Raw Dinner Party

Can it be a party with just 2 people? I invited a friend over for dinner, cause I’m so excited about the giant eat-in kitchen in the apartment that I’m staying in (belonging to my amazing friend Josh who is out of town on business for a couple of weeks). I used to love love love throwing dinner parties: the candles, the wine, the company, the tasty food. It’s been a while, though, and am a little unsure about how to integrate raw foods into the mix, particularly with non-raw friends. And beyond what my guests’ usual diet is, I’m also trying to get past the fundamental / my learned oddness in inviting someone for dinner and not cooking for them. My mom’s comment on me having someone over for dinner was, “What are you going to make for him, a smoothie?”

Behold, an ideal candidate for my foray into raw entertaining: my friend Andrew. He’s not a vegan or vegetarian, but is consistently eager for new foods and taste experiences. For instance, we were once in a chain restaurant in Orlando (Applebee’s? Bennigan’s?) and he ordered a hickory smoked veggie burger with bacon and cheese. Not because he didn’t want the meat-hamburger, but because he wanted to see how a veggie burger mixed with the rest of that stuff. Beyond his eclectic palate, I knew he’d offer constructive criticism in a gentle way.

We started with kale, apple, celery juice (my current favorite). I loved it; he was a little overwhelmed by the amount of greens in it – the flavor, not the color. We then had the Creamy Carrot Ginger Soup with Lime (from the Raw Food, Real World cookbook). I had mine chilled, and his was heated up a little. His comment was that he really enjoyed how he could really taste each individual ingredient. He wished that he could taste the avocado a little bit more, though. Personally, I really like that I can barely taste the avocado, I think that it lets the other flavors shine. Then we had broiled swordfish (old habits die hard) covered with a (raw) salsa of mango, cucumber, jalapeño, lime, ginger and scallion. And an arugula and pistachio salad with Creamy Citrus Dressing (also from Raw Food, Real World cookbook). He loved the salad and fish, enough to convince me to let him take the leftovers to work the next day for lunch. For desert we had a persimmon, so ripe that the flesh was just about falling apart. The wine was Les Champs Clos Sancerre, and happy-surprisingly fit with everything really well (surprisingly because I usually choose wine by the font on the label).

Sated, we lingered over the table. I asked, “So, do you like my cooking?” And he said, “No, I love your cooking.” Three cheers for Andrew, for being open to new food, and four cheers for me for giving someone a thoroughly enjoyable introduction to raw food.

One love,
Marissa

On the go

As much as I may want to, it’s just not possible to eat at home every meal of the day. Behold, an incomplete list of the places that keep me raw throughout the day:

Healthy Nibbles Organic Lounge and Juice Bar – 305 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn (Park Slope)
Inexpensive, charming café with amazing juices and yummy salads

Second Helpings – 9th Street between 7th and 8th Ave, Brooklyn (Park Slope)
My go-to place for delicious food and juice, not all raw but a great compromise when dining with enlightened, non-raw companions

Lodge Outpost – Havemeyer at Grand Street, Brooklyn (Williamsburg)
Next to the cozy bar/restaurant Lodge, they have raw smoothies (Freckle Juice is my favorite) and organic tea. Plus, my brother is a bartender next door.

Siggy’s – Henry Street between Orange and Pineapple, Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights)
Organic, with lots of live food (they even note on the menu exactly what is live), and they make my favorite smoothie right now, with Goji berries, pomegranate juice, raspberries, blueberries and banana

Pure Food and Takeaway – 17th Street at Irving, Manhattan
Can’t beat them. The S&M salad is my favorite dinner these days, and their juices are uniformly amazing. On the expensive side, but perfect for a treat

Juicy Lucy’s Fresh Mixed Juice Outpost – Northeast corner of 1st Street and 1st Ave
Little kiosk that would typically sell coffee and pastries, but no! They sell fresh juice! Reasonably priced ($3.50 for 12oz), and right by the subway. There’s a proper store front at 85 Avenue A between 5th and 6th

Liquiteria – 2nd Avenue at 10th Street
I put this on because it’s so well known, and good in a pinch. But personally, I don’t love it there. I think that it’s on the gimmicky side, and that the menu isn’t inspired. An exception, though, was an apple/pineapple/mint/wheatgrass juice that I had a few weeks ago that was pretty exciting.

Bonobo’s – 18 E 23rd, between Broadway and Park
Not a lot of ambiance, but all raw food and the only place that I know of that has durian on the menu.

Integral Natural Foods – 13th Street betw Greenwich and 7th Ave
Has a juice bar, a good selection of prepared raw foods, and is next to Integral Yoga.

One love,
Marissa

Raw in New Jersey

Very exotic locale, may I say. We went to my Aunt’s house near Asbury Park for Thanksgiving, and really had such a lovely time. My family is amazing, so many generations and stories and love and comfort.

