Eat Dance Live

As I mentioned recently, I will most likely be bingeing on corn and watermelon for the next 4 months until they go out of season again. At that point, my love for the two of them will be a long-distance one, and my passions will have to hibernate until it's summer again. While I can eat some fruits and veggies out of season, I find it strange that I can't bring myself to eat either watermelons or corn when it's not summer (I tend to have a hard time eating out-of-season strawberries too, in fact, I get a little fanatical about that one... just ask Andrew... it's not pretty). So to make the most out of the 10 organic ears of corn we bought over the weekend at MOM' s, I made Ani Phyo 's Red Pepper Corn Salsa, after trying out Alissa Cohen 's Corn Tortillas a couple days ago . It was fresh and delicious, though I feel like it should have had lime in it or something. There's just something about corn and tomatoes that's juuuust right! I also unfortunatel...

What just a few days out in nature can do to revive a person is truly wonderful. Three days of camping was exactly what I needed to get back into the final swing of things. One more paper to go, three more days to do it... While it seems a challenge to do after being so relaxed and reconnected to more important things in life than school and grades, my brain is ready for the challenge. It was so wonderful to do nothing but get back in touch with myself, greenery, and people. Spending your nights around a campfire drumming and dancing is more therapeutic to me than a lot of life's activities... The funny thing I noticed is that I find that when I'm away from home (and more specifically, my kitchen), I don't define myself as obsessively by food as I do when I am home. I can think about other things, I can be someone else, and my thoughts become more diverse. It seems strange but it's true. Sometimes I ask Andrew if I drive him insane when I realize that 90% of m...

My magically mysterious recipe of the day was Meredith's Cucumber Dill Dressing served over a lovely salad. Actually, that's a lie. I made this over the weekend but was saving it as collateral for a day I would be sans new recipe. While I did make another one of Meredith's recipes today, it's still in the works (aka. the freezer) so I had nothing concrete to report, thus you get a salad pic instead. Cucumber and dill go wonderfully together, they leave such a refreshing taste in your mouth. There's a reason why the combination is so popular. The first thing I think of when I hear 'cucumber dill' are those cute little tea sandwiches that you'd imagine eating with lace gloves during High Tea with the Queen of England... or is that just me? I also made Alissa Cohen's 'Almost Tuna' recipe from her book, Living on Live Foods . Though we took pictures of it, it photographed just like tuna; by that I mean, it turned out looking like a grey-ish goo...

My update for the day is my latest attempt at a couple more recipes from Alissa Cohen's Living On Live Foods . Because I've been craving savory more than sweet recently, I realized that I never actually made any of her desserts yet! That changed today when I tried her Hamentaschen recipe, or as she called them Jewish Pop-Tarts. I also had extra 'Pop-tart crust' leftover so made some with other flavors, including raspberry (just mush them) and some with blueberries and cinnamon. I meant to actually shape them into real Pop-Tart rectangles, but the triangles looked so cute I just made them all that way! These aren't life changing, but they are tasty. They taste very... wholesome? And I like that every once in a while. I also love anything with prunes in it, so that won me over pretty easily! For dinner, I made her recipe simply called "Alissa's Juice", with the apple (rather than pineapple) option. It was DELICIOUS! I didn't realize how much I love ...

After another day of grocery shopping madness out in the 'burbs (who knew it was so difficult to find bulk unsulphured organic apricots!), I went on another mad cooking spree this evening. We had another very successful dinner for which I perfected yet another one of Alissa Cohen's recipes: her Mock Salmon Pate, which was quite a pretty color and was really tasty (I have leftovers which I plan on running a fun test on tomorrow). I served them up with some fresh cut veggies and a brand of local-ish raw chips we found at MOM's today. To make up little lettuce boats/wraps, I also added romaine lettuce leaves and sprouts to the plate post-photography. As a side note, the chips were divine , they even had the salty baked corn after taste that you get when you eat tortillas chips. They are from Brad's Raw Chips (we picked the red pepper kind), that you can apparently only get a hold of in PA and MD for now. Prompted by Andrew's "so, what's for desert?" as s...

