Meet Taising Chen | Founder, Owner, & Chef

We had the good fortune of connecting with Taising Chen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Taising, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Love It Gluten Free was started through the passion that I have for increasing choices for experiencing emotional, physical, and cultural healing through food. Food was often a place where I found respite, healing, and community through growing food, kitchen conversations, cooking, and sharing lives over food. I have often had to adjust & advocate to move through this world, which also meant creating and building access to things where they don’t exist. When it became clear that I needed to go gluten free years ago, it became another area where a lot of new adjustments were made and especially when it came to Asian comfort foods and sharing meals with friends and family. Creating access has always been for more than for myself, and so I set out to see if there were others that also would be interested in gluten free Asian treats and eats – and Love It Gluten Free was started.

What should our readers know about your business?
Love It Gluten Free is created from love, care, and resistance towards accepting things as they are. Too often gluten free options are frowned upon or unfortunately not very good. Thankfully, there are many people out there who are changing the stigma around gluten free food and more and more delicious options have come forth. However, I could not find Asian bakeries that were offering gluten free items that I could enjoy, especially because I am also allergic to eggs and have become lactose intolerant. I had a lot of difficulty finding recipes that tasted just as good or even close to what I had remembered from before and so I became determined to develop gluten free, egg free, and lactose/dairy free recipes that brought the same joy and linkages to food stories of my past. Tears were shed as the first three new recipes came forth (after many many trials) for Taiwanese pineapple cake, dumpling wrappers, and the dough base for baked baos. Now, I get the honor to offer treats and eats from our dedicated gluten free kitchen and I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to see, hear, and feel the joy that it also brings to folks who either thought that they could never have a delicious bao or mooncake again, folks who are tasting potsticker dumplings for the first time, and folks that are able to share a good treat or meal without any worry with their friends, family, and community.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Peachtree Road Farmers Market @ptreefarmersmkt
Hell Yeah Gluten Free @hellyeahglutenfree
Asian Night Market @chefsmarketatl @prattpullmandistrict
Rebel Teahouse @rebelteahouse
Atlanta Botanical Gardens @atlbotanical

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I most definitely want to shout out my dear friends and my spouse for supporting my ideas, being the ultimate taste-testers, and for showing up. And, a shoutout to the larger gluten free community for up-lifting what it means to have access to delicious food that does not further harm us and especially want to recognize Liz from @yeet.that.wheat and Megan from @sayimafoodie for changing what gluten free can look like and for loving and sharing out what we have to offer.

Website: https://www.loveitlgutenfree.com

Instagram: @loveitglutenfree

Image Credits
Photo of Taiwanese Pineapple Cake – Ang H.
All other photos are taken by Taising