hooray vancouver!

ok so maybe not so much "raw" news as vegan news on a rainy monday in vancouver... easter day-off monday... but yah...

so first, i was super excited to finally check out the completely vegan shoe store that just opened up on fraser between 19th and 20th, nice shoes! i had an ethical deal coupon (um, could i get any luckier?) for a pair of colourful grass (notice the 'u' in colourful? oh yeah, canadian! vancouver island even!) flats in vandana rose. any chance the name is inspired by vandana shiva, who i just recently saw in the inspiring good food, bad food or first heard of when i picked up manifestos on the future of food and seed? or am i just a food nerd?

 and well, how could i resist a pair of hopeful-for-summer-soon flats that bear my name!? and the brand name novacas means "no cow" in spanish and portuguese! love it! and these sandals are so comfy and i love that they snap open and shut and they are slouchy. and they are BUILT BY KINDNESS. how glorious is that?

oh and to bring this back to the raw... nice shoes is also carrying hurraw! lip balm which is "all natural, organic, vegan, raw, good" (hehe) lip balm! i got grapefruit and i LOVE how smooth this stuff is. like coconut oil but absorbs in more of a strong glide if that makes sense. when i have dry lips, i feel coconut oil is too thin to convince me it's working? i don't know. i haven't bought anything skin-related in so long but that was a super fun purchase. plus i love that the container is like a flattened version of the typically cylinder wind-up.

oh and talking with joanne at the store, she showed me this video of a 109 year old man who has been eating raw forever and he is just incredible! look at his skin! he's going to open a restaurant? his life has just begun! i love how he says "you've heard people say you are what you eat? well, you are!"

on my way home, i stopped in at gorilla food for a goji almond crunch cookie and i couldn't believe it! they now have a debit machine! apparently they've had it for 2 weeks? but i swear it wasn't there on friday or wednesday when i was last there :) hehe. but no matter! i'm just so excited that i don't have to wait until i have some cash on me to stop in! YAY!!!  i have to mention though, that when i was there on wednesday with 2 friends who didn't have cash, i had $40 for dinner for all of us and it was a success! we shared desserts, a smoothie and 3 menu items! who says raw, vegan, organic food is expensive?

catching up...

i've been terrible at updating lately but of course still taking photos of foods i think are fun.
one night in the last few weeks (gah!), i made some sort of ice cream. i'm guessing it was a chocolate mint type thing. but maybe it was just mint leaves on the side of something with cacao nibs. i'm guessing frozen bananas were involved, a splash of almond milk (which i FINALLY started making my own of! hurrah for vitamix!) and who knows. was that it? was there some lucuma maybe? why is it so white? oh man, i'm thinking now that this might just be some of that coconut milk ice cream which is not raw in the least. it might be the chocolate chip mint one and i added nibs to it to make it more legit. ha. the martini glasses help too, right?

ok so ANYWAYS, feb. 13th me and paul hosted some friends for raw dinner. YAY!!! first up (after a veggie juice!) was the caeasar salad i believe i've posted before. i like to practice first so it's not so nervewracking having people over. though i love doing a recipe/idea for the first time for potlucks. maybe it's because there are other dishes/people involved so it's not all relying on me!

then... the raw lasagna! YAH! that day i was like CRAP i don't have anything white or cheese like for a ricotta type layer!!! so i went to gorilla food for some of their alfredo sauce to put as a layer along with marinated mushroom, pine nut pesto, sundried tomato sauce with slices of roma and then ani phyo's marinara sauce for top and bottom layers!

i LOVE all the layers! i felt i put a bit too much thyme (time? ha, not really) into the marinara sauce but at least it wasn't bland?

 for dessert... the brazil nut/almond 'shortbread' from organic lives. these are soooo awesome. i have been begging for them to keep this cookie going. i think hearts are TOTALLY relevant past valentines' day but i don't care the shape of them! if that's why they're done, they should just make 'em in another shape! i just want them again! they are the best! i don't know how you would pick a baked sugar cookie when you could have these!!!

 ooh and then another day recently, i finally made use of the burgers (from nature provides) i bought at karmavore. warmed em up in the dehydrator and packed some romaine leaves (the bun!) with beets and peppers and onions. hurrah! i went to buddha-full the other day and noticed their amazing kale chips are from nature provides. i didn't previously make the connection that the fabulous pizza (i had bought the crust from karmavore also) and raw burger was nature provides also! and so then i'm told that they are building a spot for nature provides in the restaurant to make everything there in house! eek! i love buddha-full. they are going to start having theme nights, i think the last friday of the months so there is a raw meal of a certain style of food like italian or what not. organic lives did an indian one in january which i sadly missed. they debuted a raw samosa which will hopefully be appearing on the menu any day now. i think they are doing a mexican night next! anyways... excited to see what will be served up in buddha-full in the coming months!

 and then there is rooted cafe in eternal abundance on the drive. i was there on friday for dinner and started with the raw chocolate heart! YES! not too sweet... just right!

 and gah, the raw kale caeasar... i could eat a million of these forever. i can't imagine getting sick of this!

 raw tomato red pepper soup with flax cracker. excellent! and inspiring me to get on trying the soups in the vitamix again...

