Today was Day 3 of food prep at the Test Kitchen. My GastRAWnomique molecular gastronomy inspired dinner is just days away. Chris Ochs and Josh from SunFood personally delivered a ton of superfoods. Diane Paylor and I were elbow deep in cacao. And Top Chef Alex Reznik was cold smoking my cashews for me.

To cold smoke, Alex uses a smoking gun packed with chips to push smoke into a sealed container of raw cashews. The cashews absorb the aroma of the smoke, but stay raw. Pretty cool. No pun intended.

Restaurant Mo-Chica’s Ricardo Zarate and I making Cheddar Kale Chips.

Richi helping me set up 8 Excalibur Dehydrators. These are my favorite dehydrators, and they come with Paraflexx reusable non-stick sheets. Thanks for sending them over to me Excalibur! So much love from the community, sponsors have been super generous and include: Excalibur, Sambazon, Earth Circle Organics, Sunfood, Gold Mine Natural Food, Frontier Natural Products Co-Op, Big Tree Farms.

Chef Seth Greenburg at the Huntley Hotel Penthouse Restaurant invited me into his kitchen where he shared with me some of his favorite molecular gastronomy techniques.

Chef Seth and I compressed melons and cucumbers, and put chemicals into water and fruit puree to create popular spheres or ‘caviar’. We even made ‘noodles’. See what could be done using chemicals got my creative juices flowing thinking about ways to create similar effects without chemicals, and instead 100% natural and raw.

Test Kitchen brings together the best Chefs in LA, and has become much like a think tank where Chefs share their creativity, ideas, and time. Great energy in this space! Chef Christian Page, a locavore sourcing his ingredients locally and seasonally, is to the left of the photo, and is about to open Daily Dose Restaurant in downtown LA in mid Dec.

My NYC tour kicked off last Monday at Rockefeller Center on the set of LX New York at NBC studios. I chat about the benefits of a raw food diet with hosts Janice Huff and Jane Hanson. You can watch my segment here, though it’s stretched out horizontally and the audio is out of synch. (As soon as I get my own copy of the segment, I’ll repost)

Tuesday evening, I had a food demo, talk, and book signing at Bonobo’s Restaurant. The room was packed with folks eager to learn more about raw food nutrition and recipes. I demonstrated how fast and easy it is to make my Simple Rosemary Oregano Noodle Salad with zucchini, tomato, avocado, and herbs.

Pictured above is Rose Voisk of the World Olympians Association. She was a gymnast in the 1948 London Olympics. She looks great, is vibrant, and strong. A testament for eating well.

Wednesday evening, I was hosted by the lovely Hyacinth Mills of New Life Journeys and her Montclair Raw Food Meetup Group. I demoed my Super Cacao-Coconut Energizer smoothie recipe from page 39 of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. Hyacinth’s group is full of vibrant folks excited about raw foods. Her husband and 2 boys are handsome as can be, and Hyacinth has a natural glow of beauty. A great spokes model family.

I had randomly bumped into Hyacinth at Port Authority late on Monday night, 2 evenings before our event, as we were both catching our buses back to NJ that night. What’s the chances of that? It’s magic!

Thursday night I was at Organic Avenue for a workshop hosted by Mia Santos Andres. Above are my lovely assistants Sara, Sam, and Lee who helped to prep my recipes and samples, and then helped me set up before my workshop. They all had that glow of inner health and beauty. What angels!

In my workshop, I demoed my Tomato and Tarragon Bisque, page 137, Pad Thai Kelp Noodles, page 227, and Strawberry Kream Pie, page 266 from Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. It was another packed house with great audience participation, questions, and book signing.

Thanks Mia for a great event, and for my goodie bag full of green juice in the cute Organic Avenue bottle, and BlackBird Truffles, handmade by raw model Anthony Andersen. Yum!

Mia is so pretty, I look shiny. Ha haaaa. I can’t wait to get back to NYC before another 6 years passes….

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 3 of my SF book tour, I visited the vibrant Spencer Christian and beautiful Janelle Wang for a return appearance on their afternoon talk show The View from the Bay. Spencer already loves raw vegan foods, and this visit, we may have won Janelle over to our side with my Jap Chae Korean No-Cook Stir Fry Noodles and Berry Kream Tartlets. (The recipes follow below).

Watch video of my TV appearance here.

It’s always fun to be made up by a professional make up artist. Skye said she’s been working weeks without one day off. A perfect candidate for the raw vegan diet. 

Abbeba kicked off this show with her dehydrated crackers and salsa. I like to remind folks raw dishes like guacamole, salsa, gazpacho, and salads are already popular, so raw foods really aren’t that much of a stretch from what we’re already eating.

I met this pretty teen last year on my Ani’s Raw Food Desserts tour. She seems to have grown a foot or more, and has the coolest parents. Her pops brought her to the Ferry Building for my talk on Saturday, and her mom brought her to the TV station. She’s thriving on raw, and is continuing to convert and inspire her friends. What an inspiration.

The 2 recipes I made on air were for my Jap Chae, page 224, and Custard Tartletts, page 267. Jap chae is one of my favorite Korean noodle dishes, and it’s traditionally made with rice noodles.  This recipe was inspired by my mother, who pointed out how similar kelp noodles are to rice noodles.  Mom helped me figure out how to season my noodles with pretty much the same ingredients as the cooked version.

Watch video of my TV appearance here.

JAP CHAE – Korean No-Cook Kelp Noodles with Vegetables
(page 224, Ani’s Raw Food Essentials)

• 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
• 1 cup sliced shiitake mushrooms
• 1/2 cup julienned carrot
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 (12-ounce) package kelp noodles
• Soy sauce (Nama Shoyu is unpasturized)

Place the onion and mushrooms in a large mixing bowl and toss with salt or soy sauce until mixed well.  Nama Shoyu is a raw unpasturized soy sauce, and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos is a live food. Another wheat free soy is tamari, if you prefer that. Set aside for at least 15-20 minutes to marinade and soften.  Add the carrot and sesame oil.  Mix well.  Add the noodles and toss to mix well.

Custard Tartlets
(page 267, Ani’s Raw Food Essentials)

CRUST (food processor):

• 2 cups nuts
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups pitted dates

CASHEW KREAM (blended)

• 1 cup cashews
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup water

TOPPING

• whole fresh berries

To make crust, add nuts and salt into your food processor, and process into small pieces. Add dates to bind together your batter.

Line tartlet pan with plastic wrap. Press 2 tablespoons of the batter into pan. Remove tartlet crust, and place on plate.

Make kream by blending cashews with vanilla and water until smooth.

Scoop into tartlet crust. Top with fresh berry, and serve.

We’re offering a special on raw cashews and kelp noodles this month in celebration of my newest book. For organic ingredients and my favorite kitchen tools, visit my estore at: www.GoSuperLife.com

Video TRT: 4 min, 34 sec

I had the honor of appearing on Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang’s show The View from the Bay, ABC Channel 7 along my San Francisco book tour for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. This was my 3rd appearance on the show, and I adore the hosts. Spencer loves raw food, and I think we’ve finally won Janelle over with these two recipes for Korean Stir-Fried Kelp Noodles with Vegetables (Jap Chae), page 224, and Custard Tartlets, page 267.

For organic ingredients and kitchen tools, visit my estore and Go Super Life! We’re running a special on Kelp Noodles and Cashews for the month of June to celebrate my new book!

See recipes here.