Vibrant Driving

Took a corner, sideswiped a truck
Crossed my fingers just for luck
My fenders was clickin' the guardrail posts
The guy beside me was white as a ghost
Smoke was comin' from out of the back
When I started to gain on that Cadillac
Knew I could catch him, I thought I could pass
Don't you know by then we'd be low on gas…
We had flames comin' from out of the side
Feel the tension, man, what a ride!—Asleep at the Wheel

These lyrics lend an airbrushed portrait of what riding in the RV was like. Loaded with our two dogs, abandoning the still-not-done cookies in the frig, and towing the new buggy behind, I clung to the back of the seat (Boomer had insisted on riding shotgun), white knuckled. We were off to the raw food conference.

The thing sounded like a rattle trap. It creaked and cracked, hissed and whined. The thing was so huge it felt like we were whooshing down the road, sort of floating from left to right while forging toward our doom. The dogs were terrified, Dinah was trembling and Boomer panting. Daniel impervious.

I had all these ideas of preparing our lunch as he drove…ha! I could barely peel myself from my seat. I don’t know what got into me, but that thing just did not feel safe. We finally did arrive to the Mendocino Coastline safely though.

Notes from the Vibrant Living Expo (http://www.rawfoodchef.com/) The conference was really good! I was sad I couldn’t stay the three days, but at least I got to attend one day. Raw foodie enthusiasts discussing topics near to their hearts…like supplements, gee, I am not the only one who abandoned supplements when I started raw…eerie, no one told me to do that and as it turns out, it is common raw foodie philosophy to get your nutrients from food, not supplements. I was with My People. I discussed nuances of different sea weeds with a vendor, found out that the tengusa I had searched for on recipe #10 is actually on the endangered list…no wonder I never found it!

And what a bright and smiling eyed bunch! I swear every person who I passed not only made eye contact with me, but smiled brightly. Wow, what a warm group.

Some of the lectures included: Vitamin B12 (turns out B12 is made by bacteria! It’s not in plants or animals, but is a bacteria that grows on them, wow!), Greens from the Sea, Healing your Body through Eating, Fat and Cholesterol in a Nutshell. I learned more about the importance of enzymes and friendly bacteria. One lecturer, a naturopathic doctor, Ruza Bogdanovich http://www.thecureisinthecause.com/bio.html, said we need 85% good bacteria and a max of 15% bad bacteria, but that most Americans, with the way we eat, have the exact opposite. I thought it was interesting to note that our cravings for sweet and yeasty foods is because you likely have a high number of the “bad” bacteria, because this type of bacteria loves that kind of food. This bacteria becomes you! And you crave what the bacteria craves. The reverse happens when you start improving your diet with fresh produce and sprouted nuts and grains. Your body adjusts to a higher count of friendly flora and this bacteria loves the raw stuff, and so this is what you begin to crave more. You are what you eat, microbes and all.

Another lecturer spoke on fermented foods (beer is one, as is sauerkraut and kim-chee) and how they were one of the first foods humans learned to make. It can treat stress, prevent infectious disease and act as a probiotic to combat disease. I also learned more reasons on why to soak nuts and seeds. Apparently seeds contain a high number of enzyme inhibitors, so if you eat them as-is, you are putting enzyme inhibitors in your body—the last thing we need. So when you soak, sprout or ferment them, the enzyme inhibitors are removed, making it an ultra digestible food.

The philosophy of optimum health is simply to have quality food absorption, which allows you to assimilate them and properly eliminate them. Eating a typical American diet does not support these processes, they in fact strip us of our enzymes. Without a high number of enzymes, we can’t absorb the food we eat, without healthy flora and proper enzymatic action we can’t assimilate our foods (so we still feel hungry, not satiated and eat more = big, fat American) and then our elimination is off-kilter, either we’re constipated or our colon gets irritated at the slightest thing. It all makes so much sense. Could it be this simple?

