Kristen Suzanne to be precise.

She runs a very popular and one of the first raw food blogs over here and has quite a few ebooks and books that you might like to check out, as well as an awesome published book called Raw Awakening which if you pre order now, you will also get a FREE copy of her ebook Raw Transitions – perfect for the raw food beginner or trying to introduce more raw food to your family.

So Kristen and I developed an online friendship when I first delved into raw food when I was still a flight attendant out of London.

I bought her ebooks online and we got to know each other through our emails, which developed into a mentoring relationship then friendship, with Kristen being the first person I spoke to when considering going to Raw Culinary school.

Pat affectionately called us soul sisters, as we got to know each other, that we had plenty in common too.

So of course I was elated when Kristen told me she would come to visit us in Long Beach (she lives in Arizona) on our trip to LA. It would be the second time I got to see her in person (the first was here) but the first time I was able to meet her precious daughter Kamea and this time Pat was also able to meet their family.

We lunched at Long Beach’s only known vegetarian cafe, Zephyr’s – Kristen had dined there the night before so we decided to head back there the following morning!

We all ordered the popular MK works burger (black bean patty) and it was quite nice – in between trying to keep Manus entertained, you know a mother of an active child rarely enjoyed a sit down meal in a restaurant. Even this pic was snapped mid way between shoving some in my mouth and trying to pacify Manus.

The food was ok, but the service – 45 mins to get our food when we were the only ones in the cafe. Weird.

It was so lovely to chat (between looking after the kiddos) with my friend whom I wish we lived so much closer to! The food alone we could share would be incredible – she an incredible raw food chef.

After saying our sad goodbyes and sending Kristen and her family off on the last part of their road trip, we headed off on a mini road trip of our own.

The weather was overcast but we were still yet to see the local beach.

Here’s one of the local beaches at Long Beach – you can see the Queen Mary and the port in the background.

Being a Sunday, there were plenty of families playing on the beach (and in the water, which we were advised to stay out of due to the oil refineries spilling oil and possible sewerage – ew!) and also I wish I had of taken a photo of the family that were grilling on a BBQ in the back of their truck. It was pretty cool.

Then we drove further south to Huntington Beach.

After a beach side drive we ended up at, you guessed it, Whole Foods.

Check out this awesome juice bar. They even had a beer and pizza bar in this one too. NICE!

We got our token green juices and watched Manus create a lot of noise.

Before calling it quits and picking up some stuff for dinner.

I picked up the avocado and mango brown rice sushi – GREAT flavour combination!

And a seaweed salad.

Who would you really love to meet?

Manus enjoying a Lara bar in the background.

And spent at least an hour in the store, just pouring over their goodies:

KOMBUCHA!!! Every flavour you can think of.

Raw snacks like cakes and cookies and kim chi.

And a whole dry stores section dedicated to RAW FOOD.

This is what I walked out with but not limited to:

Although not raw, this vegan cheese makes awesome pizza topping, which will be making it’s way in my suitcase back to Saudi. Not very nice raw but yummy melted just like Kristen’s mum made for me on my last visit to her in Arizona here  (Whole Foods Long Beach even have a pizza bar where you can get made to order vegan pizza – ok it’s not the healthiest but nice to have vegan junk food options when the need arises).

Raw cheesecake

Salad bar complete with kale tangerine salad (YUMMO) and vegan egg salad made with tofu instead.

Organic & dark chocolate peanut butter cups. Reese’s eat your heart out!

Coconut water – great for hydrating and electrolytes however better if you can crack open your own coconut as this packaged stuff is pasteurised

Seriously. This tart is heavenly. I ordered these for my passengers in private flying days, 2 years ago, on a trip to Houston and they didn’t eat them all, so of course I took them home and shared them with friends – and myself They were amazing and remind me of Mint Slices – an Australian chocolate covered cookie/biscuit.

