Raw Adventure Day 3: Salem and New Year's Eve!

First off, Happy New Year again to everyone! We've spent another wonderful day in Salem, strolling the streets, visiting little shops some more, walking to Pickering Wharf, checking out the House of Seven Gables, and visiting America's oldest commercial candy shop, 'Ye Olde Pepper Companie'.

Apparently, the first candy ever commercially sold in the States in 1806 were called Gibralters (because they were rock hard like the rocks in the straight of Gibraltar??) Made of Molasses and flavored either with lemon or peppermint oil, they were a hard candy that never went bad and had a dinner mint-like texture. Though we won't be eating them, we bought some as souvenirs for the people in our lives who still eat candy :) All the other old-style candies they sold there were also pretty much variations on the Gibralter, aka. sugar, molasses, starch, cream of tartar... I guess they didn't have much to work with in the New World.

Nowadays, the candy shop makes all sorts of things from fudge, chocolate covered gummy bears, licorice, chocolate turtles, truffles, and more. Despite being on a raw diet, I'm still a die-hard foodie, so I still really enjoyed and visually appreciated all the pretty and/or yummy goodies they had on display. I think it actually adds something to my life to be able to appreciate something for what it's worth (the craft, the visual appeal, etc. of a food) without having the need or the desire to eat it (especially knowing that it would probably make me sick or would not be beneficial to my health in the least). It's like food enlightenment in some ways.

Anyway, it's getting pretty late so we'll be off to our Masquerade. But for a quick recap of the lack of raw food we can find around here:

After doing yogadownload's 20 Minutes of Power Yoga to start my day (which surprisingly kicked my ass... I guess I should seriously be doing more yoga), we started with breakfast at the b&b around 9:30am where the only thing we could have were slices of melon (though still wonderful!). We also had a glass of orange juice which was a MISTAKE because I could instantly tell that it was packed with sugar (and hopefully not high fructose corn syrup) and other nasties.

Later on in the morning (around 11am-noon) we snacked on some of the raw foods that I brought along that I've already mentioned. Around 2pm, we cracked and stopped by the Gulu Gulu again where we had a big mixed greens salad with cranberries and golden raisins. Andrew had a bowl of vegan chili, and we shared a glass of warm apple cider.

For our 4 o'clock snack, we finally ate one of those raw hemp brownies from Grezzo. It was SO delicious, but filled me up so much I've needed little since. I did have some sprouts, cucumber slices, and a kiwi later on. But off we go! Goodbye 2009! Thanks for all the amazing times! Up next: resolutions for the new year as we head back down to DC!