My name is Amanda, and this is the story of my Nanny’s kitchen, a place where sugar, love, and a little bit of rebellion were always in the air.

​

My Nanny wasn’t just a baker. She was a magician in an apron. The kind of woman who could quiet a crying child with a warm snickerdoodle and lift the weight of the world with a slice of lemon pound cake. Her kitchen wasn’t big, but it was the center of everything—sticky with honey, humming with laughter, and always warm from something good in the oven.

​

As a little girl, I’d sit on a stool by the counter and watch her work, bare hands in the dough, eyes measuring without a scale, heart poured into every bite. She believed that recipes were stories you told with flour and butter. And I believed she was the best storyteller in the world.

​

When my sister was diagnosed with gluten intolerance, we thought that part of our story might be over. But Nanny, in true Nanny fashion, wouldn’t hear of it. “What’s a cookie if not a little miracle?” she’d say, and then return to her mixing bowl like a woman on a mission.

​

She reinvented her recipes. She experimented with almond flour, rice flour, and potato starch. She adjusted, tasted, tossed out, and tried again. She battled crumbly dough and grainy textures until it came out just right.​

​

And she didn’t just make them for my sister. She made them for everyone. Because Nanny believed no one should feel left out of something as wonderful as dessert.

​

When Nanny passed over ten years ago, I inherited her mixing bowls, her stained recipe cards, and her fierce love for baking. At first, I baked just for family, for comfort. But somewhere in the smell of warm vanilla and the first bite of a chewy gluten-free cookie, I realized something bigger: My Nanny’s Kitchen wasn’t just a place. It was a feeling. A memory. A mission.