And some dairy free (but not raw nor sugar free) yoghurts to check out. I am determined to make my own version of almond milk yoghurt when I get back to Saudi. I have made my own coconut yoghurt plenty of times before, you can see my recipe here

LET’S CHAT

Even though I am going a little crazy (good crazy) with all the raw packaged foods that are a plenty here, as well as the gourmet raw and vegan restaurants, I just wanted to have a little chat about my style of eating raw.

Most raw foodies will agree, that it is very exciting to be in a location where raw food is recognised and there are plenty of options both for eating out and convenience snacks like lara bars and hail merry macaroons for example, however if I lived here full time, I would be making more of my own foods, and more simple raw foods. I would most definitely be taking advantage of the beautiful and organic produce that is aplenty here in California, and using these packaged and take out foods as treats.

I know that when I feel really loaded up with heavily processed and cooked foods, all I usually crave is a crisp apple or a green juice or smoothie, so as much as it feels that some parts of the world are lacking the amounts of choices I am showing you available in LA, it is nice to make your own food and know EXACTLY what is going into it.

People ask me all the time, where can they buy raw food in their part of the world, and I say, right where you buy your fruits and vegetables. Sure it is nice to have pre made raw cakes and drinks, but raw food at its finest is as nature intended.

I wrote more about being gourmet or simple raw foodie here.

But or course, it is nice to be treated to someone else’s ‘un’ cooking for a change

Your thoughts?

Like the home of the Academy Awards: Kodak Theatre

This was taken 2 days ago of my husband and son.

And this photo was taken of me 7 years ago on my first trip to LA

Outside Grauman’s Chinese theatre: home to  footprints and handprints of movie stars from today and days gone by.

Then of course, an obligatory picture with one of the characters on Hollywood Boulevard.

Complete coincidence that it was Jack Sparrow Mum was more impressed than Manus.

Afterwards we saw two more Johnny Depp characters – the Mad Hatter, and Willa Wonka – amazing costumes.

Then it was time to get some afternoon refreshments and some juices after a drive down Sunset Strip

Completely by chance we ended up at Wholefoods, well I am the navigator you see

And Beverly Hills at that!

Was a great 1st trip to Wholefoods for this trip, but it was a smaller one, so I only stocked up on some items to take back to Saudi, but it was Pat’s first time in a Wholefoods, and he bought oodles of supplies as well.

Then it was time to do a drive by Rodeo Drive

And Two Rodeo Drive

As we were in a driving mood, we headed back to Santa Monica where the weather had turned to misty and foggy with the mist from the ocean meeting the heat of the land.

And we went for a stroll down Venice Beach.

Day 1 was spent wandering around Long Beach – where we are staying, in a haze of jet lag, after a 16 hour flight from Dubai which Manus HARDLY slept a wink,  just trying to familiarise ourselves with our new home for the next 10 days and to pick up our rental car – we fell asleep by 4pm!

Day 2 headed off to Costa Mesa to South Coast Plaza – after being recommended it as a shopping destination by my flight attendant buddies who call Long Beach their second home. Costa Mesa by car is about a 45 min drive away, in Orange County. If you do happen to make it there as a tourist, make sure you ask for a Tourist Passport that gives you access to discounts and deals across different stores in the centre. It’s a massive centre which has a garden bridge that joins the home part of the mall to the main part of  medium to upmarket stores.

Here I fell in love with a store called Williams-Sonoma – kitchenware and some foods (like gourmet cupcake mixes and do-it-yourself kombucha kits) and was pleased to discover they conduct daily free workshops. I happen to arrive on just the right day. They were demonstrating how to culture kombucha! This month they are also doing juicing and reboot workshops based on Joe Cross (Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead’s) 60 day juice fast.

We took a lunch time break to head up the road 5 minutes to 118 degrees for lunch (not to be confused with 105’ degrees which is now Matthew Kenney Academy in OKC and where I did my culinary training).

I had a Daily 5 smoothie, which was seasonal fruit, with almond milk and coconut and greens (I think) and shared with the big man.

But i had serious food envy off Pat’s coconut lemonade – coconut water and lemon juice. YUMMY.

