A Cool Dude Writer Goes To G'day USA

G'day USA is one of the highest profile international promotional events in America. Hosted in eight cities by the Australian Government, G'day USA endeavors to strengthen bilateral collaboration between the two countries and promote new business opportunities.



The prestigious black tie gala in Hollywood is the glamorous centerpiece of the fourteen-day event, which honors the contributions of Australians in their respective fields. Previous honorees include Cate Blanchett, Baz Luhrmann, Anthony LaPaglia, Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, Olivia Newton John, Hugh Jackman, INXS, Naomi Watts, Russell Crowe, Kylie Minogue, Phillip Noyce, Eric Bana, Rachel Griffiths, Rod Laver, Simon Baker, Toni Collette, and Greg Norman.

Fashion is a big part of the G'day USA black tie gala. Actors, producers, directors, supermodels, rock stars, athletes -- they all scrub up and dress up and strut the red carpet lookin' good. Without airbrushing, too. Cool Dude Writers, of course, have the same highly-developed sense of fashion. I tell my wife that all the time although, as some of you may remember, we Cool Dude Writers sometimes get caught off guard.

The occasion was an interview that had been scheduled early one morning in connection with my previous thriller, The Identity Factor. And I do mean early -- 12:05am Adelaide time, which was 7:35am in Los Angeles. In my defense, I did not know the interview had been scheduled. It was a breakfast radio talk show for the captive audience on the LA freeways. A publicist in Los Angeles had arranged things with 1590 KKZZ but neglected to confirm it with me. Surprise. Surprise.

Dark-thirty. The phone rings. I bolt out of bed wondering what's wrong (as we often think when the phone rings in the middle of the night). A cheery voice greets me: "One moment, please, for the Maria Sanchez show."

So there I am, shivering, in the dark, in the winter, in a brick cottage in Adelaide without central heat, with not a stitch of clothing on, conducting an interview on an abrasive rattan chair. An abrasive cold rattan chair. "How did you end up in Australia?" asked Maria. "What kinds of things did you smuggle behind the old Iron Curtain? How did you do all that amazing research for your book?"

Was I coherent? Did Maria Sanchez wonder, "who is this clown with the chattering teeth?" I have no idea. Maria was one of those easy-to-talk-to radio hosts who makes you feel like you're having a friendly chat over coffee. My wife heard me answering questions and thought: do I help him out here? With a chuckle, she got up and brought me her fluffy pink bath robe. "Here you are, Mr.Cool Dude Writer," she whispered before going back to bed.

So you can bet your bottom dollar I won't be getting caught off guard at G'day USA. No way! I'm going to scrub up, dress up, and show everybody how I've got this black tie tuxedo fashion thing licked.

Let's see, do I wear the Converse or the Cowboy boots???

Those Pompous, Arrogant Know-It-Alls

No, I'm not talking about the Idol judges. I'm talking about writers. You know the type: rodomontading, bombastic raconteurs, forever gasconading with big fancy words.

Thankfully, I'm not like that (as you can tell!). But it's not because I haven't tried. I just couldn't get away with it. Let me tell you what I mean.

I was in Poland in my early days as a smuggler behind the old Iron Curtain. The East German guards had reluctantly allowed our car past, having looked in every imaginable hiding place with sniffer dogs and mirrors on long handles. Finding nothing, they had waved us on. It was a warm, Indian summer day and I was bringing hard currency for the support of a contact.

After making our delivery, I paid a visit to a retirement home. It was more of an institution. A dilapidated old house with barrels outside where sauerkraut was prepared. The place was full of lonely old people. Much like today. Shuffled off to some other place so as not to interfere in the lives of their kids. Through translators, I spent a few wonderful hours chatting about our favorite topic: food. Not surprisingly, no one mentioned the sauerkraut.

I then had the privilege of attending a children's camp in a neighboring village. Ranging between the ages of nine and fourteen, the children spoke no English except for a beaming young boy named Norbert, who ran up to me yelling, "Pizza ... Mickey Mouse ... Disneyland!" That was the extent of his English. He gave me a hug and called his friends over. His friends all hugged me and began talking in rapid Polish. They were wonderful kids: generous and giving and honest in their affection, as kids usually are.

