For Sale!

I am a Certified Raw Food Chef!  The last week at 105 Degrees Academy was a customized project that focused on what we want to be doing with our new skills when we return home.  As you know, I am thinking about selling products.  Therefore, I was to come up with three products to sell in the 105 Degrees store.  The following is what I presented on my last day.  Yes, there are actually four different things there.  I was not sure what would work, so I needed backup, but they all worked!  Go figure!

From left to right, Chocolate Coconut Almond Gems:

Almond Butter Pecan Cookies:

Granola Bars:

Lemon Raspberry Cake Slice:

I enjoyed every aspect of this final project.  The ideas for items to sell, the ideas for recipes, ways to package everything, etc.  These are all guilt free little indulgences!  Even the chocolates! 

We did have one last collective class project earlier this week that I did not have a chance to blog about but it was the following:

A Chocolate Raspberry Banana Napoleon and a Vanilla Cream French Macaroon.  They were actually two separate projects but I just thought they plated incredibly well together!

I can't wait to begin more food exploration when I return home!  

Weekend Fun!

It should not come as a surprise that I would start my weekend by returning to Green Goodies for another incredible gluten free cupcake.  It should, however, surprise you that I only purchased one!  Well, one for me, the one you see and a vegan one to bring to Lindsay.  I enjoyed this one at the shop while I visited with Tiffany the owner, who is just delightful.  I woke up Sunday morning wishing I had more and wondering why I hadn't just purchased half a dozen to enjoy throughout the week!  They are that good!  


Next stop, The Culinary Kitchen again, as my friend Claude, the owner was making something gluten free for me.  This place is great!!  It is quite the local gathering place where everyone seems to gather knowing that Claude is usually cooking something.  Locals just seem to pop in, making themselves at home, helping him cook, helping themselves to beverages in the refrigerators and just relaxing, visiting and eating as if they had just popped in on a neighbor or relative!  It is the most delightful atmosphere, filled with fun, laughter, food and friendship.  I am sure if I lived here I would be in the kitchen with Claude every weekend.  Keep in mind, this is a place of business, where one can purchase the absolute best in kitchen everything.  But, unlike other kitchen stores, there is a huge center island surrounded by a magnificent working kitchen and everything you can buy just so happens to be being used to cook anyone and everybody it seems, lunch!  I have never seen anything like it!!!!!!  You can see how happy Claude is in this picture and the woman helping him, Rhonda, is another one of my new best friends here!  She was one of the most fascinating women I have ever met.  She gave me her card and suggested we get together before I leave and I definitely plan on taking her up on it!

Next, another wonderful adventure!  Corinne, another student from 105 Degrees and I drove to Rush Springs to collect natural spring water!  Some of you might know how much I love collecting this at home in Kenosha and to finally be able to have a chance to drink natural spring water here was quite a treat.  It was worth the hour-plus ride to get there.  The pipe was very easy to access, right by the road.  In fact, just as we got there, a car pulled up and four young boys jumped out to enjoy the water, too!

It was really quite enjoyable to see!  The one young man was quite talkative and when he found out I was from Chicago, he told me how much he loves the Bears, the Bulls and the Cubs!  And he is from Oklahoma!  Go figure!  I love it!


Sunday was another great day.  With it warm and sunny outside, there was no way I was going to spend most of it in my hotel room, so out I went to find Forward Foods.  A former 105 student, Amber, suggested I check it out.  Wow!  It is the most incredible gourmet food store!  I realized I had walked right by it last week on my long journey.  The most incredible foodstuffs I have ever seen were here!  Was dying to buy more but my budget and suitcase would not allow for more than the following.

Yes, not one, but two different kinds of goat cheese are there.  And the little plastic container holds nicoise olives.  I could not help it!  


Before I returned home I checked out Michaels to get some ideas for packaging for my final project.  While they had a number of options, I was fairly disappointed in the fact that they did not have one thing that I could use that was made from recycled materials, which is my goal.  I know there are online options, but I was hoping and assuming they were more widely available.


When I returned to the hotel, I exercised more control than usual and instead of diving right into both cheeses like I really wanted to, I treated them more like the treat they really were and included one of them, along with the olives, in a salad of sorts for dinner.

I have to tell you, it may not look like it, but this was one of the best salads I have ever had.  The goat cheese and olives made me groan with every bite!  What is wrong with me!?!


