Saturday, October 25, 2008

Cafe Bliss Bliss Video

Hello!

Our friend Bronson of Best Ever Productions just did a beautiful video about Cafe Bliss! Watching it made me feel all blissey and lovely, see for yourself!




This Movie is about a organic live food juice bar on 556 Pandora Ave Victoria BC, Canada called Cafe Bliss. www.cafebliss.ca

Produced, written and directed by us Best Ever Productions in October 2008.

May you have the pure pleasure of eating the nourishment and playing with the warm people of this establishment.

I love us

Bronson Dylan Kidd
Co Creator
Best Ever Productions

Doesn't it just make you want to eat some yummy raw food?!!

LOVE!!!

Katrina

Friday, October 24, 2008

Little Notes

Hello!

Well, we have been thoroughly enjoying Rawkathon, and David’s interview is up tonight so be sure to check it out! Amazing that you can have people like Mike Adams and Gabriel Cousens right in your house chatting away, isn’t it? Thank you Kevin Gianni, it has been an amazing week of information and inspiration!
Amazing pools of knowledge.....

If you haven't yet done so, head over to sign up for Rawkathon HERE.


A while ago now, our guest room was very lucky to host yet another traveling goddess, and we were very happy to hang out with Suki for some splendid hours. In addition to many other precious tid-bits, jems, and jewels of information from the mind of Suki, I now have a whole new relationship with colonics, and I didn’t think I had anything else to realize about the importance of such things. Yet how can one ignore the advice of a woman with such amazingly clear skin, eyes, and energy? I still have to find out where one can get a colonic out here on a tiny island, but believe me I’m looking! See, I’m not even afraid to blog about looking for a colonic, nothing to worry about!

For more information on the importance and How-To of colon cleansing, please see Suki’s blog, (and check out all the lovely information found under the tabs) or read Matt Monarch’s book Raw Success, or read Dr. Bernard Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care, or Norman Walker’s Colon Health. Keep on cleansing out that bowel baby!


Suki's first ever huckleberry....
In other news, David did a brief blurb for the upcoming book Raw Food Works while we were in Sedona. Check it out.




Enjoy your moments!

All love,

Katrina

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Disease is Preventable

Last night David and I jumped for joy when we heard Obama say on national television that heart disease and diabetes are preventable diseases, and therefore we must do what we can to educate people on how to prevent these illnesses. After years of everyone in the mainstream media, and doctors as well, claiming that diabetes has no cure, and that heart disease is hereditary, this is a bright and shining statement in a slew of untruth! Especially from someone running for President! Just imagine, we could have a President of the US who knows that heart disease and diabetes are preventable diseases! Perhaps he will even find out, if he doesn't know already, that both these diseases, and many others, can be reversed with a plant based diet! I am visioning it baby!

Obama also scored points with us when he said that parents must start to take responsibility for their children's educations, starting by turning off the TV and video games.

Ah yes, it is the simple things.

Enjoy your moments,

Katrina

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Giving Thanks and Pumpkin Ale

Hello dear friends!

It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and I was thinking this morning about what a lovely name for a holiday Thanksgiving is. A day of thanks-giving, giving thanks.

And indeed, thanks is one of the most wonderful things you can give! It is one of those gifts that keeps on giving, and the more you give, the more you have to be thankful for!

Thanks is a gift for everyone, everything, everywhere, and everywhen, making all involved feel one of the most beautiful emotions of all: GRATITUDE!

When our lives are filled with gratitude, we are sure to experience a deep joy, for when we celebrate with thanks the things and people we are graced with, we are open to the magic of life, and to receiving much more of that for which we are grateful.

And it is so simple to give thanks! It only takes a moment of mindfulness, a pause in your day, to really appreciate those things around you that bring beauty to your life. When you do this, a very peaceful feeling comes over you, as you realize just how abundant the world is.