The town where the camp was located had a dilapidated train station that saw an old steam engine hiss to a stop twice a week with its string of sooty carriages. Huge trees shaded streets of broken pavement, and along each side were large three-story houses with louvered shutters, slate roofs and crumbling plaster walls. Years of war and Soviet occupation had been hard on the people. No one could afford the upkeep. Coal was the main source of heating. The air smelled of it. Food was also scarce. Bread lines were more common than bread.

But these hardships did not dampen the spirits of the children, who were singing happily as we walked to the station to watch the train arrive. It was the way kids hung out together in a country without shopping malls.

The station itself was an old wooden structure with scalloped trim. Once grand and picturesque, it was rundown like everything else. With the smell of coal heavy in the air, we marched up the ramp and onto the concrete platform as the train ground to a stop. Passengers paused to look at the music and laughter filling the air.

We approached an old woman with a wooden push cart piled high with strawberries and cherries. She was bent over with age and wore a faded floral dress. She had a bandana tied over her hair. The kids pooled their meager savings and bought two small paper sacks bulging with fruit. I offered to buy each of them a sack but they wouldn't hear of it. Nor would they permit me to buy a sack for myself. Instead, they then offered me some of theirs. Over twenty kids sharing two small sacks of fruit.

I will never forget the magnificent taste of that fruit. Or those children that taught me so much about generosity and happiness. The joy for those kids wasn't in getting everything they wanted. The joy for them was in sharing.

Meals for the camp were furnished by a local restaurant. Breakfast consisted of a huge pot of spaghetti boiled in milk. Lunch was a huge pile of sandwiches made of dense bread and homemade jam. Dinner was chicken and vegetables. Remember, these were Iron Curtain days and food was both scarce and expensive. The East Bloc existed purely for the benefit of the Soviet Union, which took the best of everything Poland (and other occupied Eastern European countries) had to offer. I have personally stood in a bread line for over three hours, starting before dawn, in order to buy our rationed loaf of bread. On a train, I once gave a small "brick" of coffee to a woman. She grabbed me in a tearful hug and said, "This would have cost me two month's salary."

Dinner the first day consisted of chicken breast and vegetables. On the second day, we had chicken thighs and vegetables. On the third day, we had chicken wings and vegetables. And on the fourth day, we had what was left over -- chicken intestines and vegetables.

Yes, chicken intestines. They had been prepared in a sweet and sour sauce in order to masquerade the taste of intestine, not to mention the gelatinous giblet paste that had been packed inside them. It looked terrible. It smelled revolting.

But I wasn't about to let these kids see me as a spoiled Westerner. No way. I was a Cool Dude Writer. I knew big words. I could eat anything and not complain. So I dug in and made a big deal of how much I loved the meal.

"Ummm, yum," I moaned with mock delight while nodding and smacking my lips.

I could see the kids watching me carefully while they picked at their vegetables. Vegetables only, mind you -- while ignoring the intestines -- which should have been a major clue. But I was oblivious to the clue because I was so focused on letting them know how cool I was.

I sliced off more bites - "Ummm, yum," I exclaimed while washing them down with the artificially brilliant yellow drink we had been given.

Suddenly, nearly every kid at the table began scraping their sweet-and-sour intestines onto my plate. "I'm not eating this stuff," they all began saying. The translaters, who interpreted for me, howled with laughter at the shocked look on my face.

Yes, those kids taught me a valuable lesson: don't try to be someone you're not.

So you see: being a know-it-all Cool Dude Writer isn't something I'm very good at. Someone always discovers the truth. My abruptly grounded ego notwithstanding, I have never eaten chicken intestines since.

White Death

I'm a junkie. An addict. And I have been for a long time. It's a confession that's hard to make, especially here in public, but "white death" has been a part of my life for a long time. Too long. It's a situation that probably wouldn't have changed had I not spread rose hips jam on my scone that fateful day. Never mind the butter. I'll save that for another day.

James Houston Turner

My wife, Wendy, sometimes gets on health kicks. She did it with millet. This time it was sugar. That friendly sweetener in the white porcelain bowl with the cute little spoon. The sweetener that put Hawaii on the map. The sweetener that made rhubarb pie edible. The sweetener that's naturally low in calories. Only 15 of the little buggers in every teaspoon. Which is not a lot. Except when you drink twelve of them in a can of soft drink. Or spread a hundred of them on a scone as I was doing.

