I have just finished re-reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert. God, I love that book. And I know the film is going to be gorgeous. I get excited shivers just watching the trailer.

It’s a beautiful sunny day today, and I want to turn my deceased window boxes into a herby heaven rather that sit at my desk for too long by explaining just what turns me on about this book. Before I go and get all soily, I just wanted to share with you this passage, which I adore. It’s about happiness. Since life is a complex inter-woven state, I feel I cannot separate happiness, contentment, (indeed emotions in general), success and fulfillment from the food we eat, and the way we treat our bodies and minds. Our bodies, minds, lives can either be as lifeless and somber as a deceased window box, or they can be as lush, fragrant, life-giving and tasty as a healthy herby heaven. I aim for the latter. It’s far more fun!

Enough about me, this is what Gilbert writes:

“I keep remembering one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel round the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.”

Of course, praying does not have to mean praying to a specific God in the traditional sense, if that does not suit your beliefs. And happiness is not a selfish thing to pursue. As Gilbert continues:

“ The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.”

So, please, on this beautiful day, allow yourself some happiness. Eat well, and enjoy other people!

Thinking of you

xx

Extract taken from ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert © 2006

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I have been absolutely delighted to see both the number of my newsletter-subscribers and my blog readers grow in the past couple of months. I often think about you, even thought I may not know you, and I am very conscious about ensuring that I bring you as much value as possible. After all, if you have honoured me with your time by reading my blog, then I want to make sure that you get as much out of it as possible.

With this mind, I would be super grateful if you could complete a short survey of just 10 quick questions, so that I can see where you are now, where you want to go, and how I can best tailor my free recipes and information and my products/courses to suit you.

As a little thank you, you have the option of being entered into a draw to win a copy of my e-book ‘Loving Life-Loving Desserts‘. Just make sure you have responded before Monday 12th April for a chance to win.

Take the survey here to let me know how I can help you, and to have the chance to win a copy of my yummy e-book.

One way that I know I have been able to help people is by sharing my recipes for delicious desserts to make it easier for them to eat healthy food without having to compromise on taste. With this in mind, I also wanted to let you know that my Easter discount on my e-book runs until tomorrow, so if you would like to get access to 43 heavenly healthy dessert recipes for 15% less, do make sure you use the following instructions:

To get your discount scoot on over to this page, select your preferred currency, and add the discount code eat15 at the check out. Discount valid until, and including, Friday 9th April 2010. Enjoy!

I will be posting a tasty blog post as usual tomorrow, so until then, stay healthy and yummy!

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The other day we watched an episode of Two and a Half Men when Jake, the 11 year old kid in the show, has been grumpy all week long. His parents keep asking him if there is anything wrong, and even his ‘cool’ uncle Charlie has a go at trying to get him to open up. Assuming it’s a reaction to his parents’ divorce his mother books him an appointment with a child psychologist. The housekeeper suggests what’s really wrong with him, but her idea is waved away and so Jake is dragged off to the shrink. Even she can’t get him to open up about anything, and Jake’s family get increasingly worried about the little chap, especially when he asks to go to bed at seven that evening.

The next morning, however, Jake bounces into the kitchen back to his chirpy self. He grabs himself his usual bowl of ‘wonderfully nutritious’ (not!) maple loops, sloshes on some milk (ahem!) and bounces out of the kitchen again leaving his dad and uncle with questioning looks on their faces. Then the housekeeper tells them that she paid Jake a visit before he went to sleep and gave him a bottle of prune juice. “I told you” she said “ He was just constipated. And what do you expect, all you feed him is pizza and pancakes!?”

So all that Jake needed was a nice relaxing poo! So simple! But I wonder how many people just laughed at the story line and left it at that, as a bit of light comedy relief from the day’s grind, or if many actually reflected on the situation. How insane is it that people – and I know this is not limited to sit-com characters – will send themselves or their kids off to a shrink or a medicine pushing doctor before even considering something as basic yet so crucial as the link between what we put in our body (food, drink etc) and what comes out (energy, emotions, poo!). And we can’t leave it up to the ‘professionals’ to figure it out. Doctors have a frighteningly small amount of hours dedicated to nutrition during their degree.

