Cassel, 47, started her professional culinary career in the Reading Terminal Market. Now she owns and operates the only gluten-free bakery in Hawaii.
Although gluten-free may sound like the newest food trend, it has been working its way into the mainstream for the past five years, as the number of people diagnosed with celiac disease has risen.
From Wegman's to Trader Joe's, alternative flours are popping up on grocery store shelves. Even baking matriarch Betty Crocker put out a line of gluten-free mixes this year.
A recent event sponsored by the Ambler-based National Foundation for Celiac Awareness attracted more than 1,200 people, 50 vendors and 25 area chefs to the Wachovia Center. Local interest in gluten-free eating should be well served when a new gluten-free bakery opens this winter at Broad and South streets.
Though it's the only known treatment for the disease, living a gluten-free lifestyle does not come without a few obstacles.
"Educating the people is the most important thing," Cassel said. "People often think gluten-free equals sugar-free. People don't really understand that gluten-free is a necessity."
That feeling you're not
in Philly anymore
The route Cassel took from Philadelphia to Kauai (the most northwestern and remote of the four major Hawaiian islands) was not exactly direct.
She was born and raised in Ridley Park. The fifth of seven children, she started her love affair with great food at a young age. In the early '80s, it brought her to Café Olé in the Reading Terminal Market, where she also did a turn as caterer for the American Ballet Company.
"I miss all the hustle and the bustle and the people that used to come to the café," Cassel said. "We had a great following. It was a fabulous place to work."
