Day 4 of my SF tour was a dream come true. I visited the YouTube Google campus in San Bruno, where Chef Fletcher Starkey and Pastry Chef Jenna served up 6 raw vegan recipes in their campus cafeteria (recipes follow below).

They labeled each of my raw food dishes with my headshot photo, and they tasted delicious! I enjoyed lunch with my beautiful hosts before my talk, from left to right: Cat, Jill, and Cheryl Pon.

My chili recipe with Taco Nut Meat….how cool is this!

2 raw food salads. Folks said they didn’t even realize these recipes were raw! They liked the texture of the wild rice and loved all the flavors and colors.Raw food desserts included my Pineapple Ice Box desserts from Ani’s Raw Food Desserts, chocolate truffles, and a blended cantaloupe with blueberries. Yum, and just what I needed before my talk…cacao!

After a delicious lunch, we made our way over to the “UN Auditorium”. It was indeed tiered, just like at the United Nations, and was wired with video, projection screens, and monitors. All set up and ready to go for netcasting between all the Google campuses!

What an experience to speak in a fully wired room to YouTube and Google employees across all campuses! YouTube is amazing, enabling us to reach a global audience.

In the mid 90s, I was Internet Media Director for Simon and Schuster. I produced a project where video jockeys went around the Mediterranean. They shot video and then overnighted video tapes to me in California. I would sit with my Avid editors and edit together educational clips, then upload onto our websites. Today, this is all instantaneous and accessible to everyone, thanks to YouTube!All campuses were connected for my presentation and food demo. Next we’ll need to find a way to send raw food through the internet, George Jetson’s style!

The recipes I made included:

Sprouted Wild Rice with Corn and Tomato

Simple Rosemary Oregano Noodle Salad

Fresh Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat

Pineapple Ice Box Dessert

Visit GoSuperLife.com for specials on Kelp Noodles and Raw Cashews, organic ingredients, and my favorite kitchen tools.

On day 2 of my SF book tour I joined Dixie Mahy and Sharon at their combined SF Life and SF Vegetarian Society potluck in the Mission District for a book signing. I demonstrated my recipe for Pad Thai with Kelp Noodles, from page 227 of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials (recipe is below). Dixie, the host, is well into her 70s, and full of fire and good energy. She’s a testament to the vegan lifestyle.

The Mission was my old stomping ground in the early 90s, I lived at Treat Street and 24^th Street. I was happy to see that much of the neighborhood seems to have kept its charm over the years.

Three beautiful ladies were excited to recently discover raw foods. Common questions were about weight loss and ingredients like agave. What I answer is to be happy, live in moderation, and have an attitude of gratitude. Stressing out about whether a goji berry has been dried 10 degrees too hot adds stress. We are blessed to have the knowledge we do to make informed decisions when it comes to what we choose to eat. We’re privileged be able to decline food when people are starving in other countries. Keep perspective, and be happy. Happiness is a reflection of our inner health.

This lovely lady told me how her mom had been sent home to die over 40 years prior. Her mom instantly changed her diet to raw vegan, and has been thriving ever since! I believe illnesses comes from the accumulation of garbage in our body. Enjoying more raw vegan food, which are naturally cleansing and detoxifying, helps to decrease our toxic load along with our overall stress, boosts are immune system, and fuels longevity.

Here she is, thriving after 40+ years on raw vegan foods! She made by day by telling me I was going to save the world. That’s a tall order.

A great group of people in SF, where I lived 8 years through the 90s. I miss all my friends and the culture of SF including electronic music, design, fashion, art, and the vibrant community culture. I didn’t get to go dancing this trip, so I’ll need to visit again soon, socially next time, just to hang out and absorb the beauty of SF.

Pad Thai with Kelp Noodles
(page 227 of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials)

sauce:

• 1/2 c almond butter
• 1 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup braggs
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (please prepare juice for me from fresh lemons)
• 2 Tablespoons jalapeno pepper, fresh
• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 1/2 cup filtered water

noodles:

• 1/2 cup fresh basil
• 2 cup shredded cabbage (pre shredding will be helpful)
• 4 x 12 oz packages kelp noodles

Blend all sauce ingredients and toss with noodle ingredients. Enjoy!

For organic ingredients, visit my estore GoSuperLife.com, where we are running specials on Cashews and Kelp Noodles to celebrate my new book!

I kicked off my SF book tour at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market yesterday. It’s sunny and warm here in San Francisco, and the market was packed with people shopping locally and seasonally. This has got to be the best farmer’s market in the country. I found amazingly sweet peaches and beautiful heirloom squash that are only available 1-2 weeks a year. What a treat!

