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Saturday, December 26, 2009

Explosive: Eating in the Raw with The Healing Patch

I am so elated raw eating is on my
life's path. There is nothing like the
freshness of crisp, colorful, mineral-blessed mouthfuls of Nature's cuisine. I don't remember the last time I sashayed into a grocery store and purchased a bag of frozen anything. How can I when anything fresh at the Farmer's Market is entirely too appetizing.

It's the difference between The One and The One With Whom You Are Biding Time...

Here is a raw zucchini hummus from The Healing Patch Cookbook.




This is a lovely picture of my Christmas dinner '09. Imagine a fresh organic spinach salad with raw goat cheese, dried cherries, pumpkin and sesame seeds, and Roma tomatoes topped with a fruity dressing.

I got creative like Julie and Sarah, authors of The Healing Patch Cookbook. Instead of making a smoothie of the frozen fruit I'd had in the freezer, I opted for a dressing instead. Riquisimo!!!!!







According to Julie and Sarah, cucumber juice was anti-inflammatory. Guess what---it is!!! After a serious workout, it puts an invisible ice on my screaming muscles...especially the ones that tend to fuss more than the others.













Now this was one savory meal. It came together with an ease relegated to the pro raw foodist, who looks at two vegetables and breathes them into a feast! I was pleasantly satisfied at its end, and I must admit...I am getting better at making the hummus.

The morning after Christmas, here I sit at my writing desk, extolling the merits of Julie Cara Hoffenberg and Sarah Woodward's The Healing Patch Cookbook. Its subtitle is true. It is indeed a gentle transition from cooked to raw foods with a taste of joyful wit.
I love the structure of the book, a slim volume, which goes down equivalent to a full, palatable feast of a meal, well worth the cost. The beautiful Ojai, CA duet offers up entertaining and informative introductory chapters that give you the skinny on why they wrote the book, enough of raw food research to whet your own research yearning, entryways to the raw food experience and an intriguing look into food relationships. From that section, I faced the knowledge that sometimes I prepare my raw meal and then post up on the sofa to enjoy while watching TV. Instead of pausing to relish the taste of the delectable repast, I split myself, not truly present for either scene. In addition, I promised myself that I'd establish my own Garden-Plant-Planet relationship. And my first plant will be wheat grass! Yes, an elixir of the mean-green sort.
After that section, I fell loving toward the Smoothies, where I just made note yesterday to get whatever it takes to make my own Nut Mylk, something I didn't know could even be. The picture of the mylk is lickable, drippable, from wherever you want it. In their case, it was pictured near a succulent strawberry. Julie's Papaya Coconut Whip is at the top of my list of "coming recipes to try," when I make up my mind to visit Superfoods or Whole Foods. I love anything coconut, a love which stems from my Grandma Sophie's three-layer coconut cakes when I was a little girl. So can you imagine how elated I'll be finally tasting coconut butter? My local Farmer's Market sold the coconut oil, not the butter.
Tumbling into the Dips Appetizers was a skip through Wonderland! Yummy! Another lick-the- page experience. What I want to know is who was their photographer? That Wanna B Chive Cheez looked heavenly, and yes, my love, I shall be preparing it shortly. As in next week, before the New Year. Like Julie, I am a cheese-a'holic. At present, on Julie's recommendation, I've fallen HARD for raw goat cheese...coming of diary. So far so good...
My taste buds are crying out for veggie wraps, stuffed with their eclectic dips, so savory just in the reading. Although I'm not a guacamole fan in the least, I'm willing to bow to their "Holy Guacamole, I'm in Love" dip. Obviously they know a little something, something! Now, spiritually, the Peruvian Olive & Red Pepper dip is already on my table. Simply I've got to get up with it in the physical. From cover to cover, the book is brimming with scrumptious, healthy JUICY MORSELS, and the Dip Appetizers Section is no different. Here, I learned that olives have more mucus dissolving power than any other food, so if you consume lots of dairy, get some! Toss them in your salads or eat them out of the jar. And goodness, I discovered why they didn't have a recipe for the beans I thought I couldn't live without. I'd cook them slow and easy, in a crock pot, until they were sweetly devoid of any nutritional value...not knowing they possessed enzyme inhibitors, which equates the precious gassy feeling we get after devouring them.
And, oh yes, Querida, the next chapter deals with Salads. These body-nurturing meals will forever have a place, a special place, mind you, in my heart! I must prepare their Fresh Fennel Salad soon. Huh uh, it's on my list. Tiny confession I don't wish to hear again: I have never had a fennel, that I knew I was eating. Well, now I will know, and blessedly so! Oooh! And why I'm on the subject, according to Julie and Sarah, fennel is divine for checking the gas you developed from falling into a deep pot of indigestible beans.
Hmmmm. The next section dealt with Sauces and Dressings! I will admit it! I crave both...on whatever. That Delectable Dill is in my Top Ten Things to prepare. Another confession (I'm beginning to feel like Usher here) I didn't know dill helps to keep us calm, the word coming from the Norse word, "dilla," which means "to lull," as Julie and Sarah have noted.
The remaining sections are Entrees and Desserts. No, I shall not enter the wonders of these sections lest I trudge back downstairs to the kitchen. No! You'll simply have to go to their website, www.rawhealingpatch.com, and purchase the book for yourself! It is a treasure; a hymnal of good eating! You'll be singing louder than I can write, possibly, and dropping pictures on Facebook of your delectable creations...just like me, earlier this morning.
I so appreciate the list of "Staples" they offered towards the end of the book. Ok! I'll give you 3, no more! Y.S. Organics Raw Honey, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and Cacao Nuts! Now, you are dismissed. I'm headed to bed...with visions of Julie and Sarah's kitchen in my head.
Love yourself and live a Golden Life!
TheGoldenGoddess
12/26/09

