BETTY WRENN DAY / GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Mary Almond loves to bake and sweeten her friends’ lives.

Mary Almond, a native of Richmond who has been living in Mathews since 1997, loves to cook. When an unfortunate medical problem arose, she did not allow it to keep her from enjoying what she had always loved to do.

Mary and her two daughters, Joan Hodges and Joyce Crown-Wilkins, developed Celiac, a condition that requires a gluten-free diet. “I found a book and started reading about it,” Mary explained, “but it took me a while to adjust.”

A mother of four, Mary has always done a lot of cooking. “I learned from my mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law, and took home economic classes while in high school. I loved those classes.” Now she had to learn to make adjustments and was soon cooking in two ways. “My husband didn’t need to alter his eating habits, so I worked on how I could make it work for us all. You know it’s the flour that has to be changed, and when you do, there are some...