I spoke to a full house about the benefits of raw food, weight loss, natural living, happiness, and my new book Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. I demoed a recipe for TOMATO AND TARRAGON BISQUE, page 137, and STRAWBERRY KREAM PIE, page 266.

Sarah, who organizes the chef demoes, helped me portion and pass out samples. Most people in the audience were already familiar with raw foods, but it’s always fun to watch their reactions when they taste one of my raw recipes. Of course, folks loved  the soup and dessert. You can see Barry Jan behind the camera on the left, and you’ll find a couple of his photos in Ani’s Raw Food Essentials from last year’s farmer’s market talk and demo.

This may have been my longest line for book signing yet. Patient people stood in line for 50 minutes to meet me and to have me sign their books. What a huge honor for me that folks would wait around so long. I love meeting people, hearing their stories in person, and feeling the love they share with me. This bright energy is what keeps me doing what I do…it fuels my soul.

It was lovely to see many long time friends, like Dr D, and old friend from LA who now lives in Thailand. He happened to be in town, and brought me a moss monkey that’s the cutest plant I’ve ever seen! He’ll have to care for monkey while I’m in Florida since I don’t think it would make it on the plane.

Another long time friend and two lovebirds Jeff, who took all these photos for me, and Frog.

Hanging out at this awesome farmers’ market on a warm, sunny day was the best way to spend my Saturday. From here, I headed to Napa next….

Last Saturday, I was invited to speak at AuLac, my favorite raw restaurant in Fountain Valley, CA. Chef Ito is a good friend who makes the best food ever!

The goal for my new book is to take the mystery out of raw food prep, and to help everyone become their very own home raw food chef. Raw foods prep can be easy, fast, and doesn’t need to cost a ton of money.

I introduce simple, paired down recipes I call basics, then teach the reader how to add on additional  ingredients to mix up the flavors to create endless varieties of recipes. I include tips on setting up the Essential Raw Kitchen, shopping lists, eco green living resources, lists of recipes that travel well, sample menus, importance of probiotics, and how to ferment drinks and vegetables.



Following my talks, I always love to sign books because I get to meet people in person. I enjoy hearing their stories, inspirations, and passions. Sometimes, it’s a sad story of a spouse lost to cancer that puts someone onto the path of raw and live foods. But it’s always a good thing when people start to understand the correlation between health, vitality, happiness, and our diet.



Fountain Valley is an area known as Little Siagon. It’s full of Asian markets, and AuLac serves the best Vietnamese cooked foods. Unfortunately, I’ve never tried any because whenever I’m at AuLac, I’m wishing my tummy was bigger so I could eat up more and more of Chef Ito’s raw foods.



The photos above were taken by the lovely Maria Loewenstein, pictured in green. Pete is on the left, and designs the coolest contemporary eco green kitchens (Artistic Freedom Designs), John Johnson was just awarded a lifetime achievement award for his body piercing work, and Lien Chau Zhang is my beautiful film maker friend passionate to end the suffering of animals. She told me an amazing story about this new chain of vegan Asian style restaurants that has opened up 130 Loving Hut vegan locations globally in the past year!

For weeks, friends had been calling to say they saw a poster of me on Beverly Blvd. Now I can see why. Erewhon is the greatest store in the world for everything raw. Juan Hernandez has been the Erewhon force behind this great raw department. I’m holding a print gift from Tyler Golden, my food photographer, of my Mandu Dumpling recipe from Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. I love it!

Another photo in front of my poster, this time with one of my favorite actors and directors Vincent Gallo. He directed and acted in Buffalo ’66 (1998) with Christina Ricci, who I love too. I attended high school in Buffalo, and enjoyed watching this film years ago. Buffalo ’66 was the first time I saw the camera effect when the set stays still and the camera pans 360 around the characters. This was a year prior to the same effects in the Matrix film.

It was another packed house on a beautiful Saturday afternoon at Erewhon in Hollywood. I demonstrated how to make my Strawberry Kream Pie using dates, cashews, vanilla, and strawberries. The lovely Christy Morgan (in purple) volunteered to help me portion out the tastes and get them into the crowd. Everyone loved the dessert, it was fast and easy to make, and tasted delicious.

I talked about the importance of probiotics in our diets. In America, we take antibiotics, which kill off all our healthy intestinal flora. Probiotics will help us to regain balance in our digestive tract. My new book includes a chapter on probiotic drinks including kefir and kombuch, and another on probiotic pickled vegetables inspired from my Korean heritage.

I always love signing books after a talk and food presentation. It’s when I really get to connect with people and hear their stories. These two lovelies are getting married soon, and told me they’re planning to have 3 raw cakes at their wedding.

