Rudi's rolls out new gluten-free bread at Root Down dinner

Root Down's Harvest Week cantaloupe & tomato gazpacho served with a grilled cheese sandwich on Rudi's gluten-free bread.

If you're not familiar with Rudi's Organic Bakery, a Boulder-based bread company, then you should really make its acquaintance -- particularly if you are gluten-intolerant. Rudi's hasn't used artificial chemicals or preservatives in its breads since the bakery's founding in 1976, and started baking organic bread in 1990, before the federal guidelines for organic food were even developed. Point being: Rudi's makes good bread that's also good for you.

But despite demand from consumers, it didn't make a gluten-free bread -- until now. To celebrate its new line of gluten-free products, Rudi's threw a dinner party this week at Root Down, 1600 West 33rd Avenue.

The dinner was a four-course affair, starting with a short speech from Root Down chef Daniel Asher, who's been creating gluten-free plates for six or seven years and endorsed the Rudi's line, saying it was "the best gluten-free bread I've ever had."

Then came the first course: Rocky Mountain Ford cantaloupe and tomato gazpacho, garnished with lime crema and fig balsamic, and served with a tomato-jam grilled cheese on Rudi's gluten-free bread (pictured above). In keeping with Root Down's sustainable philosophy, the soup bowl was placed atop a coaster cut from a previous Root Down menu.

The cold soup was an ideal mixture of sweet and savory, beautiful to look at and even better to taste. The tomato jam made the grilled-cheese sandwich taste like a classic grilled-cheese-with-tomato, but added a hint of sugar to the mix. And the bread? Well, if it didn't say "gluten-free" right there on the menu, nobody would ever know it was modified.

By the way: the gazpacho is available on Root Down's Harvest Week menu, which ends tomorrow, so hurry if you want to try it. Also, both Rudi's and Root Down will be at the fourth annual Incredible Edible Gluten-Free Food Fair from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds; representatives will be serving up the tomato-jam grilled-cheese sandwich and giving away free loaves of bread to everyone who stops by.