Blissed in Bali: Gaia Oasis

After a summer full of raw food events over Europe, including a successful participation at the Rohvolution, German's biggest raw food event last weekend in Speyer, I just got back to Bali a few days ago.
Thanks to my friend Marianne, who I met during my last stay here at the Radiantly Alive Yoga Teacher training, I was asked to come to Gaia Oasis as a raw food consultant. Gaia Oasis is a jewel tuck away in the North of Bali in Tejakula. Only having seen the South and center of Bali during my last visits, I finally felt that I just discovered the real Bali. The resort is split into two locations, a mountain resort, with 9 hectars of ground where they grow all the amazing organic fruits and vegetables, like mango, papaya, jackfruit,
even Durian :-) and spinach, arugula, all the herbs, ginger, lemongrass and so much more and of course endless supplies of coconuts.
The second resort is down by the beach with a private beach access, beautiful gardens , a great spa and a picturesque restaurant patio right by the sea.
During the last 5 days, I had the joy to teach the staff at Gaia some raw food dishes that they can easily implement with their simple tools they have at hand.

From now on, Gaias menu has been extended with some new fun raw dishes like my b.alive! zucchini spaghetti "bolognese", Asialive noodles, zucchini hummus,
Love Sprout salad with pink ginger lime dressing, cashew kaffir lime cheese on cucumber bites, avocado chocolate pudding, passion love smoothie, coconut yoghurt for breakfast and even mocaccinos and lattes based on cashew milk :-)











Working with the kitchen team was an beautiful and rewarding experience. Sirsan, the head chef, was extremely excited to learn the new ways of preparing the food and very happy and willing to learn.
And on top, the working conditions couldn't be better, when I asked Sirsan that we need a fresh young coconut that has some thick meat inside for making a nice creamy coconut sauce, he simply walked out of the kitchen , going to the coconut tree by the beach and getting a coconut fresh from the tree ! We live in Paradise :-)

We also visited another resort and spa closeby, where they make their own organic fresh cold pressed extra virgin coconut oil. If you were ever wondering , what a coconut oil press looks like, here you go:


Gaia Oasis is a wonderful place full of good energy. Being a non-profit organization, with a board of 15 members that communally built the place and invested their money without the aim of making money, but giving back to the community, this is the real way of how to build holiday homes. The staff gets properly treated, well paid and they donate big parts of the profits of the operation to the community to support the schools and many other things.

It is a perfect place for holding retreats of all kinds and now with the inclusion of raw food definitely a good address to just spend a lush day and indulge in their amazing healthy drinks list and fresh food prepared by the most lovely chef and his kitchen staff.
Thanks Gaia for a wonderful experience. It's been a bliss to work for a place like this!

Oriental Raw Food Diner with Piano Improvisation

When my good friend Lonneke from Holland called me beginning of this summer, I was so happy to hear that she wanted to come to Berlin to visit me with her new boyfriend Freek Zwanenberg. Unbound excitement kicked in, when she mentioned that this same boy was an amazing piano player and she suggested to have a raw food dinner, during which he can play his improvisations, inspired by my food. I called Melanie from Aphrohdisia and over some vegan ice cream on a lush summer evening , we designed an exceptional oriental style 5 course menu. Reinhold "Bubi" Rath sponsored his magical location, former restaurant and raw food café Rawmeister, at the lake in the midst of the Grunewald, an inspiring place full of energy. See for yourself , what the about 20 select guests were able to experience on this fantastic evening:



Thank you Lonneke and Freek for initializing this beautiful event.
If you want to see more of what Freek is doing, check out his website:
http://www.freekzwanenberg.nl

b.alive! dinner in Rome: Beautiful notes from a guest

Yesterday evening was a true highlight in my life as a raw food chef. My dearest friends Sienna and Yves opened their Roman Palace , which they call their humble home, in the center of Monti in Rome, to host the Roman episode of my latest dinner series: Tropical Inspirations from Bali.

Watching over the roofs of Monti under new moon, 22 excited guests were served a fusion repertoire of Asian inspired raw food dishes on the beautiful roof top terrace of the apartment, surrounded by Sienna's amazing herb garden. The excitement was met and all of them left with smiling faces. I received so much nice feedback and comments from everyone and Elizabeth even wrote an entire blog post about the dinner. And so did Sarah May on her Compassionate Hedonist Blog. So, at this point, I won't go on and talk more about it, but read for yourself from the perspective of two really happy guests :-)

Here are the articles:
Raw Food in Rome, by Elizabeth Minchilli

b.alive! in Rome, by Sarah May

a balinese dinner journey by b.alive!

