http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/renovationThe Pike Place Market is a serious hazard zone. Currently undergoing extensive renovation, it is a labyrinth of temporary “storefronts” in shipping containers, scaffolding, and guys in hard hats doing an excellent job of acting friendly and as if the abundance of people are not in the way. For an especially uncoordinated, accident-prone person (such as myself), all the stuff to trip over and run into makes for an exciting time. But for anyone with food allergies (such as myself again), walking under ladders inspires a comparatively small concern for personal safety in the light of scents wafting down the street from a place like Piroshky Piroshky. There are many fabulous baked goods for sale at the Pike Market. But so far as my sleuthing has revealed, there is only one location that sells gluten-free pastries, and that is Cinnamon Works. If another location exists, it is kept well enough secret that none of the Pike Place vendors I asked knew about its existence. Every vendor I asked said, “Cinnamon Works.” So to Cinnamon Works I went.Problematically, gluten is not the only food that’s out to kill me by way of a slow and miserable death. And Cinnamon Works, which does in fact make gluten-free pastries, relies heavily on several of my other allergies to make up for the absence of gluten. Their applesauce bread appeared safe. But bathed in Piroshky perfume, applesauce bread was not what I wanted. So I passed up safety, and all the items containing eggs, and went for a “lesser of two evils” option in the form of a tofu-influenced, g-free oatmeal cookie. http://www.cinnamonworks.com/In several years of eating gluten-free, I think I can safely say that this is the first time I’ve ever spent more than $4.00 on one cookie. Sure it was gluten-free, and monster-cookie-sized, but the really impressive thing about it was its weight. Apparently, tofu weighs a lot. I hypothesize that Cinnamon Works must be selling their pastries by the pound; it’s the only way I can justify spending so much for a cookie. But apart from its weight, the cookie was not in many other ways extraordinary. It was neither the texture of a “normal” oatmeal cookie, nor the gritty texture of older-model gluten-free endeavors. It was sort of puddle-y in attitude . . . not undercooked, but still somehow inexplicably evocative of a mud pie. In terms of flavor, it was good, but not dazzling enough to burnish away the lackluster texture. Overall, it wasn’t a bad experience. But I doubt I’ll be tempted back. Gluten-free pastries would have to be really excellent to be a better choice than the fresh fruits and vegetables available on the side of Pike Market without scaffolding, and those Cinnamon Works offers aren’t enough to validate the risk of sending my clumsy self through a construction zone again.Follow Voracious on Twitter and Facebook.