Fear not, I am not about to digress into another blog about “number twos”. I have already done that and there are plenty of other people out there informing us of the perfect poo and celebrating with a Facebook update or tweet when they have produced such a perfectly formed plop.

But what I do want to convey is that I am constantly fascinated by the effects that food can have on our bodies and our moods. Several studies have shown, for example, that improving the diet of prison inmates and ‘problem kids’ have improved behavioral disorders. So imagine what it can do for you, or your kids, or loved ones who are perhaps struggling through the day, are constantly tired or just swing from mood to mood.

I have recently started a course in Vegetarian and Vegan Nutrition Consultancy and while I was buying some of the books on the reading list, and I decided it was time to order Gabriel Cousens’ books Conscious Eating and ‘Depression-Free for Life. ‘Conscious Eating’ is based on Dr Cousens’ 30 years of research into the “art, science, and practice of optimum nutrition” and ‘Depression Free for Life’ shows how to heal depression without the use of drugs but instead using mood-boosting substances (sounds almost a bit dodgy!), vitamin and mineral supplements, and a mood-boosting diet and lifestyle. I haven’t had enough time for more than a flick through these books – the former being over 800 pages long! – but they look that they are going to be a seriously fascinating and useful read.

The reading that I have been doing for the course is deepening my knowledge of the vegan diet and re-fueling my passion for promoting plant-based food for a healthy and happy life. We often read of the vegan diet as ‘beneficial’ to our lives, but based on the facts that I have been reading I now consider the vegan diet to be crucial for a healthy and happy life.

I am so excited that the food I create is really life supporting and not just kick-ass tasty! How could I possibly serve you up a collection of recipes using ingredients that toxify your body, cause cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity etc etc etc etc? I love and respect you more than that and I would feel that I would be doing my fellow humans a sincere disservice by offering them anything less.

The Perky Lime Pie (raw and vegan) that I perfected today is an excellent example. So tasty; rich yet refreshing, and bursting with goodness. It’s made with….whoops, nearly revealed my secrets. You are going to have to wait for the book to find out. Sorry, I know I am a dreadful tease!

So now I have gotten you all worked up, here are some sexy facts for you to think about:

Interesting Facts – Diabetes:

Fact 1:
Studies carried out in Finland and Canada show a strong link between childhood-onset (type 1) diabetes and the consumption of cow-milk protein
(Source: Food for Life, Dr Neal Barnard, NY, Three Rivers Press, 1993)

Fact 2:
A raw vegan diet can reverse diabetes!* Check out this amazing film that documents the journeys of 6 diabetics who go raw for 30 days and remove their need for insulin: Raw for 30 Days
*“The program featured in the film at the Tree of Life Rejuvination Center is most effective with diabetes type 2 but is also very effective at increasing quality of life and reducing insulin levels for diabetes type 1 “

Image: Piku

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In this week’s organic veg box we received a wonderfully soily and knobbly celeriac complete with stalks and leaves. To be honest I don’t tend buy celeriac as Christoffer isn’t at all fond of celery or anything remotely tasting of celery. ‘Evil Sticks’ he calls them! I love celery -it’s fab, but sadly the name Evil Sticks has stuck so when he asks what he needs to pick up at the store, I call them that instead of ‘celery’! It’s a bit silly and very naughty to call them this as celery isn’t evil at all, but a great food and it’s very cleansing and I find it to be very balancing. If I ever over-do the raw sweet treats a stick of celery or two will sort me out, making me feel refreshed and less over-sugared. Celery contains vitamin c and potassium (for a healthy nervous system) so it’s a nice little food. In fact, as I write this I resolve to call them ‘Happy Sticks’ instead. Do try and get organic celery if you can, as it is heavily sprayed otherwise.

But back to the celeriac. One of the joys of receiving an organic veg box delivered to your door is that you are forced to try things you wouldn’t normally buy. So, since Christoffer was away that evening I thought it a fantastic opportunity to use the offending root that was taking up so much space in the fridge. I quickly settled on the Celeriac and Green Apple Soup with Black Truffle from Raw Food Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow by Mathew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis.

The recipe called for some crisp green apples, and since we only had sweet red ones from the fruit box, I nipped out into the garden followed by Pixie Dog, and picked a couple of apples from one of our trees. They were not quite ready so were nice and tart and worked very well in the soup. It always feels extra special to use your own produce when making meals.

