We Like It Raw - Raw Food Goodness

Raw vs Dunkin

Below is something I wrote for Get Fresh magazine… the very cool raw food rag printed in the UK.  You can buy copies, current and past issues, at oneluckyduck.com, and soon at some Whole Foods too.  Sweet. 

Eating a raw food diet is still considered alternative.  On the fringe.  People don’t understand it.  What is so hard to understand?  Food that naturally grows from the earth, fed by sunlight.  No one disputes that fresh fruits and vegetables are full of good things, and that generally, people should be eating more of them.  Everyone seems to know now that nuts are good, full of “good” fats.  Flax, sesame, hemp and more… most would recognize that these are also good foods.  Yet, if I went on a road trip across the U.S., I know that there would be long stretches of driving where I would be hard pressed to find places where I could conveniently find and purchase natural and clean food.  I would likely encounter a lot of people who would find my eating preferences unusual and odd.  But I wonder, if I eat a raw food diet, does that mean that so many others out there are on a processed food diet?  Are there enthusiastic processed foodists?  For these people, is there an inspiring magazine called “Get Processed”?

I used to drive out of New York City to Maine very often in the summertime.  To get to a small waterfront town, we passed through Augusta, the capital of Maine.  Turning off the highway, it was a short drive through the center of Augusta to get to the road which took us further east to the shore.  On this very brief stretch is one fast food shop after another.  Literally.  And not just one of each.  I would count three Dunkin Donuts.

Dunkin Donuts is America’s largest retailer of coffee by the cup, selling 1 billion cups per year, or 30 cups a second.  They also sell, of course, donuts.  I don’t know how many donuts they sell, but according to their website, if you lined them up end by end, you would circle the earth 5.8 times with donuts.  If we knew the average length of a donut, we could extrapolate for the exact number, but the point is, they sell a lot of donuts.  With 7,000 locations worldwide serving 3 million customers a day, they also must sell a massive volume of their other food products, such as muffins, cookies and bagels.  Their list of “breakfast sandwiches” is a giant jumble of various combinations of the words egg, sausage, cheese, ham, bacon, croissant, bagel and biscuit.  You can choose from a long list of “beverages” such as a 500 calorie Vanilla Coolatta with which to wash one of these down.  Or you could have coffee - but if you don’t want plain old coffee, they have blueberry flavored coffee.  Blueberry coffee?  Does that actually appeal to anyone?  Out of morbid curiosity, I want to go sample some. 

Finding Clarity in the Blender: The Green Shake

This post is a bit more upbeat than the last - no curse words, cranky complaining, cynicism or sarcasm.  Writing down your thoughts is, in itself, therapeutic.  But when you post it on the web and lots of people read it and give you all kinds of thoughtful feedback, well, that’s free therapy. I’ve learned a lot.  THANK YOU!!!

Since it’s impractical for me to drop everything right now and run off to an Ashram to find myself, I had to see how I might be able to conduct the search locally.  How do I do this, in my “spare” time?  What spare time?  How do I find solitude in New York City for some good self-awareness?  And when?  This has been an ongoing exploration.

I’ve also kind of yearned for a return of that ‘honeymoon’ excitement that I felt when first going ‘raw’.  Raw and I have been married (though we have a pretty open relationship) for over four years now.  Isn’t four years the point at which marriages are said to go stale?  If you make it beyond four years, you’re solid, but it’s also a pretty common time to break apart?  Am I making this up?

Meanwhile, I’ve been noticing this pattern more and more whereby things happen such as the following:  pick a book randomly off the shelf without thinking too much about it, open it to any page with genuine curiosity, gaze anywhere your eyes land on that page, and you might just find yourself reading something eerily relevant. Or maybe you’re not sure how it’s relevant, but it makes you think, inspires you to do something, or at least causes one of those “note to self” moments.  Or maybe none of it’s clear at all, but you (knowingly or not) end up tucking something away from it nevertheless.  I feel like this happens when you’re not looking for it, whatever it is.  It just has a way of finding you.  As long as you’re open.  Or maybe this is always happening, but you have to be clear minded enough to notice it, and take it for what it is: guidance.

Sex, Pain, Madness and One Lucky Duck

Warning: This post is really long, and gets really personal, with lots of curse words, and is all very self-serving. But kind of entertaining, hopefully? 

I just finished reading a book – yes, I’ve been reading lately. It was by the British chef Marco Pierre White, “Devil in the Kitchen – Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef”. It’s a good title… because who doesn’t want to read about sex? From a hot chef? And pain and madness? Well yes, that too. It’s inspiring to read about people who know what they want and go through a lot to get it. But pain and madness? Is that what it really takes to achieve greatness? Does everyone have to toil tirelessly, sacrifice health, get hurt, worn down, and knocked down over and over, feel pain, and teeter on the edge of madness? If so… I’m SO on the right track! YAY!