One well respected speaker, the so-called father of the raw food movement, Viktoras Kulvinskas has done years of research. He is a mathematician and very scientific and has produced published research to back up the importance of enzymes, proper diet and the vital importance of digestion on our health.

But I did have one revelation, and the thought that this is a huge omission at the conference or in any of the materials I’ve read, which is water. For example, our water here in San Mateo contains chloramines. Chloramines kill bacteria. So when I drink our water, aren’t I killing all the flora in my gut?? I began to think about this. I noted that my rejuvelacs weren’t as potent compared to the store-bought ones. Could it be that my juice can’t ferment because the water I’m using is sanitizing it?? If this is true, no matter how good we eat, the water will keep destroying my enzymes. So, to me, the quality of your home water would be one of the most vitally important issues…where is it in the literature? More on this later.

Anyway, it was a fulfilling experience, I ate lots of raw and then we climbed back into the rattle trap and headed down the coast highway toward home. But the glow of the raw foodies must have affected me, because no longer did the rattling and shaking bother me. I booted Boomer out of shotgun position and took my rightful place up front. I even wandered in the back to pack up, swaying to and fro with the groove of the rolling boat, as Daniel (now earning the identity as Ralph Kramden) rambled us down the highway.

We all made it back, rattle-trap be damned. And the cookies? They’re back in the dehydrator. God, will they ever get done?

Carrying a Chocolate Chip on my Shoulder

When I set out to make these cookies, I never dreamed I’d be making, making chocolate chips. I mean, chocolate chips are something you buy in a bag and dump in your batter…."spoon the chocolate mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a very small tip and pipe ¼” in diameter onto nonstick drying sheets, forming 200 chips in all."

My god, this was it. The fine line between commitment and cheating. How criminal could it be to just go out and buy a bag of organic chips? "Dehydrate chips at 105 degrees for eight hours…" that means they’ll be ready at 2 in the morning, and I need the chips before I can start the cookies which take six hours, then 8-10 hours more. Why don’t I just put the frickin’ chips in the oven? They’d be done in an hour, right? I mean really, how much nutritional value am I trying to save here in a chocolate chip? But in the end, I didn’t stay committed to the integrity of raw because it was the right thing to do, I did it because I didn’t have a conventional recipe for cooking chips in an oven. What if I ruined them? No, I had to see it through.

I had even started a whole day ahead of time. And I even began by reading the recipe through (how grown up of me for once). Damn! There was no way I’d have these cookies done by choir-girls night tomorrow evening.

I cancelled my girls choir night, made, made the chocolate chips and decided to take the damn cookies and the dehydrator on the road with me. That’s right. We had rented an RV so I could attend a day of the Vibrant Living Conference up in Ft. Bragg – raw foodies from all over the world would be there, I had to go. The RV has a kitchen, right? I’d just bring everything with me and make them on the road.

This conference is coming at an inconvenient time as I have a big event in four days with the Food Society. It’s their annual BBQ which draws 200 and I’m still getting rsvp’s. So that’s a little nerve wracking, but what put me over the edge is I got a call from my other association. Where are those checks?

What do you mean, where are those checks?

I mailed them out last Friday, aren’t they there yet?

I’m not a worrier. Let that be somebody else’s job I say, which apparently is her job since she thinks the checks won’t get there. What a pessimist. I don’t like the feeling of worrying or being scared, it reminds me too much of the bottom of your life falling like a broken elevator, so I avoid it. Have a little faith, the checks will get there.

I sneak a look at my postage log. 8/16, $1.82 is carefully noted. I know I sent it, have some faith, but still I wrack my brain. What was I doing on Friday, which mail box did I leave it in? God, why is she calling me? Can’t she just relax? I’m sure it will arrive. How could this piece of mail (with $2100 in checks) get lost? I tell myself to relax. It will arrive. Then the thoughts come back, “Oh, why didn’t I FedEx it?” I try to reconstruct my Friday and it’s a void, I can remember Thursday and Saturday in detail. Note to self: write notes to self.