I see that is it going to become even more important to be mindfully engaged in gratitude in the coming months, with the recent economic crash in the US and subsequently the world, with things seeming to fall apart left right and center. The more we can pause and be with purpose FULL OF GRATITUDE for our lives, the less the roller coaster of politics, economics, environment, weather, traffic, disaster, and loss will throw off our belief in the inherent beauty of life. We can find gratitude in every moment we look for it, every moment we choose to draw it out.

So lets do this together, to make a point of engaging in conscious gratitude, pause for a minute right now, and as often as you remember, to give thanks.

What are you grateful for in this moment?

Is it the computer you are reading this on?

Is it the warm house you are sitting in?

Is it the shirt on your back, the socks on your feet, the juice in your hand, the dandelion greens in your yard?

Your family?

Your friends?

Your breath, eyesight, liver, bowel, spleen, hair, heart, or thyroid?

Is it the illness that lead you to finding Juice Feasting and the bright and shining path to health that you are now on?

Is it your screaming children teaching you patience, your dying loved one teaching you compassion, or your lack of adequate finances showing you the joys of frugality (BTW, the more you practice gratitude, the easier and more joyful frugality becomes as a feeling of satisfaction through gratitude replaces feelings of want and desire.)

The toilet paper in your bathroom?

Get silly! Give thanks for the tiniest, seemingly simple of things, for it is all miraculous, it is all worthy, and it is all a gift! I have found that more I give thanks for the simple, most often taken for grated things, the more likely I am to filled with a sense of grace, peace, and deep happiness to be alive!

With gratitude and love,

Katrina

PS. I think my sister Heather's chalkboard sums it up perfectly:

PPS. Everyone knows you should have SOMETHING with pumpkin at this time of year, so here is a little good pumpkin recipe for you to try, created by Tyler.

Pumpkin Ale:

1/2 med. sized organic pumpkin, de-seeded and cut in to chunks(leave skin on)
2-3 apples
4-5 carrots
big thumb sized piece of ginger

Juice all ingredients and add a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, yum yum!!
Enjoy!

Friday, October 10, 2008

Apples and the Alaskan Adeventurer

Hello!

Earlier this week David and I were lucky enough to go for a Fall Day Sail with the family over to an island where there is an ancient old apple orchard. I am in heaven! I am a huge apple fan, and to have access to wild grown apples is a dream come true, a moment in Eden! Nothing compares to fruit fresh off of the tree, and we all filled as many bags as we could with the glorious juicy globes!
Picnic by the ocean. Wild plum fruit leather, flax crackers with sprouted chick pea hummus, fresh tomatoes from the garden, nori sticks, grapes, and APPLES!! Oh, and raw chocolate treats from Cafe Bliss.
Happy picnic people, even Heather had a day off from Cafe Bliss!
Apple Tree and an apple fairy, no, wait, it is Heather!
Apple Orchard nap for Constanze.

One of my favorite tidbits from Raw Spirit Festival was from a David Wolfe lecture in which he was discussing the amazing levitational elements of the universe, and that when Newton wondered to himself that day when an apple fell on his head "why did the apple fall down?" he should have in fact asked the question "how did the apple get up there in the first place?"

Love it! Apples are full of levitational elements, I can feel it! And when you really think about it, it is like magic that such thing as an apple, full of fresh organic water, minerals from the soil below, enzymes, sweetness, crunch, and sunlight, could arrive suspended up in the air, just calling to be picked and enjoyed!

So, there we were in an orchard full of apples, having a picnic with an Alaskan Adventurer, who was on his way via KAYAK from Alaska to Seattle! An amazing feat of physical and mental determination, and of course the subject of food, and raw food came up as we were all sitting there adventuring in the trip of eating raw food.

He mentioned that it had been difficult to include many fresh foods in his diet during his 3 months out kayaking, and he also commented how good it felt to be eating so much fresh food! He also told us that his goal with food while on this adventure was simply to eat as many calories as possible, and that as a result he was beginning to feel the effects and had symptoms of acid reflux.