Cheese and Cracker Platter (as per the website)

3 of our house made cheeses- pistachio pesto, chipotle cheese and tahini cheese and everybody’s favorites our sprouted grain bread and crispy flax crackers.

Really tasty especially the tahini cheese – both our faves – but in my opinion, more dips than cheeses.

Then Pat ordered the Buddha bowl with seaweed as an addition

Curried Vegetables featuring Cauliflower, Grapes, Chopped Chard, Shitake and Enoki Mushrooms with Sprouted Grains on Sweet Miso Noodles

and I ordered the Topaz Pizza

Decadent Pistachio Pesto with Tomatoes and Herbed Italian Squash on Our Sprouted Grain Crust. Served warm with Sun-Dried Tomato Topping, Chopped Olives, Marinara & Basil Cheese.

Honestly, largest serving sizes ever! We could have ordered one meal to share, probably because we had also shared the cheese platter too, but serious sizes.

And then, I didn’t even realise until after we left, but we met Jenny Ross, the owner, as she came out to chat to other guests, and was asking us about Manus as he was a little naughty walking around the restaurant, chatting to other lunchers and she had a little newborn in her arms! Gorgeous.

The highlight of the trip to 118 degrees was discovering on leaving that Jenny was in fact the raw chef that wrote a raw recipe book with none other than Doreen Virtue, one of my mother’s favourite authors and gurus, who we happened to meet about 7 years ago when she toured Australia – Doreen even gave my mum a random reading in a talk she did in front of about 1000 people. Cool hey? So of course I had to buy the book!

Dinner was a vegan friendly local Korean BBQ restaurant I found online at Veg Out (Happy Cow’s vegetarian restaurant app for iPhones) and was happy to enjoy their Japchae (rice noodles with tofu and seasonal vegetables)

and some vegetable dumplings

alongside the traditional Korean pickled vegetable accompaniments (love them!), whilst husband was happy that he was able to still enjoy his Korean BBQ ribs. Win!

How about this view right? From our chair lift less than 100m from our chalet.

Back in October, we began discussing the possibility of a snow holiday, as Pat has wanted to ski Lebanon or Iran for the past couple of years but the seasons are so short and the windows of opportunity just didn’t work in with our vacation slots.

Then when we decided to visit my home sick sister for Christmas in Paris, we thought why not check out the snow, as the world famous Alps were not too far away – well ok they were at least a 9 hour car ride from Paris, but still, it’s all relative.

Yep Manus gets a little hot in his baby carseat, so we strip him off and here he is on a quick toilet stop having a play with daddy.

Skiing in Scotland 2006

Me not being much of a skiier – I’d only tried it 3 times before in New Zealand’s North Island, Australia’s Perisher, and Scotland’s limited ski area, I wasn’t really that fussed, but Pat, was keen to try out his snowboarding skills. Well, he is a keen kiteboader and surfer so his talent translates well to the snowboard.

In the end, friends of ours, also from Saudi, got in on the idea, then at the last minute, my sister and her French husband decided to join us for a week of ski/snow/boarding action on the world famous slopes of Tignes les Brevieres.

As our holiday was planned very last minute, Pat did some finger surfing on the web and found the last place available for us to stay which slept 7 adults comfortably and included breakfast to our rooms each morning and a 3 course dinner wine included everytnight – just what you want after an exhausting day on the slopes – someone else to cook – they even offered different options for dietary requirements.

And some fun for Manus during the day  

What a luck out Chalet Chandons was. A budget conscious but not light on the service, British run establishment that offered long stays work for cheaper rent, so essentially the staff that looked after us, were also guests and usually fellow skiiers/boarders on the slopes. So after their work was done for the day they were free to hit the powder.

Even though we stayed in their other Chalet (Hattiers) it was a mere 8 minute walk to Chalet Chandon each night for dinner at 730pm where we were sat with other guests, most of whom were returning from years past.

