Eat Dance Live

Food for the Day 1. Warm lemon water w/ raw honey (my throat is feeling a little funny) 2. A very citrus-alicious Pink Grapefruit & Lemon Splash from Le Pain Quotiden and some stolen berries from Andrew's Berry Cup 3. 1/2 a clementine on the way to the gym 4. 1/2 an orgasmic gala apple (I go through phases where I'll obsess over one type of apple for a little while and then move on to another one) 5. Chef tastings (I know...) of a chocolate mint tofu pie I made for Andrew (made with chocolate crust, raw tofu, mint & mint extract, agave, sea salt, vanilla, and mint chocolate shavings... I'm experimenting with sprouting spelt rather than using oat groats for part of my crusts all the time) The reason I love surfing around the blogosphere (yes, I still feel silly using that word) is that I often come across life-altering articles, amazing people, or more selfishly and egotistically, wonderful justifications for my own life choices. Tonight was one of those nights, whe...

Food for the Day 1. Woke up and had some hot lemon water 2. Papaya + Banana smoothie (just the fruits and water) with maca and mesquite powders 3. Green Juice (cucumber, celery, kale, parsley, ginger, carob powder) 4. 1 pear 5. Honeybush Tea I feel like I have some 'splaining to do: My sudden desire to go on yet another mini-cleanse not only came from sudden inspiration by Heather's blog (as I mentioned yesterday), but largely from having dabbled with certain non-raw foods for half a day for the first time in the last little while and feeling absolutely gross because of it. Now, you might automatically label me as a purist thinking it's not that big a deal to have some non-raw food every once in a while, but the scary thing is, depending on what those foods are, it can be. Now, when we visit my parents on most weekends, my mom often makes us these incredible vegan veggie dishes that I'll just eat up. They are almost always just veggies and tofu either wonderfully steam...

"Hi my name is Chantal, and I have 'sticking-to-fasts' aversion..." "Hi Chantal." As a lead up to my post, here are my two shout-outs of the day: I have to say that Heather (and her blog, Adventures of Raw Goddess Heathy ) has definitely been one of the biggest inspirations in my choice to go raw (the other one being Meredith Frantz and her awesome blog, the Raw Seed ). In short, both of these women pretty much exemplified what I was looking for when I first wanted to turn to raw foods: emotional and physical health, fitness, happiness, all resulting in inner and outer beauty. Seeing them, I thought, hey, if they can do it and seem so wonderful, than I can too! After reading Heather's post today, I decided that I too have a confession to make: I've always been really enamored by the concept of fasting. Since my childhood, I had always conveniently been able to take the period of Lent very seriously, a seriousness those around me just saw as some kind...

I think the best thing on earth right now (aside from our Spirooli which produced another amazingly tasty raw spaghetti dinner) is avocado based chocolate pudding /frosting. Who knew that one avocado, cacao powder, agave nectar, a tiny bit of sea salt, and vanilla extract could produce something that other people only believe comes in one of those plastic Jello pudding containers or on a restaurant dessert menu! Workout of the Day: 5 minutes of cardio warmup on stairclimber 4x12 leg raises (target area: lower abs) 4x12 crunches (target area: r ectus abdominis) 4x12 torso rotation machine (target area: obliques) 3x12 db chest press on stability ball 3x12 shoulder shrugs 3x12 tricep extensions 10 minutes of stretching Recipe of the Day: C is for raw CHOCOLATE PUDDING!!!

You don't notice things you do or say until you see them from a third person perspective. One part of the movie Julie & Julia that apparently stayed with me was when Julie first tastes one of the meals she made and says something along the lines of "I know you're not suppose to say yum when you're eating... but Yum!" I thought the comment was both cute but also so very 'American', especially when said as a contrast to the more ritualized table manners and etiquette of French cooking and dining you also see throughout the movie. That one little comment made me think more generally about being able to express your joy when tasting new foods... and it's true! For some reason, in certain social situations, it is seen as being rude to be overly expressive or loud when your food tastes good. Why is that? Shouldn't we be allowed to let other people know when we find something particularly tasty? Shouldn't it be a compliment to the chef or the p...

The great thing about raw and whole foods is that it's really easy to experiment with them when you're feeling creative. The even better thing is that attempts at culinary creativity rarely fail in the raw food world. If something doesn't taste so great, I find it's much easier to tweak back to normalcy than cooked food. After all, if something is burnt, it's burnt. If you over-bake something and it's dry and tasteless, it's pretty hard to save! Here are a couple really simply examples of fun things I've been doing, when I get the urge to create! Dessert Sushi -Wrap your favourite sweets in a dehydrated banana! -The ones in picture were a combination of strawberries, raw chocolate sauce, hemp seeds, coconut flakes, and raw almond -Put them together like you would a regular sushi roll, placing all the ingredients at the top of the banana strip and rolling it up. They always turns out great! Guava Rolls and Banana Stacks -Cashew cream Rolls (dehydrated gua...

