Oh, dear Reader. It has been an age since I last wrote to you. There have been some exceptionally interesting changes to my life of late. I’m sure I’ll fill you in on these, piece by piece, but one thing I can mention is that I have been fortunate to add some extra zing to my days by indulging in a spot of country hopping.

At the beginning of the year, I made a promise to myself to spend more time with family and friends, and since we all are spread out a bit over Europe, it has meant that –what a shame- I have had to combine this with a spot of travelling.

I gave some tips when travelling in the raw in a previous post, and I am still totally into seeking out juice bars whenever I arrive or depart from an airport or train station.

I write this from Copenhagen airport in a deliciously funky juice bar called Joe & the Juice. I am totally digging the vibe here. Upbeat dance music, good choice of juices (including some nice and green ingredients like spinach and celery) and rather club-like furniture. Oh, and of course there is the titchy-tiny bonus of an all male…sorry, all young hot male…crew behind the bar.

They have a juice called ‘Sex me up’, and on my first visit here a few days ago, I so longed to ask the young man behind the bar for such an order, but alas I didn’t feel that the ingredients – passion fruit, apple, ginger – would be what my body needed since I was actually a bit hungry and wanted something more filling. The good news was that they had a smoothie with avocado, which I knew would do the trick. Not too sweet and nice and satisfying. The downside was that it had the rather un-sexy name of “Fiber active”. Damn! I may as well have asked for a litre of prune juice and an enema kit.

I was, however, able to redeem myself on this visit by telling the youthful blonde who served me that I would really love some “young blood”. And so I am sipping this rather delicious and cleansing cocktail of celery, lemon, apple and ginger as I write this. As I mentioned, I prefer more green in my juice. Too much sweet fruit will make my blood-sugar levels crash and leave me without the zingy energy that I love so much.

The great thing with topping up on juices when travelling is that they really hydrate you without making you all heavy and sluggish before your journey. Such a better alternative to booze or coffee. Especially if you are getting a bit of eye candy while you suck on Joe’s juice!

If you are not lucky enough to find some decent eye candy, sorry, I mean juice, while travelling then do make sure you carry some groovy snacks in your bag to keep your energy up while scooting around the country/world. Here are some ideas.

• Apples
• Celery sticks
• Cucumber (These days, I literally just travel around with a whole cucumber in my bag. I have given up being dainty and cutting it into sticks. I find it much quicker to throw the whole thing in my bag and munch on it as and when. I find that if you don’t cut it into pieces, the cucumber stays fresher if you don’t eat it straight away; besides, cutting it would require a knife, which you may not always have on you, seeing as though you are not MacGyver!
• Nuts (raw and unsalted if possible. You don’t want the salt the dehydrate you)
• Seeds eg hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds
• Raw energy bars
• Raw chocolate bars
• Raw crackers

To stay really refreshed I try and eat more green things like the cucumber and celery with apple rather than going crazy on sweet fruit, dried fruit and sweet raw bars, which again can mess with your blood sugar.

I also usually carry a dodging looking bag of spirulina, barley grass and maca to stir into juice if I am really feeling that I need some green. Though I did refrain from that this time. Well, rather I forgot, since I was a tad distracted by the view…I mean yummy juice …

You can find Joe & the Juice bars in Denmark and London

www.joejuice.com

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I have been living in/near Stockholm for over two years now. In this time I have been getting to know the places where you can find raw food. Each time I discover a place, I want to share it with others. If I find a shop near a cinema where you can grab yourself some raw treats and juice to have instead of pop corn and soda then I want others to know about it! If I eat a really good salad somewhere, then it should jolly well be made public! If I walk into a super market and see raw agave, raw coconut oil and raw treats, then surely you would want to know where it is, right?!

So I had this idea. Why not create a site where we can share our favorite raw spots in and around Stockholm? And so Raw Food Stockholm was born. It is my pleasure to launch this site today and share with you the places I have found so far. I really hope others can contribute to it too so that other people can be sure to find raw food when living in, or visiting, Stockholm!

www.rawfoodstockholm.com

Enjoy, dear Reader, and please do pass the link on to others!

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When I am abroad I always make the point of visiting health food shops. Not just for supplies to sustain and treat me during my trip, but to see what interesting things I can find that I haven’t seen back home in Sweden.

In one such shop (The Bran Tub in Malvern) I was looking for a present for a friend. And let me admit something to you, dear Reader, Miss Best did a very naughty thing. No, I didn’t stuff my jacket with chocolates and do a runner, what I did was find a funky little gift, bought it, and then liked it so much I decided to keep it for my self!

What was this treasure that my friend would not be getting, you may ask? A tin of tea! Yes, just tea. And not even magic tea, just organic English breakfast tea. And here is the irony – I don’t even like black tea! So why did I deny my friend this gift so that I could keep it for myself if I don’t even intend on drinking the tea? Well, the tin was so eye-catching and inspiring I knew that I just had to have it in my tea cupboard (yes, Miss Best does have an entire cupboard for her tea collection.)