The thing that amazed me about how this place was run, was that everyone seems to be so happy, hardworking, friendly and happy to help out. Also for a place that relies heavily on temporary seasonal staff, everything seemed to run like clockwork with the daily operations from the delivery of breakfast, cleaning of the rooms, to even the occasional routine verandah sweeping after heavy snowfall (we had 2 days of snowfall and the rest of the days were sunshine!)

So back to my virus. Since leaving Saudi the week prior, all 3 of us had been fighting off sniffles and on arrival to Paris, it turned into chesty coughs (we put it down to the travel). Then on the day we departed for the Alps, I had a slight fever, and on arrival to the snow after the 9 hour car journey, I had a crazy fever, and my aches were keeping me in bed with 3 bed covers on!! Manus survived with just a chesty cough and Pat has only started to feel the aches and pains now, but after a quick visit to the medical centre in neighbouring ski resort Val d’Isere, it was determined I had a virus and was prescribed saline solution for my nose and panadol (which I was taking already). Manus was over the worst of it, and I thought Pat has survived it as he was hitting the slopes hard from day one, whilst I stayed in bed. Will no appetite and no energy, I was relegated to watching from our chalet window until day 4! But then I made up for it!

We were a little anxious to see how a 9 month old would cope in the snow, and how much fun it would be for any of us, but rugged up right in a snow suit and thermals, he really enjoyed playing in the powder.

If you are interested in where we stayed in Tignes, check out Chalet Chandon here and chat to Nicky or Kat and don’t forget to tell them that I sent you! They were fabulous with us, and Kat even had a little boy around the same age as Manus .

Our snow gang!

I’ll be back onto the raw posts next week, I’ve got plenty in store for you in 2012!

Our heads are a little sore over here, we had a farewell party to go to and stayed out a little later than expected, but whilst at the party I received an awesome email that I was so excited to share with you all just in time for this Fab Friday giveaway!

Regular readers of the blog will know how much I adore my Tribest Personal Blender, even as much as my lovely Vitamix. And here’s why:

• Great for travel. This baby has not only seen me through my days as a career flight attendant on the road, making sure I keep up with my green smoothies in my hotel room, but also has been on our vacation to Cuba, where green leafy veggies weren’t always available so we used fruit from the breakfast buffet blended with Vitamineral Green to keep us going through our daily salsa classes. It’s the perfect size to pack in your suitcase

• Ideal for grinding seeds and nuts for raw desserts or throwing flax into your smoothie.
• Salad dressings. Not only is this baby used every time we travel in our household (which is alot) but the Personal Blender comes in handy when making salad dressings which I do several times per week. The BPA containers with lids are also perfect for salad dressing storage.

• A new use! Baby Food! Since Baby M has begun eating solids, I’ve been using the blender to make his baby food (both cooked and raw) in batches and the power of the blades is able to provide silky smooth steamed vegetables and fruit puddings like banana and blueberries.

The Tribest Personal Blender comes with one Blending Blade,  one Grinding Blade, two 16 oz BPA Free Blending Containers, two 8 oz BPA Free Grinding Containers, one commuter sipping lid, three Regular Lids.

I even went ahead and purchased 2 more XL cups for on the road smoothie making which get plenty of use.

Lucky for you guys, you get the chance to own your own. Tribestlife have generously offered one lucky Girl on Raw reader their own Tribest Personal Blender 250 valued at $US65.25.

All you have to do is answer the following question is the below comments to go in the draw to win:

“What would be the first thing you would make with your Tribest Personal Blender?”

The giveaway will be open until Midnight GMT Monday, 19th Sept, where a winner will be drawn randomly and announced on the blog on the following Tuesday.

Bonus entries will be given when you tweet the following and return to the comments section to say you did!

“@girlonraw & @tribestlife are giving away a Personal Blender here http://bit.ly/njFJoD”

Entries are open world wide which means if you live in the US you will receive a 110v and if you live elsewhere you will receive a 220V (the one I have). Perfect.

If you are interested in what other wonderful healthy life products (ie you’ve got to check out their latest dehydrator the Sedona. I’ve not used it but it looks pretty snazzy!) TribestLife have to offer you can sign up for their catalogue by emailing service@tribest.com or check out their website here or check www.tribestlife.com

Good luck!