When you are burning so many calories as the Alaskan Adventurer, eating as many calories as you possibly can does not show up as weight gain, but it still does take its toll on all of your organs if you are eating foods that your body was not built to use (processed starch and sugars and animal products in particular.)

Following is a entry written by David:

One of the things I talked with our Alaskan Adventurer about was his health, post-adventure. In 1999, I walked the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, and in the process of doing that seven-month adventure (the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest seventeen times), I pushed my acid reflux / toxicity issue to its max. I was eating 36 eggs in a day on some days, anything to get enough calories into me! After being sick for three years, I finally discovered plant-based raw food nutrition, and things cleared up in weeks.

I shared this story with the Alaskan Adventurer, and he said that he too was developing acid reflux during the trip. We talked about the difficulties in bringing enough fresh food to supply the 5,000-8,000 calories a day you burn on such a trip, and I passed along some of my post trip tips to him:

Make Green Smoothies
Use Spirulina-Chlorella-E3Live
Blend/Juice Celery for Organic Sodium (lines the stomach, alkalinizes)
Regain Weight using Greens, Nuts and Seeds, and if suitable, quinoa, buckwheat and rice - NOT Meat and Dairy, Soy and Processed Sugar
Move Your Center of Gravity up the Spectrum of Diet towards Raw/Live Foods
Get 1 Quart of Water with MSM (anti-inflammatory) in Each Morning, post-trip. Continue to drink enough water throughout the day.

He also knows about Juice Feasting, so if he needs a supportive cleanse post-adventure, he can do it. Needless to say, after suffering so much after my Appalachian Trail adventure, it was a pleasure to pass along the info that would have saved me three years of hell - but at least it did help me resolve my health challenges before more years passed. So, if you are on an adventure, and the foods you have access to are a little down on the Spectrum of Diet, remember these points above, or pass them along to other heroic adventurers out there! - David Rainoshek, MA

Eat your greens!

C'est tout, mon ami!

Until next time,

Katrina

Thursday, October 2, 2008

A 1 Day and 114 Day Juice Feast

Hello Dear Friends!

We are sitting here watching the rain through our window, enjoying the gentle arrival of fall on Canada's west coast. My tan is quickly fading and memories of Arizona sunshine and clear blue skies are going to go a long way this winter I can tell already!


I have not yet written about how amazing it was for David and I to meet so many people during Raw Spirit who had Juice Feasted! We were floored by how many stories of grace, healing, happiness, and strength that we heard. Even those people who shared stories of what they called "failures at Juice Feasting" said that over-all it had been an amazing learning experience and that Juice Feasting was something they wanted to try again at some point in the future.

For the record, a two week Juice Feast when one has set out to Juice Feast for 92 Days is not a failure! Two weeks is an impressive length of time to go on just juice! Even if you Juice Feast and decide you never want to do it again, bravo! Juice Feasting is just part of the gentle process of continuing to spiral upwards in health, and some of us need 1 Day at a time, some of us two weeks, some of us 114 Days!


114 Days??!!! A very special young woman is breaking out of her 114 Day Juice Feast today, and we have been very blessed to have her with us on our Juice Feasting Forums.

You can read Lilly's Blog in its entirety here, but here are some of my favorite bits:


From Day 83

"This summer and juice feast seems to have passed in a blur of good vibrations. As I shed the old and welcome the new, I realize what a miracle it truly is to have nature cure my illnesses.

