Meet Dallas food blogger Amy Green of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

by Teresa Gubbins

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January will see the publication of her first cookbook, Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free in 20 Minutes.

That Dallas is a city of foodies is well known; locals like to brag about how many restaurants we have per capita, rivaling cities like New York. Dallas is home to a host of food bloggers, too. Some, like DallasFood.org, have been online for years and earned international acclaim. Some, like Full Custom Gospel BBQ, cover restaurants, making them ideal content partners on Pegasus News.

Courtesy of Amy Green

Amy Green, founder of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

But more recently there's emerged a wave of bloggers who focus on cooking and recipes, each with a unique point of view. We'll profile some over the next few weeks. We begin with Amy Green.

Blog: Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. "You can eat fabulous food -- without white sugar or wheat. SS&GF will show you how."

Blogger: Amy Green, 34, is "gluten-free" -– she doesn't eat wheat; she also avoids white sugar. As a fringe benefit of her journey, she's lost more than 60 pounds. A former elementary schoolteacher, she teaches cooking classes at The Plano Rec Center; was a correspondent at the Summer 2010 Fancy Food Show for FoodSpring.com; and a finalist on Build a Better Burger. In April 2011, she'll be featured at The Gluten-Free Expo in Lisle, Ill. And in January 2011, Ulysses Press will publish her first cookbook, Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free in 20 Minutes.

She founded Simply Sugar and Gluten Free in May 2009; it now draws more than 16,600 unique visitors a month.

How she got here: "I got my love of cooking from my grandmother. She’s a great cook. I was also fat from the age of 3. My mom, trying to do the right thing, did not want me around food. It was difficult because I've always loved the kitchen. When I make a dish and it's my recipe and people are thrilled, it's a rush, a deep-in-my-soul satisfaction. My heart is in baking. I love to bake."

Her angle: "Gluten is the protein in the wheat. I felt like being gluten-free was this weird, abnormal, no-one-really-gets-it thing. Most of my life, people were like, 'You don't what?' It was a struggle at holidays. My parents would say, 'Why don't you just eat the salad dressing?' But I've found that, since I started my blog, people read my story and say they experienced the same thing. 'I thought there was something wrong with me, this is exactly what I do'."

How blogging saved her life: "For a while, I quit cooking. I guess I was angry. No wheat and no sugar, what in the world am I going to do? But then when I got married, I thought, I’d better start making dinner. My first attempts were so lame. I would make a turkey burger that was hard as a rock. I lost my groove from all those years of not cooking. But my husband would say, 'Thank you for making dinner.' Eventually his gratitude sparked something in me, that love of cooking. I started researching how to bake gluten-free. I was also teaching school and not loving it. I needed something and blogging became an outlet."

The cookbook: "The book deal, I didn't even try, they just found me. I got an email one day from a guy from Ulysses Press, one of the fastest-growing small publishers. He asked if I was interested in a book deal. I asked my husband, 'You think it's fake?' But it was the real deal. What I blog about is a hot topic right now. That really helps. The other piece is that I took an online class that talked about how to create quality content and I think that helped. When Ulysses looked at my blog, they saw a lot of content, and the consistency, and that I understand the basics."

The recipe: Cupcakes that Say Chocolate, With Mascarpone Frosting