Blog archive: January 2007

My roommate Clay is the head gardener in our household. Raised by a farmer in the mid-west of America, Clay was pruning trees and things before most city folk had learned the word ‘shears’. So it wasn’t that astounding when he announced that it was time for the ornamental fig tree at the end of the garedn to have a good old prune. Assisted by his lovely girlfriend Lauren, the Big Prune happened today. You can see what’s left of the tree just to the right of centre in this photo.

Less foliage means more light on the ground. And that means more veggies and things come summertime, which we’re all very happy about.

And lo and behold, suddenly a huge cityscape was revealed!

I live slap in the middle of a huge city, however, we have a chicken and a duck. The chicken, Goldie, is a fine layer, providing about 3 eggs every 24 hours for all our boiling, frying and scrambling needs. Her best friend is Gary, a male duck, and therefore a non-layer. In fact, he is not useful at all, apart from the fact that he adores Goldie and therefore keeps her a happy and productive layer. Here they are doing a spot of pecking and scratching in the mud, which is probably their favourite thing to do except for nibbling fingers…

This was a new one on me. At lunchtime today I ran into my room mate Kerry and offered her a sprouted wheat bagel with Humboldt Fog smelly goat cheese from San Francisco. She seemed pretty excited about that, and offered me some of her juice. Kerry and her juice are pictured here… goji berry juice.

It’s quite a thick juice, definitely sweet, but not too sweet. A little glass was enough, as it’s full flavoured and rich. Delicious!

If you love shopping for organic food, you would completely adore Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. Established in 1975 by members of a local ashram, the store has since grown to become one of California’s most beloved whole food shops. It still has the feeling of being run by a community… the workers there are relaxed and happy in a very San Francisco way. There’s no obvious marketing directives, no slick presentation devices or fancy lighting. Instead, Rainbow has the feeling of a good, honest, old fashioned, hippy health food shop, but with one major difference. It’s absolutely gigantic.

The selection of organic foods on sale here is second to none. Big vats of chickpea miso, raw sauerkraut, raw almond butter and shelled hemp seeds. A whole aisle of incredible cheeses, including fare from local small-scale producers such as Humbodlt Fog. The most extraordinary fresh produce section carrying fresh plump aloe vera leaves, muddy burdock roots, pale white daikon radishes and deep green winter kale. And lots and lots of fairly traded organic chocolate.

www.rainbowgrocery.org

It’s a new year, and that means we all get to eat good organic stuff again.

Gone are the mince pies and cakes, the endless gourmet gourging, the universal over-eating of mid-winter.

Instead, we are free again to choose to indulge or abstain, whichever seems more pleasing to us, without the cultural pressure to steadily indulge, indulge, indulge.

To celebrate, I made a visit to Real Food Daily, one of the world’s truly great vegan restaurants. I chose their signature dish, named Real Food Daily, along with the house dressing.

Perfectly cooked organic short grain brown rice and butter beans; a huge mound of succulent steamed kale; a lovely medley of carrots, red onions and courgettes;a big ‘al dente’ wedge of kabocha squash; a creamy vegan cabbage slaw; a tiny sliver of pink pickled shiso sushi ginger; and a truly delicious helping of sesame-sprinkled sea vegetables, including arame and hijiki.

Feeling inspired?… Well, you could go to the two restaurants in Los Angeles if you’re in the area, or if not, check out their simple cook book. So satisfying…

www.RealFood.com