Monday, December 5, 2011
TRAVIS YOUNG/ANANS Nick Harbert, a senior from Wichita, came out when he was a junior in high school. At the University, Harbert is a member of the Delta Lambda Phi fraternity and like the community he found with other gay students.
NOT-SO-BASIC BAKING
KELSEY CIPOLLA/KANSAN
Hilary Kass, owner of Ancient Grains Bakery, tests a new recipe for biscotti in her kitchen under the Burger Stand. Like all of her products, the biscotti is gluten, dairy, and egg-free.
Gluten-free bakery grows by demand
KELSEY CIPOLLA
kcipolla@kansan.com
As Hilary Kass dances around the kitchen beneath the Burger Stand while carrying a tray of partially baked biscotti, the faint smell of burgers is overpowered by the sweet aroma of rosemary.
The biscotti, made with amaranth flour, rosemary, and golden raisins, is a new recipe that Kass is testing for her company, Ancient Grains Bakery, which makes gluten-, dairy- and egg-free baked goods including cookies, breads and biscotti.
"It's really fun thinking that I'm making something that people I don't even know will have in their houses and enjoy," Kass said.
Her products are now sold at eight stores in Lawrence and Kansas City. In fact, 200 Ancient Grains Bakery pie crusts sold just for Thanksgiving.
Ancient Grains Bakery products sell predominately at The Merc, where Kass continues to work as a food educator and cooking teacher. Rita York Hennecke, the general manager for The Merc, said that offering local food has been one the
Three years ago, Kass worked at The Merc teaching cooking classes and helping people with food allergies or dietary restriction find foods they could eat. She began to notice that the gluten-free foods available often contained processed or refined ingredients, rather than whole grains.
company's goals since it opened in 1974.
Sorghum, teff, amaranth and millet are all gluten-free whole grains that have been eaten for thousands of years in other parts of the world, but are largely disregarded in modern American cooking. Kass noticed few products incorporated the gluten-free substitutes.
"As a nutrition educator, I'm always trying to get people to eat whole grains." Kass said. "So I would show people bags of sorghum, bags of teff, bags of amaranth and millet, and they would look at me like 'What in the world is that?' and I would be like "Well, I'm not really sure.'"
This led Kass to the idea of making gluten-free food from whole grains. She also decided to make her food egg- and dairy-free to
At first, Kass worked from her kitchen at home, perfecting recipes through trial and error and printing product labels off from her home computer. But she soon ran into a problem.
make it accessible for people with other food allergies.
"To sell retail you have to work out of a commercial kitchen." Kass said. "It's a huge deal, because if you're small like me, it's really hard to find a way to do that."
She cooked in a commercial kitchen in the Douglas County Extension, which allowed her to sell her breads and cookies to The Merc. She also found that large chain stores were willing to give her products a chance on their shelves.
"I think it's a small percentage of people that can't eat gluten, dairy and eggs, but those people are like 'Thank you,'" Kass said.
"I was completely surprised at how open and willing retailers were to take on something and give it a try," Kass said.
Kass said that it's hard to sell retail if you
be left in the kitchen overnight led her to the basement of the Burger Stand, where she currently bakes her line of gluten-free products and develops new ones.
But the $100 per day rental fee and a rule forbidding supplies to
But baking without key ingredients like butter and eggs can be a challenge, Kass said. She uses organic extra virgin coconut oil in place of butter, adds moisture with apple sauce, and replaces eggs with ground flax seeds mixed with water which has a gelatinous texture.
But she hasn't figured out how to make everything quite yet.
"The one place where I am really stumped is making a good, gluten- free raised bread," Kass said. "I haven't mastered that yet, and maybe I will never. I make a few things that are typical American, like pie crust and cookie dough, but the other things I'm trying to make are just naturally dense and naturally fat."
"Kass and other local food producers might be benefiting from local food becoming a burgeoning trend in recent years because of concerns about food health and
SEE FOODS ON PAGE 6
Personal records stolen from Student Housing
People broke into a Department of Student Housing office Wednesday night and stole documents containing personal information of current and former student housing residents, according to a Department of Student Housing email distributed Friday afternoon to those affected.
The email, signed by Diana Robertson, director of student housing, encouraged those affected by the theft to "be on the lookout for any possible misuse of your information."
The records stolen included names, apartment numbers, birth dates, email addresses, KUID numbers and other information about some current and former housing residents as well as information about the people they listed as dependants.
CLASSIFIEDS 7B
CROSSWORD 4A
According to the email, housing realized the theft on Thursday and reported it to the KU Public Safety Office.
Hesham Al-Damen was one victim of the information theft. Al-Daman, a post doctoral student from Irbid, Jordan, said he felt worried and concerned about the situation.
"I don't feel safe," he said.
The KU Public Safety Office confirmed that there was a break-in at Corbin Hall, where the Department of Student Housing is located, on Wednesday. More information including the number of residents affected is not currently available.
Adam Strunk
CRYPTOQUIPS 4A
OPINION 5A
SPORTS 1B
SUDOKU 4A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
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Don't forget
This week drop off items for the Toys for Tots drive at the SUA box office in the Kansas Union
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