cdconference.homestead.com

Restaurants offering gluten-free foods:

Arcadia Grill

Capone's

Carrabba's Italian Grill

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Chili's Grill & Bar

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Ferraro's Family Restaurant & Bakery

Gregory's Restaurant

Manchu Cafe

Outback Steakhouse

Peter Shears

Samantha's (Portage Street NW location)

V-Li's Thai Cuisine in Canal Fulton