Today we’d like to introduce you to Mollie Drury.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Mollie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Looking back, my passion for food (and enjoyment of) started early on. While some kids built sandcastles at the beach, I was offering my family “sand meals.” I made mud pies in the front yard and “cooked” them in my outdoor oven: a large, grooved rock. And while some children chose dolls or action figures, I loved plastic, pretend food to “cook” in my indoor, kid-friendly kitchen. I opted for a farm stand instead of a doll house, by the way. And I loved taking photos of the inside of our refrigerator, the appetizers at Thanksgiving (the nut dishes specifically), and creating countless menus for pretend restaurants. Every menu, without fail, included “chicken fiesta,” which I had made up and never elaborated on the ingredients. I can only imagine it was a very fun meal.
My passion for eating great food began early as well, although my younger self did not always have the most refined palette. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for grilled hot dogs, potato chips, and the not-so-stellar Cheetos. While I eventually grew to appreciate (and am now required to eat) a healthy, well-balanced diet, I reached for crunchy, salty snacks much of the time when I was little. Thankfully, my taste-buds grew with me and these days I have as much respect (and love) for a fine-dining dinner as I do a laid-back lobster roll (gluten free) by the ocean.
Eventually, this food-centric mindset led me to writing a pre-Yelp restaurant guide to Manhattan for part of a college course (with photos taped to computer paper), and slowly but surely snapping photos of everything I ate, sharing it all on social media. My passion, and inherent love, for food came to a screeching (yet brief) halt in 2013 when I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Without realizing it, my relationship with food was changing before my eyes, and I would have to find an entirely new way to appreciate every bite.
I tackled my Celiac diagnosis head on and within a year was feeling great, healthier than ever, and learning, daily, how to eat well and still enjoy my favorite foods. I was determined to not let this dietary restriction have anything but a positive impact on my life. A strict gluten free diet can be daunting to some, but with the creation of Gluten Free Mollie D, I hope to share just how wonderful, and delicious, a gluten free life should be.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It would be easy to say that taking photographs of one’s food is carefree and pure joy. I would agree that the fact I’m taking photographs of my dinner and sharing them with the world, and having a positive response, is fun. However, I admit that despite the ongoing love and passion I have for celebrating great gluten free food, there have been a few bumps in the road and that maintaining a culture of food positivity, especially around a specific dietary restriction, can be difficult at times.
The aspect I struggle with most, which seems to be fairly common, is the trend to constantly compare my own content and brand focus with that of others in the same gluten free sector. It’s easy to get wrapped up in thoughts of comparison, especially when everything is at your fingertips. However, I have been working hard on separating myself and focusing on my brand’s mission and goals, which has helped immensely as I work toward increasing content and sharing my work.
I have also realized that it’s better to express your struggles out loud as you never know who may have had the same experience or feelings. The gluten free community may feel humongous online, but that is not always the case in real life, offline, away from the comfort of your phone screen. I have been fortunate to meet some wonderful friends through the online gluten free world that have become sounding boards for new ideas, confidants when I have had to express frustration, and a totally new form of support system as I work on expanding my brand. I am grateful to know them and am equally proud of their efforts in the gluten free community – online and off.
One additional aspect that I found to be difficult was deciding on a concise mission for my brand. It took time to figure out the primary goal for Gluten Free Mollie D, and I tried on a few different “hats” for a while, none of them quite right and feeling somewhat awkward in the seemingly “perfect” Instagram world. You become acutely aware of what you feel your brand is lacking when scrolling images of gorgeous food and well-designed websites. It’s easy to feel like your voice isn’t the best, or most noticed, amidst a sea of others with a similar focus, but that is OK. The best advice I’ve received and try to live by is that no one else can be you. Your voice is unique and that’s the best way to focus your brand: be yourself.
Eventually, my vision for Gluten Free Mollie D became clear: we are here to share how to eat well. Not to be entirely healthy all of the time or entirely indulgent all of the time, but how to eat, well. And gluten free, of course. And that mission is exactly me.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Gluten Free Mollie D – what should we know?