I’m being convinced, however, that maybe I can step away from that edge and still get where I’m going, and probably much faster. After all, I’m supposed to represent the brand – One Lucky Duck and Pure Food and Wine, we’re all about raw food and feeling great. When I first went raw the contrast was amazing. So much of the time I felt like I could do anything – life was a dance party. As I pointed out in Raw Food Real World, it can feel a bit like being on ecstasy – maybe not quite, but still it’s amazing. It’s been four years now - did I get used to it and/or is it stress and pressure that just put a damper on it all? I want the dance party back!

Dinner and a Movie with Farmer John

Or I guess it was movie and then dinner… but with Farmer John – as in, John Peterson, the subject of the important documentary film “The Real Dirt on Farmer John”.  It’s not just important, it’s also lovely, thoughtful, quirky, inspiring, and extremely honest.  I attended a pre-opening screening of this movie, and then the following night sat for dinner in the corner of our garden with Farmer John himself, the movie director Taggart and the movie’s publicist Teri.   

I haven’t posted a blog in ages, and this one is a bit out of the blue, but it just felt like the right thing to do to help put the word out.  Anyone who knows me, the restaurant, the brand, and whatever I/we do, knows that I have no specific ‘raw’ food agenda.  What everything ultimately boils down to however is thoughtfulness.  In this case, thinking more about the origin of your food seems to be the point.  However, it quickly becomes about much more than that, as anyone who in fact starts to think about the origin of their food knows.  Onward you go to start thinking more and more about all the other things that we all use and consume as we plow through life.  Like, why does everything have to come packaged in a “blister” pack?  Does anyone like them?  Are they not a colossal waste?  And think of all the blood shed, as people turn with frustration to scissors or knives to pry them open.  Why why why?  Is everything really all about marketing…?  Do I think too much?

It can quickly become overwhelming, and with so many distractions all around it becomes easy to avoid thinking.  About what we do and say and how we spend our time, with who and why. And what for.   

Some movies are pure escapism entertainment.  But others make you think, and I suppose documentaries in particular.  That’s the whole point.  “The Real Dirt on Farmer John” is special on so many levels.  John asked me how much time I’ve spent on farms.  Um… zero?  Still, I knew he would get me and what I’m doing.  And I don’t mean just about our food at the restaurant - that’s the obvious connection and easy to talk about.  We could talk about the meaning of organic, what it means to be biodynamic, the importance of eating naturally and less processed all around, and we did that.  But the connection I felt watching the film was to someone who followed and continues to follow his heart.   

So go see the movie this weekend, and… as always…visit me at oneluckyduck.com or Pure Food and Wine.

Love, Sarma

Related

• Farmer John's Trailer
• Sarma's Blog Posts

Valentine’s Day – Love and Food

I’ve not posted in months.  For anyone who gives a crap, SORRY!  If I could do what I want to do, I’d have more time to do exactly this, because it’s fun, among other reasons.  I have pages and pages of blog postage that I spit out over the last few months and then just never seemed to find time to pull together and now it feels very outdated.  Not to mention, I just get embarrassed and feel like… really?  does anyone really give a shit about what I ate for breakfast?  Really? But maybe I’ll tidy it up, pull it together and throw it out there, why not. Someone encourage me please and I’ll do it.

Here's something I wrote on Valentine's day:

Valentine’s Day!!  It can be kind of like New Year’s Eve… too much expectation which leads only to disappointment.  Here’s what I’ve learned: don’t expect anything.  Then you’ll never be disappointed.  Rely on yourself.  Love yourself.  And everyone else, but really, if you don’t treat yourself well, why should anyone else?  Anyone who knows me and is reading this will be shouting things about pots and kettles calling each other black, whatever that saying is… because I’m told constantly I need to take better care of myself - but who takes their own advice anyway? 

This whole sappy ‘loving yourself’ bit ought to tie in nicely with the whole raw food/lifestyle theme - of eating well and all of that, but that feels obvious to me.  Or am I just used to it?  But it really should be obvious, no?  Eat really good organic fresh food – anything else in excess is just slow self destruction.  That’s bolder than what I usually say, but really, it’s true.  Green juice and salads are my comfort food.

