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!

Watch video: 9 min, 51 sec

In this episode I talk about my new raw food uncookbook, Ani’s Raw Food Essentials, on Day 2 of my new book tour here in Hollywood at Erewhon. Brother Echo from Raw Sangha created this great episode documenting my presentation, talk, and book signing. I had a great time speaking with Brother Echo. He’s a glow of bright light sharing his great gifts with our world. Thanks Brother Echo!

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.

Watch Video: 4 min, 24 sec

In this video I’ll show you how to make a beautiful, delicious, refreshing ice cream using cashews with folded in pineapple, and shaped into a cake form. This raw food demo was recorded during my workshop at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale in Phuket, Thailand on January 24, 2010.

Pineapple Ice Box Dessert
(fills one loaf pan to make about 8 servings)

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups cashews
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped
• 2 Tablespoons honey or agave syrup

Filling

• 1 1/2 cups cashews
• 1/3 cup honey or agave syrup
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, liquid
• 2 1/2 cup cored and chopped pineapple

Make crust by processing cashews into small pieces with vanilla. Add honey, and process to mix well. Sprinkle half of the crust mixture into bottom of a loaf pan,

To make filling, in high-speed blender, blend cashews with honey or agave and liquid oil into a smooth cream. Into a mixing bowl, toss cream with pineapple to mix well. Scoop into loaf pan. Top with remaining crust, and gently press down.

Freeze dessert overnight or until frozen.

Here’s a super fast and easy recipe I made the other day when I had very little time to eat, but needed a break from my computer for a few short minutes. I didn’t feel like a green salad, and wanted something a bit more substantial.

Zucchini noodles tossed with diced tomatoes and avocado with a touch of garlic, rosemary, and oregano for an Italian flavor. This is delicious and beautiful.

Simple Rosemary Oregano Noodle Salad
Makes 1 serving

• 1 cup zucchini noodles, from about 1/2 zucchini, spiralized
• 1/2 cup diced tomato
• 1/2 cup diced avocado, peeled and seeded
• 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon rosemary, dry
• 1/4 teaspoon oregano, dry
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl. Toss to mix.

To serve, transfer into bowl. Garnish with 1 tablespoon hemp nut.

Enjoy immediately.

Watch video: 4 min, 41 sec

This is a video shot during my workshop at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale in January. In it, I’ll show you how easy it is to make delicious, nutritious Thai Spring Rolls with an Almond Dipping Sauce. My yummy, super healthy, raw food version of a peanut inspired sauce is made using kaffir lime leaves, chilies, and almonds. The rolls are made by filling collard leaves with julienne zucchini, mung bean sprouts, and fresh herbs like cilantro, mint, and basil.

Thai chilies are spicy hot, so you’ll want to adjust the spice level to suit your tastes. Removing the seeds will help to decrease the spice level. Capsicum is what makes chilies hot, and is the ingredient found in most diet pills for its metabolism boosting properties. Capsicum increases circulation, decreases inflammation, and boost our immune system.

Thai Spring Rolls with Almond Dipping Sauce
(makes 4 servings)

Thai Dipping Sauce

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 Tablespoon Nama Shoyu
• 2 Thai red chilies, to taste
• 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons  raw almonds
• 1 lemon’s juice
• 1 cup water,  as needed

Fillings

• 1 zucchini, julienne
• 1 cup mung bean sprouts
• 1/2 bunch basil, de-stem
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, de-stem
• 1/4 bunch mint, de-stem
• 1-2 Thai chili, finely chop

Wrapper

• 3 large collard green leaves, de-stem and half

To make dipping sauce, place sauce ingredients into your blender, adding water as needed. Blend smooth.

To wrap, place leaves onto flat surface. Layer with fillings, and roll.

Serve with dipping sauce.

Here’s a sneak peak into one of my favorite recipes from my new book, Ani’s Raw Food Essentials (available June 1st). We shot this recipe last Thursday for TV, cable, and web.

I’ve been craving raw Tomato Chili the past few days, so I made sure to pick up some beautiful tomatoes, bell pepper, and fresh oregano at the farmers’ market. When I went to make this last night, I realized I had run out of chili powder, so I used chipotle powder instead. It turned out spicy hot. To help cool it down, I made a batch of raw Taco Nut Meat, which helped a bit, but not enough. So then I added some Cashew Sour Kream, and that helped. It was delicious, and energized me to write late into the night.

This recipes is simple and quick to make. I enjoy the mediation of chopping with my knife. But you can also just place ingredients into your food processor and let it do the chopping for you for an even shorter prep time.

Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat
(from pages 145-146 of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials)
Makes 4 servings

TOMATO CHILI

• 3 cup tomatoes, chop
• 1 cup red bell pepper, chop
• 1/4 cup celery, chop
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, chop
• 1/3 cup mushroom, chop
• 1/3 c corn kernels
• 1 teaspoon garlic, mince
• 1 – 2 teaspoon chili powder, to taste
• 1 teaspoon cumin, powder
• 3/4 teaspoon oregano, fresh or dry
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, to taste

Place all ingredients into a large mixing bowl, toss to mix well.

Place half of your mixture into your food processor or blender and puree. Scoop back into bowl with mixture and toss to mix well.

NUT MEAT TOPPING

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon cumin, powder
• 2 teaspoons coriander, powder
• 1 teaspoon bragg’s or nama shoyu, or 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, to taste

Place all ingredients into your food processor, and process into small pieces.

To serve, scoop raw Tomato Chili into bowls. Top with Taco Nut Meat. Enjoy.

Tomato Chili will keep for 1-2 days in fridge. Taco Nut Meat will keep for a week or more.

“Ani’s Raw Food Essentials” is now available in soft cover, as of May 1, 2012!

In this book, I break down recipes to the simplest of ingredients. Then, I show you how to build from there to make variations and different flavors. I hope you’ll enjoy my new raw food book! Can’t wait t hear what you think about it.

My raw food Miso Soup recipe is featured on the cover for the new Vitamix Create Cookbook. It’s included inside the box with every professional series Vitamix blender.