Today, at my colon therapist's office they noticed me smelling the flowers, and asked about my pollen allergies. I realized at that moment that I haven't had any allergic symptoms since juice feasting. None, nada, zippo. In fact, I live near a park where I walk my dogs every morning, and haven't had any symptoms since juicing. Gosh, I'm happy to be runny rose free :)


Making my green juices has become a daily ritual. I can whip up thee greenness like Rosie The Robot from The Jetson's. As for my energy level, some days I sleep soundly, whereas other days I have boundless energy and read on until the middle of the night. Throughout the day, I tend to have good energy as long as there are 6 mason jars full of juice at my disposal :)


My eczema is clearing up well, about 3/4 of the psoriasis is cleared away allowing the new "me" to shine through. It has been 8 years with eczema... 8 years of wearing turtlenecks, of becoming more shy because of my "shell". When strangers used to stop me to say hi to my dogs, I would notice them glance at my neck eczema and then back at my eyes. It used to make me feel embarrassed, uncomfortable, and shy. But lately, the strangers I have encountered seem to pay less attention to my eczema. I'm happy people are starting to see me for me, not the eczema, or fear of getting eczema.


More than my skin has evolved... I feel more calm and content. I don't crave anything or feel like I need as much. I hope I can find the right words to convey this feeling. I want less... of everything, even the juices. I may feel thirsty, but I drink the juices for nutrition, there are no cravings anymore.


My thirst to learn new things has increased. I can sit for hours, often from 6pm-midnight lost in a great book. This was not the case before the juice feast. I used to have a hard time concentrating. For example, I would read for an hour, but then I would need to do something else- like clean, play the piano, check my e-mail, etc. During the juice feast though, my mind was stronger. I can't emphasis this huge change enough. My mind has become more clear, connecting words, and ideas more easily. This was not the case before my juice feast. Curious enough... my schedule now is more hectic then it was prior to the feast. So, I firmly believe the juice feast has cleared away old matter that has clogged my body and bloodstream; leaving a more lucid and clear flowing body and mind."


From Day 100:


"Today is Day 100 of my Juice Feast. It's hard to believe a hundred days have passed and gone by so quickly. So much has happened in the pass 3 months physically, mentally, and spiritually for me. This has had a big effect on the actions of my daily life. Physically, my eczema has 90% cleared and I lost a little weight.

Mentally, I have been able to concentrate for 6-8 hours and read books cover to cover for hours. I just fall into a zone every evening. I'm amazed. Spiritually, I find myself more calm, relaxed, and wanting less. I feel content and happy with less things. All in all, this has transformed my life for the better.


Gosh, I went into the juice feast looking to ease my eczema a bit... but I found so much more. Life is truly a blessing. I'm so happy to have been able to heal my health. It is very freeing to take control of your health. I'm continuing to juice feast one day at a time until my eczema is more clear. I'm almost there. And it has been great to have the loving support and supervision of some amazing colon therapists.


Thank you to the people that have done this before me, that have lead the way, that have provided answers for the future... you have helped me today and I am grateful.


Blessings and love to you,
Lily flowa" Before and After Photos

Goodness! Sometimes (oftentimes) this whole business makes me rather teary eyed! Congratulations Lilly and many blessings to your journey onwards and upwards!

If you don't feel like 114 Days of juice is calling you just now, let me share a little story from ~n~, who just recently did a 1 Day Juice Feast:


"I'm very pleased to say that I made it through an entire day yesterday on juices (yes, it really CAN be done!). Officially, I guess I did a one-day juice feast! :) I made a lot of juice in the morning so that I would be able to just get something whenever hunger struck throughout the day. I made different mixes of kale, celery, beetroot, romaine lettuce, carrot, apple, and plum juices (nice rainbow, eh). I feel really good about the amount of greens that I got into me.

In Dr. Walker's book he says that kale juice, like cabbage, can cause gas to bubble up in the intestines as it allows the waste matter to release and be carried out. I don't know that I could actually drink a glass of it straight (but what he says is quite true)!


It was amazing to me, that even just one day of juicing could cause such massive change in my body - not only the effect of the kale juice, but also the mucous that came pouring out (sorry if that's tmi)... I couldn't decided whether it was the cold I thought I'd been fighting off or a detox symptom. I'm quite sure it was detox though because the odd thing is that there was a little sleep coming out of my eye corners (during the day) and my sinuses were quite plugged by the end of the day, but fine this morning (and if it was a true cold, I'd expect it to be the opposite).