My last post was all about how shitty and fat I was feeling… in a very time and energy wasting, silly female kind of way.  I’m just being honest.  Some days I’ve felt great, other days, I’ve been a bit less than secure, almost feeling like I don’t deserve anything because, really, if you don’t look good why should anyone love you?  OH dear.  Did I just let that out??  Anyway, seems that some of us learn, through all sorts of subtle means, personal experiences and other feedback, that it’s all about how you look.   Well, not really.  No really.  Really?  What it really is, is confusing as hell.  Rationally you know it’s not the case, but then those feelings seep in, lured into our consciousness by the things we read, see, perceive around us.  But what I’ve been figuring out is that there is quite a bit of power in what you feel inside and project outward.  I think.  Or at least that’s what I tell myself.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop obsessing about wanting to drop additional poundage.  But what so happens is that the less I obsess about it, the more that weight seem to just naturally dissolve.  Easier said than done.  More on this some time later.  OH yes, and being in love helps too (trying to stick with the theme here).  Being loved back by the person you love can fill you up so you’re not hungry.  That and it’s distracting in the best possible way - and of course, some people eat excessively either out of boredom, procrastination or specifically to distract themselves from something that is more difficult to face.  I’ve done the latter two a lot, but I think I’ve learned from it, finally.  And these days, I’ll just say I’m distracted in the best possible way, and so happy for it. 

This holiday of sorts can suck hard if you’re without a clearly designated Valentine - but only if you let it.  It’s pretty great if you can be happy with your self enough to also be happily single.  Still, hard to do if you sometimes feel all sorts of insecurity.  Or if you’ve been burned.  Or if you’ve been burned in a way that’s made you so cynical about love that you put your heart away in a lockbox.  Can anyone say that word anymore without thinking of Al Gore, or is it just me?  OK back to what I was saying.  Hard to be a cheerful soul on this lovey-dovey holiday if you’re so angry and hardened and don’t trust anyone.  It’s hard to look back at having been in love when you realized it wasn’t really forever like you thought it was, and you ended up in pain over it.  Life isn’t easy, nor should it be, because really, then it would be totally boring and what could be worse than a boring life?  Which is why people should embrace pain… sounds a bit twisted but pain is living, and living is good.  I’ve noticed that if you accept pain and allow it to fill you up, the easier it dissipates.  Who am I to say this, and where is this coming from??  I should be writing about peace, love and raw food, not pain!

So back to love:  When you’re in love, make sure you love that person for who they are, not what they do for you, or what you want them to be, or do, or how you want them to make you feel.  Love without expectations.  Love without worrying so much about the future.  It feels really good that way.  And love all the people around you out of compassion.  Love people who don’t know better.  Love even people who are not nice to others, because those people are probably in pain.  Find a way to fill yourself up and feel secure enough to open your heart.  That’s when the good stuff happens.  Love makes the world revolve.  Put it out there and it comes back to you.  And it feels nice.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  Eat well. 

Sarma

Sexyback: Sarma’s Raw Confessions

It seems forever that every Friday I have been telling myself, “OK, this is the weekend that I’m going to catch up on sleep, finally clean up the colossal disaster that is my desk at the One Lucky Duck office, deal with ridiculously important and long neglected paperwork, finish outlining those business plans, complete the budgets to go with them; I will go to the gym, run those errands only I can run for myself, call my parents, finish painting my bathroom, return all the emails I’ve been ignoring, stop to smell the (organic) coffee… I will also conquer the world, and… yes, for sure before this weekend is over I’m finally going to spit out a long overdue blog for welikeitraw.com!”

The reality is that my desk still exists under a sea of chaos, my errands undone, parents neglected, budgets not completed, world not yet conquered (though I’m getting there), emails piling up like mad, and I’ve not seen the gym in months.  However, here I am writing a blog post.  I decided the only way I could do it would be to do it in a way that helps me too… sorry, I’m totally being selfish.  I get so many e-mails telling me that our book has been a life-changing inspiration, which is a humbling honor, and here I am feeling like I’ve fallen off the very happy wagon around which my life now happily revolves.  But now I could use some help (and that’s not something easy to admit). 

It seems I’m not really taking care of myself as I bury my head in sand dunes of work.  And the silly part is that so much of what I do essentially revolves around taking care of others, with my time and often with my advice, which I’m in effect dispensing but now not following.  As a result, I’m feeling quite… crappy.  Just last summer I was twenty pounds (yes, twenty!) lighter than I am today.  I do admit… everyone at the time was telling me I was way too skinny - and as gratifying as I most often found those comments (in the most dysfunctional female sort of way, lapping up everyone’s concern as well as the envy of other equally vain and dysfunctional females), I did realize that I was in fact too thin (yes, it’s possible). 

Here’s the thing… Nicole Richie, the Olsen twins… sexy?  Not really.  Scarlett Johanssen?  YES!!  And if you adjust for height, their weight difference is significant, which is something people like me need to keep reminding themselves.  Yet why do I still feel the need shed pounds so that people will start calling me skinny again? 