Growing up, my family had dinner together pretty much every night of the week and that tradition is one my husband and I instill in our home today. Dinner, in my opinion, is the most important meal of the day because it’s time to eat a great meal, all together. Gluten Free Mollie D is founded on the belief that everyone can eat well and that it is easy to eat delicious, gluten free, all-natural, and homemade food daily with those you care about most.
We feature our homemade, gluten free dinners on Instagram five nights a week (Sunday-Thursday), every week. We go out on the weekends, and start sharing again on Sunday. I create our meal plans by combing through my cookbook collection and select five, unique recipes that satisfy every craving. My cookbooks are not specifically gluten free. What?! Are you surprised?
The secret (or not-so-secret) to our dinners is that we make any recipe out there, and adapt it to be gluten free. The best part is that countless recipes we select, and feature, are already naturally gluten free! It just goes to show that preparing delicious dinners that are entirely gluten free is far from impossible. In fact, it’s easier than ever.
In addition to sharing our dinner each night, I take the same can-do attitude into the world of baking. While my husband is the dinner-chef in our house, I am the baker. Well, I am now. I had never baked anything up until a couple years ago, but now I cannot stop. I love it. And I take the same approach to baking as we do for dinner: I select recipes based on what I want, and not on their gluten free label. I have a monthly baking feature on the website where I share my month’s baking project and how I adapted it to be gluten free. I love to share how easy it is to make your favorite baked goods at home. And the results have been seriously delicious.
Glutenfreemollied.com is the home to all of our dinners, baking adventures, restaurant guides, and just-for-fun lifestyle section. Essentially, the website is a destination for those who love, and appreciate, great food, and want to find inspiration for their next family meal.
I offer Weeknight Dinner Recaps that review and discuss every dinner we make, including how we adjust recipes to be gluten free, Mollie Bakes is my baking section, and Bar Bites is the restaurant guide where I list restaurants I’ve been to and enjoyed in Boston and beyond. The guides only include restaurants where I have personally had a terrific, and Celiac-safe, dining experience.
And finally, the Lifestyle section is a carefree area where readers can find results of my Instagram Poll of the Day and my latest series, Flavor Buffet, which is a weekly series featuring five fun articles I’ve read online about the food industry. I do not limit these articles to be solely about gluten free food because, after all, my passion for food began long before my gluten free requirement.
I am proud of Gluten Free Mollie D because it is a celebration. It is a visual display of my lifelong love of food and it is a destination for those who love to eat well and want to learn about how to do so. Not only are we sharing our dinners nightly, and lots of cookies, but we are sharing the tools necessary to navigate eating according to a dietary restriction. My Celiac Disease diagnosis has been a blessing in that it has taught me how to appreciate food in a brand-new way and has empowered me to share that appreciation and newfound knowledge with the gluten free community.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
As we continue to grow Gluten Free Mollie D, I find that the most important aspect of its continued success is the constant support I receive from family, friends, and my husband, Seth, who is my partner in this venture. Not only is he the chef behind our dinners, but he is one of my biggest cheerleaders. He always encourages me to keep working on the website, supporting new ideas I share with him, and to never let my “moments of woe” get in the way of my passion for sharing gluten free food and goals for the site.
The support and encouragement I receive from family and friends is incredible and is a constant motivator for me to keep working, creating, and developing Gluten Free Mollie D. Their interest in our daily dinners, questions about specific recipes, and request for restaurant recommendations makes all of it worthwhile. I relish in the opportunity to discuss food with anyone who has an interest and I get overly excited when I tell my parents about a new flavor or ingredient we’re planning to use. Not only are they respectful and encouraging, but they have taken an active role in the Gluten Free Mollie D community by reading the weekly pieces, signing up for the newsletter, and joyfully sharing the site and social media elements with friends.
My drive for creating an informative and positive food-focused environment is fueled by ongoing support from family and friends, but has stemmed from a lifelong passion for food and a constant optimistic attitude. Gluten Free Mollie D is a resource for those who seek guidance for living a gluten free life, but most importantly, is a place where we can gather together, be happy, and eat, well.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.glutenfreemollied.com
- Email: mollie@glutenfreemollied.com
- Instagram: Instagram: @glutenfreemollied
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/glutenfreemollied/
- Twitter: Twitter: @GlutenfreeMD_
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