I was a guest on San Diego Living with host Erin Mikael’s Green Scene segments on June 24, 2010, and then again on June 27th. We make Cashew Kream with Fresh Red White and Blue Berry Parfaits and Fruit Tartlets.

We launched FoodStuff LA with a big celebration at the Pedal Patch Community offices in downtown LA. Above is founder Jason Boarde and Rebecca McQuigg Rigal who works through GOOD with the Pepsi Refresh Project as the Arts & Culture Ambassador.

My RAWvolution event is on September 19th, where we’ll be harvesting from the PPC local community and rooftop gardens, then preparing a delicious raw food meal. Hope you’ll join me for this fun event.

Christian Page is a locavore, sourcing the finest organic ingredients from our local community. He made all the food happen for this event, including delicious black mission figs, which I ate by the pint! Christian’s Living La Vida Local event is in October.

LA Green Girl Siel was at our event, and it was lovely to finally meet her in person…a fellow Korean American!

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….

I was in NYC last week for my television appearance on NBC at Rockefeller Center and several events celebrating my newest book Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. I love how easy it is to get around NYC without a car by walking, taking a train, bus, or subway. I miss great public transportation when living in LA. It’s also surprisingly easy to be healthy and to enjoy raw foods in NYC. I felt super lucky to be invited by the lovely Mia Andres from Organic Avenue and raw model Anthony Andersen for dinner at Pure Food and Wine.

This was my first visit to NYC in 6 years, and my first visit to Pure. I was blown away by the food! It was super fresh, beautifully plated, and really delicious. We enjoyed the S+M salad, appetizers, ravioli, lasagna, but my favorite thing ever was the Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sundae! I finally got to meet the heart of Pure Food and Wine, Sarma Melngailis, who’s even more beautiful in person.

The next day, I was invited to Quintessence for lunch with my good friends Dhrumil Purohit and Philip McCluskey. Dhrumil is the amazing brainiac creator of the best raw food online community We Like it Raw, which Philip is now a part of too. These two are a real RAWkstar power team….handsome, young, super talented, and doing positive things in our world.

I had been to Quintessence my last visit to NYC 6 years ago. It was good then, and was really good this time around again. We enjoyed tacos, burgers, sundaes, but my favorite was the bagels and cream cheese! Wish I had been there on a weekend to enjoy their raw vegan brunch menu.

I was craving Pure’s Mint Chocolate Sundae, so had to make it back for one more dinner before heading back to Los Angeles. My friend Moby, a long time vegan, and my favorite electronic musician, met me in the garden for dinner along with a few friends and my cousin, Minnie Roh. We enjoyed pizza, ceviche, tamales, smoothies, drinks, lasagna, appetizers, chips and guacamole, but most importantly…a Mint Chocolate Sundae! Everyone was hooked.

To boost this blissful experience even further, Shania Twain, a friend of Moby’s, and Canada’s most popular musician, stopped by our table to catch up with Moby. What a way to finish up my NYC visit!

Last weekend, I was invited to speak and demo my raw foods at the Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down annual celebration in Watkins Glen, NY. It was a huge honor to be included in the speaker lineup with founder Gene Baur and T. Colin Campbell, author of the China Study. The Hoe Down was one of the best organized events I’ve attended.

Volunteers helped me prepare pies for over 120 people in about 30 minutes just before my presentation. We chose the manual ‘food processor’ style of hand mixing dates with almonds. Good forearm exercise.

Strawberry Kream Pie, from Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. Made with dates, almonds, cashews, vanilla, and strawberries. Simple and delicious.

A photo of my raw food demo, taken by Morgan Jamie Dunbar.

It’s so much fun to sign books after a raw food demo and talk. I love having this opportunity to connect with other like minded folks in the community.

Later, I got to visit the animals out on the other part of the 200 acre farm. This guy was 3,000 pounds big, what a cutie pie!

Amazing to stand in the pasture with a flock of sheep as the sun was setting. It was so peaceful. Actually, I rested really well on the farm every night.

That evening was the Barn Dance where we line-danced first, then it broke out into a full on night club with a packed dance floor until after 1am. Everyone had tons of energy and was jumping up and down, especially Gene Baur, who was wringing sweat out of his t-shirt! My hair was soaked in sweat too. I noticed no one stunk of body oder, and people’s sweat didn’t gross me out as it usually does. That’s a huge plus for eating clean, vegan, and raw.

I realized this was my 20th year reunion from Cornell, and I hadn’t been back to Ithaca since I graduated in 1990 (except returning briefly for my brother Max’s graduation in 1993). So, it was a double treat to visit Ithaca and Farm Sanctuary. I’m looking forward to the next Hoe Down in California, and visiting New York’s Farm Sanctuary again soon.

This is a book trailer for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials.

Watch as I show you how easy is is to make my Coconut Cake with Nutella Hazelnut Sauce, from page 271.