Despite the happy medium that I know exists, somewhere over this past winter and early summer I managed to ride the fat train way past the Happy Medium stop.  So now I find myself in that zone where, even though I hide it reasonably well, I just don’t like the extra luggage I’m toting around.  I could probably write pages and pages about all of this, particularly about all the emotional reasons why these things happen (why do we sometimes so deliberately sabotage ourselves??).  The point is, that even while consuming (almost entirely) all raw foods, I’ve managed to find my way back to a place where I’m once again stressing about what I eat, even when it’s mostly raw, organic and good for me.  ARGH!!  What I really want is to be strong.  I’d like to be able to feel like I can kick anyone’s ass.  Run a marathon.  Swim the English Channel.  Leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Eating organic food, raw food, fresh food… it makes you feel so much better in your skin.  But still… I’ve felt really good for so long that my standards have shifted, to where these days I just feel, as David Jubb would say, less than excellent.

As I practically live at Pure Food and Wine, I’m in an entirely food-oriented environment all day every day.  We have the most delicious all-raw ice cream (in flavors like almond butter cup, chocolate brownie and more) sitting in pints in the freezer case.  I hear them calling my name, I swear.  These pints have voices that carry.  So I guess it’s not so shocking I could pack on an extra layer of insulation.  Though there has to be more, since at times I’ve eaten a pint of chocolate ice cream for breakfast day after day, and been lean like a string bean.  What else?  Too many business dinners out at lovely (not raw) restaurants where I am compelled (by culinary curiosity, of course) to try different foods.  And more?  Since everything at the restaurant is made fresh each morning, whatever is left at the end of dinner service ends up as the Midnight HungryStaff Buffet… so with stress and maybe a few too many sake-tinis, I often find my way to the trough with the rest of the staff to nosh, like a deprived little piglet, even though I’m not truly hungry at all.  At least not in my stomach, which is exactly the issue:  I’m much less hungry on raw foods, but that’s not the point when there seem to be other things going on in my head that make the distraction of eating appealing.  Figuring out what those are would be helpful.  But the biggest problem is exercise and I know this.  I seem to tire myself out with work so that I feel too tired to exercise.  There always seems to be something urgent needing attention, so while I might plan to work out for an hour before getting in the shower in the morning, it just doesn’t happen because I find myself racing to my office or the restaurant (where, did I mention, we have tons of yummy yum yum food everywhere?!).   

The upside of all this is that I feel like at least it’s a learning process… and maybe baring all in writing could be helpful to someone else too.  Here I am looking for something good about feeling like a stuffed kielbasa.  I don’t know what is going on exactly… personal crisis?  Pressure?  Looking for love in the refrigerator?  Contrary to what (I think) Juliano was once quoted as saying, we can’t all eat ALL the raw food we want, sit on a couch and “get ripped”.  I’m proof.  And before someone yells at me for calling myself “fat”, I am fully aware that I’m not FAT by most standards.  I just don’t feel good right now.  Not good, not strong, not hot, not sexy.  At least not too much of the time.  At least not like I did after I first went raw and for the next couple of years.  And that’s how I want to feel again.

SO, tomorrow (or today, as I’m writing this at 4:30am, don’t ask!!) I’m going to start a ‘cleanse’ of sorts.  Nothing dramatic or scary in the least, so if you’re hoping for more personal tales of a very graphic nature as those I previously shared, (which mortified my father when he read them), I’m not expecting to have any this time.  But who knows what will happen, that’s the fun part.  So… once this is posted, that’s it, I’m committed.  Hopefully when I come out of the delirium that has set in from still being awake now at the buttcrack of dawn, I will not regret having sent this along to Dhru and now being on the hook to document my progress, or lack thereof.  But as I often like to do, I’ll just dive into the deep end with no life raft and hope for the best.

Stay tuned… I’ll do my best to write about what’s working, what’s not, what I’m eating, what I’m not and when I’m cheating (if I do).  And hopefully I’ll figure out a way to get myself inspired all over again.  We’ll see. I want Sexy Back.  I want to learn how to dance like Justin Timberlake too.  Did I just write that?  Oh dear…

Realted

• Sarma's old posts
• One Lucky Duck - Bringing Sexy Back
• Pure Food and Wine

Cocktail Hour Cleansing with the Master Cleanse Tini

I am always surprised by how many people have heard of, or even themselves done, the Master Cleanse (herein after referred to as the “MC”) … What is it?  Developed by a Mr. Stanley Burroughs, a researcher of disease and “toxemia”, the MC entails drinking, all day long for at least ten days, water mixed with lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper.  This concoction is meant to allow a cleansing and rejuvenation of the system.  It doesn’t taste bad… in fact it’s quite refreshing and pleasantly spicy.  The bad part is that each morning, you’re supposed to also drink a glass of water with entirely gnarly amounts of salt in it.  It would not be wise to consume this just before running out the door, as it apparently causes everything to be flushed out within 30 or so minutes.  I tried to do the MC once myself.  I have this potentially dangerous habit of wanting to try everything.  As I write this (actually revise) I’m consuming a glass of water in which I added drops of a liquid that is supposed to remove all the heavy metals from my body.  I also just noticed that I’m also at this moment listening to heavy metal… a potential conflict?  Anyway.  Maybe I’ll report more on the heavy metal experiment in an upcoming post.

