I was honored to have been invited to speak on a panel with superstars (from left to right above) Rachelle Carson Begley (married to Ed Begley), Sophie Uliano (NYTimes best selling author), Izabella Miko (actress), Carly Harrill (blogger ghost writer), Karen Stewart Brown (fashion designer), Kris Willey (host of WotGG), and Alexandra Spunt (author).

The focus of this panel was how we came into our careers. I explained how I used to work in a corporate environment that was not recycling, was wasting energy, and was using styrofoam cups for one 4 ounce shot of water. I realized my raw food catering and the weekly events I was hosting (to feed myself good food) was a successful business. So, I decided to leave corporate America to focus 100% on my prepared packaged foods, catering, and events. I followed my bliss because I believed raw foods helped people feel better and healthier. It also helps us tread lightly on our Planet.

This event was held in Culver City, Los Angeles, CA on Saturday May 14, 2011. These beautiful photos are courtesy of photosbyKailas.com. Thanks Kailas!

Video TRT: 4 min, 42 sec

This is a book trailer for my latest book Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. In it, I show you how easy it is to make a delicious, fast, raw food Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat, from pages 145-146.

Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat (bean-free)
Makes 4 servings

A vegetable chili made with chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, mushrooms, and corn kernels. Spiced with cumin, and oregano for a real chili flavor similar to the cooked bean version. Top with Taco Nut Meat for an added layer of texture and south west flavor.

• 3 cups tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cup red and green bell pepper, chopped
• 1/4 cup celery, chopped
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup mushroom, chopped, any type
• 1/3 cup corn kernels
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 batch Taco Nut Meat, below

Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl, and mix well. Scoop about 1/3 of the mixture into blender and puree. Scoop puree back into mixing bowl.

To serve, scoop into 4 serving bowls. Top with Taco Nut Meat, and enjoy.

Taco Nut Meat
Makes about 1 cup

Walnuts are ground and spiced with cumin and coriander to make this taco flavored nut meat crumble. Use it to top salads, soups, and inside wraps to add taco flavor and texture.

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon cumin, ground
• 2 teaspoons coriander, ground
• 1 teaspoon Braggs or Nama Shoyu
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, to taste

Place walnuts into food processor, and process into small pieces. Add remaining ingredients, pulse to mix well.

Will keep for 1 week in fridge.

For organic ingredients and kitchen tools, visit my estore and Go Super Life!

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.

Raw Energy raw food article in the UK’s Health & Fitness Magazine in the May 2010 issue featuring 3 recipes from Ani’s Raw Food Essentials:

• Mediterranean warp with red pepper houmous
• Pad Thai with kelp noodles
• Brazil nut and banana pancakes with blueberry syrup

I made a batch of Kanga Dog Treats for my Rhodesian Ridgeback canine companion. She loves these, and asked me to share the recipe with you here on my blog so other dogs could also enjoy these treats.

It’s important to keep your dog’s gums and teeth healthy, especially if they aren’t crunching on dry kibble. These easy to make, crunchy treats will help remove plaque and freshen dog breath.

Your dog may not be used to these at first. Just like other new foods, you may need to teach pooch how to eat them by taking a bite out of one first, then giving it to pooch to try. Dogs always love what they see us eating. Especially when accompanied by yummy, delicious sounds.

Kanga is a dessert dog. She hates water and baths. She was rewarded after her lavender bath today with these treats, and was very happy.

I realize this is a recipe section where I list food for people. The good thing about raw food is that even treats for dogs could easily be enjoyed by humans. Many times, friends have come over and said “your dog eats better food that I do!” And this is so true, since Kanga eats organic, local, seasonal, and many times stuff that I eat. I joke that she’s my compost bin, eating up all my leftovers.

Kanga Dog Treats
(page 241 of Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen, the Kanga dog food chapter)

• 2 large sweet potatoes, sliced 1/2 inch thick

Place sweet potatoes on dehydrator trays, and dry at 104 degrees F for 12 hours, or until completely dry.

The sun was out for Day 1 of Expo West, and I was happy it was warm outside for the folks visiting from colder climates.

My first stop was the Sequel booth, where I found my good friend Brendan Brazier. He’s the formulator of Vega. He has a new Sport line out for pre and post workout fueling. Brendan’s the author of Thrive and Thrive Fitness books. I love Vega drinks and bars.

I also found my friend Robert Cheeke at the Sequel booth, vegan body building champion. He also has a new book out soon called Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness.

Next stop was the Ohgave booth, where I found Matthew Kenney with his new raw agave product. Matthew’s latest restaurant, 105degrees, is opening up the world of raw food to mainstream America in Oaklahoma City, of all places. Matthew’s the author of numerous cookbooks including Everyday Raw, which I’ve often found my Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen book sitting next to on store shelves. What a cutie pie.

Excited by the huge jump in new raw products at this year’s Expo West, I forgot to take anymore photos after this point, and got carried away into the thousands of booths and new products. I found several raw kale chips, tons of raw chocolate, a couple raw kombuchas, new raw bars, and several flax crackers. The raw food explosion was quite a sight to see.

I had my preview copy of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials with me, and folks were stoked to see a sneak peek at my new book. In addition to several awesome meetings, I was also video interviewed for VegNews and Delicious Living Magazines. I’ll make sure to post up the videos right here as soon as they are live.

Ani's feature on BoingBoing.net

Read Ani’s full feature on BoingBoing.net.