And I got caught.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" Wendy asked.
"Making this scone taste really good," I replied. "Not that the millet didn't do the trick..."
"How can you say that when Otto Heinrich Warburg won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for proving sugar consumption causes cancer?"
"Otto who what?"
"He says the primary cause of cancer is sugar fermentation in the body. Sugar! White death! The stuff you're slathering on that scone! From now on, sugar is banned."
"You mean like pornography, assault rifles, and microwave popcorn?"
Wendy was in no mood for jokes. Sugar was banned.

My wife can sometimes take a hard line when it comes to health. No nonsense. Cut to the chase. And she can be rather "enthusiastic" with her convictions. This time, as usual, she had reasons that were pretty convincing. The rise in cancer did, in fact, match the rise in sugar consumption. Eating foods or drinking drinks with added sugar spikes insulin, which in turn promotes inflammation and acts as fertilizer for tumors (says neuroscientist, Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in his excellent book, Anticancer: A New Way of Life, pages 76-82 [Scribe Publications, 2008). He writes: "Those who eat low-sugar Asian diets tend to have five to ten times fewer hormonally-driven cancers [ie, breast and prostate] than those with diets high in sugar and refined foods. All the scientific literature points in the same direction: people who want to protect themselves from cancer should seriously reduce their consumption of sugar [including high-fructose corn syrup]. There is no limit on fruit, so long as it is not sweetened with sugar or syrup. Another option is to use natural sugar substitutes that don't cause a rise in blood glucose or insulin."

And this is where it gets interesting!

I came home one day to see money changing hands in our dining room. A wad of bills was being given to Wendy by a friend in exchange for a "key" (kilo) of white powder. The exchange was not taking place in some dark, seedy alley. It was taking place right there, in our dining room, in front of the gorgeous photos of our grandchildren.

Wendy was trafficking white powder. A mysterious white powder called xylitol.

Originally manufactured from birch bark (although now made from maize/corn husks and cobs), xylitol is a natural sugar substitute that tastes exactly like sugar. But it does not spike insulin levels like sugar and so is advertised as being safe for diabetics. And because of its anti-bacterial/anti-fungal properties, xylitol can be used to treat sore throats and ear infections. It has also been shown to strengthen bones, thus showing promise as a treatment for osteoporosis.

I had heard of xylitol because it helps remineralize teeth. Contrary to sugar, xylitol does not cause tooth decay, but actually helps restore teeth by killing bacteria. It also allows bio-available calcium to penetrate teeth. Having had massive radiation treatment on my face after my cancer operation, I now use a tooth mousse with xylitol that helps prevent gum erosion (a side-effect of radiation treatment). The results for me have been astounding.

So while sugar has indeed been banned in our house -- except small quantities for baking (xylitol's properties kills the yeast in Wendy's perfect bread) -- we now use this fantastic substitute.

But Wendy does not do things half-heartedly. She decided to order it in quantity. A large quantity. Meaning a big carton of the stuff arrived on our doorstep one day. It almost took a forklift to get it into the house. We took to selling it to friends and neighbors to whom she enthusiastically preaches the xylitol message.

So while my sugar addiction's been broken -- and without any night sweats or hard prison time -- I am now a dealer of xylitol for our sweet-toothed friends and neighbors. I don't know what my mom would think of all this: she was pretty old-fashioned about sugar. My dentist, on the other hand, is over the moon.

However, I'm still working pet names to replace the banned names of "sugar" and "sweetie."

A cool-dude writer with no remaining sugar addiction, author James Houston Turner pushes xylitol and writes thrillers from his home in Adelaide, South Australia. You may visit him at www.jameshoustonturner.com.

A Cool Dude Writer Eats His Own Words

How can you respect white bread? I mean, c'mon. Soft, airy-fairy, doughy, wimpy stuff that you can wad up into a tiny ball. Bugs won't eat it 'cause it's got zero nutrition. Mix it with water and it melts into this gooey, sticky mess. When the Bible says, "Cast your bread on the water and it will come back to you," I think it was referring to white bread. People on the other side of the lake don't want it. They send it back. Keep trying to send it to them and they'll come and burn down your village. Especially the bakery. No white bread.