Monday, December 7, 2009

The Healing Patch Raw Cuisine Interview....


MEET JULIE AND SARAH OF THE HEALING PATCH RAW CUISINE DYNASTY
Earlier this year, I walked into a West End restaurant, Healthy Essence, here in Atlanta, GA, with a friend, and discovered the joys of raw vegetarian cuisine! Though the restaurant wasn't large, and some might have coined it a "hole in the wall," the menu offerings were life-changing. I'd never tasted raw kale, never enjoyed several of the other delectable-looking dishes under the glass counter top. The experience was so memorable, I shuttled my sisters and friends to the restaurant, enlightening as many loved ones as possible to the joys of healthy, wholesome eating.
Difficult to please when it comes to new restaurants, my younger sisters, Bernadette and Glenda, were easy converts after one meal at Healthy Essence. Together, we changed our diets and enriched our lives...until we fell off the horse and plunged back into processed and cooked tried-and-true buttery, fatty, sugary dishes we had previously consumed...well, them more them me...por supuesto! Yes, you can imagine our love handles walked right in the front door with us as a result of our back-sliding eating habits.
Then out of the beautiful blue of the cyber world, Sarah Woodward e-mailed me on BlogTalkRadio and invited me to interview her and her partner, Julie Hoffenberg, about their journey toward becoming their divinely, healthy best. Sarah alluded to their stellar cookbook, The HEALING PATCH RAW CUISINE COOKBOOK, and I was hooked. I had to know more!
Once I contacted them, I felt as if someone had dropped me off on the set of "The Color Purple." There WAS a goddess, and I'd found two: Sarah and Julie! You won't find two more delightful ladies nor a more beautiful, resourceful, and charming couple.
This Thursday, December 10, 2009, I will have the honor and pleasure of interviewing them on my Internet radio show at www.Blogtalkradio/theSiren. Tune in by calling my constant Call-In Number 347-677-1772 at 7 p.m. Sarah and Julie will share their engaging paths to the delights of raw vegetarian cuisine. I promise...you will be the richer for having joined us.
Can't you tell how enchanted I am?
They are kind, informative, joyous and playful! I can barely wait to get to the Farmer's Market tomorrow to buy organic zucchini and to Wal-mart for a food processor, as their version of Mediterranean hummus is at the top of my "Things to Do" list. So make that move. Don't go gently into your delicious future of healthy raw dishes! Dash into it! Jog! Sprint! Skateboard! Do whatever you have to do to make it happen. Reclaim your health, and fight for a more enjoyable future by making the decision to be the best you can be today!
I can just see my sisters and me around our tables of talk, dining on savory vegetarian and fruity meals straight from the Healing Patch. Oh, don't worry! I'll write a review of the recipes and include my favorite dishes, of which there will be many. I can feel it!
Sarah and Julie are mavericks at technology so look for the Healing Patch Raw Cuisine on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BlogTalkRadio and their own site, www.RawHealingPatch.com.
Happy Eating....and...Happy Learning....
TheGoldenGoddess
Lunes
El 7 de diciembre, 2009