My own MC experiment did not last long.  My first (and only) salt-sludge water morning immediately made me want to hurl and I could not get it all down.  I personally don’t like to force things on my body that seem very unnatural (here I go, contradicting myself all over place in this post and the last)… or particularly unpleasant.  The lemonade drink part I could handle… again, it tastes good.  Unfortunately, trying to do a fast of any kind in a restaurant like mine is not easy, and by the end of the night I was snacking on freshly cut pineapple from the juice bar.  Oh well.  I still don’t understand the name.  MASTER cleanse.  Anyway. 

Some people swear by it.  It has certainly received enough attention.  A few people on the staff at our restaurant (who clearly have more discipline than me) last summer successfully completed the ten days.  As we tend to have a very family-like atmosphere, some of us non-cleansers kept taking drinks from their special thermoses, quite liking this spicy sweet lemonade.  What is the point of all this?  There was a recent posting somewhere online about the MC – can’t remember where – that some of us were reading and found particularly funny.  Anyway, I guess it was also a reminder of how much we liked that lemonade.  A few nights ago, I was in our dungeon accounting office, sweating like a piglet, reconciling numbers like the nerd that I am, and my lovely and super-talented sous chef Rebecca comes over with a particularly pretty new ‘tini on a tray.  We have a lot of cocktails on the menu at Pure Food and Wine.  No hard liquor.  They are all made with sake and/or sparkling wine and very seasonal.  For example, in the fall, we get fragrant and freshly pressed concord grape juice from the greenmarket, add sake, pour it over ice, and call it Purple Haze.  Having new cocktails unexpectedly brought over for me to taste is always a welcome surprise for me, particularly when I’m stressed out, which is more often than not.

So this drink Rebecca carried on the tray was a beautiful amber color, the martini glass rimmed with shiny amber crystals of date sugar.  I asked her what it was and she said, “Try it first… then I’ll tell you.”  So I did, and it was really good.  Lemony-tart, sweet and with a spicy kick.  WHY did it taste so familiar??  She said, “It’s a Master Cleanse-Tini!!!”  Lemon juice, a touch of maple syrup, a pinch of cayenne, and of course… sake, shaken over ice and then strained into a martini glass.   Brilliant.  And so good.   It’s a few days later now, we’ve added it to our cocktail menu, and I’ve just had three of them at the bar.  This is Pure Food and Wine’s take on the MC.  And probably as close as I’ll ever get to actually doing the MC again myself.

As always, come visit me at my nest.

Cheers,
Sarma

Related

• The Master Cleanser: more wonderful information on the master cleanse

The Raw Honeymoon

And all the crazy things it makes us do...

The Raw Honeymoon: the period right after we’ve “discovered” being raw, and all the exciting things that come with it, while we are so enamored with the raw gurus and all the raw-related weird activities that are supposed to scrub us clean from the inside out.   I assume some people know what I am talking about.  Or… is it just me?

Anyway.  Here’s what happens, (and I can spot anyone in the raw honeymoon period, because I went through it myself):  raw food… the concept, the way it makes you feel, the outright logic and glory of it all… it’s the newness factor.  We are getting to know our new spouse, with whom we intend to live out the rest of our healthy, happy lives.  It’s so thrilling… so new.  We want to share it with everyone, in the very same way that when you fall in love, you want to run to the top of the empire state building and shout it out to everyone.  You want to run and do cartwheels in the street, and hug random people and tell them how beautiful life is.  REALLY, this is what very often happens with the love of raw food, and the new-found energy that comes with it. 

Here’s what else happens… we worship the gurus of raw food. Not too unlike getting into a cult… we become believers and wide-eyed receptacle sponges of the raw wisdom being dispensed by the gurus we are worshiping.   I still worship a few of them, though it’s all been tempered since with a healthy dose of rationality.  Who am I talking about?  David Wolfe… whose seminars, back in the day, I would leave poorer by $500, but with a bag of powders, pills, goji berries, and also a hearty injection of confidence and enthusiasm that is priceless… which goes a long way.  Who else?  David Jubb… LOVE him.  Love him and the sweet vanilla flavored milk from brazil nuts that I first had from his store on 12th street which got me hooked.  Drinking brazil nut milk, tasting raw crackers, buying big tubs of the best tropical smelling coconut butter… all the while gazing at alarmingly vivid photos of “passed” gall stones on the wall.  Then being told that our own gall bladders are surely full of similar alien little greenish blobs and we really must do the thirty-day “gallstone flush”.  Of course, I tried it.  More on that another day.