You know what?  And this addresses your question,  faithful follower and friend Linda... yes, this week is actually bittersweet.  I am genuinely beginning to feel a connection here.  Wow.

Perigee Moon!

On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years.


Just wanted to make sure everyone knew this!

This week at 105 Degrees, we made two different cake "batters".  One is a layered pomegranate red velvet cake, still in the freezer and the other is blueberry cake which we made into these cupcakes. 


We also fermented more cheeses for our cheese plates for the wine and cheese pairing lesson we had this afternoon.

Clockwise from top left, honey balsamic cheese, pesto cheese, fresh pear slices, tangy tomato cheese, herb cheese, salted pistachios, herb crackers, mint mango chutney, and in the center, kalamata olive bread.  My favorites were the honey balsamic (a surprise) and the tomato.  I also found out, my choice of wines will have to change slightly if I am going to eat more raw food.


I can't believe next week is my last week!

Monkeys who fall out of trees...

An entry on Russell James blog comforted me along my journey today.  Now that I have relaxed my restrictions a bit with regard to raw food, I set out on foot on a mission.  After a breakfast of kale and avocado, the first place on the list to go was Green Goodies  for cupcakes!  This is the one I enjoyed after my hour walk to her shoppe.  It is yellow cake with salted caramel icing and was very good, especially the cake part of it.   Had a chiffon like texture.  Before setting out again, I picked out a regular cupcake (not gluten-free) for my classmate Lindsay who is staying at the same hotel as I am.  I also could not resist bringing another flavor back for me to try.  Chocolate!

Check this out!  This is the box it was in for take-away!

The little cardboard insert kept the cupcake perfectly intact on my long walk and the little openings on either side made it so easy to lift the cupcake out!  And they are made from recycled materials!!  I love it!  Before I left, the owner gave me some much needed words of advice about where to walk and where not to walk, her telephone number should I need it and because she was so impressed that I walked so far just for a gluten free cupcake, she gave me one for free!!  Thank you lovely Tiffany!


Next stop, The Culinary Kitchen.  I can't find a website to direct you with a link, but if you are any kind of "foodie", you have to check this place out!  It is located at 7302 N. Western, Oklahoma City.  (to those at home reading this, it is a cross between Someone's in the Kitchen and ABT)  Wow, wow and wow!!  This place makes Williams-Sonoma look like a Walmart.  It is like having the best, and I mean the BEST of everything professional in kitchen equipment at your fingertips!  The owner, Claude, is another one of my new best friends here!  I could have talked to him for hours!  He is quite the ambassador for Oklahoma City, explaining all the wonderful things about the city that I knew nothing about.  For example, they have implemented a "maps" program here that is done in stages over several years, decades actually, that is designed to improve the city in many innovative ways.  He said it is well on its way and I should return in five years!  One of the big things they are working on is making it more pedestrian friendly!  He invited me back next Saturday because he wants to make me a gluten free lunch!  Says he knows all about that because his daughter has Celiac disease!


Check out the retro-look refrigerators he had in his store...

I wouldn't want this in my home but it would look great in a little shoppe!  Or would you prefer blue?!

What I just could not resist for anything though was this perfect little sauce pan.

It holds maybe 16 oz max if I had to guess.  The picture is a bit deceiving.  It is really quite small.  Happy early birthday to me!  I love my new little pan, my new friend Claude and his amazing store!  I just may have to come back to Oklahoma City in five years! Who would have guessed I would have said that when I first got here!


Continuing safely in the direction Tiffany from Green Goodies directed me, I treated myself to another little indulgence that I rarely have anymore.

A latte.  The barista was as kind as anyone could possibly be!  They were giving out free petite goodies with any drink.  These were some of the choices.

None of them were gluten free, but I did grab one for Lindsay to enjoy!


Next up, The Red Cup.  It is the most wonderful eclectic local vegan and vegetarian friendly little place. I sat in this sunny corner,

to enjoy this!  A salad mixture with brown rice.  It was the friendly employee's favorite dish and they made it vegan and gluten free for me by leaving out a few things.  It was delicious!

With it getting later and fuel in my body to take me back I returned to my hotel, happy and satisfied.  I calculated the miles I logged on foot today and I can't believe it!  Had to do the math twice to make sure!  I walked 10 miles!