Inspired by my recent journey to Bali, where I worked for the Radiantly Alive Yoga Teacher training (see previous blog post), I served a selection of 5 new exotic Asian fusion creations at last weeks b.alive! club dinner in my studio loft in Berlin.
It was a magical evening, because not only was the food delicious, but my 6 excited dinner guests created the most beautiful atmosphere, while I was guiding them through jackfruit kaffir lime lassies accompanied with curry leaf mustard cookies, chinese style dumplings with sweet and sour dipping sauce, Balinese Gado-Gado and strawberry cardamom halva with nutmeg ice cream and strawberry balsam coulis. Watch, enjoy, b.dreaming and hopefully, next time you'll be one of the happy guests at a b.alive! dinner :-)

Radiantly Alive

One month has already passed, since I arrived on Bali beginning of May, and with it an exciting and inspiring time, creating indulgent gourmet raw food meals for about 35 eager students of the Radiantly Alive Yoga Teacher Training. This month long program is probably one of the world's most comprehensive yoga teacher trainings available at the moment. Each day seems like a day in paradise. Starting with Meditation and Pranayama at 5:45, followed by 2 hours of invigorating yoga practice, instructed either by Daniel Aaron himself or one of the many guest teachers, the students get their first raw food highlight of the day: a bright, tropical breakfast. For me personally, the highlight of every breakfast were the 5-6 varieties of tropical fruit we offered each day. Local staples like enzyme rich papaya, dark yellow mangoes and the juicy super-food/fruit mangosteen were only topped by occasional treats such as jackfruit, which became one of my new favorite tropical fruit. The mere size of an outgrown, ripe jackfruit literally threw me for a loop ;-) The meat is gooey and sticky and when you have it on your hands it has sort of the same effect as the rinds of a pine tree, leaving some stickiness on your fingers. The taste and texture of the fruit when its ripe is outstanding, just like juicy candy gum, but all natural. Yumm. Of course, fresh tropical fruit was only one part of breakfast. The chef's challenge was to come up with chia coconut porridge with daily changing flavors (chocolate banana, chai spice, papaya, vanilla, etc.) and superfood smoothies with flavor profiles such as a passion fruit spirulina maca blend or mulberry chocolate.


Now this was only the humble start of the day. Together with chef Matt Samuelson, who has taught for many years at Living Light Culinary Insitute in Fort Bragg, California, our motivated international kitchen crew (from left to right) Japanese chef Sayuri, who also caters other retreats, myself (b.alive!), German apprentice Anna and becoming raw chef Lucie from the Czeck Republic created some outstandingly rawluscious lunches and divine dinners. Some of my personal favorites were:

• the Mediterranean themes with Hummus and Dolmas, in which the rice had been replaced with a delicous mix of rice shape cut zucchini, pine nuts, raisins, orange juice and olive oil wrapped in flat rolled marinated romaine lettuce leafs.
  
  
• an Indian Dinner theme with fermented chapati bread, palak paneer, delicious vegetable curry and mango and coconut mint chutney
  
• our Asian Style lunches with ad-hoc creations like my Thai Style cucumber kaffir lime "noodles" with wilted spinach.
  

During one month of such amazing energizing food and invigorating yoga practice with world class teachers in a truly magical environment of religious rituals and Balinese traditions, surrounded by lush jungle, endless rice fields with tremendous views and dramatic sunsets an amazing group of people including organizers, teachers, kitchen staff and students alike are truly undergoing a life-changing transformation and I can say for myself that I have made quantum steps towards b.ing radiantly alive. Go and see for yourself :-)
http://www.radiantlyalive.com

b.alive! on Mediaplanet

It's not TV yet, but web tv for now :-) Watch my first online performance in which me and my raw food partner Melanie from Aphrohdisia tell you the benefits about raw food and show you how simple it is to make a green smoothie, zucchini spaghetti bolognese and a rawlicious chocolate pudding.

b.alive! meets Hollywood: Viktoria Boutenko's new DVD

During the last 3 days, my little 46 square meter loft in Berlin turned into an (almost) Hollywood movie set ;-) Victoria Boutenko, famous inventor of the Green Smoothie and loving mother of the Raw Boutenko family, is currently on Europe Tour promoting her new book Green For Life. And nowhere else than my small raw food laboratory was chosen to be the set for shooting her new film.

