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A day of unceasing rain in London yesterday. The only bright spot was my first visit to Unpackaged, an organic grocery where goods are (you guessed it) unpackaged. I hardly want to admit to it (with all my ramblings about buying local and chortling over this) but I bought a few handfuls of organic goji berries. What can I say? It’s been tough surviving on fruit rations of pears and apples in the bleak months of Jan/Feb. I hope the fact that I bought my own packaging mitigates my purchase somewhat...

Daffodils

Spied the first daffodils of 2010. Blue sky today too!

Wishing you Peace

Wishing you peace. For 2010, the new decade, always. Image via a card from the exquisite publisher Mav.

Ten things you (perhaps don’t) need to know

1) I mourn the fact that good-quality vintage clothes are becoming harder and harder to find. Ebay has less and less, for more and more. Comparing the quality between, for example, 70s M&S and 00s M&S makes me want to weep.
2) I don’t like shopping but I love beautiful things, especially old buildings. I groan when I read about supposedly ‘improved’ old houses (which generally means that their souls have been ripped out).
3) I don’t wear perfume, but I’m a sucker for good-smelling oils and potions. Unguents make my day, every single day.
4) Scaravelli yoga is my drug of choice and probably one of my most important discoveries of the past decade. The late Vanda Scaravelli’s book on yoga is like no other.
5) Old-fashioned photo booths transform you into a pre-war goddess. I’m a fan.
6) I like to type in the pitch dark. Just my screen and I. It feels cozy.
7) Food. Sometimes I’m good, sometimes I’m bad (and I know it’s daft to refer to food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but it’s a habit I’m unlikely to break). Seasonality has proved the most stable way to keep my choices on track. I will write more about this when I sum up what 2009 has meant to me.
8) Gazing at pictures of raw food never fails to lift my mood. I dream of the day when former derelict tea shops all over Britain, turn into establishments offering glistening, gleaming, sparkling raw treats.
9) I love diaries, biographies and autobiographies. Good places to start are here, here and here.
10) I lived in Brighton during the 90s. I’d move back there in a snap if the opportunity arose. It’s a city that makes me feel good about myself, always. You can’t ask for more than that.

This somewhat random list has been generated due to the bestowing of an award by the lovely Neeta. I am, apparently, a piece of ‘honest scrap’. The rules to receiving this award are as follows:

1) Post the award on your blog. Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.
2) Tell those 7 people they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP, inform them of these guidelines, and ask that they link back to you.
3) Share ‘Ten Honest Things’ about yourself.

My nominations include several ‘dormant’ bloggers in the hope that they spring back to life in 2010! Others are newly revived blogs, or just plain new and inspiring:

In Beauty May I Walk
Poppy’s Juice Feast
Otchipotchi
Kurashi Arekore
Raw Mama
Coxeter’s Fayre
Linda in the Raw

Quinces

My dedication to local eating continues apace. I have one particular exception this month: imported quinces. Once the English quinces have been devoured, I scour the market stalls for imported ones. If, as has been suggested, you need one or two 'foreign' treats in the battery of home-grown products, then quinces are up there (on a pedestal) for me.

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.

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.