11/10/2009

Lazy girl blogging


Thanks to Jenny for the blog title. I am, undoubtedly, a lazy girl blogger, i.e. someone who talks about their latest ‘favourites’ rather than weaving the words about their own life. Sometimes, it’s just all about the influences ... these are some of my current favourites.

The team behind My Little Earth and the Little Earth Cafe have a new guise, Brown Sugar. The drinks on their blog are proving endlessly inspiring to me.

I have just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (again). It’s really touched a nerve. From the off, I’ve always considered tropical fruit a treat rather than a staple (although I have a coconut weakness which I’ve slowly corrected this year). I hate the phrase ‘falling off the wagon’ when it comes to raw, simply because, for me, it’s always been about so much more than the percentages, and indeed the food, but saying that, my greatest struggle has always been over the winter months and the dilemma about imported foods/superfoods. This year has increasingly seen a shift in my local food consumption (although there are still tweakings to be made). We’ve always grown our own produce, but it’s stepped up a gear or three this year. Being creative with food produced within a 5 mile, 10 mile, 50 mile radius is really where I’m at (with the occasional raw pudding frenzy which is anything but - that’s what I mean by tweakings). If you’re at all interested in this then Animal, Vegetable, Mineral is a good place to start. In terms of instant transformation (if you’re a *bee*gan rather than vegan) why not replace dates/agave/maple with honey from a 10-mile radius? Baby steps ...

The Raw Model’s push to grow his own produce and Matthew Kenney’s focus on the seasonal continue this theme. In particular, check out the Raw Model’s pictures of Kenney’s new restaurant 105 degrees. Perhaps not truly seasonal but YUM! Nigel Slater’s latest, the very wonderful Tender, wholly focussed upon the seasonal is also proving endlessly inspirational and was designed by my wonderful friend Mrs Wolfson (not that I’m biased or anything).

Continuing the theme of it’s more than the food ... the latest edition of Get Fresh. It’s worth buying for the article by Roz Graham alone. Please, Fresh Network, bring her back into the magazine’s fold on a permanent basis. Also, fabulous to see Holly’s thoughts on diet and brain chemistry featured. Can’t wait for her forthcoming book!

Finally, the November issue of Runner’s World has a great feature on Percy Cerutty (pictured, hugging the runner Herb Elliott), a coach who believed in a high-raw diet and trained Olympic gold athletes in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It's inspired me to pull on my trainers. Not so lazy after all...

Photo © Time Inc.

02/10/2009

Local, raw ice-cream!


I’ve finally had some ice-cream – my first of the summer, a little late but better than never I guess. I’m happy to report it’s a local affair too after being stupendously impressed by reading this.

The recipe? Nut milk from cobnuts (essentially cultivated hazelnuts), the juice from damsons (stone, pulverize in the Vita-mix and then strain through a sieve) and some local honey. Churn the mixture around in an ice-cream machine. For a creamier affair you can add some powdered lecithin (but of course that’s neither raw nor local) ...

My other ice-cream of the moment is fig (pictured). Rinse, snip the tops off, pulverize in the Vita-mix (include the skin, no need to strain this time) and like the above affair add honey and nut milk (the thicker and richer the better) and watch it c-h-u-r-n into iced heaven via the magic machine.