Gypsy Mama Is Going To Mayo.....

Meet Gypsy Mama. She is a wife, mother of a beautiful 5 year old, and a Raw Fu Challenger. She is trying to go raw with us over at Raw Fu, despite the fact that she is about to embark on a very scary and intense 2 weeks at the Mayo Clinic. There is something wrong with Gypsy's lymphatic system, and her body is retaining fluid at an alarming rate. In a video blog recently, she disclosed that she had gained 11 pounds in a WEEK, all fluid.

Mayo has accepted her as a patient, and has told her to plan to come and stay for 2 weeks as an outpatient, so that she can be thoroughly poked, prodded, and scanned. Bunny has shared that she is very worried about Gypsy, since she has been recently complaining of having a high fever. It is really important that she gets to Mayo on August 26th!

One thing that insurance and Mayo do not cover is housing for outpatients. So, Gypsy is going to have to stay in a hotel for 2 full weeks. Her son and husband are worried sick about her, and will not let her go alone, of course! The cheapest place they have found to stay near Mayo is $47/night. So, housing alone for the trip is going to cost close to $700, not to mention the cost of them trying to find healthy food to eat while on the road. With limited funds, you can imagine how stressful this must be.

Gypsy set up a website at www.NoahsCloset.com, and is trying to sell a few things out of her house to raise money to help them pay for their hotel stay. So, please check that out.

BUT, after talking with Bunny, I agree that Gypsy doesn't need to be worrying about hosting an online garage sale as she is getting ready for her trip to Mayo, so Bunny has decided to Pay It Forward, and try to collect enough money to cover as much of her housing costs as possible.

As a side note, I must tell you that Bunny really wanted to use ALL of the money that has been raised for her new kitchen and give to Gypsy, but I told her that we should just try to raise money first before dipping into the funds that the Raw Fu community has so graciously donated out of their love for all that she has put into this site. Sooooo, Bunny and I have agreed to kick off the Gypsy's Club Mayo Fund with a donation of $150 each......sorry, Gypsy, maybe next time it'll be a trip to Club Med!

Our HEALTH is so important, and I think we all know women like Gypsy. Women who give and give, and never take the time to take care of themselves. That's what mother's do, isn't it? Brother, can you spare a dime?

Just click here if you'd like to help a sister out.

God Bless us everyone.

Summer's Last Getaway....

This past Friday, I loaded up the girls and two of their friends, for a long weekend getaway. I suppose it was poor planning but, going on a kid friendly trip wasn't exactly the best strategy for kicking off the beginning of this 100 day Raw Fu Challenge. Nonetheless, I was determined to give it my very best shot. If I was able to successfully travel while drinking nothing but juice, surely I could stay raw while at water parks, malls and amusement parks, right??!! (video clip here.)

Gordon was able to join up with us on Friday evening after his long work week. While the girls feasted on room service and watched movies, Gordon & I stole away briefly for romantic dinner at the Park Avenue Grill inside the newly remodeled Skirvin Hotel.
I had a really fresh spinach, pear, walnut salad. It was primarily raw, but as you can see, it had this deep fried potato string thingy with a blue cheese bundle bulb (how's that for okie hick siferin'?) Yeah.....I know, not part of my program, but I couldn't resist eating that delectable bad boy. (And yes, believe me, I paid for it later.)

I didn't take the time to get pictures on the second day, but it was a combination of Frontier City, Penn Square Mall, Nichols Hills Plaza/Western Avenue, Bricktown, and too much time at the roof top pool.

Our drive home today was my personal highlight. I've always wanted to take Route 66 instead of Interstate 44, and today, I got my way. I didn't even have any complaints from the peanut gallery, probably because of the coolest stop, POPS, in Arcadia, OK.

We had a really wonderful time, but I was quite eager to be back at home once again. Preparing my own food and dining at home affords me the luxury of being in charge of what goes into my mouth....so, Day 4 on Bunny's 100 Day Raw Fu Challenge will most likely be my best yet!