Moby was performing with his new heavy metal band DiamondSnake last night in Hollywood, where I bumped into Frances Fisher and Eva. We had a blast dancing up a storm. You can see Moby on stage behind us rocking out to his new Heavy Metal music.

Lead singer Phil Costello’s voice is incredible. They have a song called Rock and Raw, give it a listen on their homepage. These guys are a funny!

It was way past my bedtime of 10pm, and I lasted to about midnight, but left before they finished their set, unfortunately. I hope to get to see DiamondSnake again, maybe along with NYC tour next month.

DiamondSnake was sporting vegan guitar straps, very cool! Choosing vegan has the biggest impact on helping to save our planet and stop animal suffering. Besides, a vegan diet, and especially a raw vegan diet, helps with weight loss, increases health and our immune system, and gives us tons of energy to rock on roll!

It’s official, I now like Heavy Metal music. Moby…I love you!

A book trailer for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials for a naturally effervescent probiotic drink called Water Kefir from page 56.

This healthy drink is simple to make using water kefir grains that you can purchase online. I include resources in my book, and recommend going straight to the source for the living grains. Avoid the processed, dried, packaged grains because they are not as vital as the living grains. Plus, the dry grains only brew maybe three batches before you have to go and buy more dried grains again.

It takes just 48 hours to brew Water Kefir, and it’s full of friendly bacteria for building healthy intestinal flora. It helps me with digestion, assimilation of nutrients, and elimination. I enjoy Water Kefir with and after meals to help with digestion. I drink a cup on an empty stomach before bed to balance my intestinal flora.

In this video, I use a variation of the recipe in my book.

Water Kefir
Note: avoid metal. Metal damages probiotics and water kefir grains. Use only plastic spoons, measuring cups, and glass jars.

• 4 cups filtered water
• 1/3 cup organic cane juice crystals (sugar)
• 1 Tablespoon turbinado (brown)
• 2 pieces ginger
• 3 slices dried pear (unsulphured)
• 1/4 cup water kefir grains

Place water into a glass jar. Add sugars, ginger, pear, and stir. Add grains. Close lid, and store in cabinet for 48 hours to brew.

Pour brew through a plastic sieve to catch the grains. Remove ginger and pear. Store brew in glass bottles at room temperature to increase vitamin B levels. Or, store in fridge to chill.

Start your next batch immediately.

In this video, I speak with The Blissful Chef Christy Morgan after my book signing and food demo at Erewhon May 8, 2010 about my philosophy  of raw food and about my new book Ani’s Raw Food Essentials.

My introduction to Sarasota RAWked! Exploring my idea that creating something together with other people in our raw community, rather than going it alone, is more fun, plus makes a bigger splash. We produced and threw down a pumping RAWktail Party, it was the biggest and most successful raw event in Florida to date! Dress code was RAWkstar, of course. A wonderful event and a very warm welcome to Florida and Sarasota.

A RAWstar RAWktail Party isn’t complete without headshots. Is that too cheezy?….

We brought together a fun crowd of local hipsters, movers, and shakers. Raw foods help us feel great, look our best, and fuel up for a long night of celebration. Raw food is also great for recovery, detox, and combating damage after a night of partying too hard and not sleeping enough.

The event was held at the Weller Historic Estate, and it was filled with rich period furniture and wonderful styling details. The host Jeff Weller is below in the white button down and jeans. I was to discover later that Jeff gives great massages!

The Weller Historic Estate was at full capacity with well over 120 attendees, and the energy was contagious.

I demoed 4 recipes, which follow below, while people stood around a 20 foot long table to watch and learn how to make fast, easy, delicious raw food treats. Below is Bryant Meyers, to the right, an ingredient sponsor who’s home is packed full of cutting edge healing therapy machines like an infrared sauna and scalar wave technology. I was skeptical at first, but the scalar waves made me pass out and sleep restfully the following day. Now I’m a believer.

Above is the spread for our Taco Wraps, served in a cabbage leaf. With raw food, it’s easy to have our ‘kitchen’ anywhere, even in the living room.

Lisa Tomasi, in pink, runs the Naples raw food meet up group. She saved the day and was the best assistant I’ve ever had! A testament for raw foods, Lisa drove over 2 hours to come to the event, worked all night, drove home, then came back the next day again. An enegizer bunny and beautiful woman.

The man in black above is Vincent Dessberg, who has a roof top garden on a warehouse in the industrial area of town, called “I Grow My Own Veggies”. He sponsored cabbage, edible flowers, herbs, and strawberries. I harvested from Vincent’s garden just a few hours before the party. It was amazing to see so much food growing on top of an industrial warehouse!

Now, for my recipes. Enjoy!

To make Cashew Kream, place cashews, honey, vanilla, and water into blender. blend smooth. Add as little water as possible for thicker consistency.

To make Chocolate Sauce, place honey or agave and cacao in blender. Blend smooth.