There are so many vegetables growing at the moment. And they’re everywhere! Every day I go outside to pick some fresh wild edible plants for my vegetable juice. Tasty, healthy and free.
Here’s the vegetable juice recipe I made today.
Ingredients
4 Tops of wild Nettles
1 large handful of wild grasses (or wheat grass)
about 5 dandelion leafs
1 stalk of fresh mint
Tiny bit of fresh parsly
1 apple
1 small lemon, peeled
Directions
Put all ingredients through your blender (I used Greenstar). Stir and drink.
Mine was absolutely delicious! I hope yours is too.
Here’s an excellent vegan cheese recipe. It tastes just like young goat cheese. Perfect in salads, as a spread or dip. Made with pine nuts, garlic and fresh chives.
This week’s My Way feature follows emcee and DJ, Princess Superstar, through her European touring adventures. Princess Superstar got her first taste of music from her parent’s daily servings of 70’soul and rock in the suburbs of Philadelphia. At the age of 17 she moved to NYC and shortly thereafter recorded her first demo. Princess Superstar has recorded over six solo albums and she regularly tours both here in the US and internationally. Princess loves yoga, raw food, animals and healing music that just makes ya wanna dance!
My Way: Princess Superstar!
Sunday May 17
I am in Dusseldorf, I played a show there last night at the 3001 club. I wake up and chug a liter of water which has become a habit thanks to my raw/emotional/spiritual healing guru Amy Rachelle.
I am desperate for a green juice, usually when I tour I bring my travel blender and strainer and make myself a cucumber/ginger/apple juice in the hotel room but alas I didn’t bring it. I call up room service and get a fresh squeezed orange juice and also a double espresso (my filthy habit! I tried Matt Monarch’s challenge of replacing coffee with cacao but I just end up drinking both!!) Then I go to the sauna in the hotel. What I love about Germany and most of Europe is that boys and girls go naked in the sauna and it ain’t a big deal. Freedom! (Except when once I did a record deal and saw the entire German staff naked in the sauna the next day. Um, Too Much Information!!)
I do a 20 minute yoga session- portable Jivamukti DVD which has saved me so many times doing grueling tours and then I pull my lettuce out of the minibar fridge. I always fly around with produce with me and it stays remarkably fresh as long as you stick it in the minibar when you land. My motto is don’t pop the champagne out of the minibar, pop da kale!
I cut up an avocado, an onion and soak some arame (arame is totally fast food! Amazing and ready in minutes), add some sundried tomatoes and make a lettuce sandwich. Yum time.
Amazingly at the Dusseldorf airport there is a juice bar! Unheard of! But they have NO greens (of course) so I make do with a ridiculous concoction of banana, carrot juice, spirulina powder and mint.
On the airplane I have them fill up my stainless steel water bottle with water. That way I don’t have to use plastic cups and can drink tons of water. Another good travel tip is don’t take their napkins. Or I mean don’t use napkins in general. That’s a tree you know. I love Julia Butterfly for influencing me to think in this way.
I eat some Elements for Life cacao nibs (I am a distributor in theory- but if you tried to order something from me I wouldn’t know how to do it- I just want the wholesale prices because I like the products!) and mix in some dried apple rings and dried figs. Then I snack on a lara bar type thing I bought at the juice bar.
On the plane everyone’s eating some plastic wrapped cheese sandwich thing and drinking diet coke or acidic juice from carton, or beer. I feel bad that everyone is so unconscious about what they put in their bodies. And, not to mention, what it does to our planet (don’t get me started on vegan issues!) But I remember- HUMILITY. I was like this only 3 short years ago so whatever. Also I eat so much- so I have my own eating issues! So I silently bless everybody and go back to reading Here Comes the Sun, the George Harrison biography. I read that the song “Something” this most beautiful love song- which I thought was to a woman is actually his love song to his idea of God. Awesome.
8 pm Back to London. This guy Joe (Mister Bliss) on Give It To Me Raw befriended me so I asked what was going on in London. He told me about an open mic night at Inspiral -a yummy sort of raw place (it’s not entirely raw let alone vegan so I have some issues with it- at least be vegan if you are gonna be part raw restaurant right??!!) But anyway, I love their nutburger and little chocolates there and I can finally get my green juice.
Also hoping Joes’s cute in real life. Hee hee.
