Always the experimenter in the kitchen, she learned some early valuable lesions about the chemistry needed for successful baking and the disasters that can occur in the kitchen. Many times these disasters included some form of punishment or hours of cleaning and scraping burnt sugar or batter of her mother’s now ruined prized bowls (where the punishment part fits in!)

While other young girls were playing with their Barbies, riding their bikes, or teasing boys Charity was in the kitchen whipping up a cake (or cookies) from scratch and usually without a recipe. (If she did play with her Barbie doll it usually involved the little kitchen set she had, or if she was outside she could always be found making mud pies and cookies) She often delighted her friends and family with her creations although sometimes the appreciation of her unique baked goods was not there and sometimes her intentionally bizarre creations were loved (go figure!)

In high school her favorite class was Home-Ec. because of its emphasis on baking and cooking. She also loved her French classes because her teacher believed the students should be exposed to making and eating various French food. She joined the 4H baking club to learn more complicated and advanced methods of baking but soon surpassed her instructor and ended up using the time to continue her experiment and teaching herself more baking skills.

Meanwhile Charity continually suffered stomach and intestinal discomfort and problems. In fact she was on prescription stomach medicine since the first grade! So it wasn’t a surprise when she learned she has a food allergy – although she would have bet money against her having a wheat/gluten intolerance. In fact she had no idea that was even a possibility! Bread was always something she craved, her staple comfort food.

In 2001, after her symptoms continued to worsen she had multiple tests run only to learn how sick she actually was. She was gluten intolerant. She remembers the excitement she felt dialing the phone to tell her mother she finally figured out what was wrong and what her mother’s response was ‘that makes sense I am allergic to wheat’. It was a very emotional and lost time for Charity. Luckily she had help and advice from a new friend, she considered her gluten free mentor. The feelings of loss and confusion have stuck in her memory and drive her (as well as her wanting to share the kindness and support of her friend) to help anyone who is newly diagnosed or think they might be Celiac or gluten intolerant.

Baking-wise Charity realized the only way she was going to fully heal herself was to start experimenting in the strange new world of gluten free. She had to relearn many techniques so she bought several gluten free cookbooks and studied them. Luckily the basics of baking embedded deeply in her brain helped tremendously. She also spent much time comparing and reviewing many prepared gluten free products and noticed a couple things. First, the majority of them were made with only a few simple and refined ingredients (white and/or brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch). Her knowledge of allergies and food intolerances lead her to think that since she was healing from an intolerance probably at least partly due from an overdoing of a single ingredient she didn’t want to go down that path again. She strongly felt and still feels that variety is essential. Secondly she noticed that many gluten free products were on the other extreme and there was nothing really for the gluten free consumer who wanted a healthy delicious cookie (or other various baked goods).

After years of baking, and experimenting to recreate her old favorite cookie recipes Kick’N Cookies was born. Her gluten intolerant as well as tolerant friends, family and tasters all raved about her cookies and encouraged her to share them with the rest of the world.