Since I had neither black truffles nor truffle oil it became simply celeriac and apple soup. But, boy what a soup! So wonderfully simple to make but with such a luxurious taste. Creamy, lemony, subtle and fresh. I shall definitely be serving this as a starter at my next dinner party. So like it or not, my darling Mr Christoffer will have to meet celery’s cousin, Evil Root…or should I say ‘Happy Root’!

For those of you in Sweden, we highly recommend Årstiderna boxes. The quality is continuously high and these fruit and veggies are so different from the organic ones you pick up from the supermarket. Also each box comes with a well planned and nicely designed recipe leaflet giving great tips and inspiration for how to prepare your goodies. This is particularly useful when you receive something that you don’t recognize or have never used before! Check them out: www.arstiderna.com

Another recommendation is the beautiful book from where I got this wonderful recipe. Raw Food Real World is so wonderfully classy. Some recipes require more time, energy, and special ingredients than others, but even the less complicated dishes are bound to impress and show your guests that raw food can be gourmet. The book is beautifully illustrated with gorgeous photos of the food and the attractive authors, and contains useful information about the ingredients and why we need to eat more raw food. And if that doesn’t do it for you, then either the desserts or the cocktails will!

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After re-discovering cookies at the Eco Now expo I decided that it was time that I made some of my own. Although the ones I bought from VeganLife were yummy, gluten-free and sweetened with fruit juice, and so aren’t as naughty on the body as regular refined ones, I still prefer to have my treats raw. So, I decided to consult my recent and much loved purchase: ‘Raw Food Desserts’ by Ani Phyo. I had just made some nut milk that morning for a kick-ass chocolate shake, and had some nut pulp to use up. Ani’s cranberry scones required just that, plus some carrot pulp, so that was an excellent excuse to get all juicy! Sadly though, when I came to add my dried cranberries to the dough a meager four berries tumbled out of the storage jar. So I replaced them with goji berries instead. Super healthy, tasty and ruby red too!

Although my scones looked more like burgers (hee hee!) they were yummy straight from the dehydrator and tasted like warm fruit cake.

My favorite recipe so far is for the Raspberry Ganache Fudge Cake. I didn’t have raspberries on the occasions I made it but it worked fabulously with strawberries instead. How can you not love a really amazingly good cake that is easy to make, and is so full of healthy goodness?

The cute little book contains 85 recipes and are divided into the following sections: Frozen Treats; Cakes and Tartlets; Chocolate and Fudge; Puddings and Parfaits; Cookies; Fruit Simples; Sun-Baked Treats; Sauces and Kreams; and Sparkling Desserts with Wine and Champagne. So you can be sure you will find plenty of recipes and pictures to drool over.

Ani really knows her stuff. I really recommend this book as it doesn’t call for lots of expensive superfoods or hard to find young coconuts, and she gives alternatives if you don’t have a dehydrator so it’s suitable for everyone. Simple recipes with heavenly results!

Thank goodness raw desserts are actually good for the body as well as the soul, or I might be feeling a little guilty for indulging so frequently!

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Book Review: How To Be Free & How To Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson

You know how some kids have a special book they read over and over, or have a story they want to be told again and again? They never tire of the story even though they could probably recite the whole book word for word. There must be something within that narration that triggers some feeling of perhaps comfort, excitement, hope or wonder.

Well, these two books by Tom Hodgkinson are my equivalent of a kid’s comforting but thrilling fairy tale. I have read them several times; sometimes from cover to cover, sometimes just a snifter of a chapter or two. But these books are no fairy story, rather they dispel the myths, the fairy stories, that we have been told by society, government, employers and religions that guilt us into laborious work that we don’t enjoy, that prod us into feelings of self loathing and scare us into eagerly handing over our independence and freedom with empty promises of protection.

Both books give interesting, informative and sometimes humorous reference to historic and modern art, literature, music, philosophy, culture, religion, politics and society to help us grasp the flaws of our modern western culture; of overworking and being unfulfilled in our consumer-driven society that neglects our human spirit, our health, our communities and our families.