I offered to bring a salad, but that was already on the docket. And while I had a vague plan to go all out and bring raw stuffing and raw blah blah blah, I didn’t quite get around to it. Also, honestly, as a compulsive overeater, the holidays are big potential excuses for a binge, raw or not. So it’s important to me to remember that it’s just a day like any other – I love that joke, “What does a recovering compulsive eater call Thanksgiving? Thursday.”

Part of the amazingness of my family is that they are, by and large, very willing to accommodate my food lifestyle. When I was a vegetarian, vegan, and now raw, at big holiday meals my aunt would make sure that she had something that I could eat. There were plenty of cut up vegetables with (non-raw) hummus during appetizers, and aforementioned big, raw salad. I volunteered to help, and was put in charge of the salad, so I made it exactly as I wanted – different sized cuts of crunchy vegetables, a few different types of greens.

In tribute to “What We Ate Wednesdays”, I give you What I Ate Thursday, ‘cause it was just Thursday, a Thursday that I spent with family, and a Thursday that I continued to be grateful for all of the gifts in my life:

* 2 apples with cashew butter, some flax crackers
* mixed salad with greens, yellow pepper, cucumber, grated carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes / oil and vinegar
* handful of raisin and nut mix
* nori rolls with cucumber, tomato, kohlrabi, daikon
* raw blondie macaroons from Pure Food and Wine takeout

This isn’t a typical day for me, I usually have at least one green juice and green smoothie, but it got me through.

One Love,
Marissa

Raw in Brooklyn

I am so grateful to call this city my home. Beyond all the cultural goodness, it is a city that generously allows for any diet or food lifestyle, whatever your schedule. Working late? No problem, restaurants are open until midnight, and grocery stores until 10 or 11. Can’t make the farmer’s market on the weekend? Go to one (of many) on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday or Friday! Any day of the year! I do admit that this is a gigantic neon sign of epic American consumerism, and there are some fundamental problems with that. But. It happily allows for me to have a non-conventional work and life schedule, and I love that.

My mom and I had lunch yesterday at Second Helpings, the organic health-foody café in Park Slope (Brooklyn, on 9th Street at 7th Avenue). It’s not a strictly raw or vegetarian place (Mom had a chicken something sandwich that she said was delicious), but I had a gorgeous salad of greens with sprouts, tomato, cucumber, avocado and tahini dressing (note to self to ask for it without roasted red peppers next time), and a kale apple celery juice. The juice was way exciting, mostly because I’ve never been a big fan of kale, always found the flavor to be overwhelming and bitter. But it was so great in this juice, the radiant woman behind the counter put in exactly the right proportions that now I am on the quest to make my own perfect kale apple celery juice.

That quest, however, will wait a few weeks until I find my own apartment. The kitchen – or, more accurately, line of appliances in the tiny living room/dining room/bedroom – is just too small to accomodate my appliances. And I love and know my sister well enough to be aware where her boundaries are as far as filling up her limited counter space with a juicer and vitamix and dehydrater. The juicer, in particular, is a point of contention between us – when we shared an apartment, we had a giant fight one morning when I woke her up with the noise of juicing cucumbers. And all of this, and she is still so amazing to open her home to me while I look for a place of my own. So for now, it’s me, a knife and a cutting board – as well as the impossibly sexy variety of places that I can eat out in this big, bad-ass city.

Love,
Marissa

There's no place like home

Oh it is good to be home. Well, in the city that I call home because I don’t actually have a home – staying with my sister until I find a place. Looking forward (trying to be positive) to the challenges of being a good raw houseguest in a tiny Brooklyn studio apartment.

Yesterday’s looooooong travel day went well. I fasted on the first leg of the trip, from Brussels to Dublin, and then for about half of my 5 hour layover. Wandering around in the airport, I stumbled onto a fresh juice bar! They made juices (celery, carrot, beet, apple, orange) and smoothies (mostly with a dairy base). I was beside myself with excitement, to have a cucumber celery apple juice. But when I got to the front of the line, the woman at the counter told me that the juicer was broken, but I could have orange juice or a smoothie. Too bad, but I am so happy to see a (albeit nonfunctioning) juice bar in a airport to contribute to hydration in the air and good health! So instead, I had an apple and some raisin nut mix (charmingly called “student mix” in Europe).

Once settled into the flight, I was eager to see the raw vegetarian meal that I had requested for my infight meal. It came, with a big sticker on it that said my name and “RAW VEG”. However, on the plate was: hot lasagna (cheese, pasta, cooked tomato sauce), cold pasta salad, a roll, packet of margarine, packet of cookies, and an sad-looking fruit salad of honeydew, orange, and grapes. Sigh of disappointment. Looking back, it was the perfect opportunity to educate someone on the fundamentals of raw food and possibly help other raw foodists down the line, but at the time I just didn’t want to bother the harried-looking flight attendant. So, I’ll send an email to the airline. Not because I’m particularly angry/annoyed – I didn’t really have high hopes – but just to spread awareness that RAW food is vastly different than just veggie food.

