Does gluten free food taste good? It’s all a matter of your mind-set. I’ve always suspected this, but these two experiences really emphasized it for me:

We served two cakes at our family Easter celebration. Only the celiacs in the group knew which cake was gluten free. The non-celiacs loved both cakes equally well. Does that really surprise you? (We used the chocolate cake mix from Bob’s Red Mill).

I recently helped plan a party where several different food sensitivities had to be accomodated. I discovered a mix called Namaste Foods Vanilla Cake. It was labelled free of gluten, wheat, soy, nuts, potato, corn, dairy. What could be left beside a price tag? But, it tasted great! The only criticism came from people who thought that it did not taste the way vanilla cake should taste. They were right — it tasted a bit like carrot cake. That’s OK, but some people were miffed because they did not get exactly the taste they had been promised

What’s the morale of these stories? Apparently, being a gluten free host is as much about "people skills" as it is about proficiency in cooking.