As you can see from the picture above, the tin is rather funky with cool little cartoons created by Mr Scruff himself and this type of art work just tickles me. The tin sits rather well beside my other favorite tea tin which cost far more than a tea tin should, but is rather handy as it contains compartments where you can rather cleverly organise your tea, so as not to confuse your guests when offering them a choice. Though, I must admit it can be overwhelming when you are presented with more than two types of tea to choose from.

The tea is selected and packaged by a small new company called The Make Us a Brew Company which was started by Mr. Scruff, a DJ, producer & cartoonist. Not only is Mr Scruff a lover of music but he is also a lover of tea. Not a tea connoisseur – as he himself points out – but just someone who loves a good brew. He started by having a little tea stall at his gigs and festivals and so many people loved these brews that he decided to make them available for everyone to buy.

All of the teas are organic and ethically sourced with environmentally responsible packaging. I have yet to try the English Breakfast tea that I have hoarded, but I will one day, and will be very happy to share this with tea loving guests. What is a big hit though is the Mint & Chili. At first you think it is just a jolly good cup of peppermint tea, then you get a cheeky little zing from the chili. Mr Scruff also offers us Forest Fruit tea for berry lovers and Big Chill tea, with rooibos, pear & cinnamon, as well as Look Lively!, which Mr S describes as “a rather perky number, with lemongrass, yerba mate & mint”. Sounds yummy to me!

OK, so he does nice tea. In funny packaging. Is that reason enough to be a present hoarder? Well, actually yes, I think so. I am so inspired by people who manage to combine their different passions and skills to create a diverse and creative life. This is something I too am striving after – to work with graphic design on one day and food and nutrition the next. It is also a reminder that our creative output can bring pleasure to people we have never met – or ever likely to meet. Something as ’small’ as a little cartoon on the side of a tin, can spark inspiration in someone who may then go on to write a blog post about it. Every time they open the cupboard to ‘make a brew’ they will be reminded of other creative folks who have something to brighten another soul’s day!

Oh and by the way, Mr Scruff also does pretty funky mixes too – music mixes, not just tea ones! He is signed to Ninja Tune – thought I would drop that bit in and make me sound all cool, and happening and not the type of person to have a tea cupboard and hoard tea caddies and even seriously consider whether they should knit themselves a tea cosy! – and you can find him on Spotify or here >> or here >>

Ah…does this mean that Miss Best has a little crush on Mr Scruffs? No, not at all – I keep my crushes for Christoffer and cake – and to clear something else up, I bought my friend a yummy box of vegan truffles instead, which I did actually manage to stop myself from keeping for myself. Though they would have gone exceedingly well with a cup of mint and chili tea!

So, let’s put the kettle on, turn up the volume and have a think about how we too can share our passions and skills with the world!

To buy some of this yummy and fun tea, visit The Make Us a Brew Company >>
(I love the fact that they are physically located on a road called Sparkle Street!)

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Oh do forgive me, dear reader, for not posting a blog last week. I have just returned from my sister’s beautiful vegan wedding in the UK and had meant to use the long outward journey to write a blog for last Friday, but alas, it did not materialize! Because I don’t do much traveling these days I was so enjoying the time to just reflect, watch the changing scenery, and wonder what the clouds beneath me would taste like if I were to suck them up through a pink curly straw, that I forgot to put pen to paper.

Although I produced no blog post on that journey, I did have a nice food journey that I wanted to share with you. I managed to arrive at my dear sister’s after a 13 hour journey feeling tired but not at all icky or fatigued, as I have done before when I have snacked on sandwiches, crisps (chips), sweets and chocolate bars along the way.

For the journey I had prepared a salad for the plane which I enjoyed with some raw crackers and an avocado, and I brought with me a super-food laced green smoothie to enjoy before I went through security and would therefore be confiscated of any ‘dangerous’ drinks that could be used to terrorize my fellow passengers (though I do wish that someone had confiscated the greasy and smelly portion of fish & chips that my fellow passenger was scoffing on the train from the airport!!)

At the coach station in Stockholm (City Terminalen) I spied a juice bar and treated myself to a fresh carrot and orange juice with extra ginger to ward off any cold my fellow passengers may be carrying. It turns out that one fellow coach passenger was proudly shouting down his mobile that he had just been to hospital to test for swine flu which left me wondering why on earth people think that it’s some kind of status thing to be sick!? Well, perhaps swine flu gets you more sympathy than a little sniffle!

When I landed at Stansted I had some time to enjoy before my train departed and was very happy to find another juice bar where I refreshed myself with a wheatgrass juice shot and then a large beetroot, carrot, apple and extra ginger juice. The combination was balancing and hydrating and left me all zingy for the next leg of my journey, which was long, not particularly noteworthy and on which I truly enjoyed a large slab of raw chocolate cake that I had spiked with goodies like camu camu to keep the immune boosted.

