Delicious Co-Creation...

OOooOOOoooo, yumminess...we went to a meeting about Anastasia today :))) It was arranged by a woman in this area who has been reading and loving the ‘Ringing Cedars’ series of books, just like we and many millions of other people have :) She decided to create a space for those who are interested to gather together and share the impact these books are having on all our lives...I found it fascinating to hear what other people get out of these books – the different perspectives, the different things that stand out for people...for me, as I think I’ve made clear by now, these books represent pure truth and love – I just LOVE reading them and the visions they create and awaken within me...and I see the main message I take from them as the importance now for us all to get growing food – get to the land, get connected, enjoy the intimacy with nature and the ecstatic dance with freedom, no longer wrapped into a self-destructive, ailing system...We’re reading Book 6: The Book of Kin at the moment and it’s just soooo delicious...one of the bits that tickled my fascination nodules the most so far was some comment along the lines that humans get bored living in the buildings they do because THEY DO NOT CHANGE – they stay the same, more or less, year in, year out – you might move a piece of furniture here, hang up some other curtains there or smthg...yet it’s fundamentally the same – it doesn’t breathe, shift, grow or really interact...compare that to living outside all the time – think how different that would be – your landscape and environment would be constantly shifting, there would be endless new fascination to explore...I found this very interesting – I think it was introduced in the context of people getting bored in their marriages too, if I’m recalling accurately – same house, day in, day out, same people, same interactions, stagnating...hmmmmmmmmmmm...interesting stuff...this all led me to reflect on my own restless, nomadic behaviour so far in life, moving from place to place so often – I began to ponder if perhaps this has been driven in part by a desire to keep the landscape moving, yet without enough familiarity/will to choose living outside as my solution – so I’ve kept on moving houses/areas instead...there is definitely something in me that still jars against the reality of living outside...though we do sleep with huge windows completely open, so it’s pretty much like sleeping outside in THAT sense...well, we’ll see how it unfolds from here... ;)
If you want to dive into the Anastasia collection, you can see them HERE...

On March the 31st I had a juicy day of:

1.5 quarts water
36oz watermelon/mandarin juice
36oz lettuce/pak choi/dandelion/carrot/zucchini juice
2 cups water
40oz watermelon/orange juice
1 tbsp green powder
3 cups beetroot/apple/cabbage juice
1tbsp wheatgrass powder
3.5 cups apple/lettuce/cucumber/garlic/hot pepper juice
3 cups water

SOooOooooOoo...this was my FIFTH juicy Monday in a row, playing along on the skirts of the Global Juice Feast...which must mean those of you in full juicy mode have been at this for...wow, more than a month now, if you started on March the 1st...I hope you’re all having a wondrous time with it. I’m enjoying my weekly check-ins to juicy world...I might even keep it up after the GJF wraps us this time round...we’ll see...it just feels like a really nice break to me each week – I barely even notice it anymore as an ‘event’ in fact, which is interesting to me when I think back; if you’d asked me to spend a day on JUST juices 6 or 7 years ago, I would have most likely FREAKED OUT and thought I’d never make it through the day – these days, in contrast, it seems like a nice BREAK ;) LOL...how our perspectives can change...

on April the 1st I had:

1.5 quarts water
3 cups watermelon/orange juice
1tbsp wheatgrass powder
2 handfuls of fresh figs, from the trees here
2 cups water
8oz cucumber/lettuce/sprouts/carrot/cabbage juice
16oz carrot/spinach juice
bowl of cucumber yum: grated cucumber mushed with sunflower seed pate, avocado, finely diced onion, karengo seaweed, mixed sprouts, served in lettuce leaves
2 cups water
½ watermelon
2 cups water


on April the 2nd I had:

1.5 quarts water
1 quart watermelon/orange juice
1 pint zucchini/spinach/pak choi/cabbage/carrot juice
2 cups water
little bowl of Monarch Mulberry Magic – he’s at it again, that Monarch has created a magical greeeeeeen treat using just dried mulberries blended with ground almonds and spirulina powder - yummmmmmmmmmmm
3 cups water
3 cups zucchini/spinach/pak choi/cabbage/carrot juice
bowl of figgy pudding: fresh figs blended with fresh tangelos, stirred with yacon/lucuma/vanilla/cinnamon/spirulina powders
3 cups water