I had previously met Dana at one of the Community Services Unlimited gardens, where she was elbow deep planting greens in the dirt. Her garden is beautiful, very well maintained, and full of the most delicious plants. Read my post on the CSU, Inc gardens.

Thank you to Juan for hosting, Christy for helping, Tyler Golden for taking photos, and Raw Sangha’s Brother Echo for filming yesterday’s event. Brother Echo said he’d have a video up that I’ll link to in a day or so. Thanks everyone for joining me and celebrating my new book!

Friday evening was the first stop along my book tour for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. Book Soup arranged a special and very early drop shipment of my books to be delivered 3 weeks early. Official sale date isn’t until June 1st. So, Book Soup is where I got to see my new book in person. It’s always super exciting to hold a copy in my hands. And the book looks great. Hard cover, 2 color with beautiful color food inserts taken by Tyler Golden.

Tyler brought me a gift! A large print of my Mandu Dumplings framed. I love it!

I talked about my goals for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials, which is to strip away the misconception of raw or healthy being expensive or time consuming. I hope to make raw food preparations easy and accessible to everyone. I begin with stripped down BASIC recipes, then build up from there to create variations and different, new flavors.

Minah is a fellow Korean American who lives near Pasadena and goes to college in NYC. Check out her book on  my lap. It’s dog eared, marked up, and worn. I love this! A sign that Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen has been put to good use. Minah shared with me how my raw recipes feed her, gave her mental clarity and focus, and charged her through school. Bravo!

Belita, to the left in the above photo, is a mother who I had a discussion with about how her little girl gravitates to fresh fruit while her boy reaches for vegetables. It’s natural for kids to love whole, fresh fruits and vegetables. After all, candy colors are inspired by fruit and vegetables. In the center is Tyler Golden, food photographer, and then Minah.

To the right is Kurt, who I discovered works in South Los Angeles (which used to be called South Central LA) with kids. He lives in Venice, all the way West at the ocean, and takes public transit downtown daily to work and back. I’m very impressed! He found his way to Hollywood from downtown via public transit, and luckily got a ride back to the west side from Belita. It’s rare to meet people who don’t drive their own cars here in LA.

I’m now working with Community Services Unlimited in the same neighborhood as Kurt, so we’ll be seeing more of each other this summer through our gardening, cooking classes, and fund raising dinner events for kids and the community in South Los Angeles.

The lovely Thea took these photos for me, and unfortunately, we didn’t get a photo together.

Professional photos taken by Tyler Golden from last weekend’s kick off book tour events. The first two are from Book Soup in Hollywood on Friday May 7, 2010.

The following images are from Saturday May 8th at Erewhon in Hollywood.

Thanks Tyler Golden for the beautiful color food photos in Ani’s Raw Food Essentials, and for these lovely pictures too.

More photos were taken and a video was shot by Brother Echo of RawSangha. Check out photos here, and video coming soon.

I’m excited about my newest book Ani’s Raw Food Essentials, available everywhere by May 3rd. It’s a huge hard cover book with over 250 recipes. It’s printed in 2 color, like Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen. My goal is to make my books accessible, and get these recipes into your hands so you can enjoy making healthy treats with them. By printing in 2 color instead of full color, the book only costs $27 rather than $45. There’s gorgeous color inserts, as you can see from the photos above.

JOIN ME:
UPDATED confirmed book tour dates for California:

• May 7, Friday, 7 pm - Book Soup in Hollywood, CA.
  Talk and book signing.
• May 8, Saturday, 12 to 1 pm - Erewhon Natural Foods in Los Angeles, CA.
  Demo and book signing
• May 15, Saturday, 1 to 2 pm, AuLac in Fountain Valley, CA.
  Talk and book signing.
• June 5, Saturday, 11:45 am - San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers’ Market, SF, CA. Demo and book signing.
• June 6, Sunday, 1 pm potluck followed by Ani’s 1 hr demo @ around 2 to 3pm - “San Francisco Raw and Living Foods” and “San Francisco Vegetarian Society”, Mission Community Room, 630 Valencia Street @ corner of 17th  Street, San Francisco. Talk and book signing.
• June 7, Monday - The View from the Bay, SF, CA. TV appearance. Join mein the studio audience by reserving a free seat. Call 415-954-7733 or rsvp online (note under ‘comments’ my name and June 7th).
• June 25th, Friday - YogaWorks, Larchmont, Los Angeles, CA. A community event, book signing, talk, book give aways, and raw tastes sponsored by LifeFood Organic. Attendees will receive a gift of 1 free week of yoga. 5.45pm to 8.30pm.

Keep posted on my events by joining my fan page on Facebook.