Beautiful Baby Shower & Hummus

Robin and I have been friends for well over 20 years and yesterday's celebration wasn't just any baby shower. You see, Robin has been married for 10 years and they hadn't been able to have a baby. After years of challenged fertility issues and a couple of gut wrenching miscarriages, Robin had nearly given up hope of having a family. Chuck, her husband, is an officer with the Oklahoma Army National Guard and late last summer they received word that he would be sent to Iraq for no less than a year. At 40 years old, this crumbled their hopes of having a baby further still. In December, Chuck and the others from the guard, were brought home as a surprise to their families for a week during the holidays. And as you can see from the above slide show, we are now joyously celebrating this very special impending gift that God has bestowed upon these two amazing people.
Chuck is still serving in Iraq, but he will be allowed to fly home for the birth of their son the first week in September. Robin is being induced on the 6th so that daddy can be present for the birth. Congratulations and I love you, dear friend!

And just to keep it raw.....Today's post isn't complete without sharing the new recipe that was birthed yesterday. You must try this....it is really rich & delicious and you'll swear it's not raw!
“ROASTED” Red Bell Pepper Hummus

For the “roasted peppers & garlic:”

4 red bell peppers

4 – 6 cloves garlic

2 tsp. olive oil

¼ tsp. sea salt

For the hummus:

2 zucchini or yellow crook neck squash, peeled & chopped

¾ cup raw sesame tahini

½ cup feresh squeeszed lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

2 ½ tsp. sea salt

1 tsp ground cumin

First – cut, de-vein & de-seed the peppers. Smash & peel the garlic cloves. Toss both in olive oil and salt to thoroughly coat. Lay pieces on a Teflex sheet and tray, dehydrating at 115 F for 12- 24 hours. The longer you leave in the stronger and richer the flavors become. Set aside.

In a high speed blender or food processor, combine all of the ingredients for the hummus and blend until thick and still slightly chunky. Add in the roasted mixture and blend again until well combined & smooth.

This savory dip is best served with slices of cucumber, zucchini, celery stalks, carrot sticks or sliced bell peppers. It is also delicious with raw onion bread or flax crackers of your choice.

Green Rescue

It's hard for me to believe that I ended my 92 day juice feast nearly 2 months ago. Although three months was a REALLY long time for this hard core foodie not to enjoy the pleasures of chewing and creating fabulous food, I am being beckoned back. Everyday for the past two weeks I've been feeling the alluring pull, the tugging, the call, back to that juicy world of high alkalinity, smooth sailing emotions, beautiful sleep and the feeling of a gloriously flat tummy. I set my intention early last week to do green smoothies for breakfast and green juice for lunch, but somehow that never happened. As I awoke this morning, I carefully looked at my face in the mirror, then stepped onto the scale......I realize it's time to get serious again about the direction I'm going. Moments later, not by mere coincidence, I sat down with my laptop to open my first email of the day, that happened to be from Jinjee of The Garden Diet, and it said:

"Whenever you are experiencing any troubles on the raw vegan diet, it's time to juice! If you feel you aren't getting enough nutrients, if you are feeling insatiably hungry, if you are craving standard American foods, if you have any physical or emotional complaints, drink vegetable juice twice daily for amazing results, daily for huge results, three times a week for noticeable results, or even just once a week for improvement. Some things can even be dealt with by drinking a veggie juice just one time only. Vegetable juice has all your minerals, nutrients, building blocks, proteins, and enzymes in a form that is easily absorbed and used by the body instantly! If you search around online you'll find literally tens of thousands of people have healed themselves of just about every condition by drinking vegetable juices! Green smoothies are also becoming popular in this regard. They have more fiber and are more palatable. They are not as strong as green juice but many people are reporting great results from drinking them on a daily basis!"
Word. Thanks, Jing.
I remember saying, as I was ending my juice feast, that one thing I learned during the three months was that juicing would always be there waiting for me if I ever felt as though I was struggling. I've fought the demon of compulsive overeating throughout my life. I recognize the patterns and behaviors that go along with that battle and I don't care to go in that direction again. Juicing empowered ME, not those behaviors that had so easily entangled me, messed with mind and had distorted my body into a person I didn't like nor recognize. So, that is my motivation. Everybody knows there is no magic bullet. But there is the lifestyle of managing this human condition and of taking care of this wonderful body that God has given me. So, if you drive by my house, you can expect to hear the familiar sounds once again of Queen Omega and Prince Vita Mix coming to my rescue.

