That’s Just Dande

STROLL INTO Dande Café at 110 Orr St. and you’ll immediately feel sprightly, springy, spunky and maybe even a little bit celebratory. Perhaps it’s the wall of west-facing windows that drench the dining room in sun. It could be the aroma of fresh bread, warm cookies and zesty soups, or the kaleidoscopic whirl of dancers through the neighboring glass of the Missouri Contemporary Ballet. It might even be the café’s energetic logo dappled with confetti-like flourishes.

Whatever it is, Columbia’s newest (and only) gluten-free eatery is a welcome change of pace in the North Village Arts District, a section of town that already keeps you guessing. For Edie Diel and David Faust – the husband-and-wife duo that opened the restaurant in February 2012 – the affable aura is intentional.

“We went through a lot of ideas for names and came back to something we had used earlier, which is the ‘D and E’ for David and Edie,” says Faust, a native-Californian transplant with a friendly air. “It also happens to be the name of a dance festival in Aruba.”

Freedom from gluten is only the beginning. The menu boasts vegan soups, local produce and eggs, creative couscous and quinoa salads, and alkaline (less acidic) coffee. Diel’s personal “flour” blend (brown rice, sorghum, potato starch, potato flour, arrowroot and xanthan gum) goes into almost all of her baked items, including the scones and cranberry bars. Pizza day is Thursday, crepe day is Saturday and the owners are toying with taco Tuesday.

Open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, the café is just part of the Dande Group’s business. Diel’s recipes have reached local grocery aisles in the form of Dande Delights. Lemon bars, chocolate peanut survival bars, sandwich packs and more are available at both Clover’s Natural Market locations as well as Natural Grocers and the Conley Road Hy-Vee. In fact, it was a lack of local gluten-free snacks that planted the entrepreneurial seed.

“I decided [Natural Grocers] needed to have gluten-free food in its grab-and-go section, and they asked, ‘Do you have a commercial kitchen?’ ” Diel says. “So I went about finding a commercial kitchen to supply grocery stores with gluten-free food.”

Diel has always been a chef. She landed her first job at age 14 working in the kitchen at a retirement home in Bensenville, Ill. Many years later during the early 1980s, she and lifelong friend Laura Gartner – now the Dande Café manager – ran Rainbow Catering in Denver. Their specialty was meatballs, which were incorporated into the company logo.

Diel also had a substantial career in commercial media, purchasing advertising for companies in Illinois, Arizona, Louisiana, Colorado and California, in addition to a smattering of coffee-shop gigs. But when she “fell in love with a writer” in the ’90s, she and Faust settled in his home area in the San Francisco Bay. It wasn’t until Diel’s daughter and son-in-law moved to CoMo to start a family that Diel and Faust left the Golden State.

Throughout her nomadic life, Diel dealt with health issues. Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, cardiac distress and intestinal problems followed her from state to state and through numerous dietary changes. After her celiac diagnosis, she avoided gluten and finally began to feel substantial relief.

“I can’t remember all of the ailments because I don’t have them any more,” says Diel with a laugh. “I don’t know if you have ever been diagnosed with a life changing disease, but it changes your life.”

For weeks after the discovery, Diel says she ate almost nothing but potatoes. She eventually branched out and began tinkering with a few favorite recipes. Armed with the doctor’s list of forbidden foods, she expanded her culinary horizons.

“There is a type of protein in gluten from wheat, rye and barley that causes a reaction in the upper intestine,” says Pauli Landhuis, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at the University of Missouri. “It essentially slices off or flattens the intestinal villi that absorb nutrients, which results in pain, blood loss and malabsorption.”

The most reliable test for celiac is a biopsy of the lower intestine, although blood tests are available as well. Another less-extreme affliction is gluten sensitivity or gluten allergy, which also can result in digestive discomfort.

For Dande Café’s regulars, such as Darrin Young, the restaurant is a godsend. Even establishments that provide gluten-free options can be questionable if utensils and prep areas aren’t fastidiously maintained.

“I had heard about gluten-free bakeries in Chicago but nothing I knew of in Missouri,” says Young of the days after his celiac diagnosis in the early 2000s. “In my case, it doesn’t take much [gluten]. A lot of places say they’re gluten free, and they try their best, but if it’s not absolute, there’s often cross-contamination. This is the only way I can be sure.”

Diel and Faust are proud to offer a gluten-less haven for Columbians. The couple takes care to maintain a “gluten-free zone” in the kitchen, while the few products that contain the problematic substance are prepared in designated areas (the wraps, for instance, are not gluten free).

But Diel doesn’t think of her recipes as merely passable gluten-free substitutes for old favorites. For example, Diel tinkered with her lemon bars for four months while enlisting lucky customers to taste-test. She makes a mean pie crust – you can preorder a variety of pies, by the way – and she employs a Scandinavian bread machine for the pizza dough.

Regardless of its patrons’ dietary requirements, Dande Café offers healthful, whole and natural foods made with local ingredients whenever possible. It also provides a lively atmosphere and smiling service, which is good for the soul.

“We really need to get the word out to people who don’t have celiac that our food is yummy,” Diel says. “It’s not just pretty good – for gluten free.”