Juicy gossip Juice Day

“You hear about that chick doing the master cleanse? Has nothing but spicy lemonade for a week and looks great, then gets off and practically moves in to a fast food joint. Probably looked better before she even did the cleanse, with all the re-toxing her body is going through.”

The first days after a food fast are the hardest, because the second your tongue touches it’s first unadulterated whole food morsel in the longest you’ve ever been without… Well, fireworks are a good description. In that, stop everything you were doing or thinking about and pay attention to THIS! kind of way.

It’s very easy to fall to the temptation of such sensuous explosions. Alas, temptation, post detox only snowballs to more tenptation. I only know this from my last cleanse, months ago, when I might well have been worthy of such dissapointed gossip as kicked off this blog.

Maybe that’s one reason the master cleanse was so easy this round. Somewhere I realized that the hard part was not making one decision when it came to what to eat today–spicy lemonade–it was going to be the days after the cleanse, a million decisions about what to eat.

So today, to avoid being the subject of juicy detox gossip, I dub this day, post-detox day 1, Juice Day, and henceforth shall it be known as such.

Juice Day, often celebrated instead of Columbus Day (seriously, what is that for?), has proven essential for me as I slowly return to the world of the eating.

Today’s Menu:

3 Odwalla juices
2 POM teas
Lots of water
1 green smoothie

Had I not held out and consciously rationed myself, today would have been very hard. As it is, I’ve decided to treat myself (on an unexpected day off from work) to a COOKED meal out tomorrow at Yelapa, a fantastic looking new Mexican restaurant I drooled at while I watches a friend eat the best looking cevice I’ve ever seen. Except for that, 2 days of raw starting tomorrow! Yay whole food. More gossip to come…

1 Hour Later

Shoot I really wasn’t expecting this…crap.
See, I got sideswiped by the Ukrainians….they’re my friends from afar, in town temporarily…and they were cooking, this, magical exotic Ukrainian thing, right? I can’t remember the name of it but as the girls rolled out dough and stuffed seared onions and potato into adorable little puffs of pasta pastry they tried to teach me how to say it. Something between a purr and a meow. They were so gracious and eager to please with the first of this Russian dish they’d made in months I thought, well…maybe just one?

Which of course turned into a whole bowl.
It was delicious.

Damn.

Raw on the Road: Raw-topia

There is heaven on Earth. They have disguised it under the name Austin, Texas, and the inhabitants are all being quiet about it and hoping no one notices.

Really though, my raw roadtrip became a raw pilgrimage when I got to Austin and realized I’d reached the equivalent of Texas’ Mecca for healthy eating.

First of all, as soon as I arrived I kidnapped my poor, diet-coke addicted sister to find a raw food restaurant.
“What do you mean a raw food restaurant? There’s no such thing!” So sorry little sis, but there is, and there are more in your city than probably the rest of the South altogether. We went to Beets Cafe and I sighed in relief knowing I could eat anything on the menu without worry.

Even the water is extra good for you...

As soon as we sat down we were served a jug of water, which turned out to be ionized, a process which may or may not be super good for your health. Beets Cafe is not taking any chances though-absolutely everything in this modern spot is sleek with a modern, clean, and simple vibe.

My sister was almost as shocked at how good our appetizer was as my mom was when I made a similar dish at the beginning of this raw food expedition. She wasn’t as impressed with the dehydrated eggplant in her ELT (eggplant, lettuce and tomato sandwich–with sprouted almond sunflower flatbread), but she’s more used to soda than sprouts.

What really made the Raw Road trip legit was my final stop before heading home at the Whole Foods on Lamar. I wanted to hide in the aisles and live there like Natalie Portman in that Wal-Mart movie.

A few perks of the Whole Foods here in heaven:

-The Green Cafe, which serves raw, vegan, and organic menu items made fresh
-The entire SECTION for raw food, including the Raw Revolution Bars I couldn’t find in ANY of the other cities I visited
-A produce section that subtly reminds one of a lush rain forest, full of exotic fruits and things you can’t even name
-All of these items, marked “specialty” in every other city, are so ho-hum here they are dirt cheap. The goji berries I would have paid $17 in Houston were $6 here. No joke.

I came home from my raw roadtrip to find 2 parents who were very relieved that our raw adventure is over, but glad we did it. I’ll be back with a full report–and that ‘Why Raw?’ bit I promised last post!

30 Dates with my Liver #23: Jewelry

Indescribably wonderful day in the downtowns of Galveston and Houston. My liver and I were in top form. Jewelry was involved- a big moment in every relationship. This silver necklace has an inscription in Theban which translates to “As above, so below, as within, so without.”

For those of you who have seen my latest sculpture, a 12 foot tall metal and cement tree with roots quite similar to this one, you might see why I fell in love with this piece.

The inscription really captures one of the key concepts of the sculpture (titled Hegelius Fractalia), which also was highly inspired by fractals .

My liver loved it because it ties in to the same holistic well-being theme of the interconnection between body, mind, and spirit. Everything, really.

Then I had a superb dinner out at Vietnam restaurant in Houston. Love their veggie-ful egg drop soup. My friend discovered an incredible and I imagine little known miracle of mixology:
pour a fat dollop of jasmine green tea in your Vietnamese iced coffee. The taste is out of this world, a full bodied and yet delicate floral earthy moment of bliss.

My fortune cookie book-ended a beautifully happy day with a connection to, of course, the 2100 challenge:

“The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days.”

So live long, and be joyful!