Right after the Rohvolution, the biggest raw food event in Europe with more than 5000 visitors this year, where I was representing and selling my latest products, an even more exciting and amazing 3 days followed.

Monday through Wednesday, my little loft turned into a movie set with Victoria talking about the amazing effects of her Green Smoothies and demonstrating her favorite recipes, an interview on the medical benefits of introducing green smoothies into your diet and recipe demonstrations of some of Germany's top raw food chefs.

Nelly Reinle-Crayon from Rohköstlich.com presented her menu "Sinfonie in Grün". My close friend Melanie from Aphrohdisia presented her beautiful Spring Rolls with Mock Peanut Sauce from her Living Light Class repertoire and also gave an inspiring talk from her experience as a practitioner in alternative medicine and shamanic healer.

I myself presented two of my own creations from my gourmet dinners. One dish, I recently created, inspired from my 7 years of living in Italy: Bed of Spinach with Almond Ricotta, Balsam Infused Figs and Pine Nuts. The second dish got inspired by my extensive Asia Travels: A Zucchini Lime Mousse with a Red Bell Pepper Foam.

Markus Rothkranz, who has been involved in famous Hollywood productions like Die Hard or Lethal Weapons, and now famous for promoting and inspiring a healthy and sustainable raw food lifestyle full of love and compassion, was here to capture the entire footage on camera and will be cutting the final DVD. When I first looked at his website, I thought "oh my god, is this guy really going to come to my apartment? That Typical American, big media type of guy..." I was so wrong. Markus turned out to be the most loving, sweet, compassionate and inspiring person and it was great to have him around for these days and to get to know him a little better during a few deep talks during and after the shoots. Thanks for a great new connection and another reminder that first impressions don't always tell the truth.

The most amazing energies were set free within these days and I am so grateful for having been able to host this film shoot at Dresdener Strasse 114, Berlin, Mitte, a historical place, because it is actually former Berlin Wall territory. I think that actually for this reason, it "miraculously" happened to be shot here and of course thanks to my friend Heike Michaelsen from rohspirit.de and co-creator of Germany Goes Raw, who brought me in touch with Hans Nietsch, who published Victoria's new book in German (German title: Grüne Smooties) and is also the producer of this movie together with Burkhard Hickisch from gruenesmoothies.de.
The square was empty and without energy up until 2 years ago and now it is attracting all these colorful people with amazing energy and healing powers. I think something amazing is happening here and I am more than happy that I can contribute to this little magic.

Victoria has been a big inspiration for me. Her energy was so amazing, she was so accessible and full of love and compassion. I have also gained a few new good insights into raw food nutrition. According to her research, we should eat at least 1 kg of greens a day to get all the minerals we need. She never washes her greens, because the microorganisms on them can provide us with the necessary B12 and there is no need to be afraid of germs if you have a healthy terrain and strong system! The cause for diabetes according to her is actually not the carbohydrates but the fat. So including fruit into your diet is actually fine, if you reduce the fats to a minimum and limit the fats to mainly the fatty fruits and veggies like avocado, young coconut or durian. I learned a lot about using local herbs and so called "weeds" in green smoothies and I am definitely going to include this as a regular now into my daily diet. This morning, I started my day with a full Vitamix Blender of a Green Smoothie made from Wheatgrass, Wild Herbs, Parsley, Spinach, Banana, Pineapple and Orange. Thanks for your inspiration, Victoria!! Hail to the Grail of the Green Smoothie :-)

Rohvolution 2010

Mesquite Chocolate GraWnola, Golden Cranberry Pecan Toast, Incan Cayenne Chocolat with Shilajit Mineral Pitch, GoChocoNuts Spread , Caramelized Yacon Flan, Raw Phad Thai with Ginger almonds and much more at the Rohvolution in Berlin this weekend (www.rohvolution.de).

Rohvolution is Europe's biggest event on raw food, taking place in 3 different locations in Germany every year.

This weekend, 27th and 28th of March, I will be at the Rohvolution in Berlin with my latest products and also giving talks on coconut oil and fighting diabetes with raw food rainbow green life-food diet after Gabriel Cousins. Visit me at booth 164-166.