It’s coming up on three years since I first “went raw”, as I did, in an overnight-with-no-transition sort of way.  In the excitement of it all, I was very open to the ‘cleansing’ practices I kept reading about, yet too enthusiastically impatient to do my own research on or at all contemplate some of the much touted procedures and practices.  Instead, being the good sport that I am, I just went ahead and did things.  For example, plain old colonics not being interesting enough, at the recommendation of the colon therapist, I agreed to let her give me a fresh wheatgrass juice “implant”.  I didn’t bother to take the time to understand what wheatgrass up your butt is supposed to do for you.  But I figured, why NOT?  In the end, I didn’t really notice anything different, except that for the rest of the week I walked around half expecting little dandelions to start sprouting from my ass.

Yes, what a good sport I am.  Here’s another example:  a certain well-known, very good looking, very lovely and quite brilliant guru amongst us has certain very unique talents.  One is that he is known to be able to “read” people… like a book that tells you what is right or wrong on the inside.  Being very intrigued myself, I felt honored that he did this for me, and after he gazed into my eyes, checked out my tongue, poked and prodded a bit, he diagnosed me with a “situation”.  He kept his hand on my abdomen.  His explanation sounded very compelling, though I had no idea what he was talking about, except that it was a female oriented issue.  To fix this “situation” of mine, on which I could not get him to clearly elaborate, he gave me progesterone to take, as well as a few of these home made herbal little balls wrapped in saran wrap he pulled from the freezer.  And I’m supposed to shove these icy little concoctions up my you-know-what.  I was so transfixed by him, that I bought the stuff and did it, thinking that whatever my "situation" was, I'd be healed...

Then a couple days later I had a SERIOUS itching problem... I hobbled over to his store, trying my best to ignore the inferno down below.  After explaining what was happening to me, the girl behind the counter was like, "OH MY GOD!!  You mean he FORGOT to tell you that you're supposed to douche it out afterwards??"  So I'd been walking around all this time with these gnarly herbs leaking out of me, making me itch like a madwoman.  Lovely, right??

There you go… can you get more “real” than that?  Rest assured, I’ve settled comfortably into this marriage with raw foods.  Honeymoon over.  I’m still all about fresh fruits and vegetables, but I now only put them in my mouth.  And I still feel better than ever in this happy union that feels so right.  And I still think life is beautiful.

Sarma

p.s. Visit me at www.oneluckyduck.com

Keeping it Real: Not a religion and not about rules

I am sitting in the restaurant Pure Food and Wine, (my home), at my favorite corner table, very late, yet still early enough that it's full of people, energy, and loud music (for which we are often given a hard time, but is just all part of the fun).  The very fact that these LOUD and rowdy groups are here, and very likely, I am guessing, not vegetarian/vegans, in fact warms the cockles of my heart.  How far this “crazy” idea of raw food has come, and yet how far there is still to go…

Given that it's still January (though with the balmy weather in NYC you'd never guess), I'm going to leverage the New Year's theme for one more post… as I've been hearing so much still about resolutions (mostly broken ones!).  I don't like to make resolutions, because I'm one of those people that sees a rule and wants to break it.  If I see boundaries I want to cross them.  People ask about my 'diet' all the time… “Oh… you're not allowed to eat this, are you?”… my stubborn response, at least in my head, is always… I can eat whatever I want… I just don't want to eat that big plate of crispy fries with sweet ketchup.  I swear.

I always remember how I felt, shortly after going raw, when I sat in a midtown restaurant across from a friend who ordered filet mignon (I went straight from carnivore to raw vegan, no inbetween).  My friend, from my Wall Street days past, ate the entire juicy filet, all the fries on his plate, and left behind the ten or so peas that were the only thing around remotely qualifying as vegetable.  At the time, I happened to have just begun my first and only gallstone-cleanse… (again, more on that later - I should really keep a tally of all the things on which I'm supposed to one day soon elaborate).  All I had was a glass of water.  After he ordered, I was preparing myself for a good twenty minutes or so of torture.  My concern was that I would not hear a word of his side of our conversation, as I'd be silently obsessing over what was on his plate - my eyes following fork from plate to mouth back to plate, the way your cat does, if you have one.