I once had an upperclassman in my college fraternity who made me clean his room when I was a freshman pledge. He then took a slice of white bread and wiped the room down. Door tops. Tops of door casings. Chair rails. Places I didn't think to clean. He then made me eat the bread to teach me a lesson. Soon after, I switched to wholewheat.
Cool Dude Writers, of course, are kitchen magicians, and these days in our house we bake our own bread. I used to knead it by hand, but now we have a bread maker that makes the job real easy. We put in some water, olive oil, wholewheat baker's flour, dense wholemeal flour, whole grains, and a bunch of other stuff that magically turns into this fantastic elastic dough. You can then let it stay in the bread maker, where it bakes to golden perfection, or yank it out and divide into baguettes or little rolls, or pound out flat, throw high in the air in a circular motion, let flop on the counter, smear with tomato sauce and other goodies and bake as pizza on a stone in the oven. Over the years, Wendy and I have fine-tuned this recipe to our liking. It was perfect. Life was good. I was happy. No more white bread. Ever.
However, Wendy sometimes gets on health kicks and wants to start messing with perfection. You can see it in her eyes. They get this glassy, determined look, like a tiger about to strike.
And she had that exact look in her eyes the day she came home from the Adelaide Central Market and announced: "I'm adding millet to our bread."

Millet

If you don't know what millet is -- it's, well, bird seed, simple and plain. I once had a parakeet that loved millet. Parakeets are called "budgies" here in Australia -- short for budgerigar -- with the tight little Speedo swimming shorts that men wear called "budgie smugglers," for reasons I won't go into here.
Anyway, some countries consider millet a staple food. It's a grain that is extremely high in protein, as well as being alkaline. Too many acid foods and beverages -- like coffee, soft drinks, meat, white bread -- can create conditions favorable to disease. Alkaline foods help fight disease. That's why we need to eat fruits and veggies every day. Besides being full of nutrients, they are alkaline. So is millet. Which is why Wendy wanted to add it to our bread mix. Our perfect bread mix.
"I already eat enough alkaline foods," I explained. "Besides, our bread is perfect."
"This will make it better."
"You can't improve perfection."
"We won't know unless we try."
"Millet's bird seed! It'll ruin the bread!"
"No, it won't."
Foot down. Executive decision: "Yes, it will! Not going to happen!"
With glassy, determined look in her eye, like tiger about to strike: "Wanna bet?"
Wendy started to pour the millet into the bread maker.
I tried to stop her.
She dropped the cup.
Had it been flour, it would have made a messy pile on the counter and I would have wiped it up. But it was millet. And each of the thousand or so little grains was perfectly spherical, like micro-BBs. The stuff scattered everywhere. And then rolled even farther. Under furniture. In tiny cracks in our wooden floor. All across the living room rug. In fact -- all over the house. I knew I was in trouble by the dagger looks I was getting from the tiger.
"Oops," I said, smiling sheepishly. "I'll help you clean it up."
"No, you won't be helping me. Nor will I be helping you when you clean it up. The vacuum's in the garage."
I vacuumed millet for the next half hour, and to my surprise, I occasionally still find it hiding under bookcases and in other tight spots. And I'm a pretty good house cleaner.
But by far the greatest surprise was the bread. The millet added this kind of wild prairie taste that absolutely took our "perfect" bread to a whole new level. It was fantastic! And I cannot tell you how hard it is not to overdose on the stuff, especially when it comes fresh out of the oven. This stuff is perfection!
I feel obligated to take some of the credit here, because had I not protested the way I did, Wendy might have wimped out at the last minute and not added the millet. Think of what we would have missed out on had it not been for me. (I know, I know -- I don't swallow it, either. But I had to try.)
So this Cool Dude Writer had to eat his words that day. But by far my greatest surprise -- and pleasure -- was eating that bread. That perfect bread. So the next time you come over for dinner...
Originally from Baldwin, Kansas, author James Houston Turner takes partial credit for making perfect bread in his home in Adelaide, South Australia, where he writes thrillers and does his best to keep Wendy away from buckwheat, another alkaline grain. He loves flying Qantas and is astounded the company hasn't asked him to be their chief bread consultant. You may visit him at www.jameshoustonturner.com.