Monday night I stayed up until 3:30 making travel plans. I simply wasn't tired and felt invigorated after having a pink bath (which aids in releasing anger and aggression, helps to build compassion and loving kindness) with rose essential oil and rose petals - sounds extravagant, doesn't it! And despite staying up half the night, I was up at 8 without too much struggle. Last night, however, I slept solidly from 10:30 until 8:30 this morning - a solid 10 hours. Usually I'll get 8-10 hrs of sleep, but it'll have been disturbed at least once, between the children & the dog. It felt wonderful to have an uninterrupted sleep of that length. I used to have issues with sleeping in (thoughts like "what a waste of your day! get up and get going!") but I have since learned to see it as very restorative and important for good health and well-being, and I must admit I live a rather pampered life that I rarely get up to the buzzing of an alarm clock.

I haven't yet "broke the feast"; this morning I'll be having some cantaloupe juice to start the day. Maybe I'll just keep going on this fast for the time being. Just taking it one moment at a time..."

~n~ you are absolutely right about sleep being a very important part of your day! Thank you so much for sharing and congratulations on your 1 Day Juice Feast! To read more of ~n~'s blog, follow this link.

What juice did YOU have today? David and I both had half a quart of cucumber, celery, kale, bok choy, beet, carrot, apple, pear, lemon and ginger juice for breakfast. WOW, talk about yummy nutrition! A little on the sweet and complex side of things, but a nice breakfast juice treat.

And, because we are not Juice Feasting right now we also had a bowl of chia pudding magic with blueberries, strawberries, maca, bilberries, and noble mushroom powder. Yum.

With much love and blessings for a beautiful day,


Katrina Rain

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

RAWWWWKATHON!!!

Hello Everyone!

While Katrina and I were at Cherie Soria's Living Light Expo in Ft. Bragg, California last month, I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with Kevin Gianni about the latest work that I am doing on The Spectrum of Diet, which is my work on looking at nutrition as a line of human development. The long and short of it is, it takes time to move up the Spectrum of Diet from processed food to Raw/Live Foods, and Juice Feasting is a Life Practice that can help us move up the Spectrum more efficiently.

Kevin got the whole 1 hour talk on video, and is broadcasting it free, along with 1 hour interviews with other leaders in the plant-based/raw/live community

For those of you who don't know Kevin, he is the co-creator of the Raw Summit, and has been busy putting together something that's never been done before.

For those who aren't familiar with the Raw Summit, it was an online teleseminar event that brought thousands of people together to learn more about raw and living foods.

What Kevin is up to now is even bigger and better...

He's spent the last month putting together an event called "The Rawkathon."

This is a collection of candid, one-on-one interviews with 15 of the top raw and living food experts on the planet and it will be broadcast for you to watch or listen to in a few short weeks.

The interviews--from what he's said--are like no stage presentation or "how-to" DVD you've seen before.

Not only do these interviews cover how to stay raw, how to stay motivated, and the best ways to do so--Kevin has also said that they capture the true essense of each expert. Almost like you were there in the room with them as the interview was being conducted.

So when you're a part of the event, you get to hear 15 amazing interviews that really have never been created before or likely never again.

As with all of Kevin's events, to get involved, it's 100% fr@e, and this totally jives with our approach of making Raw/Live Food Nutrition and transformation not only available, but accessible to everyone.

It costs nothing for you to watch or listen to these interviews.

Kevin has made it easy to register now and you'll be sent information on how you can be a part of raw food history...

The Rawkathon (2008)


Right now the project is set to release on October 19th and only is broadcast for one week, so I have let you know about this event early so you are ready.

There is an opportunity to get all the interviews in a digital or hardcopy package at a special price with special bonuses, that won't be up after the event starts.

So please go ahead and register now...

The Rawkathon (2008)


With peaceful steps,

David and Katrina Rainoshek, JuiceFeasting.com

Monday, September 29, 2008

Full Time Festival Continues!

