gratitude cafe!

hooray! i got to try gratitude cafe in calgary last night!
i'll admit i was quite nervous about bringing paul and his mom there as there is an unbelievable amount of negative reviews of "attitude cafe". but paul and i agreed that our extremely low expectations weren't the reason we had a most lovely experience! paul's mom even said she would love to stop in again if she finds herself in kensington. so either people there have figured out how to run things in the last couple years or there are some delusional yelp stalkers trying to make them look bad!

when we came in, i was the only one who really wanted to eat, but the place was empty and thankfully everyone was okay with staying for something sit-down. our waitress came right away and suggested we do the raw platter and told us the wrap that was part of it could be split into 3 for us. so that was super easy!

it came so quick,  i don't even remember waiting!

the platter had a curry(?) with sunflower seed-sauced veg noodles in the center with a shittake on top, collard wraps and a gingery salad with sprouted quinoa, cilantro, cucumber and red cabbage. all pieces of the platter had intense (but welcome!) and differing flavours and textures. the vegetable crackers were too dry for paul's liking, but i enjoyed the thicker, nuttier texture than i am used to. i wish i could place more of the tastes but they were welcome ones that i don't have often! everyone enjoyed sharing this. and it was really nice how it was divided up into 3 portions for us!

we then decided to take on one of the raw desserts available - the amaretto cheezecake with a convenient 3 (1 for each of us! i'm sure it wasn't a coincidence!) cape gooseberries as garnish. super sweet and a nice nut (and possibly avocado)- influenced texture. it looked and tasted a bit like thanksgiving, er, perhaps, gratitude, on a plate. hehe.

and everything was so quick and enjoyable, we decided to stay for a latte. me and paul planned to share. then paul's mom figured she'd have one too. and the staff split our 2 ordered lattes into 3 mugs! yay! we got chai tea with almond milk. i guess one thing i was surprised by was the apparent lack of any "raw" drink choices. i guess you need to ask what is available for smoothie flavours and juices. there was no indication if fresh fruit was used and juiced on the spot or if everything was from a package (which i assume). i did expect at the very least, house-made almond milk. there was a coconut milk option but i confirmed it was from a can. no thanks! and okay, i'm happy enough to have almond milk from a tetra when i'm dining out in alberta! in a raw-friendly cafe!

and really, this was such a treat especially when compared to our options at o'sullivans later that night for karaoke! i was so excited to see 'vegan' on the menu but it turned out to be 'vegan nightmare'. hahaha.

anyways, i'm happy that we got to go to gratitude cafe and i just joined yelp now so that i can leave a positive review!

thank you, rooted!

yesterday was not the best day and that's after a not so great wednesday. i can't even remember the last time i felt so frustrated and BLEH!
paul got home around the same time as me which is a crazy thing in itself and he suggested dinner and eek! the day suddenly perked up!
the especially crazy thing though was that i wasn't craving anything in particular and not particularly hungry.
so... the best place to go (and he hadn't been yet!) was rooted on the drive. i always feel so much better after being here and last night was no exception. the people here are amazing and the food is incredible!!! (ooh and i'm happy to report they are open every day 11-8!)
i quickly regained my appetite! YAY!

we shared a large kale casear (i felt like i could eat another of those! soooo good!!) and i had some of paul's chili and i ate most of the mexican wrap. messy but delicious! ooh and we had the lucuma/mesquite cheezecake for dessert! YES!

this is probably my most favourite place to eat in vancouver. and i can't help but think that even though i haven't mastered eliminating stress in the work part of my life, at least i don't seem to have food-caused stress in my life and i'm healthy overall. 

and eating at places like rooted make me feel super lucky and happy.

<3

oops, here's soup. it's been awhile.

i haven't written anything in forever. i swear i have been making lots of new things with success! hmm... well, to start is a soup today! i'm so happy it didn't taste awful! (for once)

what it is: brazil nuts, filtered water, a sliver of red onion, a couple sprigs of parsley, a stalk of celery, a carrot, a leaf of romaine and a spoon of sprouted chickpea miso. i was paranoid that i put too much onion in (i remember in attempts before that a little onion or garlic goes a long way when doing the raw soup) so i added more watery greens than i was originally thinking. i added the brazil nuts for creaminess when i worried it'd be too watery or "hot juice"-like. anyways, success! i ate it all with ease and even enjoyment. ha.
i feel like i should dump some photos on this ol' thing for an update so here goes...
last week i went for a picnic on the patch of grass in front of the storage place, across the street from organic lives. my friend had the tapas platter and i had one of my 'usuals', the tostada salad. of course, in my excitement to be eating AND eating outside, i slid the salad onto my lap first. but no matter.

so i bought tocotrienols the other day from, yep, organic lives, and i'm excited to up my vitamin e (so far, i've been using it in smoothies including a fantastic brazil nut milk, frozen pear and banana with ginger one). my skin has been freaking out lately and it's been driving me crazy!!! hoping more vitamin e is going to help... i was pretty proud of my "raw glow" as of last year. i guess detoxing can take quite awhile though. and i recognize i need to sleep more than a few hours a night. anyways... on the weekend, i managed an afternoon off to go on my friend's boat for a cruise around vancouver. it was BLISS!!! the water, the wind, the sun, the friends, the classic rock on the radio... the next day, my skin was noticeably more clear! i can't believe that one day can do that!!! so anyways, i have just a couple weeks until summer vacation and i'm going to be trying to sleep more and relax more before then but i'm hopeful that i will feel a lot healthier very soon!