Ice Cream Update

Around 25 local raw foodies found themselves piled into my living room and kitchen for a celebration of raw ice cream delights. The picture you see here is the only one that ended up in my camera : ( It was taken the day before the meet up while I was making creamsicles from Everyday Raw. This mixture was so delicious, before or after freezing. It was hard to resist plenty of extra taste tests!

I was delighted with the turnout, but I fear that after just two meetups, we've outgrown my little cottage and it's time to move onto a new, more professional, ample sized facility. I have a couple of options that I'm considering, so we'll see what unfolds. Our next event will most certainly be a group pot luck so everyone can roll their sleeves up and get creative in their raw kitchens!
At our tasting, we sampled these raw ice cream varieties:

• Creamsicles - Matthew Kenney
• Chia Seed Ice Cream - Penni Shelton
  
• Lavender Ice Cream - RFRW (Matthew Kenney & Sarma Melngailis)
  
• Blueberry Cardamom Ice Cream - Raw Freedom Community (Carmella & Heathy)
• Easy & Delicious Chocolate Ice Cream - Karen Knowler
• Mixed Berry Sorbet - Penni Shelton (see recipe below)
  
• Raw Ice Cream Cones w/ Banana Almond Butter Cup Ice Cream (Matthew Kenney)
• Mint Cacao Chip Florentines - Russell James

Here is the super easy and marvelously delicious sorbet recipe:

MIXED BERRY SORBET

2 quarts of fresh berries (I used local blackberries and blueberries from my dad's garden)
3/4 cup agave nectar
1/2 -ish of pure water

Juice 1 quart of the berries to help reduce seeds. Pour juice and remaining berries, agave and a bit of water into a high speed blender to make 1 1/2 quarts. Chill mixture for about an hour, if possible. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze for about 20 minutes.

Lastly, if you don't have an electric ice cream maker, don't feel as though you can't make wonderful ice cream at home. There are two other options that will also yield a great finished product with just a little effort. Once you have your ice cream base blended and chilled, you can put the mixture into a bowl in your freezer, stirring vigorously every few hours to keep the mixture aerated. Do this throughout the day until the ice cream is completely frozen. Or, if you have a masticating juicer, you can freeze your ice cream base in a large flat casserole pan (about 1 inch thick), then cut into long strips that you can feed into your juicer with the blank plate attachment.

A Week In Pictures

It's been nearly a week since I've written an update, so I thought I'd share some pictures with you from my week. Dinner for Gordon's birthday was at Lola's. I didn't take pictures of our food, but I had my favorite salad and we shared a glorious bowl of Mediterranean olives. Birthday boy indulged in some artfully prepared southwestern beef. Then we went to The Wild Fork for lunch the next day. As you can see in the pictures, I had a glass of organic wine & a semi-raw lentil salad and Gordon had these over the top onion strings and a catfish sandwich. Because in our family we celebrate birthdays for at least a week, Saturday evening we had another shindig which included candles and a cacao raspberry cake!! Taylor's friend, Catherine, also had a birthday the same week, so we included her in on the fun. She enjoyed joining in on making a wish for her upcoming year. I love turning kids onto raw food and ice cream and cake always cinch the deal!



This week has been filled with so many commitments, but I've found the time to get into the kitchen and work on some recipes. I finally made Kale Chips. I've been hearing such a buzz about them in raw food circles lately, so I made a batch. I think it's a great way to add more greens into your diet. I have been crumbling them up as a topping to salads and veggies. YUMMY.

Then, my most impressive creation is that of the raw ice cream cone! I found the recipe in Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney. The recipe is actually wrong in the book, but there is a correction online here. These are fun to make and really delicious. I also took my 20% off coupon to Bed, Bath & Beyond and upgraded to a larger ice cream maker. Since I have the raw meetup ice cream social coming up this Sunday at my house, I thought this was a justified purchase! For the next few days, I'll be staying close to the kitchen, working in my ice cream laboratory...creating and crafting new recipes. I'm so excited because I've had over 25 people RSVP that they are coming. My little Brookside cottage will be rawkin' out this Sunday afternoon!!

