The Un-Constipated Gourmet: July 2009

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Telling moms

My friend R made a very good point yesterday. I was talking about how I hoped moms (pregnant soon-to-be moms, brand new moms, moms with many mouths to feed, etc.) would enjoy the book and really see the utility of it. "Of course they will," R said. "Not only are moms worrying about keeping themselves moving, but they're the mayors of the home who oversee and worry about the regularity status of everyone else under their roofs. How many dads can tell you the poo status of each of their children? How many can say the number of times Junior has 'made' today or this week? Did Junior struggle? How many days has it been since his last b.m.? That's something moms are always thinkin' about. Obsessing about, might be more accurate. Personally I can't wait for the day that it's not on my mind, but for now -- with my kids -- it is." R's right, of course.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

It's resonating!

A new piece about the book ran on SFweekly.com today. Its author, Mary Ladd, gets it! I'm so pleased. The story is titled Cookbook Seeks to Help You Get the Most Out of Potty Time and it's funny. Love the first line: "Cookbook author Danielle Svetcov wants to get all up in your shit -- literally...." Love the last lines: "The Un-Constipated Gourmet may be embarrassing to some, and a favorite for others. Hey, whatever works. What you do (or don't do) on the toilet is strictly your business. " Mary, where's your tip jar?

Monday, July 20, 2009

Ernest's Moveable Feast and mine

So, the New York Times ran a piece today about the controversial re-release of Hemingway's Moveable Feast (originally published post-humously in 1964). In case you didn't know about this book, it's a gossip loving, food loving, froggy loving romp. It's being re-released because one of Ernest's grandkids didn't like parts of it and requested that Scriber chop them out and republish a cleaner version. Scribner obliged, and, as a result, The Un-Constipated Gourmet, Secrets to a Moveable Feast and A Moveable Feast are being published at the same time. Love that!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Olive OIl Granola in the New York Times

Just in case someone should ask me to write a sequel (ask!), I'm starting to collect new recipes. I was impressed by this one for Olive Oil Granola in yesterday's New York Times. It's more caloric than my recipe in TUG (my recipe has no oil whatsoever), but it sounds really delicious and different. And, olive oil, as mentioned in TUG, does have some "moving" properties, according to the Greeks. I'm going to try to make this recipe this weekend. Also, I like how the author--Melissa Clark--serves it over ricotta cheese instead of yogurt. That's a neat twist. And I'm always looking for ways to use up leftover ricotta cheese.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Front page of hometown paper

My mom called this morning to tell me that I'm on the front-page of my hometown paper, the Marin Independent Journal. She was very excited. She seems to have no qualms about a daughter who writes about the potty. I should probably examine this fact more closely, but I don't have time. ...And it's nice to have an excited mommy. My favorite line from the IJ piece: Most authors know the drill when they finally get published - go on a grueling book tour across the country chatting it up. Danielle Svetcov will not be doing that...and that's OK with her. "It's not the sort of book you want to congregate with your neighbors and say, 'Oh, you're constipated, too?'" Too true.

WHAT IS THIS BOOK?

It is a recipe collection of delicious dishes from around the world that have the double benefit of tasting great and calling you to duty. We're not talking about mixing Metamucil into risotto, or spiking the Brandy Manhattan with prune juice. We're talking about a recipe collection that stands beside (or perhaps just behind) How to Cook Everything and The Joy of Cooking, that competes on all levels—ease, taste, quality of ingredients, etc.—with great cookbooks for home chefs everywhere. At the heart of every recipe are ingredients from god’s most “effective” food groups (think of them as “Superfoods” with an agenda) among them: fruit, legumes, chocolate, and coffee.

DO WE REALLY NEED THIS BOOK?

If you look at the stats, the constipated or potty-challenged are a very, very large group:
--# of visits to office-based physicians for digestive system symptoms in 2004: 41.3 million (Source: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2004 Summary)
--In 1992, the estimated total medical cost of all digestive issues: $107,000 billion
-- Diverticulosis alone – the disease that doctors claim is a direct result of constipation and low-fiber diet – affects one out of every two people over the age of 60

Yikes. Still, despite our numbers, this inability to “go” is mostly a private preoccupation. We buy Wheatabix and Metamucil in bulk and quietly and shamefully pray that the check-out lady will think it’s for the kids. But this silent suffering is fairly new. “The amount of attention that both medical and lay writers have lavished on the costive bowel over the last centuries is enormous...” (xii), according to James C. Whorton in his magnificently scatological tome, Inner Hygiene: Constipation & the Pursuit of Health in Modern Society (Oxford, 2000). Whorton reveals a time between 1800 and 1950 when defecation was the American Idol of bodily function. “No single harmful effect of civilization was warned about more frequently than constipation.” (33). Treatises on the subject sold in the tens of thousands. You couldn’t turn a corner without bumping into an advertisement for purgatives (Jam-0-Lax, Lax-Krax, Purgo, Purgil, Purgatin, Purglets). Advertorial booklets “itemized and explained the ravages of intestinal stasis.” One such booklet was called “The Story of Constipation”—as if the whole family might gather around with hot cocoa and enjoy.Frankly, I’m glad we’ve toned ourselves down. That it’s now an affliction mumbled under one’s breath or to one’s uncorked gloating spouse—seems much more appropriate. We’ve rendered the subject innocuous with words like “roughage” and “fiber.” We do not have to see our sorry selves portrayed on billboards or television, and really, except for the occasional mound in the street left by a dog and the inordinate attention paid to diapers, popular discourse is nearly free of poop today.Still, whether guttural or subdued, the obsession persists. And what truly astounds is that after all this time, we’ve yet to solve the problem in any satisfactory way. And by satisfactory, I mean, gourmet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danielle Svetcov is a writer and literary agent based in San Francisco. You can find her articles in Forbes, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Real Simple, The Chicago Tribune Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and many others.

In 1998 she attended culinary “camp” at Boston University where she discovered that commercial cooking is really “coal mining indoors.” She cooked alongside Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. After a very brief stint at Chez Panisse, she began writing restaurant reviews for Sidewalk.com in San Francisco, and compiled the first food guide to San Francisco for Virgin.

In 2003 she earned an MFA in fiction. About that she says, “Writing is cooking without a clear set of people to serve.” This is her first book. You can reach her at unconstipatedgourmet at gmail dot com.

The Un-Constipated Gourmet

Welcome