Make friends with the people that feed you!

Last post, I talked about how I discovered beets and how awesomely delicious they are. I also mentioned how the check-out man in line didn't know the code and just threw them in for free (he also happens to be the produce manager at Sunflower Farmers Market, where I shop every week). Well, we were joking around a bit in line, he asked if I blend/juice my plethera of fruits and veggies and I smiled with a "yes! how did you know!" (Ah, I love how perfect nature is. Who needs supplements when you have all the phytonutients, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and life in fresh food?) Anyways, that was two weeks ago, and last week I saw the same guy (Paul) and said hello. We greeted each other and I moved on to get things on my list. He came up to me later and asked, "Do you like pomegranates?" I do! "Here, you can take one on the house. Let me know if its any good, its the first of the season." Saweeet! It pays to say hello and be nice! Especially when that person is responsible for your food...
On that same note, Michael and I went to our second monthly Raw/Vegan Potluck dinner at Katherine's house in Spanish Fork this weekend. Unfortunately, the two young couples that we had befriended weren't there. Instead it was us surrounded by 40-somethings and older, mostly people who had been raw/vegan for a long time. I was buzzing around, soaking up as much wisdom as I could (I couldn't even sit still for the movie they provided, I just wanted to talk!) but Mike was less enthused. Without our crowd there, it was hard to relate to the older folks.
The food was magnificent! I brought a peach-macaroon dish that I invented with a celery, sunflower pate. (peaches were only 47 cents/lb this week, so we've been thriving on that). There were some new salads that I'd never seen before that were delicious, along with lots of fresh melon, fruit, a peach cobbler (that was a big hit with Michael), as well as some curry flax crackers and pineapple-buckwheat cereal. Katherine made her famous chocolate bars and we also had some banana-grapefuit smoothie. It was a feast! Agi was there as well, which was special. She called on all of us to write a 400-800 word essay on what being raw means to us, to be published in a book that she's compiling together of local people and their stories. I also learned more about Katherine Scott and her work. She has an amazing story of how she was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer and managed to cure it with her diet! She does a women's retreat center at her house, as well as classes weekly, and she hosts the monthly potlucks. If you want to learn more, her website is: www.40bladesofgrass.com

One dish that never fails in my new raw food world is banana ice cream! Michael and I both love it, and it makes for the perfect treat on a hot summer day, or while watching a movie. It's so simple: peel and freeze as many bananas as you would like (make sure they are ripened). put them in the blender with a little water, just a tablespoon or two of raw cocao powder and a biiiig squeeze of agave nectar. It's a little difficult to get everything blending, but once it does it should look like the picture above. You can eat it like that, but it's much less smoothie and much more ice cream-like if you re-freeze it and come back to it later. The agave keeps it so that its scoopable and not a frozen iceblock. You can take or leave the cocao, and even add any type of nut to make it crunch (hazelnuts and brazil nuts are awesome with it).

I made a lot more food this week, but didn't remember to photograph much of it. This is pretty simple though, make a romaine lettuce wrap with anything you want on it! I put leftover sunflower pate, red peppers, and some homegrown sprouts on mine. Anything works, it's just about you being as creative as you can be! That's what I love about raw food; recipes are more like guidelines. It really is all about your own personal palate and what you want/like/feel like. You can switch up any ratio of ingredients, mixture, dehydrating times, smoothie consistenties, whatever to match what you like. There is no wrong or right, overdone or undercooked. It can be whatever you want it to be, which gives me great confidence when preparing meals. Even if I don't end up liking what I make, it only makes me more excited to try again and get it right, for whatever is right for me!