It all started years ago when my junior high principal captured the essence of who I am...
...an ordinary, happy little girl. Many years have passed since then and this "happy and ordinary" woman has studied classical piano and voice, written and recorded music; a member of ASCAP, holds copyrights and trademarks; attended a performing arts school; Six Sigma Green Belt; alpha beta kappa honor society; designed and built custom homes with my husband and business partner; graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Science and concentration in paralegal studies;and enjoyed 37 years of corporate experience with two fortune 500 companies that included 12 years of management experience. It has and continues to be an enriching journey, replete with diverse and purposeful experiences that have played a vital role in the birth of Sweetopia® and pursuing my passion and dream of owning my own baking business.
My journey to this passion to produce and bring to market the freshest, all natural and high quality gluten-free cakes, cookies and sweet breads has an interesting beginning. I grew up in the era where my dad worked 2 jobs and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I was taught the meaning of work at a young age but never was I permitted to touch the stove or any other large home appliance. What an eye-opener when I got married and had absolutely no clue how to boil water or what 350 degrees on the oven dial meant. After a year of eating pork chops every which way to Sunday, I decided it was high time I break loose and let the creative juices flow and they're still flowing some 50 years later.
So, why does this gluten-tolerant girl decide to bake gluten-free? The quick answer is that I like the challenge of mastering something new in a field that I have a passion for where taste and texture-results overwhelmingly indicated “can’t taste the difference”. The overarching reason is that if one can produce an excellent quality product that can benefit both markets (gluten-free and gluten-tolerant) then go for the greater good where those that otherwise would not be able to enjoy and experience due to health issues with gluten.
How the conversion to gluten-free baking really happened? It all started back in the late summer of 2012. I was happily engaged in my Legal Supervisor role in the IP department at one of DuPont Company's local facilities when I got a tap on the shoulder (actually a phone call and personal visit) from one of our Sr. VP's. The gist of visit (who am I kidding... it was to the point!). I was to go and be a part of what would be a new legal department and new company resulting from one of their very recent divested businesses. As plans began to take shape for building out this new legal department, we began hiring attorneys. Ah, you say, "what's the significance of that"? At this juncture in my life I had become skilled in the art of baking and would often bring in and share my glutened sweets creations. I found out that one of the attorneys was deathly allergic to gluten. That sent me off into researching what exactly is gluten as up until that point I only knew that I would purchase regular white flour, the staple in many a dessert recipe. What an eye opener in those findings and the beginning of a passion that was birthed within my soul that would lead to the inception of Sweetopia and her exclusive all natural, gluten-free, nut-free, preservative-free & dye-free bakery. A phone call and visit that would change the course of my history and journey. Who would have thought but I am eternally grateful for it!
If you're new to the gluten-free food world or you've tried some before and the product left you experiencing a flat, tasteless, and unidentifiable food product that turned you off, Sweetopia® aims to help change your impression and experience with her incomparable and unique all natural, from scratch, fresh from the oven sweets. I'm "right with you" on having experienced my fair share of tasteless, chalky, gluten-free sweet products in my exhaustive research and hunt for GF sweets out on the market. Findings for fresh gluten-free sweets (in the store's glass bakery section) were what I would term "anorexic" with the same outcome in overall quality - lacking in flavor, chalky and brittle in overall texture and poor choice of cookie selection. I found this again to also true for the GF chocolate chip cookie and brownie I found in the freezer selection and noticeably not suitably packaged to protect its flavor, however weak it is. One doesn't have to ponder very hard the impression gluten-free" leaves on the palate and mind of the consumer (gluten-free or gluten-tolerant) when the marketplace presents and considers this an acceptable representation of fresh baked gluten-free sweets.