Helloooo!!

Well, here we are, long been home from the fantastical, amazing love fest of raw spirits down in Arizona where we literally wandered around in fairy dust and bliss the whole time.

Such amazing things are happening on this beautiful blue planet right now, I can hardly catch my breath, my head spins, my heart races! Are you in?

I know it is quite easy at this time to be tuned into the opposite side of the spectrum, and while it is important to take all things into account, the more that we do choose to tune into the love the bigger indeed it swells, personally and globally.

Like Neo and Smith in the Matrix, as good becomes stronger, so does evil, (remember as Neo became more powerful, so too did Smith, in a force of seemingly endless Smiths!) we have to choose what we believe in and make a full time job of it! It may sound like a platitude, but look around and see just how REAL it is! The full time festival continues!

One of those magical, Neo-like forces, is beloved Angela Stokes, recently taking the world by storm with her charm via the networks at CNN. Remember, the worse it gets, the better it gets, and it seems that in response to 20/20's discouraging piece on "orthorexia" (a non-term if you ask me) the universe has provided us with CNN's piece on Angela.

I was very lucky to spend some time with this woman right after Raw Spirit Festival (in the continuing festival of never-ending moments) and I can tell you my faith in love and magic was taken to the next level.
Angela is a beautiful example of the magical transformation that we are all capable of if we believe in ourselves and in love enough. When we choose to embrace growth, love and beauty, we experience a re-birth in to a new and more meaningful life, where emotional, spiritual, and mental transformations are just as poignant as the physical ones. They in fact go hand in hand in the trinity of body/mind/spirit. Angela is a TRUE POTENTIALIST and she lovingly, by example, is teaching us what is possible with our own growth and transformation.

I know that I used to find myself fascinated with people's before and after photos, and would reference them frequently as inspiration! I realize now that the even more dramatic and meaningful changes are those that we can't photograph, those that we ourselves forget about as we begin to feel comfortable in our own skins, and to enjoy our lives. Did I really used to wake up every morning feeling agitated with the words "I hate my life" in the front of my brain? It feels like another life time now.

In a nut shell, what I am writing about today is PERSISTENCE!! KEEP GOING!! Even if you are already at a place where you wake up with a smile on your lips and words of grace in your mind, stay the course!! We are living in a time where the edges of good and evil are being expanded exponentially, so keep on pushing out on your limits of love baby!

Oh, and I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but if not, please check it out! Angela's CNN interview: (which was filmed in my Papi's garden! A garden built on "juicin' energy")



And here is the text version of the story!

How about a few of our RSF photos to end the post?





For a true photographic experience of Raw Spirit Festival, check out the Flickr account of the extraordinarily lovely Suki Zoe, and for a great run down via the written word check out the blog of the ever prolific and goodies Heidi and Justin.

Hope to see you soon at the festival!

With much love,

Katrina

Saturday, September 27, 2008

LOVE.NOW

Take a few happy minutes to watch this beautiful music and message.....enjoy love now!!

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Our Summer in Pictures

Hello Dear Friends!!

Summer has been so wonderful that each time I try to sit down to write here, something such as a walk in the sunshine, a date with a blackberry bush, a swim in the lake, or a picnic by the ocean seems much more inviting!! That is summer for you!

We are happily moved into our new house in the woods, and I am loving having a full kitchen of my own once again as you will see in some of the pictures below. My brothers like to make fun of me for taking so many pictures of the food that I make, and it got me wondering "yes, I do wonder why it is that raw foodists love taking and showing off pictures of their raw food?"

I know that I am not alone in this habit taking pictures of my raw food as though it was my first child, the web is full of raw food pictures! Is it because raw food is so sumptuous and beautiful? So vibrant and delectable? Well yes, it is those things and many more (raw food is colorful, juicy, pretty, glowing, mouth watering, natural, yummy, yummy, and YUMMY!), but I also realized that pictures of food, all kinds of food, are EVERYWHERE!!