AphraWdisiac Valentine's

Last weekend I was gifted one of these endless blissful moments in the career of a raw food chef and culinary artist: All the vibrations of love in the air of Valentine's weekend culminated in the heart of Berlin and in mine, with 15 excited and lovely angels gliding into my little loft in Mitte.
Melanie from Aphrohdisia.de and myself created 5 culinary pieces of art full of love and devotion to take our shiny lightelves to their heaven of aphrawdisiac tastes, feelings and maybe even experiences (I do not have details on that :-)

Our 5 course candlelight dinner started off with a beautiful infused red hibiscus wine accompanied by a tantalizing walnut saffron paté with a slight note of vanilla served on crunchy chocolate nachos. This explosive combination was already enough to make some "aphrodized" angels fly away in acroyogic positions...

The following heart(beat) rawvioli, filled with fermented creamy cashew "cheeze", in combination with in mint marinated asparagus picked up the stimulation of the hors d'oeuvres and raised the heart beats of all, certainly mine, not even eating them but just feeling the resonance in the air and the eyes of the served.

The earthy flavurs combined with the aphrodisiac qualities of Truffle from Bagnoli, one of Italy's most famous places for this beautiful, precious black gold, combined with the superfood qualities of raw cacao and goji berries, made the main course one of the most unusual and exclusive culinary adventures of the evening. Angel hair pasta with a fruity truffle chocolate pesto literally took all of our tasting angels on a journey. The most aphrodisiac ingredients truffle, chocolate, berries, saffran and chilli all combined on one plate! Do I need to say more...?

Back to more familiar tastes, and strictly following the Italian tradition to have salad after pasta, a lovely arrangement of salad greens, pears, creamy almond ricotta and pine nuts topped with a balsam infused figs vinaigrette and sprinkled with orange pepper gave an uplifting finishing touch to the savory cycle of our love dinner.

There is only one thing that could raise the vibrations and emotions of all even more at this point: the magic ingredient that makes every heart melt: darkest, purest, abundant chocolate. A light, fluffy venus chocolate mousse that melting in your mouth set free aphrodisiac spices and flavors like vanilla, tonka bean and maca, was served with a fiery wild berry coulis and mayan chilli chocolate hearts. Conversations stopped and time stood still except moving tongues to melt this Aphrawdisiac chocolate heaven.

15 happy, shining angels floated away in bliss letting behind two smiling, happy chefs. After truly one of my most magical dinners, my dreams that night were full of love and joy including the beautiful angels we took on our little journey. Thank you all.

b.love - b.chocolate - b.magical!

Curried Cumin Savoy Cabbage

Many of my clients always face the same problem, when it comes to winter time vegetables: How to handle kale, cabbages, brussel sprouts and co. I am a big fan of all those veggies, since they are local, in season and provide the body with the nutrition that it needs during these cold, damp months.
Working with them is a little more challenging than just making a salad and yet, no rocket science. I've always loved savoy cabbage, how my mum used to cook it and stuffed it with some yummy stuffing and let it sit in the oven until it's all soft and wilted and juicy.
The concept in raw is quite the same. Marinate it, give it a good massage and dehydrate it until it's soft and all the flavors are infused.
Here a simple recipe that I whipped up the other night. You can make a whole batch of this and it'll keep in the fridge for days!

Take one big head of savoy, sliced in finger thick stripes and massage with ½ teaspoon of salt. Massage it at least for 3-5 minutes, so that the salt does its job to break up the tough fibre cells.

Add one small red onion, cut into small slices.

Then blend in vitamix:

• 1 cup sprouted sunflower seeds (soaked for about 4 hours)
  
• 2 cups water
• juice of one lemon
• 2 teaspoons curry
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 1 inch piece ginger
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• pinch of chilli
  
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds

It should be a thick and smooth cream, tangy and slightly spicy.
Add to the cabbage and massage altogether for another couple of minutes.
Then mix in another teaspoon of cumin seeds.

This dish so far is completely sugar free and Phase 1 according to Dr. Gabriel Cousens Phase diet. If you like to add a little sweet touch to make it a Phase 2 dish, you can add half a cup of soaked raisins or goji berries (including the soak water) for color and texture.

Put the mixture into a casserole dish and dehydrate at 105 for at least 3 hours or until desired consistency.

You can enjoy this just as it is. To make it a bit more comforting in the winter it is also nice to serve this over some steamed quinoa, which is a nice way to create a hybrid between raw and cooked food.

Enjoy :-)