I'm not your typical bakery (then again, I'm not typical in any sense of the word as who else retires and decides to ramp up and start a brand new career). Sweetopia® is a bit of a hybrid in her business model in that I sell to customers and business-to-business, not a retail store in the traditional sense; a perfect business model for Sweetopia®. So, for the customer side of my business, I may get a phone call where the customer places an order for future pick-up or wishes to know what I currently have inventory (inventory means those creations that have been made, packaged and put in my commercial freezer) and would like to pop by and pick it up to enjoy at a later time. Because the artisan sweets do not have any preservatives in them they are not conducive to sitting at ambient temperature for extended period of time. So, the sweets in the glass case that you see in a typical "glutened" bakery, does not work well with for a Sweetopia® sweet and lends itself to a lot more waste factor depending on customer traffic on any given day. It doesn't take long for your Sweetopia® artisan sweet to thaw and enjoy and will taste as fresh as when they came out of one of my commercial ovens.
One of the ancient proverbs I share in my "Thoughts" addresses the track that each of us lay and the value and worth of doing it right. You can count on this with a Sweetopia™ hand-crafted artisan sweet. Check out my Blog pages that cover everything from Gluten & Gluten-Free, Rice & It's Many Benefits, and descriptions on my many artisan sweets products. Check out my Testimonials, News & Thoughts page and find out what Sweetopia™ customers are saying about her GF sweets, as well as what's happening on her FB page GetYourSweetOn® news front and little pearls of thoughts worth pondering.
I welcome the opportunity to earn your patronage with one of my Sweetopia® gluten-free and nut-free unbeatably good and incomparable artisan sweets. Let Sweetopia® make a believer out of you! I offer an extensive portfolio of creations, many that can also be made egg-free, dairy-free, vegan, and sugar-free; all made in a gluten-free and nut-free environment and produced with the best of the best all natural ingredients throughout the entire recipe with no preservatives, dyes or artificial anything! Each carefully produced by hand; there is no assembly line here at Sweetopia®. I happily offer taste testings at my bakery and just give a call to set up a time and a date and I'll pull together a variety of my creations for you to test.
That's about it, for now.
Sincerely…Nan
P.S. I continue to pass by the pork chop section in the grocery store. That one year steady diet of them did me and my family in.
...an ordinary, happy little girl. Many years have passed since then and this "happy and ordinary" woman has studied classical piano and voice, written and recorded music; a member of ASCAP, holds copyrights and trademarks; attended a performing arts school; Six Sigma Green Belt; alpha beta kappa honor society; designed and built custom homes with my husband and business partner; graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Science and concentration in paralegal studies;and enjoyed 37 years of corporate experience with two fortune 500 companies that included 12 years of management experience. It has and continues to be an enriching journey, replete with diverse and purposeful experiences that have played a vital role in the birth of Sweetopia® and pursuing my passion and dream of owning my own baking business.
My journey to this passion to produce and bring to market the freshest, all natural and high quality gluten-free cakes, cookies and sweet breads has an interesting beginning. I grew up in the era where my dad worked 2 jobs and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I was taught the meaning of work at a young age but never was I permitted to touch the stove or any other large home appliance. What an eye-opener when I got married and had absolutely no clue how to boil water or what 350 degrees on the oven dial meant. After a year of eating pork chops every which way to Sunday, I decided it was high time I break loose and let the creative juices flow and they're still flowing some 50 years later.
So, why does this gluten-tolerant girl decide to bake gluten-free? The quick answer is that I like the challenge of mastering something new in a field that I have a passion for where taste and texture-results overwhelmingly indicated “can’t taste the difference”. The overarching reason is that if one can produce an excellent quality product that can benefit both markets (gluten-free and gluten-tolerant) then go for the greater good where those that otherwise would not be able to enjoy and experience due to health issues with gluten.
