The Raw Chef

A truly great weekend

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.  We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?"  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you.  We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us.  And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Nelson Mandela

Ok, i've got a whole week to update you on so here goes..

Last time I wrote I was off to Little Earth Cafe in London for something to eat.  Actually, it was to take Lel out driving but i'm sure she won't mind me telling you she wasn't in great form on the driving front!  We made it to Little Earth at about 15:05 and I thought they may be closed as the advertised closing time on a Sunday is 15:00.  I'm glad I trusted my intuition which was telling me to go anyway as they might be fairly fluid with their closing times.  When we walked in they certainly weren't closing and were glad to serve us with 2 juices (orange, lime, pomegranate), 2 raw nut burgers on a bed of watercress, covered in the most amazing cashew sauce i've ever tasted, drizzled with honey mustard and topped with an avocado 'fan'.  Lel was going to leave a bit of hers so I did the decent thing and ate that too!  Desert was a 'Nutty Monkey' which was almond butter and OJ based.  It had some frozen banana in there too but I can't remember what else.  I love the vibe in that place.  It was just getting dark so they lit candles around the tables and had the usual ethereal music in the background.

The rest of the week was spent preparing for my demos at the Fresh Network open day.  Karen had asked me to do 2 demos of which 1 should be a Christmas recipe, preferably mince pies.  I scoured the internet for a recipe and even asked my fellow alumni from Living Light if they had any ideas.  I didn't consider that they don't have mince pies in the US and some thought I wanted a recipe to replicate a pie with minced cow in!!!  Actually everyone who responded to my request on the Yahoo group forum was very sweet in taking the time to help.  Vinette came up with a great looking recipe that I will definitely try out.  In the end I created my own recipe that went down an absolute storm!  I was even surprised how good those pies tasted, a real comfort food when eaten out of the dehydrator, mmmmmmmmm!

So as you may have guessed, the open day itself was great.  It's the first time i've done a demo to that many people (about 30) and I loved it.  Someone even took a photo of me whilst I was doing the demo!  The biggest payoff for me was at the end when I was being thanked for providing such great food.  That's a great feeling.

I've yet to do any of my Christmas shopping and only today did I realise how close it is to the big day.  I haven't really got many people to buy for so it's not exactly a major event for me.  I haven't got any brothers or sisters....all together now, "aahhhhhhh".  And haven't got many relatives at all (can you hear violins?) so it's really just Mum, Dad and friends.  We're doing Secret Santa in the house and i've got no idea what to get the person i've been drawn to buy for.  Should it been a good present or a funny present?  We've only got a ten Pound budget so I think it may be a bit of a jokey present!

Whoops!

"It is easy to sit up and take notice.  What is difficult is getting up and taking action."

-Al Batt

In my last entry I said that the next time I write would be when i'm back home, well, that's not strictly true.  I got a little bit confused about the day of the week and thought that I was flying back last night when it's actually tonight.  I still decided to get a lift to SF with Amanda as I wanted to avoid the bus at all costs.  I also thought the ride would be fun and it would be an excellent opportunity to explore SF.

I really enjoyed my last night in Fort Bragg.  We went to a beautiful little town called Mendocino.  Loads of films have been shot there including 'Overboard' with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.  It's also where 'Murder She Wrote' was filmed, I got some photos of the house they use which is now a B&B.  They've got a fantastic cooperative organic store in Mendo.  I've never seen a selection of herbs and tea like it!  And what an organic produce section!  Bought myself some 'Raweos' (raw cookies) for the plane journey home. 

Went to bed that night and realised that i'm starting to manifest stuff in my life.  Actually, I should put that another way...i'm consciously manifesting things and am getting good at allowing them into my reality.  If this subject interests you I can't recommend 'Ask & It Is Given' highly enough.  You can click on it in the side bar of this site.  If it doesn't interest you, buy it anyway!  And make sure you read it!!!  I was reading a really important chapter on dreams and how they are significant in what you are manifesting.  Then it suddenly dawned on me that Lel had bought me a book on understanding dreams and given it to me at the airport so I could read it while i'm away...Spooky stuff!  It looks like i'm going to finish Ask & It Is Given so I will read my dream book on the plane.

It was such a gorgeous day yesterday.  Much of our journey down from Fort Bragg was along the coast, the scenery is just stunning.  We also came into SF over the Golden Gate bridge and had planned to stop at the view point but missed the turning!  It was still fantastic to go over this bridge that i've seen on TV and and films so many times.  You also get to see Alcatraz as you come round the bay, what a chilling site that is!  I'm so excited because i'm going to get a boat over there today and have a look around, you know, do the tourist thing.

We dropped Patricia off at the airport at about 3pm yesterday and then went off in search of Cafe Gratitude, the raw cafe.  I absolutely love Cafe Gratitude.  The energy in there is great as is the food!  The owners of the place designed a board game called 'The Abounding River' based upon gratitude, consciousness and all that stuff.  They wanted to have a place where people could come to play the game for free.  This was about the time they were getting into raw foods so they decided to make it a raw restaurant where the tables have the board under the glass so you can eat, drink and play!  It's so great in there, you have a table that fits 4 people and what you get when it's busy is 2 sets of 2 people sitting together that don't know each other, having a chat.

The food is exceptional and when you look at the menu you see that the dishes are all named as affirmations (it's really not as hippy as it all sounds!!!).  One of the things I had was 'I Am Cherished' which is a pomegranate cheesecake.  When the waitress serves it to you they tell you the name of the dish to make sure it's yours and as they do it they read it back to you.  So when I got my cheesecake she gave it to me and said, "you are cherished".  Nice touch!!!

Anyway that's me done for now.  I'm going to get myself sorted and visit Alcatraz then get something else at Cafe Gratitude.  Then it really will be time for my plane.

Raw Chrsitmas Dinner

"To unpathed waters, undreamed shores"

Willaim Shakespeare

So much to write about and so little time to do it.  I'm on my lunch break at the moment so seeing as the internet cafe across the road has now reopened after a week of being shut, I thought i'd have a little blog update.

Yesterday was the last for the students on their 'Elegant Entertaining' course and we finished in style with a raw buffet Xmas style lunch.  I've been totally amazed at the things that can be created raw and am very excited about sharing my learnings.  I've learnt so much in this short time, i'm definately coming back next year for the full course.

The food yesterday was just amazing, you'll see the photos when I get back and post them on here.  We had pecan pie for desert but it was no ordinary pecan pie.  It was created by one of the students and it was so huge!!!  There was one piece that we named 'Burtha' because it was just ridiculous.  It wiped out 2 people who couldn't even finsh it between them!

It was quite sad to say goodbye to all the new people i'd met on the course yesterday, they're very special human beings that i'm grateful to have known.  All the people here have been amazing, helpfull and so full of love.  Elaina Love has been helping out here as well and it's been fantastic working in the kitchen with her, the other Angels, Alcia the Excecutive chef, Elise,Damien, the list goes on....

Looks like i'm going to get a lift to SF on Wed with Amanda, one of the other Angels.  She's going to meet her husband at the airport so has offered me a lift so I don't have to go through the bus thing again!  We're going to spend the afternoon in SF and check out the raw restaurants.  More good food, brilliant!!!!

I'm off back to the kitchen now, seeya!