Starting out selling her hand baked goods at a lemonade stand as a child, opening a food business was chef and owner of La Oliva Gluten-Free Kitchen Alisha Duret’s lifelong dream. Learning to bake at six years old, memorizing cookie recipes and milling organic flours with her mom, Alisha grew up in a family that loved to cook and valued quality ingredients and nutrition. “I just love feeding people,” she says. “I get so much joy out of it.”
When Alisha was diagnosed with celiac disease, she was disappointed with the high sugar, high preservative, gluten-free products on the market. “If I had to eat this way for life, I wanted to find a better way,” she says. Seeking out healthier gluten-free options for creating recipes that actually taste good, Alisha put her cooking and baking talents to work inventing dishes and recipes using healthy, nutritional (often organic and local) gluten-free ingredients.
While her diagnosis was challenging, Alisha is a passionate foodie and she struggled with not being able to “got out to restaurants and eat all the food,” she says. This dilemma kick-started the creation of her catering company and culinary school, La Oliva Gluten-Free Kitchen.