And as a bonus – and this is a big achievement for Miss Best – I managed to have all this brightly coloured food and drink without spilling any of it down my new white coat!

On my journey home I didn’t pack anything to eat. I was thinking of foraging for a vegan sandwich at the train station but although I did find one it didn’t really take my fancy, and since I had a little time to spare I was able to venture into a food shop to look for something more interesting. I came away with 2 prepared fruit salads, a bag of washed salad and 3 mini pots of houmous .

I was jolly grateful for this light fresh food (apart from the houmous that made me feel a bit blurgh) especially since I had been enjoying plenty of vegan wedding cupcakes, and other cooked goodies during my stay.

The highlight though was a raw chocolate bar I had found in a health food store in Ross-on-Wye which totally rocked and was a nice treat for such a long journey. MULU silk is so smooth and silky and chunky and is definitely one of the best raw chocolate bars I have tried! MULU is made with unsprayed raw ingredients and is free from refined sugar, dairy and soya. Visit the MULU site here >>

I was jolly impressed with myself as usually when I go back ‘home’ to the UK I can’t help but fill up on all the ‘yummy’ foods they don’t have in Sweden. Those foods tend to be junky and I usually end up eating copious amounts of crisps (chips) and things but it just didn’t appeal to me this time. Maybe it was because I gave myself the green light and ate freely from the amazing vegan buffet at the wedding (plus the following 2 days of left-overs). I feel that – within reason – by not telling myself I mustn’t eat something I am more likely to get back to high raw after a little indulgence. It seems that my inner self has nothing to rebel against then! Besides after munching on vegan quiches and pasta salad for a few days, my body was grateful to get back to my usual Miss Best food!

Here is a quick list of the foods I enjoyed to boost my raw intake during my holiday:

Raw crackers – great when traveling and also to eat at your host’s instead of bread
Buckwheaties – sprouted and dehydrated buckwheat to have at breakfast with fruit, nuts, seeds and nut milk or non-dairy milk.
Green powder – I mixed up some spirulina, barleygrass powder, maca, purple corn and camu camu to either stir into smoothies or just water/juice if there were no smoothie opportunities.
Raw chocolate or raw chocolate cake – great to treat yourself and keep you off the sugar filled versions along your travels.
I also made a point of ordering a salad for a starter when we ate out. That way I layered myself with raw goodies before sampling the exciting cooked vegan dishes I was presented with.
I also kept my peepers peeled for fresh veggie juices at juice bars, or veggie cafes. Yay, liquid salad!

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When I spent 3 1/2 months in Costa Rica in 2007, I wrote some journal entries. Here is a snippet from one of them:

Tuesday 9th October, 2007

This morning we went for a walk before breakfast. Our morning constitutional obviously caught the usually pretty town by surprise. She had not had time to apply the lip gloss, worn daily for the benefit of the tourists. Nor had she yet donned her shiny crown, instead we caught her in a mauve flannel dressing gown, leopard skin mules with a fag nestling in the corner of her mouth.

It seems that at 7am, Puerto Viejo is at a junction. Coming are the hard workers off to their jobs. School children bustle into the school yard, and a single fruit stall is setting up for the day. Heading off in the other direction are the nocturnal beasties. But at 7 am there are a few stragglers. An American Crackhead sits outside a restaurant, an orange scarf tied around is ankle, covering presumably a wound, rather than a reminder of some spiritual exercise. He asks us if we are looking for a good time as we walk past. We buy some fruit for breakfast, then have to walk past him again. He is obviously too fucked to remember that we have just walked past, but somewhere in his head, the part that has not yet been completed extinguished by his self loathing habit, recognizes us from somewhere. ‘Are you the guys from last night?’, he slurs, showing off a far from beautiful set of teeth, with what appears to be paper stuck to one of them. ‘Yeah, you are!’ he shouts after us. We deny the charges. ‘Yeah, you are. C’mon I’m not stupid!’

The group of stragglers also includes a flock of black vultures, who usually circle over head during the day, powerfully, and with status. They are breakfasting in a ditch of stagnant black water. As black as the birds themselves. The whole scene looking like something from an animated film, portraying the most evil of evil places. I half expect one of those scary horses from Lord of the Rings to thunder past.

The town has also not yet hidden away her pack of stray dogs. She usually keeps one or two of the finer looking ones to mooch around the beach. A beautiful white spaniel cross with brown patches and an elegant fluffy tail trots about town. We have seen before that she is a patient dog, allowing another tiny dog (belonging to one of the stall holders) to play relentlessly with her tail and pretty ears. We can see that one of the other dogs is half blind. It’s heartbreaking. The pretty one follows us for a bit, and I am concerned for its safety when trucks tear past us, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are driving through a village.

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