I would love to ‘big up’ Think Arete again today...I know I’ve mentioned this site before – I’ve just been loving the daily messages so much from them though, I wanted to recommend checking it out again. If you haven’t been there yet, basically the idea is that Brian Johnson (the guy who created Zaadz – which is now the beautiful Gaia Community) is collating together all his favourite nuggets of truth, beauty, ‘wisdom’ and so on from all that he has read and heard over the years from self-help resources to ‘spiritual’ books, wellness seminars and so on. It’s great fun :) Every day he emails out a short ‘big idea’ mail shot, if you sign up for it (free) – this might be anything from relationship guidance to an inspiring quote, to a simple idea that could revolutionise the way you create YOUR reality ;). The by-line of the site is ‘concentrated wisdom for the busy self-actualizer’ – love it...and that’s exactly what you get – no fluff, no hype, just short, simple, useful, positive, funny nuggets every day to boost your yumminess vibe ;) You can check the site out and sign up for your daily hit of yum HERE: http://www.thinkarete.com

ENJOY :)
One love,
Angela. xxx

Global Galavanting and Grains...

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-HAH :)
We’re on the South Island of New Zealand now...we arrived here last night, after a looooooong journey down from the North Island through gorgeous lush green scenery contrasted against shocking desert landscapes and abundant fruit belts, then a sweet night sailing across the Cook Strait under a phenomenal moon and star-scape...and now we’re officially landed in our next residence for the coming weeks. WOW. I think this is, quite simply, the most gorgeous, idyllic place I’ve ever stayed (see pic to the right)...it is a stone/wood cottage on 150 acres of land made by a local artist, set into green hills, overlooking the ocean in a fabulous mountain-lined bay below...just...stunning :) We are SO blessed. There is even a HAMMOCK in the living room, sheep roam the land, there’s a veggie patch, an organic fruit orchard of our own to forage in, a swing in the garden, a beautiful, very vocal Bengal cat, three fireplaces, other organic food producers all down the road and...oooo, so much to explore :) We just arrived a few hours ago...I AM EXCITED :)
The universe danced such a beautiful dance to deliver us here – we didn’t know where to stay, checked a few sites online, emailed the first place we saw that looked interesting and well, here we are – the owner ‘happened’ to be going away at the exact same time we wanted a place...and so we’ve arrived to take care of the place in her absence…and as I was writing this, another woman just came into the room and offered to take us horse riding with her in the local area – something we were JUST talking about in the car on the way here... :) SAY YES TO MANIFEST :))))))) I LOVE IT :)

Ok, prepare for a triple-whammy of food logs today again – life on the road has been monkeying with blogging regularity of late ;)

on February the 25th I had:

2 quarts water
3 mandarins
20oz celery/cucumber/parsley/radish/cabbage/carrot juice
little bowl of sunflower pate (soaked sunflower seeds/sundried tomatoes, blended with garlic), mixed with sprouts, diced tomatoes and seaweed, wrapped in lettuce leaves and nori sheets
1 quart water
10oz celery/cucumber/parsley/radish/cabbage/carrot juice
handful of hand-picked, vibrant blackberries, with 4 little gorgeous wild apples – foraging is FUN ;))))))
bowl of fruit salad with chia gel: papaya/cherries/blueberries
1 quart water

So, we seem to be on a Q and A roll here in blog world at the moment, so I’m going to keep flowing with it... ;) In fact, one reader - Chris - sent in a whole list of Qs to be A-ed, so let’s delve into those now...

“Angela, Do you have a home somewhere? Do you ever settle down? Are you constantly on the go with speaking engagements? It seems like a great way to live. . . but I was just curious where you two go when this is over? and Where to after New Zeeland?”