It is no wonder that as raw foodists we feel the need to balance out the plethora of cooked food pictures that we see in magazines, on TV, pasted on giant billboards, popping up on the web, on our airplane trays, in the grocery isles, and restaurant windows, with some pictures of the truly nourishing foods that we make at home! Pictures of pizza, lasagna, chicken, burgers, fries, and candy stimulate our appetites for these foods, and likewise pictures of red apples, gorgeous salads, juicy peaches, and green avocados stimulate our appetites to eat raw foods!

So I say go ahead! Let's flood the airwaves with pictures of beautiful, appetizing raw foods! I know it makes me excited to eat this way when I can find inspiring pictures of yummy looking foods. Storm and Jinjee and family have a fantastic project on the go called Take A Fruit Break, and you can even download beautiful free posters that will be sure to get your mouth watering for some tasty raw foods!

So, with that, we hope you enjoy these pictures from our summer 2008!

Ayrie with fresh salad greens from his backyard forest garden. I can't tell who is glowing more, my dad or the greens! An orange breakfast in an orange room. (In a house we babysat while waiting for our own house.)Making fruit faces with my sisters.Blackboard at Cafe Bliss.Cake. My mom made this from blended frozen fruit, just like ice cream cake! Chia pudding with fresh figs and blueberries. Chia has become a staple, I LOVE it!! I made a delicious chia smoothie with spirulina and cinnamon, which I thought was a weird mix of flavors but it worked out yummily.
Sweet flax crackers with guacamole, sun dried tomato sauce and fresh tomatoes, and of course SALAD!!Rosemary/garlic/onion/carrot/flax/pumpkin seed/sesame seed crackers with basil pesto and fresh tomatoes and of course SALAD!!
I Am Honoring Nachos from I Am Grateful, made for a dinner with guests. Made with I Am Kind Refried Beans, I Am Generous Guacamole, I Am Fiery Salsa, and I Am Ravishing Cashew Sour Cream. Served with flax crackers made by mom, and freshly made lemonade. Strawberry Vice Cream. Made with almond mylk and frozen strawberries. Joe aptly noted that is was silly for us to be calling blended nuts and spices "beans" or "cheese" and why didn't we just call it what it was? Just call it a spiced nut pate he suggested. For our "ice cream" he has bestowed the title "Vice Cream." V for vegan, vice for healthy indulgence (we don't really think this treat is a vice in the strict meaning of the word, don't worry.)
Alright! Done with the food shots, here is us on the Sonja after a sail, me about to jump in, David climbing the rat lines for a better view.

David enjoying sunset on a Northern California beach on our way home from the Vibrant Living Expo in Ft. Bragg (a fantastic event!)Setting up the tent to sleep by the sea.

Me visiting the redwoods.
Me swimming in a river, still feeling bon dans ma peau 3 months post Juice Feast!! Strike a pose Katrina!
Enjoying the island abundance of Blackberries, we are going to need a second freezer!
Look at the size of these babies!!

We are off again in a few days to head down to Sedona, Arizona for that fabulish gathering called Raw Spirit Fest! We hope to see you there!!

All love and blissings,

Katrina

Friday, July 25, 2008

Cafe Bliss is Here!

Cafe Bliss Grand Opening!

Proud owner, Cosmo serving up smiles with everything. Proud owner, Heather serving up smiles with everything too!
Heather and Shayou busy making juice.
Follow your bliss, and do not be afraid. Doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. ~ Joseph Campbell
Robyn, juice making beauty!

Happy Bliss salad customers.
The chalk board menu (and my artistic contribution to Bliss.)

Sister hugs.

Being juicy and raw in Victoria, B.C. just got a whole lot easier with the opening of Cafe Bliss!

The grand opening was yesterday, and it was rockin' busy all day, with people flowing in to try Bliss salads, wheatgrass shots, freshly pressed juices, and amazing smoothies. Oh, and don't forget the chocolate truffles!