The Day Before. I finish up Recipe #45, Black Mission Fig Tart with Walnut Cream and take photos, too busy to write anything.

I run up to check email, she didn’t get the checks. I will now freak out. I’ve got to finish rsvp’s for two events, pack to get ready, dehydrate the cookies, pick up the trailer, work my regular schedule, and now I have to drop everything and stand in line at the post office to see if they can track those damn checks. An hour later I come back having been instructed to go online to get the phone number of her carrier. Several calls later and having found the postal employees to be surprisingly helpful, they’re telling me not to worry, it could take five days, even ten. I outwardly relax while I inwardly panic. Just what I need when I’m going out of town, something to worry about. I finish my rsvp’s, give everybody headcounts.
Then Daniel says to me, c’mon we have to go check this buggy out.

Buggy? What buggy?

Don’t you remember, he says, we talked about this.

Is this like us talking about getting a second dog and I said no? Or maybe it’s like getting the dog afterall but saying we’d only foster him and now he’s ours. Something like that, because the next thing I know I’m following him back from San Carlos as he drives ahead in our new dune buggy. He’s got some elaborate plan for towing it behind the trailer. I’m too overwhelmed to think about it. The cookies still aren’t done.

I go upstairs and check email one last time, hoping to get that magic email, that yes the checks arrived afterall. Ah, yes a new email has arrived from you-know-who. The beautiful words sing like fairies to my inner child…”the checks arrived today.” A huge weight of worry lifts and I feel like dancing. Then I think, why couldn’t she have trusted they would come? This took hours out of my day. She's holding down the worry job quite well, and spreading the joy. Ah, but now I can’t wait to go on this little sabbatical. Daniel pulls up in the RV. I stick the cookies which defy dehydration into the refrigerator. I'll deal with you later. Let the games begin.

Butternut Squash and Ginger Soup with Spaghetti Squash

This would have been a fairly straight-forward recipe except that for some unintelligible, are-you-just-trying-to-torture-me reason, the recipe calls to dehydrate 1 lb. of the peeled and chopped butternut squash. Then you puree that with the fresh peeled, chopped butternut, ginger and other ingredients to make the soup. So this extra step, which surely would make or break the recipe, took a day.

I loyally followed directions. I was rewarded with about two teaspoons of dehydrated squash to add to the soup. Oh now this is really going to make a difference, isn’t it? You hold up a recipe for 18 hours to dehydrate 1 lb of squash and you end up with two teaspoons. If you ever make this recipe, skip that stupid, unnecessary step. It is fascinating to note what this means: that the bulk of squash is water!

The other dysfunctional thing about this recipe is how they instruct to make the “tuilles.” This is pureed squash with water and olive oil, which they then instruct you to pass through a sieve and then spread rounds out on a dehydrator sheet. I’m sorry, but if you strain it, there's no "spreading" about it, you are pouring runny liquid onto a dehydrator sheet! But I did it anyway. It looked like runny watercolor paint: Tuille de Monet le PeePee. Anticipating complete failure, I also made tuilles out of the actual puree, unstrained.

Thank goodness, because the liquid tuilles were nothing but stain marks on the parchment: Tuille de Monet le peepee Fini. The pureed tuilles were flakey, paper-thin cakes.

The shredded spaghetti squash in the soup was delicious, and inspired me to try and come up with a raw version of Sizzling Rice Soup. The crunchy shredded spaghetti squash really reminded of the sizzled rice they serve in the popular Asian soup.
Overall the soup had a nice, full flavor and the tuilles added some “meat” to the dish. What keeps on surprising me about raw food is how filling it can be. A bowl of this soup with a small salad for lunch totally satiated me. And without the unnecessary step of dehydrating the squash, this recipe is fairly easy to make.

Vibrant Flavors and Let’s Not Forget the Wine!

“I can’t even stand how good this tastes!” I exclaimed to my husband who was staring off into space as my words bounced off his hard Polish head and floated off into the atmosphere unheard. He was busily crunching on a delicate, thinly sliced and perfectly marinated radish. He blandly vollied back, “yeah, this is great.” I think last night’s party where the Bat Boys band he played with 20 years ago reunited for Henry’s 50th left him a little listless.