okay, what else has been inspiring me lately? raw dessert! my friend alexia made this cheesecake a couple weekends ago for our friend anna's birthday:

 isn't it gorgeous? it tastes as great (or better?) than it looks!!!

i'm pretty sure it's the white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake (page 95) of sweet gratitude, the desserts book of cafe gratitude - an organic vegan place in san francisco i've somehow never been to despite visiting sf at least 3 times? anyways, alexia swears by this book and i requested it from the library right away. i now have it in my hands and am excitedly getting ready for my first attempt at something - the alexia-recommended "lemon-poppy seed cake" (page 54). i'm thinking if the sun comes out next weekend as well, it'd be super amazing to bring this out with some friends on grass somewhere or maybe if i'm especially lucky, on the water again!

hmm, so what other excitement? i've started making cracker/bread type things again! i was inspired by organic lives's sesame gaufrette but thought i'd try something to make a wrap. i blended up soaked medjools, sesame seeds and red onion, orange and a date or 2 and spread out on the teflex. ooh yes! so great! i don't have an exact recipe but each time i've done it, it's been great! though i do recommend one orange rather than 2. me and paul are imagining raw perogies in the near future! YES!!!

and what else? i finally attempted to make coconut jerky! i have been nervous about wasting my frozen organic coconut meat (not the cheapest stuff ever) on such attempts but i have since learned, you can't really screw up a good thing. coconut is just so fantastic... i guess if you have all yummy things together, you can't go wrong! regardless, i felt safer with a recipe to at least loosely follow and this is the one i found: 

Meat of 1 Young Thai Coconut - sliced in strips

Marinade:
1 T Agave
1 t Nama Shoyu
1/4 t each of Cardamom, Cumin, Cinnamon, Black Pepper and Salt

Marinate the Coconut strips in the marinade for 4 hours and then dehydrate.
I liked it best after in for 3-4 hours before I went to bed, but then I flipped and left it in until morning - and they were a bit too tough, still very delicious and great exercise for the jaws! 

ok it's funny to me now as i guess i didn't follow this all that closely but i was definitely heavily inspired. i don't use agave so i'm not sure what i used, if anything, in it's place.. i'm sure i used tamari instead of nama shoyu (not raw or soy-free but them's the breaks!) and i used the caradamon, cumin and cinnamon and some salt and maybe pepper. the texture is so awesome when you dehydrate the meat. i'm excited to experiment with this further!

hmmm... what else? well i am always super inspired and excited to eat at buddha-full in north vancouver. 

a few weeks ago, there was some sun and my friend and i ate outside. i finally tried their raw lasagna!

 super delicious, as to be expected, though i thought it was a little small for the price. but i am more than willing to pay for such things. i'd much rather have access to this kind of take-out than anything else!!!

bought a cheesecake for the bus ride home :) is it bad that i can no longer remember what kind it was?

ah, and as usual, had to get some of agathe's raw burgers for easy dinner later at home! 

here's some pics from the last time we made raw burgers at home!

it appears that agathe is no longer producing raw food items under the name "nature provides". looking at buddha-full's site, her company now appears to be called "tao organics". 

it looks like i will get to go to buddha-full on wednesday (hurrah!) so i'm excited to try one of their new menu items!

okay... 2 more updates... since i last posted, paul has been inspired to make his own raw dinner! i was so excited! it's always so much fun to eat something someone else has prepared!

i wish i could remember what he put together but i think it involved kelp and zucchini noodles, avocado, nutritional yeast (undoubtedly), tomato... and awesomeness. :) 

and last but not least, my 2nd year volunteering with growing chefs is almost done yet again. here's an inspiring photo from probably a month back already! look at this classroom garden! happy sigh!

happy growing and eating and loving!

organic connections cafe

last sunday, i was super excited and lucky to get to white rock to check out organic connections cafe.

they are a mostly raw, all vegan cafe overlooking the water and eek, it was great!

here is the menu:

i had the banana ice cream sundae first!

then all 3 of us ordered the burger! i had it with the side salad with dijon dressing (DELICIOUS) and my favourite boys had soups. 

 had to have dessert again after lunch... the blueberry cheesecake! and check out the "just eat an apple" magazines from 2002/3... wish it was still around now!

can't wait to go back! though it'd take almost 2 hours to get there on transit if i were to try! but it'd be worth it!

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!!!

buddha-full! raw vegan delights on the north shore! YAY!

a fresh juices and smoothie bar opened up just west of lonsdale in north vancouver in september... it is called buddha-full and i'm quite excited about it! the first time i went, i was thinking there were some raw things to eat but they "just" (who am i to say "just" - this is so exciting regardless!) had vegan baked goods and awesome drinks... i had the vibrance-C (ginger, mango, orange juice, pineapple, banana) smoothie...

 the next time i went, i got the ultimate feel-good smoothie (i swear, maca and cacao can do me no wrong - they fix me right up!!!) - the tall totem. i somehow forgot to take a photo of it. but then i took a raw cheesecake with raspberry coulis to go with me on the seabus. wow, does something like this make the cattle crossing (er, seabus journey) so decadent!

and now finally, today i got to go again! i had a ganesha's greens (with E3 live boost) juice and the raw veggie burger. it was so hard not gulping this down in quick bites. so delicious! so many flavours and textures!

 and well, it was hard thinking of when i would get to go again to try the raw pizza so i ordered it as well! hehe. a slightly chewy cracker of a crust with a yummy tomato sauce and cauliflower, kale, mushrooms, red pepper and cheeze.

this place has lots going on... i know there is a knitting club tuesday nights and they are having a halloween party. they host potlucks and art and music and massage and nutrition advice... i hope this place continues to grow!
<3