What do you do when the thing you’ve dedicated your entire career to becomes the thing that’s making you sick?

Chef Monica Glass spent years working in some of the most celebrated kitchens in the country, including Gotham Bar and Grill, Le Bernadin, and the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia, mastering the art and science of pastry. And then she was diagnosed with Celiac disease. The flour she had been breathing in and baking with every day was the very thing destroying her health.

She could have walked away. Instead she did something much harder: She stayed, and she figured out how to do it differently.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Monica for a conversation that is equal parts inspiring and deeply personal. Monica shares the journey from a childhood garden in Maryland where her grandparents grew rhubarb and tomatoes, to moonlighting in Deborah Racicot’s pastry kitchen at Gotham Bar and Grill after her PR job, to passing out at Union Square Farmers Market from the lowest iron levels her doctors had ever seen, to opening Verveine Cafe and Bakery, a fully gluten-free, dedicated safe space in Philadelphia, alongside her co-founder and mentor Chef Ken Oringer.

And that’s before you get to WLDFLR, her gluten-free flour and baking mix line that she’s been quietly building from her basement (yes, literally, 14,000 pounds of flour was delivered to her driveway in the snow). Or the 2026 James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Outstanding Pastry Chef that found her in a Costa Rican rainforest trying very hard to be phone-free.

Monica’s story is about inclusion. About food as medicine and joy simultaneously. About building a space where nobody has to feel like a burden at the table. And about the remarkable things that can happen when you refuse to let a diagnosis define the ceiling of what’s possible.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up in Maryland with grandparents who grew rhubarb, tomatoes, and berries in their garden
• Her dad’s crockpot meals, Sunday dinners, and the through line of food as family
• From Penn State to New York City PR and gravitating toward the food clients
• Making a list of top 10 chefs she wanted to learn from and knocking on doors
• Moonlighting at Gotham Bar and Grill under Deborah Racicot, turning it down twice before finally saying yes
• What Eric Ripert taught her about knowing every person’s name on day one at Le Bernadin
• The Celiac diagnosis: years of being dismissed by doctors, passing out in Union Square, and finally getting answers
• Losing her mother to ovarian cancer and how the stress may have triggered the Celiac gene
• Learning to recreate gluten-free versions of everything she loved, without telling anyone they were gluten-free
• Opening Verveine Cafe and Bakery with Chef Ken Oringer
• The Picknic allergen software on their site that lets guests filter the menu by their specific needs
• WLDFLR: the gluten-free flour and baking mix line born in her home kitchen
• Getting 14,000 pounds of flour delivered to her driveway in the snow and carrying it to her basement
• The 2026 James Beard semifinalist nomination that found her in a Costa Rican rainforest
• Why she never advertised Verveine as gluten-free and why that was the right call
• Hustle culture, burnout, and why she finally blocked off Mondays for herself
• Her two adopted tiny Chihuahuas Quill and Stewie
• Advice for founders: build the thing that solves your own problem, and standards are your superpower

Find Monica and her work:

• Website: www.chefmonicaglass.com
• Instagram: @chefmoni
• Verveine Cafe: @verveinecafe | www.verveinecafe.com
• WLDFLR: @wldflr_glutenfree

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!