9 pm Well, I was running late and Joe canceled and that’s ok, I have tons to write for my album that I am recording here in London. There is nothing to eat in this house where I am staying and I have to replenish my raw supply. There is popcorn and I am craving it. I do have my Artisana Coconut Butter and ingeniously surmise that since there is oil as well as coconut meat in there and coconut oil doesn’t go rancid when heated like other oils. So I’m thinking, “Hey, I should use it to pop the corn!” Big mistake. The coconut meat quickly burns and it becomes a congealed mess of unpopped corn and brown goo. I throw it out and boil up some small potatoes my roommate has lying around and put some salt and curry powder, balsamic vinegar and tahini on them- it’s SO delicious. However I know the potatoes are turning to glue in my colon so don’t nag me about it.
Monday May 18
Wake up, drink my water and have a coffee with my homemade almond milk (almonds, stevia, maca, alcohol free vanilla extract, cinnamon.) Really desperate for green juice but it’s near impossible here. Really need to quit this horrible coffee habit but totally at a loss. I’m recording so that becomes my excuse for everything- overeating, coffee, etc. which doesn’t make any sense at all really since I want to give the best performance I can. But if you knew what I USED to do years ago whilst recording- oh boy, that’s a whole other blog!!
I have a slight potato hangover so I fix up a blend of pineapple, lime, spinach, collard greens and ginger, and add in some more Elements stuff- blue green algae, cordeceps mushroom something or other, and Revitaphi beauty blend.
I’m recording this song called “Dip into the Magnificent” which is kinda like the Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” mixed in with Special Ed, Salt n Pepa and Missy. The producer takes me to a vegan place with mostly cooked food called Food for Thought, and I have a salad with Thai Curry and rice and an oat cake dessert. Great the week I do a raw food blog I’m eating more cooked food than I ever eat! I haven’t had potatoes or rice in ages I swear! I have another double espresso with stevia. My throat is starting to hurt I think because of this coffee and cooked starches cuz I never get sick since going (mostly) raw a bit over a year ago. I need to do a major green juice fast and a colonic when I get home. I put some vitamin c powder and revitaphi in water and down it and go to sleep completely wiped out.
Tuesday May 19
No sore throat thank god because I am so Fresh and so Clean Clean except for my starch & coffee excursions. I am in the studio recording “Must.Take.Control.” which is about not being ruled by the senses, and meditation. But you might not know that because it’s an electronic hip hop frenzy! I do it in honor of Shri K Patahbi Jois who passed away last night.
It all comes out amazing, of course when you dedicate yourself to something higher this is a given. I head to a mostly raw restaurant in Shoreditch called SAF. Finally a green juice! My long lost friend!
I down it, forgoing this whole notion of “chewing” juice which I learned at Tree of Life where I did a spiritual juice fast with the almighty Gabriel Cousens.
I meet a really nice stewardess called Amanda who offered me a bite of her root vegetable tart while I was waiting, while we compared airports around the world. I can’t believe I have so much in common with a stewardess… that’s how much I fly.
I am starving (ok not literally, who came up with that expression?) so I order way too much food- a spinach salad with pomegranate seeds, a pesto raw cheese appetizer and raw tacos.
The pesto cheese is unbelievable, the consistency is hard in a way I haven’t known raw cheese to be, and it’s both sweet and pungent. The tacos lay flat and pretty tasteless but of course I am comparing them to Pure’s which in my opinion are flawless. Then I get chocolate cake (I didn’t eat all of my food, I saved it for tomorrow’s trip to Dortmund, Germany so I will have something other than wienerschnitzel to eat) and some raw ice cream- the best raw chocolate ice cream I have ever eaten, it tastes like a light mousse mixed with ice cream- and a sorbet which is cucumber peppercorn and surprisingly light sweet and yummy.
I never eat this much dessert- two days in a row and I feel sick. I think I gained 5 pounds on this trip. I do a visualization to send love to my body because I, like many of my women friends, “feel fat”. Ugh, when are we gonna get over this as a culture?? ENOUGH already!!
Wednesday May 20
Off to Dortmund, Germany to play a show. I have no idea where that is. I just go where they tell me. I have a shake consisting of cabbage, lettuce, pineapple, cordeceps mushroom, revitaphi. Then you know, my coffee with homemade almond milk. Can someone please help me off this evil substance? I pick up a salad with avocado, pumpkin seeds, arugala and carrots at this Japanese restaurant in Terminal 5 Heathrow called Itsu, and eat that and a bit of food from the night before from SAF.
I get to Dusseldorf again, which is an hour from Dortmund and the promoter picks me up. Turns out he is Arabic, from Jordan, and a vegetarian for 15 years, and wants to make me a vegan meal. In all my years of touring nobody has offered to prepare food for me personally- EVER, so I of course say yes. He makes a delicious hummous, falafel and tofu scramble and brings it to my room, (I won’t eat soy in the USA because it’s all genetically modified however in Europe GMO’s are illegal which is cool!). It is prepared with love and I am completely stuffed.
