New experience!

Well, tonight Bea from Raw for Change, her husband, my boyfriend and myself all went to the Almond Blossom Cafe (Check out their blog, not as updated, but nice!) to listen to a lecture by Dr. Craig (Raw Foods bible author). Today was a little stressful, so i was looking forward to a relaxing night, with good food.


First things first, Dr. Craig was a fantastic speaker. I learned a lot about the toxins in our daily lives. I was both shocked, but not so shocked. As an educated person, I happily knew more than I thought about EMF (though, he kept saying EMF Fields.. drove Gio crazy, made me snicker) and free radicals. He was very informative about what exactly vitamins, enzymes and different things are and how heat makes them react (or destroys them)
He made a lot of great recommendations to incorporate more seaweed (or sea vegetables as he referred to them), more B12 and natural versions of Omega 3 (rather than via animal livers). I think the only complaint I had about the whole night was the craning of my neck to turn and look at him while he spoke and at the end, it became a slight infomercial. He had a LOT of things for sale, even how to turn your vehicle from a regular diesel fuel to a vegetable oil based fuel. Yes. Do it yourself fuel change, as in, do it yourself motor editing. This man surely knows how to be an entrepreneur. I was VERY impressed with that.
Only thing he didn't have an answer for, was how to relieve the toxins at the office. His recommendation? Quit my job. While I'd love to, to be able to do full time school and pursue my career, it's really not an option right now. I'm going to continue to look for a desktop purifier/humidifer just to ease the strain at my desk. I'm also getting an electric teapot so i can keep having tea warm all the time. :)

Now, the Almond Blossom Cafe has some of the BEST Raw/Vegan smoothies, E-V-A-R. They even have "cappuccino". They make some of the things with carob, cacao and all these things you would never think of (okay.. cacao i think of all the time. I'm actually ordering some from Amazon.com right now! RAW!)
Tonight on the menu was a salad with some spring mix and a lot of spinach, with these ... sprouted things? I know they were sprouted, thanks to Bea, but I can't place what they are. They were a bean of some sort. No, I'm not trying to scare you readers. It sounds plain, right? Not even CLOSE! It had this amazing drizzle on top. I tasted hemp seed, and peanut in the oil, but there was a slight citrus that I'm thinking was lemon? I loved it. I hope it's something they sell, I'd buy some in a heart beat.
The main course was zucchini spiral cut to look like rotini. It was fantastic. It had 2 large "meatballs" that were made of mushrooms, onions, scallions and a few other ingredients. The baby tomatoes were fantastic, slightly acidic but the oil throughout helped cut it down. There were so many ingredients to this one, if I wrote them all down, the blog would be about the "spaghetti".

And for dessert.... Oh... My... God. It was a raspberry & chocolate... cake? Mousse? It was very soft, and almost custard like, but formed into a cake. It was so good. It had agave nectar and coconut sprinkled around it. I could have eaten a bunch of them! I manage to snag a picture of it before I inhaled... er.. savored it.

To drink? Water, with a slice of lemon and cucumber. Also, a cup of hot tea with Yogi goji green tea. It was sweetened with Stevia. Normally, I use splenda. After doing some research, I am nixing my Splenda usage, and switching to Stevia, and Agave Nectar.

Reviews:
The food was amazing. I never thought of putting cucumber in my water, but it was absolutely... fantastic. The lecture was great, and the company I was with was absolutely fantastic as ever. Gio and I actually laughed a lot when we left. He had a VERY hard time with the zucchini rotini. He kept twirling it like pasta, so by the end, it was almost a full zucchini again!

It played a lot with my stomach tho. I got home, and definitely lived what he was talking about as far as bowel movements. I think it was the oils that played havoc with me, courtesy of my lack of gall bladder, but I was filled up, and my body was happy.

Afterward, my body feels clean. Full. Happy!

I am looking into some great recipes for Raw foods. Not that I am suggesting it, or swapping 100%, but I enjoyed it whole heartedly.

Enjoy!

PS: I love how on the cover of Dr. Craig's book, he has a sliced open Durian fruit! NUMMY!!