I just recently posted about one of my recent experiences doing Bikram and alluded to Eckhart Tolle's conception of consciousness and the importance of living in the present, or as he calls it, "The Power of Now". Recently, at the movies, they've been playing this Coke commercial, which I actually find to be the most tragic thing I've ever seen: All I see when I watch this is a guy who is such a Coke junkie that he completely misses out on what's happening around him. He doesn't ever join the snowball fight. He never actually smiles until he gets his fix. There is such joy and fun and laughter happening all around him, and he misses it all completely. All he can think about is getting his bottle of Coke. When I saw it for the first time a couple weeks ago, it just made me so sad. To think that someone can have so much happiness and child-like glee around him and for him to be completely unaware of any of it. Dodging snowballs aside, he appears completely ...

Not much to post today as we were out in the 'burbs. We had a nice stroll, making stops at looking Ten Thousand Villages (where I couldn't help but buy the pretty little condiment dish featured here, I'm thinking PB&J?), Tugooh toys (the coolest toy store EVER), and Barnes & Noble (where I drooled over some raw cookbooks) among other places before going to see Sherlock Holmes , which ended up being a very fun movie. (I now have an even stronger urge to wear a bustle...) Workout of the Day: 25 minutes of sprint runs on the treadmill (warming up for 3 minutes, then alternating between a level 10 intensity sprint for 1 minute followed by a 1 minute jog, at about a level 6 or 7 intensity, finishing off with a 3-5 minute cooldown) 10 minutes of stretching Recipe of the Day: We started the day with Brendan Brazier's Apple Cinnamon Cereal from his ' Thrive Diet ' (you can find the non-raw version here ). That was probably the most exciting food-related event ...

Recently, I've been craving foods I've never even really had an appetite for in the past, but I've been having the urge to sit down and eat a raw food version of your stereotypical 'meat and potatoes' kind of meal. I've almost had this desire for blandness (which just doesn't exist with raw food!). Luckily, the blog world provided me with just the right answers to this craving, through Choosing Raw's recent post for 'steak and potatoes', and Rawmazing's recipe for marinated mushrooms and cauliflower! My own version ended up being a marinated couple tbsp of oil, a tbsp of braggs, a tbsp of balsamic vinegar, and a tbsp of maple syrup, which my portobello mushroom sat in for about 2 hours, cut into slices and dehydrated for about 30 minutes before serving. The cauliflower mash more or less followed the Rawmazing version (but without the pinenuts). Too add to the 'All American' meal feeling, I added sliced carrots and broccoli marinated...

... and by "me", I mean little "me" or "i", my ego, my pain body, rather than who I actually am: "Me", the big "I", or my higher consciousness (check out Eckhart Tolle 's works to give you incredible insight into that kind of vocabulary). Today's Bikram class was yet another experience in my personal path to Enlightenment... I get surprised every time it happens, even though it's happened every time I go. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how much this is doing for me. Today was an experience in letting go, letting go of a portion of my pain body that I still struggle with today: self-image. I woke up this morning feeling wonderful; physically, emotionally, I was just as happy as could be. Within 20 minutes of my Bikram practice, having taken in the heat, starting to release my usual toxins, I began to slip. I was getting progressively more upset, my thoughts were clouded, my attention unfocused, my position...

So after a day of classes, I got caught up having a wonderful dinner out with my family at a vegan Chinese Restaurant, Yuan Fu , that has officially made my family's roster of 'restaurants we go out to on a regular basis'... love the healthy food changes happening within the household. We then proceeded to back to my parents' place to watch old home videos, and that proved to be much more entertaining than I thought it would already be. It's funny how we all believe that, over the years, we really develop emotionally, physically, and spiritually as people. However, I think that a lot of our mannerisms and core emotional and/or spiritual beliefs actual develop from a very early age, that we keep them for a lifetime, and that we in fact change very little. I burst out laughing when we watched a video back from 1992 (when I was only 4 1/2) when I watched my child-self display behaviour identical to something I was doing just last night. It's also really entertainin...

My victory of the day: a new yummy green juice made up of kale, cucumber, ginger, carob, and plantain. The plantain and carob went very well together, giving a nice kick to the monotony that has become my green juices (even though I still love 'em!). Workout of the Day: 1.5 hours ballet class 100 crunches Recipe of the Day : Yummy green juice mentioned above I'm still toying with raw black bean brownies, but the outcome is still not satisfying...

My day began and ended with mint in stranger ways than I could have ever imagined... Over a breakfast of green juice for breakfast (kale, cucumber, apple, celery, mesquite and maca), I created yet another raw ice cream. This time it was a variation on previously made mint chocolate-chip ice cream in what Andrew called my new raw 'mint oreo ice cream'. Here's the secret: Raw Mint 'Oreo' Ice Cream 2 C cashews, soaked overnight 1 C water 2/3 C agave nectar (or maple syrup, I think I did half of each) 1 tsp vanilla (or 1 whole vanilla bean) 1/3-1/2 C crushed mint leaves 1/2 tsp (or to taste) of mint extract dash of salt pinch of spirulina for green color raw oreo cookie dough (see below) cacao nibs, optional 1. Blend everything in a Vitamix (or blender or food processor) until smooth 2. Pour into ice cream machine and follow directions! 3. In the middle of the ice cream machine process, or once the ice cream starts to get a solid enough ice cream consistency, blend in t...