I got back to the apartment on the late side, and my sis didn’t feel like going out for dinner. I was pretty hungry, though, and craving greens – not something that she regularly stocks in her fridge. But she mentioned a (new?) place nearby in Brooklyn Heights that her boyfriend had referred to as, “One of those places that has wheatgrass that your sister would like”. We found it on line, Siggy’s, on Henry between Orange and Pineapple. There are some really lovely salads on the menu, juices, and they delivered! Oh, the wanton luxury of NY living. I had a salad with greens, tomato, avocado and sunflower seeds with a vinagrette and a celery apple greens juice. So exactly what I was craving.

One love,
Marissa

New food!

These past 5 months, I’ve been enjoying fruits and vegetables here that I had never experienced before. It’s entirely probable that my eyes are open in a different way these days and all of this is easily available at the same time of year in NY, but I am just loving “discovering” these new foods of the earth:

Fennel – I know that this is readily available in NY, but maybe not so common. In Brussels (and France when I’ve been there in the past) it’s all over the place. Steamed, roasted whole, and my favorite - shredded onto salads. It’s been described as kind of licorice-y, but is also sweet and light and crispy.

Kohlrabi – Part of the cabbage family, if you haven’t seen it before. I can get it at the food coop in Park Slope at home, but never have. To me, it always looked like a hard, dirty root vegetable, and I imagined it tasting kind of dull. However, at the farmers market in the courtyard of the Theatre de la Monnaie (Place de le Monnaie, Brussels, every Wednesday morning), my French friend selected it, deeming it a “vegetable eaten my hippies around the world”. We (well, she) peeled off the tough outer skin, and shredded it onto our salad. It was nutty and hearty, the exact right counterpart to the shredded fennel. Later on, I had it sliced thin like chips with olive paste and it was exactly perfect.

English cucumbers – these are the long skinny ones, commonly individually shrink-wrapped (huh?). Not as common in the US as their thicker, shorter siblings. The skin on the English cukes is thinner, and usually eaten. Personnally, I find the skin kind of bitter, and don’t love the taste of in when I juice it. But satisfying when eaten in thick slices.

Persimmons – called “Kaki” in French. I know that these are relatively common in the US, I had just never tried one before. My oh my. How delicious. Sweet and buttery, it’s more like candy than fruit. I’ve been eating them plain, just sliced, but could see the day that I’m carrying one around and eating it like an apple.

I am beyond excited to continue my discovery of “new” fruits and vegetables when I get home.

One love,
Marissa

Travel Days / Raw in Brussels

Some of the best advice I’ve read about traveling raw is to fast on travel days. I’ve been doing that, fasting until I get to my destination and have time to settle in. It really makes me feel best. Eating on an airplane (even when I bring my own food) makes me gassy and uncomfortable – from the air pressure, the sitting in one position, etc etc. Plus, if I’m fasting, I get the added bonus of not having to search high and wide in an airport for something raw or be tempted to eat what they’re distributing on the plane.

All of my travel days recently have not been long at all, though, so maybe I’ll reconsider on my flight back to NY with the 6 hour layover in Dublin. Interestingly, though, when I booked my Aer Lingus flight online (through the suspiciously named CheapoAirlines.com) a whole menu of inflight meal options came up. There was kosher, low salt, sugar free, non dairy, hindu, vegetarian, vegan and RAW VEGAN! Not sure if this is offered by Aer Lingus or CheapoAirlines, but I’m impressed, I have to say. Of course I chose the raw vegan meal, and will report back about how that worked out.

I’ve found that it’s important to keep food with me for after the fast, once I’m comfortably in the new city. I can’t count how many times in the past I’ve had long travel days, and once I arrive in a city, famished, it takes a frustratingly long time to find something appropriate for me to eat. For all the years that I was vegetarian or vegan and touring the US, I’d arrive into a new city late at night, and the only options were Applebee’s or McDonalds. Or even more challenging, arriving into a tiny European town late at night, where either nothing is open or only the town’s single bistro that exclusively serves pork chops and boiled potatoes.

So, I’ve learned my lesson: Bring snacks. For after. Today I brought with me 4 apples, some trail mix, 2 clementines, a grapefruit and some cut and washed celery. I am sure the people at the x-ray machines thought I was a bit of a nut (or possibly were impressed and inspired) and yeah, my carry-on was heavy but it was worth it when I got into my flat here and could have a couple of apples before we went exploring the city. That way, finding food wasn’t the only thing on my mind, and I could enjoy my surroundings and the beauty of wandering unfamiliar streets.

I did, eventually go to a market to get some food for the week. It was a pretty standard supermarket (by European standards, would have been just a “market” in the US), but had a nice selection of conventional and organic produce. The weirdest thing, though, that all of the organic fruits and vegetables were wrapped in plastic! The bins overflowing with loose oranges and kiwis were conventional, but ALL of the organic stuff was packaged. So weird. For cleanliness? I have no idea. Will have to investigate.

One love,
Marissa