I do not currently have a fixed home address anywhere...wherever I rest my backpack, that’s my home – and right now, it’s DIVINE :) I’m a bit of a nomad and have been on the road for most of the last decade, stopping here and there for a few months at a time...yes, it’s definitely fun and I am very grateful for the opportunities this lifestyle opens to me...I used to be a long-term volunteer before I started up RawReform – I travelled all over the world doing large volunteering projects, like teaching English in Sri Lanka, working with people with autism and Down’s Syndrome in Iceland, helping out on organic farms here in New Zealand and recycling projects in the Netherlands and so on. (The old picture to the right is of me in Scotland back in 2002, doing some voluntary work experience with a friend in a wheelchair - learning to get around on wheels that way was certainly interesting ;) Once RawReform started up, I shifted my focus into that...which led me across the waters to Uncle Sam, or more specifically, Mr Monarch ;) At that point, I do believe the dear fellow had only once set foot out of the US...then we got together and he’s rarely slept under one roof for more than a few weeks at a time ever since and been all over the globe ;) LOL... To be honest though, my biggest wish right now is simply to get onto a piece of land, put up a yurt and start growing our own food...we’re waiting for my visa for the US though and it’s a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong process...once we have that, we can go back and get on with the bigger picture – for now, we get to play out in the rest of this glorious planet ;) After NZ, the plan is that we’re heading back up to Melbourne in Australia to do another talk there around the end of April, before hopping on up to Thailand for some exotic durian-shaped fun :) YUMMY :)

on February the 26th I had:

2 quarts water
2 little mandarins
20oz celery/zucchini/cabbage/carrot juice
bowl of cherries and blueberries
1 tbsp green powder
little bowl of sunflower pate (soaked sunflower seeds/sundried tomatoes, blended with garlic), mixed with sprouts, diced tomatoes and seaweed, wrapped in lettuce leaves and nori sheets
1 quart water
a little selection of amazing dried fruits: figs, cherries, blueberries, papaya, followed by ½ tbsp green powder
3 cups water

...and some more Qs from Chris...

“Do you ever eat grains? Like brown rice? I know you can soak oats and eat them without cooking.. I am wondering if other grains can be just soaked and eaten raw.. ? They'd go great with some pesto.”

Hmmmm, I don’t really eat grains – mainly due to ‘can’t-be-bothered’-ness; things like sprouted wild rice or quinoa can be yummy – they just take a loooong time to sprout and tend to like a lot of care during that process, in my experience – it just doesn’t really match a life on the road ;) As for oats...it tends to be hard to find them TRULY raw, besides which, they contain gluten...I do like buckwheat and use that from time to time in grawnolas etc...some people also make GREAT cakes, cookies and so on by grinding buckwheat into a flour and mixing it with other things... Some raw foodies of course don’t think grains are really ‘designed’ for human consumption at all...which makes logical sense to me...really, what are you going to eat in a field of barley...? They also tend to be very mucus-forming...hmmmm...just because we CAN eat something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s optimal for us...gluten-free grains can be great transition foods though, for people to move AWAY from things like bread, wheat pasta etc...

On Feb the 27th I had:

1.5 quarts water
20oz celery/cucumber/cabbage/radish/kale juice
big amount of fresh melons – watermelon/canteloupe/honeydew (see pic for evidence of melon fest ;)
1 tbsp green powder
1 tbsp bee pollen
1 quart water
bowl of sunflower seed pate mushed with mixed sprouts, diced tomatoes and seaweed, served with lettuce wraps and nori sheets
chunk of raw chocolate – yeeeeeeeee-HAH :) (long time since I met with the cracao monster)
3 cups peppermint tea
1 quart water

...and the last Q for the day from our dear friend Chris...

“What do you sub for the pamesan/romano cheese in pesto? I know the basic recipe is basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and pamesan/or romano cheese pulverized in a food processor. Chris”

Hmmm, well, I’d just throw in pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, basil and perhaps a little raw salt and be done with it ;) ENJOY :)

One love,
Angelaaaaaaaaaallalaalaalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. xxx