Episode
Free of Gluten, Full of Life | Chef Monica Glass
- Podcast
- The Perfect Bite
- Published
- Apr 9, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3134
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://the-perfect-bite.cohostpodcasting.com/episodes/free-of-gluten-full-of-life-chef-monica-glass
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-perfect-bite-7237404/episodes/free-of-gluten-full-of-life-chef-monica-glass/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-perfect-bite-7237404/free-of-gluten-full-of-life-chef-monica-glass.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
What do you do when the thing you've dedicated your entire career to becomes the thing that's making you sick? Chef Monica Glass spent years working in some of the most celebrated kitchens in the country, including Gotham Bar and Grill, Le Bernadin, and the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia, mastering the art and science of pastry. And then she was diagnosed with Celiac disease. The flour she had been breathing in and baking with every day was the very thing destroying her health. She could have walked away. Instead she did something much harder: She stayed, and she figured out how to do it differently. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Monica for a conversation that is equal parts inspiring and deeply personal. Monica shares the journey from a childhood garden in Maryland where her grandparents grew rhubarb and tomatoes, to moonlighting in Deborah Racicot's pastry kitchen at Gotham Bar and Grill after her PR job, to passing out at Union Square Farmers Market from the lowest iron levels her doctors had ever seen, to opening Verveine Cafe and Bakery, a fully gluten-free, dedicated safe space in Philadelphia, alongside her co-founder and mentor Chef Ken Oringer. And that's before you get to WLDFLR, her gluten-free flour and baking mix line that she's been quietly building from her basement (yes, literally, 14,000 pounds of flour was delivered to her driveway in the snow). Or the 2026 James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Outstanding Pastry Chef that found her in a Costa Rican rainforest trying very hard to be phone-free. Monica's story is about inclusion. About food as medicine and joy simultaneously. About building a space where nobody has to feel like a burden at the table. And about the remarkable things that can happen when you refuse to let a diagno…