Who could know that you could like a carrot so much? I mean, just a plain old carrot. Ah, but not just a plain old carrot, but a plain-old-carrot marinated. How could I really like a radish so much? I mean, a radish, with that kind of harsh-hot flavor? Ah, but a radish marinated…it changes. Then a beet. Well, we’ve all probably enjoyed beet salad, so that’s no surprise. But raw artichoke heart? Bland by itself, but marinated….a caterpillar to a butterfly. And so is born Carpaccio of Radish, Carrot, Artichoke and Golden Beet. Not bleeding heart radish as is specified, but the only other-worldly radish I could find: watermelon. Ain’t it pretty?

Husband did come to life in one way though. He did not know that raw cuisine called for fine wines and really perked up when I educated him that yes, raw cuisine does promote pairing with wine. I know I've never mentioned this before, but in fact, each recipe in the Klein/Trotter book contains a footnote with a very thorough and careful recommendation on which wine to pair with the recipe and why. Daniel thought it essential that I bring this up on the blog, and he’s right. YES! Raw foodies can and do drink wine. Wine is, afterall RAW! Wines, sherries and ports can also be found as ingredients to give many raw food dishes dimension.

This dish’s wine recommendation was a sparkling white…Blanc de Blancs from Pierre Peters or Larmandier-Bernier, to be exact. So my husband is pretty astute, and I thank him for pointing this out to me. And even though I don’t always feel heard by him, which I find infuriating, I must still be in love because my heart still melts when I see him onstage singing Little Sister.

Bottom of the Barrel: XIV

I keep counting and re-counting how many recipes I have left. Then I go to the calendar (again) and count how many days left in August. Today it’s ten left, with 14 days to go. Totally do-able if I double up on a few days, because I know I won’t be in the kitchen for at least five of those days. (Going to the living food fest up in Ft. Bragg next weekend!)

Here’s what I have left: just one in the appetizer section: Pear Napoleon with Porcini Mushrooms and Artichokes (I’ve been saving that one for pears to come in season, and they’re just beginning!); two soups: Shitake Mushroom Soup with Lime Radish and Winged Beans. Wait, let’s just stop there. Can you guess why I haven’t made this one yet? What is lime radish? What are winged beans?

Can anyone help me out here? Suggestions for any likely substitutes??

The last soup is Butternut Squash and Ginger with Spaghetti Squash. In the salad department I only have one left: Carpaccio of Artichokes, Bleeding Heart Radish, Carrots and Golden Beets. What’s a frickin’ bleeding heart radish? Last in the entrée department is one with the same problem: Bleeding Heart Radish Ravioli with Yellow Tomato Sauce. It’s going to be bleeding heart too bad, but I doubt that I will find a bleeding heart radish to satisfy either of these recipes, but I’ll start to make the round of calls….again. Maybe I’ll get lucky like I did with the salsify and find that it will suddenly come in season.
Radish print courtesy of Rigel's beautiful art you can see at: http://www.drenculture.com/prints/vegetables/index.htm

I get to end with quite a few from the dessert department: Fig Tart which I’m doing tomorrow, then Tropical Fruit Spring Rolls with Coconut Sorbet – since the “roll” is made from paper-thin cut pineapple, this one is a calamity just waiting to get it’s picture taken. I won’t be able to put it off for much longer though, will I? Trio of Gelatos – this should be no problem, except she calls for persimmon and they won’t be in season until Fall…what to do, what to do…
Apple-Quince Pave, well, that one looks hard and also quince isn’t in season. And lastly, Chocolate Chip Cookies – they call for sprouted wheat flour with no indication of how to make it, but I can guess and also sprouted meal. OK meal of what? Again, no clue of what it is or how to make, so I’ll be improvising and testing them out on the choir girls next Wednesday.
God help ‘em.