I had not eaten anything all day except some horrid tasting oxymag evilness and cider vinegar concoction (that I will never consume again).  Now I was on water.  But very oddly I was not even remotely wanting what he was eating, and it didn't bother me to sit there, and in fact, I forgot about it as we talked and talked.  And after we left, I felt so good.  Relieved, and almost empowered. So when people ask me what I can and cannot eat, I can nicely convey that I can eat whatever I want, I just don't want to eat that.  I'm not following any rules.  It's not a religion.  There's no prescriptions.  No percentages.  I am not among the raw food heads who proudly announces, “I'm 97.5% raw!”… Who's counting?  And who cares?  Get over yourself.  It's a gift just to have this awareness, and feel so great as a result.

What's my point?  Just that this is not difficult, and does not feel like deprivation, as many people assume it would.  What do I really crave?  Foods such as fresh greens, pineapple, avocado… like never before.  It was promised that I'd share recipes, so here is my less than graceful segue into offering up a recipe (with avocado in it, and not already existing in the book).  And SORRY… I'm not going to put exact quantities.  There is no editor to force me into what is not necessary for many recipes, particularly salads.  If I wrote, “8 ounces of greens”… is ANYone going to pull out a scale and weigh them?  I really hope not. 

So here you are: 

MOOD - there's a reason why it rhymes with FOOD

It's a new year… a time meant for reflections and resolutions.  I had a full hangover day to think about these things, when I wasn't drifting back into sleep.  As reported by our tasty young co-hosts from welikeitraw.com, our party here at Pure Food and Wine was just silly - I don't recall ever having a more fun New Year's Eve.  Recall being a key word, since it's all a bit hazy, in a good way. 

SO January 1st, back to reality, the day that so many of us out there (probably mostly girls too) swear that we're going to be 'good' and loose that stubborn 5 to 10 pounds, or whatever it is.  How hard can it be?  Eat less, exercise more?  The problem is, it's not about that.  It's all wrapped up in personal history, emotion and mood, with a big wad of anxiety tossed in. 

When I made the rather sudden switch to raw foods, the shift in my relationship with food that came with it felt like a huge relief.  I was a typical over-achieving girl in high-school and college (loooong time ago!) who turned to 'disorderly' eating as a distraction from the real issues that otherwise would have been bothersome to have to dwell on.  Better to beat myself up over something else, of course!  But now this was the first time in my life that food in fact became something more meaningful, but in a good way… it's not just about me anymore, and my own loopy obsessions and tastes, it's also about the future… hopefully a sustainable one.  For the first time, eating to feel good became the focus… an idea that seems obvious, yet most of us don't get it.  Eat crap = feel like crap.  Eat fruit = feel fresh and yummy.  Eat chemicals = get weird diseases.  Eat natural = be naturally healthy, like we're supposed to be.  Eat raw = live long.  And feel happy. 

MOOD.  There's a reason why it rhymes with FOOD.  Eat just enough of what you really, really, really want, (what you know will make you feel good) and surprise… you'll feel good.  Of course, SO MUCH easier said than done - I know this as well as anyone.  More on that later. 

What is my favorite feel good food?  Pink grapefruit.  And they're in season - and they're perfect to mask the otherwise yucky flavor of my favorite supplement, the chlorophyll packed E3-Live frozen algae.  Cut a few grapefruits in half, scoop the sections and juice into a big glass or medium bowl, (or you can just use grapefruit juice, but I like the pulpy sections), add a couple tablespoons of thawed E3-Live, and some stevia or agave nectar or raw honey for sweetness, and stir.  I usually add some of David Wolfe's Nature's First Food too just for good measure.  All but the grapefruits can be found at oneluckyduck.com (of course!).  It looks like murky swamp water, and will scare all your  non-like-minded friends, but it tastes excellent, and of course, feels good.  E3-Live is among the only supplements where I felt like I could in fact legitimately notice a difference... love it.

So my last piece of eating-related advice, if this is in fact what I am dispensing here and now, has to do with… music.  I'll elaborate more soon, but put on your favorite song, and feed your soul.  Usually that's what's really hungry.  Happy New Year! 

Airport musing from Sarma

I am all wired up in an airport lounge, with computer, ipod, phone… feeling very connected.  I'm on my way to Istanbul… armed with a full bottle of enzymes in my carry-on. People always ask… what do you eat when you're traveling?  How do you stay raw?  The answer is, or at least my answer is, that you do the best you can, take your enzymes and think of it as a time to be flexible and try new things. 

Having a food background, I can be very curious and open-minded, particularly in other countries. I avoid stepping off the raw wagon for anything boring, but will set one foot on the ground for tastes of those foods that are unique to wherever I am, though being moderate, and filling in the gaps with as much salad and fruit as I can. And of course, popping enzyme capsules. One of the things I love about Istanbul (I've been once before) is that all the bars and clubs bring… sliced fruits and vegetables as bar snacks!  A very nice custom, I think, in place of the salty pretzels you would get at any typical bar in the U.S.   

