NotOrdinaryTalks: Interview to Valentina Leporati, the gluten-free warrior

THE SOUNDTRACK VALENTINA CHOOSE FOR THIS INTERVIEW

Just before starting our virtual chat i get a message “Give me a few minutes, I’ll bake the last batch of cookies, see you soon!” and I start talking to Valentina, fantasizing about the cookies she has just baked and the scent that she smells in that shop.

VALENTINA LEPORATI AKA VALENTINA GLUTEN FREE

Hi Valentina, thank you for accepting my invitation and welcome to NotOrdinaryTalks. Let’s make some due premise for those who still don’t know what you do. How did you come to deal with gluten free pastry and bread making and how many years do we have to go back?

It all stems from the fact that I discovered that i was born with a gluten allergy, so the absence of gluten has accompanied me throughout my life. In reality, my school career is different from the profession I carry out now, I did the Liceo Classico and I always dreamed of writing. Indeed, the greatest of all was to become a radio speaker, the second to become a Journalist. But then I started working, I was always educated to earn something of my own, even if my family was always there, I learned to get busy. So I started with a pizzeria, I moved on to music venues, the one where I worked was a Punk Rock Club, up to the pastry shop. After many years of working in a pastry shop, due to a need for staff, I lose my job. I found myself understanding that I knew how to cook, and I wanted to start my own business. From 19 to 29 I always cooked and tried to recreate the things I used to do in restaurants or pastry shops, but without gluten. At first the results were as bad as you can imagine, but as I got better I started to trim dinners with friends, without specifying the absence of gluten, noticing that they ate with good taste, it was one of many wins.

So in this way you managed to get a taste similar to the products that instead contain it, to satisfy the palate too?

Yes, it was a demanding research job, it took a long time to say we made it. Today I got what I was looking for, a good product that is equally pleasing to the eye, despite the absence of gluten. I set my own method, deleting the use of ready-made mixes, but I use flours that are naturally gluten-free, I personally take care of creating the mix that best suits the preparation. Rice, corn, quinoa, amaranth, lentils, various legumes .. Furthermore, I do not forget the aesthetic aspect of what I create. I have been celiac for 32 years and the key phrase of my life has been “You have to settle”, or what you find. So you settle for the meringue with the wrong and ugly chocolate inscription, which is the only one you can eat. For this reason my cakes are also requested by non-celiacs. Besides being good, otherwise the whole castle would collapse, they are also beautiful to look at.

When did you open your shop? Why in Sarzana, why are you tied to that place?

As I told you before, I understood that the only thing I knew how to do was to cook, but I lacked the means to do it on my own. With the money from my unemployment, I took the shop in Sarzana where I already worked and lived. I started with a counter, oven, refrigerator, sink and balcony, and I was doing it underneath. This mixture of courage, recklessness, the hunger to get something for me, pushed me to go on, despite the difficulties: a shop moved from the center, a shop dedicated to products for gluten intolerance, the fact that I was already a certain age . Also, for more than a year I was going back and forth until we made the decision to settle down here. This is what made me the Valentina of today. If I think about it now, I get goosebumps and shining eyes.

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Un post condiviso da Valentina Gluten Free (@valentinaleporati)

Your work and your resourcefulness, as we anticipated, brought you to radio and TV programs, how was it for you?

For someone who dreamed of being a speaker, just imagine … you can imagine the emotion. It was beautiful, I cried for a whole day with emotion. It has only been 3 years since the store opened and I can say that I have done everything to recover.

What does it mean to open a shop?

It’s hard! I say this to all the people who ask me if it is appropriate to set up on their own. In addition to having to open your own shop, you must have a story to tell, because otherwise you are the one in a hundred and you are not recognizable. If you are passionate, you care a lot about your project, and you have a particular mission, as in my case, it shines through. This allows the acquisition of customers, who then become loyal customers, later friends and all. A beautiful and lasting reality.

@Valentinaleporati: Talking about socials

On social networks you are followed for your information columns on celiac disease, for the recipes you try with your community. What do you think about it?

Yes, that’s right, I have invested a lot of time in social media. Not to advertise my products, but to tell a story and at the same time disseminate correct information on the subject of gluten intolerance. I can say that I have created a community that trusts me, and consequently buys in my shop. There is an opportunity to try my products and so they come back. A “virtuous” circle that led me to do some really beautiful things. Go on TV, on Radio Deejay, and write a book.

How do you manage to be present in your shop, manage e-commerce and also the social aspect? How do you make time for yourself?