So I had one of those 'plan for contingencies' weekends except I didn't which means I was kept away from life, this blog, sanity, and above all lots of school work... All is well now, but given that it's 1:30am and my beddy is calling my name, here is just a picture of Alissa Cohen's Wheat Berry Salad which I mentioned in my last post. I don't know what it is about the mix of flavors, but this simple recipe is actually out of this world. Some mix of the flavors in this recipe (I think it might be the taste of olive oil, raw honey, and salt over wheat berries) actually reminds me exactly of when my first babysitter used to sneak butter into my rice as a 'special treat' when I was little (she was from Haiti and that's something you do there, unlike the blasphemy it probably is to all my Chinese ancestors). I used to think it was pretty tasty, and now a cucumber wheat berry salad reminds me of my childhood! Everyone wins! Workout of the Day 1.5 Hours of...

Slowly but surely, I've been working my way through Alissa Cohen 's 300+ recipes (from her book, Living on Live Food ) . This week's yumminess was her recipe for raw calzones topped with marinara sauce. While I still like her pizza best, and her burger second, these filled a craving for denser and warmer foods that's I've had recently. (Also, the picture in the book is just really appealing). I've come to the point in my culinary life where I can now read a recipe book and realize whether or not I'm going to like the taste of the recipes of not. I don't believe in denigrating anyone's taste buds, and I realize that we all have difference preferences, so we have to find the recipes that resonate with ours. What one person might like is what another person might detest. Some people like sweet, some like sour, some like more 'exotic' tastes, while others like their food more basic and sensible, and that's all great! So when looking for the ...

Between Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, and Mardi Gras, I've definitely had my fill of holidays over the past couple days! First off, happy New Year to all those on the lunar calendar and a special shout-out to all the other Tiger zodiacs out there! As kids, we definitely used to make a bigger deal out of Chinese New Year, doing a lot more of the traditional activities a family does and getting our little red money envelopes at the end of the evening. However, we still honor the most important part of the day though: getting together as a family to celebrate over a big meal. We had a wonderful dinner with all of the many extensions of my Chinese family that live in the area, now uniting four generations under one roof! Though I didn't have most of the meal because it wasn't raw (I made a big salad for the veggie eaters), I still loved to share in the experience of the big traditional Chinese hot pot (which is actually your perfectly balanced meal of proteins, starch...

I am so in love with Alissa Cohen 's pizza recipe... I made another super batch today using her easy pizza crust recipe along with the marinara sauce from her eggplant parmesan recipe and my own permutation of cheese like substance. All of this was topped with my usual favourites: pineapple, black olives, broccoli, and spinach. For the 'cheese', I used: -1 1/2 C macadamia nuts -1/2 C pinenuts -juice of 1/2 lemon -1 tbsp of Braggs Liquid Aminos Just blend in the Vitamix (you could probably add a couple tbsps of water if it's not creamy enough). It made about 2 cups which was enough to cover two 8'' pizzas with a little bit leftover. Though I did used to like pizza, I was never pizza crazy the way college guys are capable of being, but ever since I've discovered the raw version, I can't get enough! I can just hear my stomach screaming 'Piiiizzzzzzaaaa..." the minute the first slice passes through my lips. I think I finally understand how guys feel...

Sometimes when I travel, I just like to wing it: pick a destination and then just stop wherever you want a long the way, no schedule, no plans, just discovery. At other times, I like the structure of knowing exactly where I'm going to stay, and what I am going to do, just to feel more secure. And hey, when I get to my destination, sure, I can still amend my schedule and take things as they come. Recently, I've kind of found my traveling comfort zones, I like to mix structure with spontaneity, I want to know where I'm sleeping and have a rough idea of the places I should scope out, but the rest is up the Universe. Being on a raw diet has put minor constraints on spontaneity though. Now, I simply feel I need to look up a new place to see if there is anywhere we can actually eat: do they have raw food? organic food? etc. It definitely has never stopped me from going somewhere, but it does make things just a tad more challenging. At the same time, because of that, I can now tot...

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...