‘How to be Idle’ incites us to reclaim our time for pleasure, merriment, repose in the form of – amongst other things – sleeping, conversation, leisurely walks, informal meditation, and sex. It is pretty frightening that many people really don’t know how to take it easy. Many have never allowed themselves a dreamy morning in bed thinking, or reading, or dozing. Many are not able to take a leisurely lunch but ‘must’ – for internally and externally controlled reasons – thoughtlessly wolf down a sandwich at their desk. Simple, often free, pleasures that we deny ourselves through our mental prisons and our dysfunctional society.

But being idle does not mean being lazy, for to be free one does need to expend some energy to perhaps carry out some freelance work, to grown your own vegetables or generally become more self-sufficient to enable your freedom. The difference is that you have more choice as to how to use your time; it can also mean that you have time to be idle after the necessary daily tasks have been performed, or that you can choose to leisurely carry out the tasks to make them more enjoyable. These books give you some practical tips and inspiration on how to do do this.

In ‘How to be Free’ Hodgkinson reminds us that our forefathers and foremothers usually enjoyed more freedom than we do today, often by selling their crafts and growing their own food, and occasionally accepting sporadic work to pay their minimal rent instead of unquestioningly handing over their lives to employers, and their hard-earned money to supermarkets and other companies that generally peddle crap we don’t need.

So why do I treasure these books? Why do they almost have a permanent place on my bedside table, or desk or sofa arm? First, they reminded me that so much of what we think is just indoctrination courtesy of the protestants, for example. The work ethic that makes us think that unless we are slogging over work we despise we are ‘bad’ or worthless. That laying in bed is a waste of time, rather than an opportunity for your body to rest and your mind to wander, and come up with creative ideas and solutions.

Hodgkinson encourages me to work towards a life of freedom, pleasure and leisure rather than resentfully living a life that suits the people that profit from it. And though I am fortunate in that I have contact with inspiring people on the same path to this freedom (some are even already there), I don’t have many in my physical day-to-day life. These books act as a reassuring hug, a stroke on the cheek, saying ‘you can do this, life doesn’t have to be this way’. In fact I may just blow off work for the rest of the day, settle into the sofa with a jug of hot chocolate and read one of these books while snuggling the other.

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This is another entry from 2007 during my time in Costa Rica.

For the second time in my life, I am reading Yann Martell’s novel Life of Pi. It’s a fantastic story of a 16 year old Indian boy who finds himself the sole human survivor of a sunken ship and alone on a life boat for 7 months. Well, alone except for a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger. Now this is no fairy tale where they all get on splendidly singing sea shanties to keep up morale and taking shifts watching for land. Not to spoil the story for you, after a few days the remaining castaways are the tiger and the boy, Pi.

I have to say that reading about the boy’s choice between staying on board with the tiger, or throwing himself to the sharks, doesn’t take me to the blissful haven of distraction that I usually seek in a book. Now a book about eating one’s way around Italy, or restoring a house in Italy, or growing olives in Italy (notice a recurring theme here?), that’s a nice place to take my head. Instead, this book instilled a definite sense of anguish within my poor soul, which is already in a period of limbo between two chapters in my life. But do I put the book down? No, of course not.

Since I am a tiny bit of a control freak, I think I felt that if I didn’t hurry and finish the book, the wretched situation would continue to plague Pi and the tiger called Richard Parker, which in turn would torment my little heart. But then I was always the softie, compassionate one. When I was a kid my sister would trot a toy horse over the edge of a table and I would go to great lengths to ensure the safety of this poor plastic toy. Still, compassion isn’t a bad thing now is it? It’s compassion that led me to become a vegan, which has in turn opened my consciousness. And if being compassionate means that at my ripe old age of 30 I am still concerned about the well being of my companion creature, which happens to be a soft purple heffalump called Lumpy, as well as other living beings, then so be it.

Reading the description of Pi’s gratitude of finding supplies aboard the lifeboat (it took him 3 days before getting to a state that if he didn’t brave the tiger to look for supplies then he would die anyway) really made me think about life and how fragile it is. The whole capitalist system got a bashing that evening. In my head that is. And if reading about being lost at sea for 7 months, alone save the company of a tiger, doesn’t make one think about our own personal and spiritual sense of isolation and the fears we must conquer then I guess one must read something that spells it out more clearly!

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