Love my Aussie Boost Juice juice – I had the Two & Five Juice oranges, apple, carrots,

piece of celery, beetroot & a Vita Booster

Weird! But kinda good :S

A whole aisle of organic foods like quinoa, nutritional yeast, baby food etc, despite the white processed sugar on the end of the aisle

Greens galore!

So much organic produce!!!

Aloe vera

Agar agar – my thinking: this is IRISH MOSS

Love dried chillies

Wish I knew what mushrooms/funghi these were…maybe a tonic tea could be made with them?

Regular readers will know…I LOVE coconuts! I could swim in their water and build a house of the coconut meat

De-husking the coco’s

Garden Mall

Petronas Towers they were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed by Taipei 101, but remain the tallest twin buildings in the world – Source

Also really sad to hear of Amy Winehouse’s death, may her torment now be over.

I’m still here in Dubai, holed up with my gal, making and enjoying some really clean eats.

Yesterday I was a crazy lady and I headed over to the Mall of Emirates on a Saturday when everyone and their nanny was there! (my friend lives closer to Dubai Mall which I much prefer but thought I’d check out Mall of Emirates for a change of scenery – this is where the Ski Dubai indoor ski slope is at too!)

After a morning smoothie, I met another friend of mine for lunch at Chop Chop.

I ordered the same salad I had in Bahrain a couple of weeks ago, but this time it was twice the size for the same price. Alright!

Since my eats have been much cleaner I’ve not been eating as much, so for the rest of the day I munched on cherries and a couple of bananas and called it a day!

Today I woke up and made another smoothie. 

• Almond milk
• 2 frozen bananas
• 1/2 cup of blueberries
• 1 T coconut oil

Lunch was my favourite ever salad!

• Rocket (Arugula)
• Baby Spinach
• Shaved Fennel
• Ruby Grapefruit
• Lemon Love Dressing (available in my free ebook by signing up here)

Dinner was a part raw/part cooked easy to throw together pasta

Julienned zucchini ‘pasta’ RAW – used my mandoline as I didn’t pack my spirooli/spiraliser

Topped with a jar of spicy pasta sauce that I added fresh mushrooms and capsicum and heated on the cook top.

Time for Dessert!

Strawberries & Chocolate

Used the recipe from here but added a bit of water for a thinner consistency.

IT WAS A HIT!

I’ve got 3 more days here before hubs arrives then we are off to Kuala Lumpur, so I’m trying to think of more raw food delights to spoil my friend. Any suggestions?

Being Active: Today I had the chance to hit the gym for the first time in over a year and I felt like it was my birthday being able to get out and have some time for me. Baby M was having  a nap so my friend was happy to watch him whilst I hit the treadmill (the humidity here is shocking right now) and I did some weights and came back feeling a million dollars. I’m sure I’ll be feeling it tomorrow though. What’s your favourite way to get moving?

Hope you liked the first in the EASY series, coming at ya every Monday. Don’t forget to put down your feedback and/or experiences as we go along. We can keep each other motivated along the way.

Yesterday we packed up our lives for the next 5 weeks of being on the road.

Random sidenote: Love my new Ergo – so does my back!!!

First stop Dubai

As my dad says, “Considering the amount of time his mummy has spent on a plane you would expect excellent behaviour….”

I’m chilling with my girlfriend here in Dubai for a week, then hubs and I hit up Kuala Lumpur to visit some friends, then it’s onto Australia. So exciting.

Today I’m thinking of shopping for food supplies as I’ve brought some kitchen equipment (never leave home without it!) to raw-i-fy my friend. She has recently gone vegetarian so I’m excited to show her some dishes. I’ll share with you next post with what things I’ve brought on the road with me.

Right before I left Saudi, however, I made a very quick, easy and tasty cracker (by accident).

