World Water Day is this Sunday, March 22nd. There are numerous events happening worldwide to draw attention to issues relating to clean drinking water. A listing of cities holding World Water Day events can be found here: http://www.worldwaterday.org/page/152.

New York City is hosting just such an event -- a three mile walk starting near The United Nations kicks off at 12:15. More information is also available on the World Water Day site here: http://www.worldwaterday.org/page/560.

More information about World Water Day can be found on the official World Water Day site: http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/

At some point in all of the radio interviews regarding Cool Waters I have done so far, a key question was asked by the hosts, "Are your water recipes low in calories?". It's true that I hadn't done an analysis of the actual calorie content of my drinks, I suspected they would be far lighter than any soda, juice, or sugary enhanced water on the market.

My suspicions were correct. Yesterday I diligently calculated every water recipe in the book and many of the results were quite stunning. Here are some details:

Cool Waters Recipes

Clean Spearmint Water - 0
Blueberry Twist - 8
Rain From Spain - 15
Sweet Tart - 19
Mango-Ginger “Beer” - 24

VS some of the most popular water-based beverages:

VitaminWater® Revive Fruit Punch™ - 50
Gatorade® - 50
Coca-Cola® - 97
Pepsi® - 100
Mountain Dew® - 110

For the comparison, I used an eight ounce portion of each beverage. A PDF of the calorie counts of all 40 recipes can be found here: cool_waters_calories.pdf. (You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the PDF.)

I just noticed that my last post to this blog was October 2008! Like so many other blogs, mine has been a little neglected lately. What can I say, I've been a little busy. We are raising two sons in Brooklyn, New York - an 8 month old baby and a 4 year old wild man. Being a self-employed food stylist fills the rest of my day. And my book was released in January of this year. I never realized how much work goes into promoting even the simplest of books. I was sure writing it was the hard part! It's truly a part-time job. Between radio interviews, answering questions from writers for magazines, newspapers, and food blogs, checking the statistics on Amazon.com, there is no end to the work. I can only imagine what big-time writers must face.

The efforts appear to be paying off, however. Cool Waters has been reviewed by many food sites, both big and small. And, while it might seem easy to find fault with a book of recipes on something as simple as water and ice, all the reviewers really understand what I was attempting to accomplish with this book. I like to think that the flavors I have created speak for themselves, and that this is a book that health-conscious (and those that would like to be more health-conscious) people want to add to their cookbook collections.

Here are links to all of the reviews of Cool Waters I have found so far:

Chow.com
Epicurious.com
Appetite For Books
Tasting Table Everywhere
Kalamazoo Gazette
Indystar.com
InMamasKitchen.com
The Modesto Bee
5 Second Rule
A Spice of Life
Tampa Bay Online
Phoenix New Times
The Budget Ecoist

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I am not working alone in getting the word out about Cool Waters. Howard Stelzer is the publicist at The Harvard Common Press, my publisher, and he has made most of this great exposure possible. If it were not for Howard's diligent work and extensive media contacts, my book would be sitting on bookstore shelves collecting dust. Thanks Howard!

January 2009 is coming up fast and The Harvard Common Press has begun to draw some attention to my soon to be released book, Cool Waters: 50 Refreshing, Healthy, Homemade Thirst Quenchers. They recently added it to the Upcoming Titles section on the opening page of their website.

A few days after noticing the presence of my book on their site, The HCP sent me their Winter/Fall 2009 cookbook catalog. I was astounded to see that Cool Waters is getting serious hype there as well - the first page and a half are devoted to the subject of flavoring water!

Here's a PDF of the catalog pages:
coolwaters.pdf

And more about Cool Waters can be found here:
www.coolwaterbook.com

Justin Schwartz, a senior editor at John Wiley & Sons, and a favorite cookbook client of mine, has blogged twice about a bread book I styled recently. There are some great behind the scenes photos of the bread table and the photographer, Alexandra Grablewski, hard at work.

Thanks for the positive feedback on my work, Justin. Eighteen slow-rise breads in two days was not an easy feat to pull off, I'm happy to hear that you thought it was a big success. Can't wait to see the finished book!

Justin's two postings about Kneadlessly Simple can be found here:
http://justcooknyc.blogspot.com/2008/09/lot-of-bread.html
http://justcooknyc.blogspot.com/2008/09/really-really-good-bread.html