Everyone loves bread, cakes, and cookies. But not everyone can tolerate the wheat (gluten) they all contain. That's where veteran cookbook author Jacqueline Mallorca comes in. She takes gluten-free cooking into the mainstream by transforming gluten-free ingredients into delectable dishes that appeal to everyone at the table. A life-saver for celiacs, these recipes also offer real options, with real taste, for everyone else who's found that they simply feel better when they don't eat wheat.

Inspired by her travels in Europe as well as the eclectic, cutting-edge cuisine of northern California, Mallorca presents everything from breakfast ideas to quick weeknight suppers and elegant dinner-party fare. Butterflied trout with crispy crumbs takes just five minutes to broil; chicken meat loaf wrapped in prosciutto doubles as a tasty pâté; gluten-free pasta dishes actually taste like pasta; and chestnut and sausage dressing upstages the holiday bird. And desserts dazzle. She presents a new, nutritionally sound, lighter style of baking. Far from tasting like gritty substitutes, these gluten-free cakes, cookies, tarts, and crusty flatbreads look and taste as though they came from a boutique bakery.

There's even a chapter devoted to gluten-free grocery shopping. The Wheat-Free Cook offers easy-to-follow advice and describes the culinary possibilities of dozens of tasty and satisfying gluten-free grains and flours such as quinoa, flax, millet, and teff, as well as sources for these products.

So if you like to eat, but without the wheat, The Wheat-Free Cook should be at the top of your shopping list.