A really sweet guy from my management team is traveling with me today and I invite him for tea. He is looking for some milk for his English tea and there is none so I offer to make him some fresh hemp seed milk. I whip out my travel blender and put in hemp seeds, water, vanilla extract, stevia and cinnamon. He totally loves it and I launch in to my whole raw food spiel and he seems really into it. Converting them one at a time! I’m on a mission! Although from these last few days I better take a good look at my own eating!
Because I am not used to all this cooked food I am totally wiped out and want to sleep and my set time is 1:30 am. My friends/fans who are reading this who are not members of this website and not eating raw will be like what the f is she talking about? Wiped out from vegan cooked food? But when you reach a certain level of cleanliness digressions really affect you, which goes to show you how much power and energy eating raw can give you. It’s really changed my life.
So there you go, there is my 4 days of eating. If it were next week it would probably be 100% raw so please don’t kick me out of the community!
You can follow more of Princess Superstar’s daily happenings on Twitter.
Big ups to Charles for letting us know about the opening of this new raw spot!
Two graduates from Institute for Integrative Nutrition have joined together to open the first raw food restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The spot is called Rockin’ Raw and it’s located on 178 North 8th Street between Bedford and Driggs.
Here’s a photo of Rockin’ Raw’s outside garden:
Here’s a note from owners Tere Fox and Luis Salgado on Rockin’ Raw’s style of cuisine:
Our cuisine is Peruvian/New Orleans style. We have jambalaya, cebiche, “tuna” poboys, live pasta dishes, lucuma ice cream… This is food like your mama never made for sure. We are not heavy on nuts like some raw food restaurants tend to be. We are strong headed about fresh produce and making foods that rock all your senses.
All of our foods are from local farmers except of course Maca and Lucuma which is still organic and straight from Peru. We are also using ecofriendly paper and togo products. We are green, green, green.
Sweet! Rock’n Raw looks like a great place for fun food and good times - a nice, chill, and relaxed hang-out spot. I have a feeling we’ll be doing an event there sometime soon. Stay tuned!
Big ups to Philip for the tip on this dope video by Nine-year-old Olivia:
Nine-year-old Olivia is a cancer survivor and she is on a mission to find out, What is Real Food? She takes us to the Farmer’s Market and to her school. The video has been entered in a “Real Food is” video contest for the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference. It’s all about getting fresh, locally-grown food into schools.
This week’s My Way feature comes to us from Brooklyn, NY. Mike Lieberman is a hip hop loving, glam rock bump’n, raw food eating, urban gardener who loves to share. Mike can regularly be found talking about the his passions on Twitter and his blog. He loves New York and he loves life… and ladies, yes, Mike is single. Holla!
My Way: Mike Lieberman
Saturday
I woke up at 9am, surprisingly early for the weekend, considering that I’ve been getting to bed mad late and waking up early during the week. It’s all good though because I have a lot going on and can’t get any of it done while in bed.
??I get up and do what’s become my morning routine of dry brushing my skin, cleaning out my sinuses with a neti pot, brushing my teeth, pounding a mason jar of lemon water and preparing my green smoothie: lacinto kale, aloe, grapes and figs. I pour it into my six-cup mason jar and get my day going. Green smoothies are my raw staple.
??There’s lots of my list of to dos for the day, most of which revolved around one project that I’m working on - organic vegetable gardening across New York City at my Manhattan apartment, my Grandmother’s Brooklyn backyard and my parents condo in Staten Island.
??Mind you I have zero experience in gardening, so the whole thing should be interesting. Part of this project is also documenting it all in a blog, which should’ve been the easy part since my 9-5 job is in online marketing. I didn’t have the blog idea until a few weeks after starting, so I’ve been busy playing catch up while moving forward with the plans.??
I get organized for the day and head out the door to the Farmers Market at Union Square to get some more info on gardening. When speaking with one of the farmers, I learn that some of the vegetables should have already been planted. Um oooopps.
?For lunch, I head to EarthMatters Cafe so I can continue to work. I get a stalk of celery and two pears. When I asked the cashier for a tray to bring it up to the cafe, she responds with “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to eat?
“??My response, “Yes.”
??After a few hours at the Cafe, I head back to my apartment. Since my fridge is a bare I stopped at a local raw friendly restaurant, Caravan of Dreams, for dinner. I had the Live Nachos, which in my opinion are the best flax-chips-nacho-dish that I’ve ever had. I also had the Live Sprout Sandwich.??
I head back to my apartment and stay up until 3am to knock the rest of the things off of my “To Do” list.??