I’ve not worked with whole flax seeds before, I usually mill them into a flour/meal to make breads or throw into smoothies, but I’ve never been a big fan of their ‘flaxy’ taste in dehydrated products.

I was soaking the seeds to make into a more complex recipe then when I came back, I had realised they had turned into a jelly.

With a major hankering for cinnamon lately, I elected for a sweet cracker version.

They didn’t disappoint. I finished off the whole lot within hours of them being complete in the dehydrator.  I had to force myself to save a little for hubs to taste test. To which he exclaimed “You could use these for dips and stuff!”. Totally!

Try to always use use golden flax (brown tastes nasty) and it’s been noted not to consume flax if pregnant or breastfeeding (doh for me! Only just realised this AFTER I had it). Apparently flaxseed can act very similarly to the hormone oestrogen however there is no known clinical studies on the risk to pregnancy.

Oh and warning, eating too much of this stuff may make you F-A-R-T

Easy Flax Crackers

(makes one dehydrator tray)

1/3 cup golden flaxseeds

1 cup of water

add ins (cinnamon, maple syrup, sea salt, cumin, curry, garlic, herbs etc)

Place flaxseeds in a large bowl and cover with water for 4 hours.

The water will become like jelly.  Decide on add ins. This time I chose 3 T maple syrup, 1/2 tsp sea salt and lotsa cinnamon.  Mix thoroughly.

Spread mixture on paraflexx sheet to about 3-5mm thickness and dehydrate for 2 hours on 140′ then 8 hours for 110′. If you don’t own a dehydrator, use greaseproof paper on a shallow baking tray and bake on lowest heat setting with door open til they are crunchy.

I didn’t score mine so when they were crispy I simply broke them up into irregular pieces.

Then EAT!!!

Maybe I’ll have to come up with some easy raw dips to make for a savoury version? Any ideas?

I worked on a low cost airline, prestige and also VVIP – that’s Very VERY Important Person aircraft.

Now I’m a mum, I’ve been able to experience the other side as a traveling mum.

Having had a background in career flying before, it’s given me a little background as to how to be prepared so here’s a few tips I’ve employed for my journey of traveling with an infant.

1 when booking your ticket, see if you can pre-allocate your seat with the bulkhead/bassinet seats. Some airlines will overbook these seats so you could end up with your infant traveling on your lap the whole journey rather than having a travel cot/bassinet available to you.
2 ask for an infant seat belt if you are traveling with a child under 3. Some airlines won’t give them unless requested, and some countries don’t even use them!
3 try to feed your baby on take off and landing (bottle or breast). Babies don’t usually have the ability to equalize their ears like we can. Sucking will help ease the discomfort for them
4 pack a sling. Some airlines will allow you to take their pusher/pram right up to the aircraft (or provide you with one complimentary ie Emirates in Dubai) but especially if you are traveling alone, you will need you hands free at some point ie to pull out your passports etc.
5 ensure you have adequate supplies packed in your diaper/nappy bag and include a change of clothes for you and baby. If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll understand – explosions happen at any time onto them AND you
6 anticipate baby’s needs. Try not to let the grumbles turn into a full cry (ie try to feed/change him before he’s all out screaming). Usually babies only cry because they cannot talk and tell you what they want. For mine and the passengers sanity around me, I’ll have his food and diapers close at hand!
7 when changing the diaper/nappy in the lavs on the plane, DON’T dipose of them in the toilet bins. Place them in a sick bag (always in the lavs) and hand to a crew member for disposal – preferably not the one eating their dinner EDIT: the Emirates flight attendant insisted I put the soiled nappy/diaper in the lav. 2 other airlines I worked for were the opposite.
8 wear a light scarf that can double as a cover up or pashmina with a cold aircraft or spills down the front of shirt commonplace
9 dress baby in warm clothes. A onesie is a great option as it’s VERY cold onboard
10 ask for help. Most people seeing a mum traveling on their own and are more than happy to lend a helping hand. Only just yesterday, the man traveling next to me offered to hold Baby M whilst I put my seat belt on.

Any others you think I’ve missed?