Seven Eleven

First things first, I would like to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my precious husband, GORDON today!! Although not a professing raw foodist, my husband IS a saint on this earth. God truly blessed me over 5 yrs. ago by sending him to me straight from heaven. Other than snoring, the telling of real stupid jokes and his quarterly manic cleaning tangents, he's perfect. I love you so very much, Gordy. Thank you for making everyday a holiday.

Now to address a question that has been sent to me several times over the past few weeks:
"Regarding your recent juice feast, do you have any specific things that you might have done differently (if anything?) before, during or after juice feasting?"
Let me start by saying, I intentionally tried to stay very positive and up during my juice feast and throughout my postings here on the blog. I knew that I had a good number of people reading and I had read other blogs that seemed too negative regarding detoxing or other personal issues. I was fortunate because I had already done some cleansing work leading up to my feast, my symptoms were never all that bad. My goal was always to encourage others because I believed, and still do, that juicing is the quick road to renewed health, alkalinizing, and to helping to totally reset your body's cellular memory and overall force field.

One thing I regret is that I didn't exercise much. Other than jumping on my rebounder, doing occasional yoga classes and a bit of brisk walking, I wasn't consistently active. My intention was to do some form of exercise daily, but that didn't always happen. If I could go back, I would do more because I think I'd have saved some muscle loss. I DID lose just under 30 pounds in 92 days, but I had 50 pounds to lose. I'd have probably seen more consistent results if I'd made exercise a priority.

The only other thing I would do differently, is that I would have ended my juice feast earlier. Probably at about day 60 or 70. I pushed myself, as if I were in a fierce personal competition. My body started revolting a bit around day 70 -75 but I white knuckled it through to day 92. Once I got past day 60, I didn't lose one pound or experience any noticible cleansing/healing benefits. I think that should have been my personal stopping point, but I just wanted to lose all of my extra weight, so I pushed. Through that experience, I learned to listen to my body. If you are juice feasting and you start seriously jonesing for food three days in a row, even when you're taking in plenty of juice, you're probably done. Also, when you get into prolonged anxiety with your juicing program and it becomes an overwhelming chore, you're probably not going to reap the benefits. So both of those are good indicators that it's a good time to move to a modified juice feast.

I'm actually starting a modified juice program tomorrow. (Once I get past my husband's birthday celebration tonight!) I am going to be doing a green smoothie for breakfast, a salad or green juice for lunch and then a green juice or normal (primarily raw) meal for dinner, depending on what my social schedule dictates. My goal is to get 64 oz., or half a liter, of green based liquid into my body everyday plus one luscious green salad. Anything else will just be extra fluff.

There are two reasons for this switch in diet right now; one is that I have gained 6ish pounds back since I quit juicing. I'll never forget my brother in law telling me that my nephew is following my blog because he's pretty sure that once I go off juice, I'm going to blow up again. You have to understand our sick family sense of humor to know that Ryan's comment didn't offend me at all. On the contrary, it motivates me all the more to stay on track and to not veer too far from the path I have set myself upon. I'll most likely be thanking that hip, skinny kid the next time I see him. Then secondly, I just feel so much better mentally, physically and spiritually when I keep my diet juicy and light. Although I was careful to ease back into solids, I've dabbled in all sorts of foods since going off juice. I am a foodie to the core, so it's really easy for me to taste a bite of this and that. I've been having tons of fun dehydrating again, hosting meetups at my house and making loads of gourmet raw food. You know I'm tasting everything as I go. For me, it all adds up, and adds up fast.

So tomorrow, I'm going to get a little more juicy again and I am so looking forward to it. I'm also signed up for Bunny Berry's 100 Day Raw Food Challenge that starts August 1st. Bunny inspires me and makes me laugh. Any diet or lifestyle has to be enjoyable or what's the point? Life is short and I want to live it to the fullest. More tomorrow.....Happy Friday and Happy Birthday Gordon!!