 and well, i had to have a second dessert! after dinner! hehe. the cheesecake! YES!!!

i want to get out to the drive more often. i love what the rooted cafe is doing!!! the food and the people there are so amazing!!!

hooray for coming home!

i had such an amazing time with amazing people in korea but i have to admit, i'm pretty excited about getting to make my own food again and get to eat my favourite kinds of things!

first stop yesterday when i got home was some food to go from gorilla food:
i got a choco gorilla shake (almonds, cacao, banana, hempseeds, date, coconut oil) to try keep me awake while i waited for the food. i know being awake 26+ hours played a big role but waiting 40 minutes seemed excessive for my salad) and 2 treats to go (the cinnamon almond goji crunch cookie and a piece of the fudge).

 i got the great gorilla salad which really felt good because i have been craving dark greens and avocados and almonds and hemp seeds.... it was worth the wait! but the best part was getting to hang out with lovely people later when i ate it!

okay and then today... my parents were out and my favourite person's birthday was 2 days ago so we had a lovely early dinner together at organic lives, another place i've been excited to go back to since korea.
i ate some of my parents' sushi and mexispirals and split this tostada salad to start. SOOOOO GOOD.

 and then i got the mushroom pasta (zucchini noodles are always a win but the sauce is too much raw mushroom taste - it needs more kick! i mixed the side salad with its citrus dressing in to help). the masala burger on yam bread was pretty good - some sauce would do it quite well. the dehydrated 'bun' and dehydrated 'burger' is too much dehydrated stuff, you know?
so... the tostada salad was definitely my favourite. but it was exciting to try some new things there! and it gets my brain buzzing with inspiration for making things at home!
there wasn't a black vitamix in stock so i guess i'll have to wait on getting that. sadness!

 when i got home, i regretted not getting some dessert to take home so i whipped up some macaroons with some coconut oil, coconut flakes, medjool dates and cacao powder and put them in the dehydrator for maybe an hour to warm them up a bit. they were a hit!

vancouver is awesome.

okay so i have to interrupt my stream of posts to come of costa rica drool-worthy foods to quickly say, THANK YOU WEDNESDAY. i got back on friday and was feeling super discouraged about being home, being cold, being poor, being away from the green beauty that is costa rica.
but then yesterday came along and reminded me of why vancouver is awesome.
first, despite recently moving into my own place and having no dishes, i made up a great salad and enjoyed it out of a pot. i don't use pots anymore for cooking but hooray for them being there for me to eat giant salads out of!












then, i was able to finally hit up the farmer's market. there is a wednesday one at main street station which rules as i usually work the weekends when the westend one is on. last summer, there was one in gastown which RULED but it was a trial run and i guess it wasn't successful enough to do again this year. and since i generally seem to be away most of the summers, it's september when i get a month of bliss of farmer's market time! so i was super excited to collect on the local, organic produce! so inspiring! and i got some curry crackers from radha too :)
















then! i got to meet up with my sister for gorilla food. we both got the jungle coleslaw (SO good!) and she got a burger and i got the main st monkey sandwich that i was craving all day. i last had one of their sandwiches the day i got home from korea so it was so nice to get one again.















and then to complete the day of awesome (though it would have been 200% amazing if it had worked out with my friend who i'm trading piano lessons for a chair to be delivered), i went to talent time that night. and a friend who runs an amazing company of earth-friendly moving boxes, frogbox, who helped me do a zero-emissions move across the city, came to the show too! it's been exciting to see how the crowd is growing at this show.
ooh and i brought chlorella (with spearmint) to drop in my water at the biltmore so it wouldn't taste nasty and also so i'd have this green drink to freak people out with. er, whatever. it made drinking more exciting.
anyways!
i made a pinata for it (full of money - it's a 'cover charge pinata', organic vegan lollipops, pencils, stickers and boxes of raisins) and again, this whole raw thing does wonders for multi-uses of kitchen products. like my stove becomes workspace for crafts! perfect! i haven't started storing stuff in my oven yet but who knows.













anyways, after a summer off, the variety show of inspired and earnest people of all sorts of talents came back to the biltmore. it happens the first wednesday of every month, it's $8 and starts at 9 but if you want a seat of some sort, the lineup to get in starts around 8. i was particularly impressed by the 12 year old violinist. and then at the end, the vancouver complaints choir performed and it was glorious! i loved the kind of complaints veda hille collected to represent the kinds of things vancouver people complain about: cars vs bikes, no beer in the grocery store and umbrella etiquette.
and it reminds me of helsinki which i spent one day in last summer. i guess theirs was the second ever complaints choir. anyways, when i was there, i was excited to find one place with raw/living foods - vegetaari. i went 2x the one day i was there and told the lady i was from vancouver and was excited to check out her place. she said beautiful things to me that of course i can't remember at the moment. but i can't help but relate beautiful food to beautiful people and beautiful love all around.

so... i may be back home and a bit restless for my next adventure (and seemingly in a rambling random mood today?), but there are plenty of exciting and inspiring things happening in my own city to keep me occupied for awhile.
thank you, vancouver.