I stay in the shop and cook my products every day, obviously in the quantities of an artisan shop. By carving out a moment, I can also create informative content on my social networks. For me the two things go hand in hand. Because it is through these moments, in which I tell what I do, that those who listen to me even if they do not know the universe of celiac disease, are curious and want to understand something more about my products; if indeed the breadstick is crunchy and if by opening the package you can finish it in 5 minutes. A virtuous circle, as I call it, of information, affection and empathy, where the purchase is not the ultimate goal but is a spontaneous action. For me it is better to sell 10 fewer products, but this way. I am gratified to have sent a message, without having induced the purchase.

On social networks as we say that you have created a community, those who follow you do it for the recipes you propose, for your countless columns to cook together, carving out a moment of carefree, for the sunny and overwhelming person you are, but not only, because you are often seen showing off a beautiful lipstick, and it does not go unnoticed and you receive countless requests to reveal its name. What is your relationship with beauty?

Beauty questions are the ones that come to me the most. Even if i were talking, i don’t know, about the thyroid, but i say it with a lipstick, they ask me “What lipstick do you have?”, Nobody has listened to the rest.” Valentina confesses to me laughing. “Even to this i gave myself an explanation, which i understood over time, when a person has the courage to expose himself, not at 360 ° because I would say a lie, but a little less, surely these details become part of the character . In my case, person and character are the same thing, they are just as you see me in the stories. So Valentina is the one who makes the gluten free pastry chef, she has a cool dress and red lipstick like that. This is another wonderful aspect for me because it gives me the freedom to talk about anything.

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Un post condiviso da Valentina Gluten Free (@valentinaleporati)

About this, I’ll tell you something more.

At first, having a pleasant face represented a problem for me, I was afraid that people would focus too much on my appearance, rather than on the things I had to say and that I felt I wanted to say. Precisely because in the past I was a model, I appeared in music videos, and other things for which my image was my business card. I do not hide from you that in the beginning it went just as I feared. I didn’t expose myself too much, I just said what I did in the shop and that’s it. From the moment I opened the doors to all that I am and care about, people notice me, including the dress and lipstick, but it’s all part of the larger circle of Valentina Gluten Free.

If your kitchen was a lipstick what color would it be?

You are asking this question to someone who is practically wearing only red lipstick. I would say a red, with a hint of burgundy, more sanguine, precisely due to the blood link with celiac disease, the aspect of genetics, and the passion that has always been dyed red. Then red with a pinch of burgundy.

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Un post condiviso da Valentina Gluten Free (@valentinaleporati)

NOT JUST BAKERY AND SOCIAL

Valentina Leporati, shines through on social media, as a versatile woman, when she comes out of her fragrant shop, who is she? What does she do?

When i go out I’m tired. Valentina tells me with her contagious smile, but joking aside she says:

I’m always like this, hyperactive as you see me on social media, in the evening i switch off myself on the sofa, watch a movie and collapse. But for example, now i’m going home with my sister because my partner has to take the size of the hat that she will make for her. Then i’ll start cooking, and i already have in mind what i’m going to prepare, so i’ve already gone shopping, after that i have to prepare the contents for tomorrow, and i’m not finished yet. I also have to send a message to Giulia Del Mastio illustrator of my book because i have to ask you something. My life is like this and i find it beautiful, because i would not be able to live in a life without incitements, when i don’t have them i create them. As i do with problems, when i don’t have them, i create them.

And what about your interests what do you tell me?

I’m crazy about punk rock music, I grew up in it. That kind of music that even if the frontman says he wants to commit suicide that “one, two, three, four” at the beginning drives me crazy, but i can easily switch to Britney Spears and from her to the Italian songwriters, even in this case i don’t I find a logical thread. Then i love shoes, i put my last boots in the shoe cabinet without going out of the way, and in silence. And then I read. When my mind is clear, i come into the books and i may never get out, and i love also cats, eating.

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Un post condiviso da Valentina Gluten Free (@valentinaleporati)

We all have a drawer where we keep some dreams, mostly those we think are the strangest and most difficult to achieve. What does Valentina keep in that drawer?

I have someone: become a radio speaker, i would like to make a second recipe book, i would like to return to TV and have my own feature in a paper newspaper.

Posted By

Alessia Agus

Pro Make-up Artist Freelance. Al compimento del mio primo anno di vita ho afferrato la prima penna e a quello seguente ho iniziato a parlare fluentemente, da allora non mi sono più fermata. Non metto piede fuori dall’uscio di casa se non ho con me il mio rossetto rosso e Lucio Dalla nelle cuffie.