We went for lunch and had the "Baja" cracker plate (yam crackers with guacamole, fresh cut salsa, and cashew sour cream) with a Sombrio Salad (tenderized kale, B.C. kelp, arugula, cucumber, daikon radish, grated carrot, red onion, and pickled ginger tossed in orange/miso dressing and topped with marinated shitake mushrooms and cashews.) It was so good that David and I went back a second time yesterday, and had a five o'clock "Johnny" (orange, banana, lime, and wheatgrass) and a "Cacao Jedi" (almond mylk, banana, cacao, hemp hearts, maca, and dates)

Should we go again today? I think so!

It is so fantastically exciting to me to see just how switched on everyone is getting to the joy of fresh, raw foods and juices!

Thank you Heather and Cosmo and the whole Cafe Bliss team!!! We love you!! Your food is amazing!!

Disclaimer at the bottom of the Cafe Bliss' menu:
We cannot claim responsibility for the vibrant health you achieve by eating the organic, local, living foods served at Café Bliss. We are not responsible for anyone running naked, laughing with non-causal joy, barefoot in the rain.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Raw Ice Cream Support!!

Heather and her amazing, supportive of raw foods cashew vanilla ice cream with fresh berries.

Hello!

I have been enjoying my family so much this past month. It is amazing to me to remember how difficult it was to go raw, two and half years ago, when I am now surrounded by family members who are also amazing raw food chefs!

My dad has become an amazing creator of delicious crackers, the whole family makes wonderful green smoothies, David makes my favorite Brazil nut pate, my dad's girlfriend Constanze just filled the fridge with sprouted almond hummus and cacao fudge that is to die for, and my sister Heather is about to open Victoria's first all raw cafe so you can imagine the treats she is trying out on us! Even my nine year old sister Finn tells me that her future husband is going to be "very nice, and he will eat raw food."

It can be very difficult to switch to raw foods. Two years ago Constanze remembers "you were living way out in the forest (well, I was living in a house in the forest) and you would come into town and tell that you were eating only raw food, and we thought Oh sure Katrina, whatever!!!" I can remember it was very difficult for me to eat all live foods for that first year...I was not able to, in fact. I realized how important it was to surround myself with support for the shift, and so after a year of trying to go raw in a cooked world, alone, I set off for The Tree Of Life. Once I was there it was a whole different world, it was so easy to eat raw food when all I was exposed to was raw food, and all the people I spent time with understood my choices and the conversation was not dominated by the need to explain why I was eating raw food! How refreshing!!

Even after two and half years, I still suffer amnesia in the face of some situations as to why it is that I am choosing to eat live foods. Take the recent move David and I have made for example...I have had to re-commit to myself all over again that I choose the best foods possible, especially while staying with my beautiful mother who really does make amazing food, both raw and cooked! I found that re-reading bits from the books and websites that inspired me to go raw in the first place was all it took for me to feel a sense of grace around eating raw foods rather than a struggle against cooked foods. I realized again that I CHOOSE to eat raw foods not because I "can't" eat bread but because raw foods create magic for me.

If you are new to raw foods, or even if you are not, do not underestimate the power of support. In addition to friends, potlucks, and family, I use on-line support as much as possible, and now there is even more with sites like Give It To Me Raw, and all the amazing blogs and personal websites of people who are walking the same path. Go out there and get some support for yourself! We support you! You are not alone!

And if it is inspiration you need, here are some pictures of Heather's amazing cashew vanilla ice cream with strawberries and raspberries fresh from the garden:

Constanze says "yum yum!"
Ayrie says "Delicious!"
Finnerty says "mmmmm!"
Heather says "I'm so glad you like it!"David says "Wow!"
Katrina says "Thanks for the support, Heather!"

Oh, and because I promised, here is the Post Juice Feast Smoothie-Luck that we had on Wednesday! Enjoy!


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