Which brings me to airports in the U.S. and airplane food.  For me, it's not worth eating crap just because I feel hungry.  When flying, or on long car trips, I don't worry too much about trying to load up with raw snacks, and for god's sake, I don't travel with a Vita-Mix!  That was among the sillier things I read in some raw food books - travel with your Vita-Mix.  I'm loaded up with enough stuff, I can't imagine hauling a massive blender overseas.  How embarrassing.  Why not drag my Excalibur too?  Plant my own wheatgrass on the hotel room balcony? 

I'd rather just fast - this is my usual air travel strategy.  As traveling wears you down enough, it's nice to give yourself a break. Of course, as I type this right now, I'm munching from a bag of goji berries that I swiped from our oneluckyduck.com stock before I left.  It's all because of David Wolfe… he wrote somewhere that you should load up on anti-oxidants to protect against the bodily hazards of flying, and my raw guru friend Doug reminded me of this as well. There apparently may be no better antioxidant source than the lovely goji.  Then there was an article I read a while back in one of the top fashion magazines about fighting cellulite via your diet, quoting a doctor who claimed that there is no better cellulite fighting food than… the goji berry!  This was no raw food, veggie mag either, it was Harper's Bazaar.  When most people have never even heard of goji's, here was a mainstream, high-end fashion magazine writing that gojis fight flab.  At that moment, had it been possible, I would have run out to buy goji futures.  As I see it, they're not just for flying… anytime is goji time.

As I sit snacking on these little dried red berries like a bear (and washing them down with Prosecco - not like a bear), to my right is a very large and fleshy woman eating Lays potato chips, to my left, another (also of the soft and pillowy variety) with a plastic plate full of crackers and scary cheese in foil wrappers.  Neither looks particularly healthy or energized, nor happy, but perhaps that's because we're at an airport.  I want to pull out a handful and offer, “Gojis anyone??  The Ultimate Happy Berry!?” No, they wouldn't think I was weird at all… but I'm happy.  Time to board...

Not Perfect, Just Real! (Sarma's debut)

This is my first blog post ... ever.  What to write about? Writing a whole book somehow felt less daunting, though when it was finally published I could not believe that all those words, written during delirious late nights in front of the computer, were out there in print, and that anyone would even care. The most heartwarming part is that it seems people do, hence this blog.

Discovering raw foods changed my life in the most profound ways, and what still boggles my crowded mind is the "discover" part of it. How and why is it something to be discovered? My first thoughts were, why didn't anyone TELL me this earlier??? How could I not have seen it all earlier, as it seems so plainly intuitive?  For me, a meat-eating, food, restaurant and art-of-cooking loving, generally stubborn person, this was a big leap. It seemed to me, that if anyone and everyone was made aware of the facts, research, basic principles behind eating vegan foods and raw foods, how could anyone do otherwise?  I suppose it's the same reason that people still smoke cigarettes.  However, it's safe to say that everyone out there is at least now aware of the consequences.  And that's okay.  We should all do what we want with and to ourselves... for the near term or long term. But at least we're aware.

The effects of eating processed foods, meats and dairy, cooked foods, are unfortunately not out there as common, undeniable knowledge (and of course, I don't need to preach to the choir here). However, my overall goal is to influence this to the extent that I can, and to do so in the least threatening, pushy, dogmatic, militant way. I don't want to pretend to be the perfect organic raw foodist - just a real one, doing the best I can to keep myself happy and healthy and to help anyone who wants any guidance from someone they can hopefully relate to, flaws and all. People are very sensitive about what they eat... I am too. There is a lot of emotion, history and habit attached to it.

Most people reading this are probably already "into" the whole raw food thing, though I don't really know. What I want to know is what you want to read about? I'm happy to blabber on about my thoughts, things I find challenging personally, things I think are helpful for others who may be transitioning to raw foods, or simply feeling challenged - recipes, ideas, gossip, anything - please let me know. What I can promise is that I'll be open, disclose anything anyone wants to know... even the gory details that were edited out of the "adventures in detox and cleansing" chapter of the book, because they were too... gory.  I thought they were funny. Oh well. Upcoming blog postings promise to include recipes... some from the book, some new and unpublished. And anything else anyone wants to know... I'm excited about this... hope someone else out there is too! :)

eat raw, live long, love life, be happy... Sarma

Guest Blogger Sarma Melngailis

I'm happy to announce that the amazingly gorgeous Sarma Melngailis will be taking residency as a guest blogger here at We Like It Raw.

Amongst many other things, Sarma will be sharing her favorite raw recipes, tips on "getting the glow", product recommendations and pointers on how to raise pets raw.

Just in case you've been living under a rock, Sarma is the co-creator of the restaurant Pure Food and Wine and co-author of Raw Food Real World. She is also Cheif Duck at oneluckyduck.com - an online raw / organic boutique.