Are you Allergic to Wheat?

I hear more and more of people discovering they are allergic to wheat. I find this ironic since wheat is like the first grain humans discovered to cultivate that kept them from starving and is probably why our species was able to thrive. How could we now, so far down the line of evolution, be allergic to something so basic? It isn’t genetically modified from what I’ve learned. Could it be because it’s been hybridized? Maybe the way it’s being processed. Or maybe we’re just getting too much of it.

Practicing this diet all summer (even though worlds have collided and I have not been pure), I have probably eaten more cleanly than ever before. I haven’t had a drop of dairy ice cream in months and months and very little bread or cooked wheat. Yesterday I picked up some wheat hot dog buns for tofu dogs. We were going to the county fair so I thought we’d eat some junk food at home to avoid the truly poisonous junk food at the fair.

I noticed after dinner my nose was markedly stuffy. Could this be a wheat allergy?? I suspect so. I bet many of us have a mild allergy to wheat and we’ve just learned to live with it. We think our stuffy nose or irritated throat or tendency to get colds is normal. Having been off wheat, as well as other cooked foods, I have noticed my usual slightly runny nose disappeared. It was all too telling when I reintroduced wheat yesterday and immediately had a runny nose all evening.

With that said Roxanne does use wheat in some of her recipes, for example the chocolate chip cookies. In fact rejuvelac, hailed to be so healthy by the raw foodists because it’s loaded with good-for-your-gut microbes, is made from sprouted wheat. But maybe it’s in the cooking?? Because I’ve not had an allergic reaction to the rejuvelac or the cheeses I’ve made from it. Or the tart shell I made the other day from the sprouted wheat flour.

So this is a curious thing. It is surprising how many food items (mostly processed) you’ll find that wheat has been snuck into, to cheaply thicken it or like in so many vegetarian items, to give it that more chewy “meaty” consistency. It’s like the pervasive GMO corn syrup found in countless processed foods.

So I invite you to question. If you’ve been feeling slightly under the weather, or downright sick, you may want to cast a suspicious eye toward that fluffy, innocent looking loaf of bread on your counter.

Salsify Appetizer / Cucumber Soup/ Mushrooms with Kohlrabi

I think they should make the word “salsify” into a verb. For example, I found it very salsifying to finally, at long last make salsify into a recipe. Would that work?

I also found salsify delicious and nutritious (salsilitious?). High in fiber, Vitamin C, riboflavin, Vitamin B6, potassium and manganese. Using a vegetable peeler to peel strips made for nice wide paparadelli-like noodles which were marinated in wine vinegar and then mixed with truffle oil and salt. The porcinis were also marinated. The sauce was pine nut puree which brought all the flavors together. Salsify is a very mild tasting root, not bitter, not sweet and I think it does have the slightest hint of the flavor of an oyster. Or else that was just subliminal on my part knowing it is also called oyster plant. The recipe was called Salsify with Black Truffles and Porcini Mushrooms. Mine was simply Salsify with Porcinis. Until I move to Europe I don’t think you’ll see truffles being a stocked item in my kitchen, ever.

Next up was the English Cucumber Soup with Tiny Carrots and Amaranth Leaves and Pine Nut Mayonnaise. She wanted me to somehow find white and purple baby carrots (of course I ran across baby purple carrots this morning, sigh). And what the hell are Amaranth leaves, I mean, PLEASE?! I didn’t even bother. This recipe was basically just pureed cucumber, but the mayo and diced (not baby) carrots on top gave it dimension.

The Marinated Exotic Mushrooms with Kohlrabi and Arugula was easy to make and I had been looking forward to using kohlrabi in a recipe. I ran into it for the first time at the farmers market years ago and feebly tried it a time or two. Since then I’ve read about it being used as a substitute for mashed potatoes because of it’s savory and mildly horseradish flavor. This was a tasty dish I might do again.

What a fun adventure broadening my root horizons between salsify and kohlrabi, and even lotus root.
How very salsifying.