How the conversion to gluten-free baking really happened? It all started back in the late summer of 2012. I was happily engaged in my Legal Supervisor role in the IP department at one of DuPont Company's local facilities when I got a tap on the shoulder (actually a phone call and personal visit) from one of our Sr. VP's. The gist of visit (who am I kidding... it was to the point!). I was to go and be a part of what would be a new legal department and new company resulting from one of their very recent divested businesses. As plans began to take shape for building out this new legal department, we began hiring attorneys. Ah, you say, "what's the significance of that"? At this juncture in my life I had become skilled in the art of baking and would often bring in and share my glutened sweets creations. I found out that one of the attorneys was deathly allergic to gluten. That sent me off into researching what exactly is gluten as up until that point I only knew that I would purchase regular white flour, the staple in many a dessert recipe. What an eye opener in those findings and the beginning of a passion that was birthed within my soul that would lead to the inception of Sweetopia and her exclusive all natural, gluten-free, nut-free, preservative-free & dye-free bakery. A phone call and visit that would change the course of my history and journey. Who would have thought but I am eternally grateful for it!
If you're new to the gluten-free food world or you've tried some before and the product left you experiencing a flat, tasteless, and unidentifiable food product that turned you off, Sweetopia® aims to help change your impression and experience with her incomparable and unique all natural, from scratch, fresh from the oven sweets. I'm "right with you" on having experienced my fair share of tasteless, chalky, gluten-free sweet products in my exhaustive research and hunt for GF sweets out on the market. Findings for fresh gluten-free sweets (in the store's glass bakery section) were what I would term "anorexic" with the same outcome in overall quality - lacking in flavor, chalky and brittle in overall texture and poor choice of cookie selection. I found this again to also true for the GF chocolate chip cookie and brownie I found in the freezer selection and noticeably not suitably packaged to protect its flavor, however weak it is. One doesn't have to ponder very hard the impression gluten-free" leaves on the palate and mind of the consumer (gluten-free or gluten-tolerant) when the marketplace presents and considers this an acceptable representation of fresh baked gluten-free sweets.
I'm not your typical bakery (then again, I'm not typical in any sense of the word as who else retires and decides to ramp up and start a brand new career). Sweetopia® is a bit of a hybrid in her business model in that I sell to customers and business-to-business, not a retail store in the traditional sense; a perfect business model for Sweetopia®. So, for the customer side of my business, I may get a phone call where the customer places an order for future pick-up or wishes to know what I currently have inventory (inventory means those creations that have been made, packaged and put in my commercial freezer) and would like to pop by and pick it up to enjoy at a later time. Because the artisan sweets do not have any preservatives in them they are not conducive to sitting at ambient temperature for extended period of time. So, the sweets in the glass case that you see in a typical "glutened" bakery, does not work well with for a Sweetopia® sweet and lends itself to a lot more waste factor depending on customer traffic on any given day. It doesn't take long for your Sweetopia® artisan sweet to thaw and enjoy and will taste as fresh as when they came out of one of my commercial ovens.
One of the ancient proverbs I share in my "Thoughts" addresses the track that each of us lay and the value and worth of doing it right. You can count on this with a Sweetopia™ hand-crafted artisan sweet. Check out my Blog pages that cover everything from Gluten & Gluten-Free, Rice & It's Many Benefits, and descriptions on my many artisan sweets products. Check out my Testimonials, News & Thoughts page and find out what Sweetopia™ customers are saying about her GF sweets, as well as what's happening on her FB page GetYourSweetOn® news front and little pearls of thoughts worth pondering.
I welcome the opportunity to earn your patronage with one of my Sweetopia® gluten-free and nut-free unbeatably good and incomparable artisan sweets. Let Sweetopia® make a believer out of you! I offer an extensive portfolio of creations, many that can also be made egg-free, dairy-free, vegan, and sugar-free; all made in a gluten-free and nut-free environment and produced with the best of the best all natural ingredients throughout the entire recipe with no preservatives, dyes or artificial anything! Each carefully produced by hand; there is no assembly line here at Sweetopia®. I happily offer taste testings at my bakery and just give a call to set up a time and a date and I'll pull together a variety of my creations for you to test.
That's about it, for now.
Sincerely…Nan
P.S. I continue to pass by the pork chop section in the grocery store. That one year steady diet of them did me and my family in.