Ahh, la France!

Ahhh. So nice and relaxing to be in France. The food here is so amazingly fresh! Everything just tastes better here!!

Cavaillon melon. Smaller and sweeter than cantaloupe. Sooooooooo refreshing and tasty!

Fresh figs. Possibly one of my favorite fruits! Mmm, c'est magnifique!

Cerises! Mom tried to save some cherries for me; however, they're really best in May. Therefore, these are looking rather lackluster compared to their normal mien. She also froze some and they are wonderful to have on hot days :)

No food processor or blender here, but I decided to make some pesto anyway. Used a mortar and pestle to grind pine nuts, garlic, basil, spinach, olive oil, and pepper. I like adding spinach to stretch the recipe while still maintaining the color. I'll be putting adding this to gnocci later on, maybe for dinner tonight.

Venasque now has a market on Friday evenings! In such a small town I am surprised they have enough business, but turns out our little village gets a lot of action nowadays!

Bought some goodies at the market and had some people over for a feast! I know this is my raw food blog and not all of this food is raw, but it's fresh and local and organic and delicious! We had Cavaillon melon, arugula salad with beets and sun-dried tomatoes, Mom's homemade ratatouille, and Swiss chard ravioli! I was pleasantly surprised when we found that this pasta was "sans fromage" (cheeseless) so we snatched some up! The French word for chard is "blette" so we had fun saying it hah. We dressed it with olive oil and sage, delicious!!

Went to Pernes-les-Fontaine for their Saturday market. This is a great market, lots of good vendors and fresh produce. This one vendor has more stuff than all the vendors at Morningside/Decatur!


Apricots muscat. These are like little fruit gems!! SOOOOOOOOOO delicious!!!

Seriously? Look at this spread! Apricots muscat, figs, plus, heirloom tomatoes, bell pepper, zucchini, nectarines, strawberries, and Cavaillon melon. Life is gooooooood :)

Raw food in London!

I found a natural foods store in London!! It was right near where I lived for 3 weeks in 2007, near the Russell Square stop on the tube. I don't think it was there then, although I wasn't really health-conscious then so it's quite possible that I just never noticed it. Prices on their own seemed reasonable; however, with the dollar being so much lower in value than the pound I didn't buy anything there. Good selection and assortment though, especially for a relatively small store. They had a cold/hot salad bar too with lots of yummy lookin things.

I ate a lot of salad before my flight on Tuesday but haven't been too raw since... However, I am looking forward to being in France tomorrow and soaking in all the fresh, wonderful, delicious produce!! More to come soon :)

Kale salad and raw potato!

My first time eating a raw potato :)

Okra!

Be adventurous! Go eat some raw!!

Watermelon, sushi, and pickles.... Oh my!

I dehydrated watermelon because I heard it gets like CANDY!! I currently have a container with some semi-dry watermelon treats at the moment. My friend borrowed my dehydrator so I didn't have them in as long as they needed. Alas, no worries, I will just stick them back in and dry those suckers out! Below is a picture of some slices before being dehydrated. I will post another when they are done. As you might imagine, watermelon takes quite a bit of time to fully dehydrate because they're full of WATER, silly!! So be patient and flip them a couple times. Hopefully the end result will be like homemade Jolly Ranchers, or Starburst if they don't dry fully. Either way, a fun summer snack!

Had Lu dinner (Lan+Ku) last night and made raw veggie sushi. The "rice" is soaked almonds, sunflower seeds, and arame (seaweed). After soaking for about 8 hrs, I rinsed everything and threw it in the food processor with garlic, ginger, chili pepper, and lime juice. The filling consisted of carrot, kohlrabi, and avocado. I also made a salad type thing with thin slices of heirloom zucchini. The dressing is rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, dash of Braggs, red pepper flakes, black and white sesame seeds, and ginger.

I got 6 little cucumbers at the Decatur farmer's market last Wednesday and finally picked up some dill to try my first batch of homemade pickles!! I sliced the cukes, chopped garlic, ripped the dill, threw in some red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Filled with water and now the waiting game begins!! I know pickles are traditionally made with vinegar, but I saw some raw recipes that only used water so I'm attempting to get the sourness using straight up fermentation sans vinegar. Works with sauerkraut so I'm thinkin it'll be fine! I'll let you know in a few days :)

Any thoughts on what recipes/tips I should video for next? I'll try to keep it shorter this time :-P Please give me your feedback and ideas!!