Gluten-Free Girl

I've been nervous for over a week now. Since Shauna asked me if I would be part of her virtual book tour I've been shaking in my boots. It's like when the yoga instructor asks you to demonstrate a headstand, and you're like, "me? show you?"

And then the book arrived and it sat, looking glorious, on a kitchen chair for a couple of days. You must understand: I've been in awe of Shauna pretty much since I knew she existed. She lives and writes with the sort of open-armed gratitude that renders me speechless and brings tears to my eyes. I know, I know, corny. But how else are you supposed to react when someone honors the holiness of the mundane? She is the person who could never let a good cup of coffee, a sunny day, or an egg pass without mention and thanks. And when huge, big, amazing things like book deals happen to people who so appreciate the small stuff of life? That's what brings the tears.

But Shauna's not precious or holier-than-thou about living gluten-free, or really, about anything. I hate to sink to the potty jokes because the book is much more than that -- honest, educational, and eye-opening -- but this had me cracking up during the evening commute home after a long and, well, shitty day:

"Whole grains help you poop.

Whole grains and other sources of dietary fiber do not break down in the bowels the way other foods do, since they are insoluble. That means they cannot be dissolved by water, which is also floating around in there. Some part of that fiber is left, undigested. As the fiber moves through the system, it pulls water and other foods with it, like a pied piper of poop. This is how your body creates a cohesive bowel movement, that kind that leaves you feeling satisfied and healthy.

There's no way around it--everybody poops. But we're afraid to talk about that bodily function in this country. We have been trained to believe it's rude. Some of you may have been shocked to read the previous paragraph. But is a fact that we need to poop, and poop well. "

And given that, could you believe that this woman can also write about her first artichoke in a way that makes you think of M.F.K. Fisher eating her first oyster? To a seventh grader in Southern California, that threatening-looking vegetable tasted like "early mornings, after a long hard rain."

Shauna writes about all her vegetables (and olive oils and grains and fruits and cheese, oh, the cheese,) like this, with the most sensuous awe. She writes about her farmer's market with utmost reverence. And I guess that's what happens when you're sent to the farthest edge of illness, hunched over with pain and in total body shut-down for months. When someone finally tells you something about yourself that you never knew: you have celiac disease, you don't waste one moment thinking about what you're missing. If you're Shauna, bless her, you just climb right aboard and make it back to the other side of heath, exuberant, grateful, and gluten-free.