Sunday
Even though I was up mad late on Saturday, I was up at 9:30 Sunday. There is too much going on for me to be in bed sleeping. I take care of my morning routine and make a swiss chard, cucumber, strawberries and fig green smoothie.??
I set up my video camera and film the making of the smoothie for another web site that I’m working of easy and simple raw food recipes. There are a lot of gourmet sites, but haven’t come across many that provide recipes that are sustainable on a daily basis. I am hoping to launch that one next week.
??While sipping on my smoothie, I start back working on the gardening site again. Before I can blink it’s 1pm and I’m still in my PJs. I give my parents a call to see what their plans are for the day and ask if they could pick me up from the ferry, so I can build some of the self-watering containers for their place.??
I arrive at their place around 3:30. My plans were to build all of the self-watering containers for their place and to shoot a how to video of building one of the buckets. Getting comfortable in front of the camera is one of the challenges for me in this project since I’m not a fan of being the center of attention. I am attempting to break that by forcing myself into it.??
When I finally look at the clock it’s close to 6. I haven’t eaten since the smoothie and strange enough I’m fine. My parents didn’t have much of an organic produce selection at their apartment. I find broccoli and onion, cut them up and just pick at them while continuing to build the containers. It’s funny how some days I just don’t feel like eating and I feel fine.??
My father takes me to catch the 9 o’clock ferry home. I wind up getting back to my apartment around 10:30. On the ferry ride home I had the idea for make apple/zucchini wraps for dinner Monday night. So I got those prepared, popped them in the dehydrator and continued to work until 2am.??
Monday
Not sure what is going on with me, but I was up and ready to go at 5:45 this morning. I headed out the door to get my morning workout on of a two-mile run along the East River and a prison yard workout on the jungle gym at Tompkins Square Park.??
After finishing my workout I headed back to my apartment for my green smoothie - celery, banana and soaked dates. If there is one thing that you takeaway from reading this I hope that it is you start keeping soaked dates in your fridge.??
I get my lunch ready while drinking my smoothie. Lunch was romaine hearts with some cherry tomatoes, cucumber, onion and dill. At work I have a big glass salad bowl that I mix everything up in.
??I also get the filling for the apple zucchini wraps ready by making a coconut curry sauce, chopped up some veggies and threw them in the fridge to marinate.??
When I get home from work, I have the apple zucchini wraps and coconut curry vegetables waiting for me. Definitely hit the spot and easily made.??
Then I got to finishing up the gardening site. About 10 minutes into working, I got a sweet craving. Very rarely do I eat past 8pm, but I caved into this craving and and had some of the leftover raw chocolate cookie chip dough in the fridge. That’s the bad part about having left overs. It’s not a completely bad thing, but the seeds don’t combine well with the apples that were in the wraps. The rest of the night my room didn’t smell the best, I had a different kind of potpourri going on. That’s why I do my best to properly combine what works for me, if you know what I mean.
??At around 11 I put the finishing touches on version one of the site. It’s not perfect, but good enough for public consumption at this point. It will definitely be refined. I am just happy to get to bed before midnight. The smell I could do without.??
Tuesday
The morning green smoothie of the day is dandelion, parsley and mangoes. Always hesitant on the dandelion, but it’s something different. As I am taking down my smoothie, I prepare my lunch for the day. A head of green leaf lettuce and sliced onion with a pumpkin and pistachio taco dressing. I get showered, ready and head into work.??
During the morning, I “launch” version one my gardening site by tweeting about it. I was happy and impressed by the love that I received from the Twitterverse. Much appreciation to my friends who helped to spread the word. The last few weeks have been a bit hectic playing catch-up, but I am happy with the result at this point.??
After work, I pick up my weekly CSA share and head home to prepare my dinner of green leaf lettuce with onion, olives, parsley and dill in a celery, ginger and pear dressing.??
No time for resting, at 12:30am the finishing touches are put on another site that people can share their raw food photos on, and I finally get to bed.?? Wednesday
Awake way too early at 5:30am, head out the door to get in my workout, launch another site and start another day… My Way. Did you expect something less? Mike blogs, gardens and eats raw food in Brooklyn, NY. You can learn more about Mike here.
John Schenk, executive chef of the Strip House chain, tried to prep it for $35, on The Early Show Saturday Edition. The menu: chopped Iceberg salad with blue cheese, grilled sirloin steak, and grilled pineapple with vanilla ice cream.
Among them: an Aphrodisiac Margarita! Food & Wine magazine’s Ray Isle showed how to make several delicious, affordable ones, on The Early Show Saturday Edition.
Watch a certified royal-cuisine chef exercise precision and patience to create kimchi, a fermented-vegetable dish that has been a staple here for more than a thousand years.
|
