Jewels of the Currant World #2

This frozen batch of last year’s redcurrants was consumed by moi today to celebrate my first blogging anniversary (admittedly a little late, but my first post was on these very redcurrants). There are also fresh gooseberries, strawberries and rhubarb galore at the moment, and the other various berries and currants (raspberries, blueberries, blackcurrants and whitecurrants) are starting to form fruit ...

Easter Present

Easter Present is literally that, a present to you. The weekend papers on Saturday featured an article on the New York vegan bakery Babycakes, who will be publishing a cookbook come early May. The recipes strike me as easy to adapt to a raw food world, and you all know by now how seduced I can be by pretty vegan cookbooks ...

Easter Past

I haven’t written much recently, and suddenly Easter is upon us. As you all know, I’m a Buddhist. What you might not know is that I always give something up for Lent (and yes, I celebrate Christmas too). In the past I used to abstain from sugar and chocolate, but as I do that as a matter of course now, it was raw cacao on my hit list this year. It was fine, I had very few cravings, but it was nice to indulge again come Easter Sunday! In full confessional mode I should admit to a teeny tiny taster of the Raw Chocolate Company’s new Minted bar last w/end at Olympia’s Natural and Organic Products Show – very yummmm.

I’ve always found the Lent season a very reflective one . A post by Jeanette Winterson and the stories on The Forgiveness Project have literally moved me to tears. There’s something about looking back during this season that literally ‘springs’ you into the present in the most intense way.

The pictures are both from about a decade ago but seem equally suited to Easter present. The blossom trees framed my walk to work in Edinburgh, and the cat-flap (Easter for me is about the d-e-t-a-i-l) was in New York when I was in NoLita (no doubt on my way to the now sadly deceased Mayle) . I loved the fact that the cat-flap had its own mailbox!

Blossoming

It’s not quite the first day of spring, but it feels like it. From the winter weekends of doing ‘not much’ I am now officially out and about. Last weekend was spent in Lewes (they have a very sweet farmers’ market on the first Saturday of each month), and the weekend just gone was spent in London. Blossom and flowers are everywhere – a welcome hit of olfactory as well as visual delight. My focus is wholeheartedly less on the food I’m consuming and more on the food I’m planting. Fellow biodynamic ‘by the moon’ planters will understand that March is a busy time!

Web Messages

I am feeling wholly inspired by several web posts - both old and new. Kerri Smith’s fabulous Venn Diagram of the 06/03/09 on the comfort zone vs things that make life worthwhile and interesting, Jenne’s brilliant post on Wendell Berry and the handmade, and finally, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the importance of supporting fairtrade ...

On the raw front, I have shifted from morning juice to something more substantial, what I call my ‘brain feast’ brekkie – loosely based on Raw Rob’s various concoctions. The difference in stabilizing my day has been incredible ...

Kelp Noodles - Raw?

So, here’s my question. I bought some kelp shreds (pictured) and also some kelp noodles in London’s Chinatown recently. I love the texture of sea spaghetti so wanted to try out the kelp noodle craze that seems to be going on in the raw community. However, whilst the kelp shreds (like sea spaghetti) do seem to resemble sea material as it appears in nature (albeit shredded and dried), retaining both colour and taste, kelp ‘noodles’ just don’t. I’m not obsessive or even trying to pick an argument, as I realise that some of the dried fruit and also some of the nuts and other seaweeds I consume are unlikely to be officially ‘raw’ and I’m ok with that, but kelp noodles just don’t seem to resemble anything like natural kelp. Is it just me, or does anyone else think the same?

UPDATE
Clearly I’m not the only one pondering this (see this link) and this too, so it’s really down to individuals to make their own minds up about how much ‘processing’ they want their food to undergo. The Sea Tangle Noodle Company as well as posting some info, sells packs of 12 for $33 plus shipping (i.e. $2.75 a pack). The kelp shreds from Chinatown cost, if I remember rightly, £1.50 per pack.

Yoga Saves the Day...

I don’t really use this blog as an emotional sounding board, but I was sorely tempted to mid-week. Too much travelling, too much work, too much stress. I decided to b-r-e-a-t-h-e through it. Lo and behold the benefits started pouring in. I made a statement a while back that I’m not a fan of blogs that ‘push’ products. However, my first benefit of the b-r-e-a-t-h-e policy was to stumble upon Saree which is a few doors down from Uhuru, the health shop on the Cowley Road in Oxford. Selling ethical/organic/fairly traded clothes, shoes, accessories and household kit, it’s a friendly gem of a shop. I have been searching for a pair of draping, soft yoga pants for ages, and I found them here. The next day I managed to pick up some kelp noodles in London’s Chinatown, and then the working week ended last night with a blissful John Stirk yoga workshop. Things are good here ...