Aloe, Lunch Special and Nougatine

This week has been an interesting week for me.  One full of fairly intense emotional and physical challenges that I can't quite put my finger on completely.  Be that as it may, production as it relates to raw food continues here at 105 Degrees. The beautiful colorful plate here is actually a dish made with aloe.  Yes, the aloe plant.  I have to be honest, this was simply a plating exercise for me because I took it apart to eat it so that I could remove the aloe.  I just could not bring myself to eat it. 


The rest of the week Lindsay and I focused on our lunch menu special.  We decided to have a Chilled Sweet Beet Soup, Zesty Kale Salad and Herb Mashed Potatoes.

Since I have arrived at 105 Degrees, I have eaten more beets than I have ever eaten previously in my entire life!  


For dessert our selection was Cherry Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Sauce and Cherries and a Chocolate Truffle.

There are definitely a few changes Lindsay and I agreed we would have made, but overall we were somewhat satisfied with what we accomplished.


As a class we also produced a great Pistachio Nougatine Dessert.  I absolutely loved the flavor of this!!  Very fun and easy to make!  It is very rich tasting though, so this is definitely a plate for sharing with someone special!

We are working on costing out our recipes and the math and computer details are causing me a great deal of angst, but I am finding out it is something that will serve me well in the future.  I am not the only one struggling with this though, so it is reassuring that it is not just me.


And now for a confession, as of last night I am not 100% raw anymore, or I guess you might say, I broke the original notion that I would be raw for eight weeks straight.  I ate half a loaf of Udi's cinnamon raisin bread, eight slices to be exact, toasted with lots of coconut oil on it.  It was delicious!!  Haven't turned the tv on yet though.  That is much easier to do without!

Lost and Found

Today was a crisp sunny 50 degree day.  Perfect for a Sunday walk.  I decided to be a little more adventurous than usual and walk in directions and take streets that I was generally not familiar with.  I am so glad I did!!  I found so many wonderful things!  First, I found this recycling container in a parking lot.  Yahoo!!  I am still collecting all my recyclables in my room.  I found little bins in the Target located directly behind me for recycling aluminum, glass and plastic, but no paper so to find this was very exciting!  Now I just have to figure out where to recycle my cardboard. 


I continued into unknown territory, not really sure what I would find next but curious just the same and yahoo, another find.  The perfect restaurant for Bill and I to go to for dinner when he gets here to take me home.  They were one of the few places open along my lost and found route so I went in.  They were so friendly. I was told that when I make the reservation I should indicate that I eat gluten free and they will be more than happy to accommodate my request.  They will even make gluten free bread and/or pizza dough!  Ooh-la-la!!  Yeah!  Number two wonderful find!


Then the best part ......

It is called Green Goodies and they sell gluten free cupcakes!  It was not open since it was Sunday, but oh, I will definitely be back!  Just not sure if I can wait until March 26th though.  If I could wait until then, I will have made it to the original commitment of 8 weeks all raw and no TV.  It is my birthday next week.  Maybe that is reason enough to enjoy a gluten free cupcake.  I for sure need to have one before I come home though just for "market research" sake!  What to do, what to do?  Look at these pictures of the inside!

 Does this look like the most incredibly inviting space you have ever seen?!?!  That would be a yes!


So now, since I really am lost, I turn to my trusty iphone to get me back to my hotel and I realize I am an hours walk away!  Yikes!  The good news is, I followed my little map navigator exactly and not only did I get back safe and sound, the return route was without a doubt the loveliest, most serene, beautiful route I have taken since I have been here.  Most of my return route took me through quiet neighborhoods far from the 4 lane highways I was used to walking on.  I loved it!


When I got back, I tried to guess based on landmarks I saw where I had been and used MapQuest to calculate my miles.  I walked more than 8 1/2 miles!  What a great day I had!  I hope you had a great day, too!

Where Do I Go From Here?

The time has come where I am now closer to going home than being in Oklahoma City.  As I start to think of my final project, I am forced to think about where I go next.  That is, what do I do with this new knowledge and skill when I get back to Chicago.  A few ideas are swirling in my head but I am certainly open to suggestions from my dedicated readers.  Two owners of successful health food stores have contacted me and I am also thinking about our beautiful Church Street Farmer's Market.  I'll need to decide soon.  For now, my learning continues.


Yesterday we made the beautiful Sesame Noodle dish pictured above with a plate of marinated heirloom tomatoes and cucumber for lunch.  

We had ice cream for dessert!  The flavor I made was mint with a chocolate peppermint sauce!

Today for lunch we made a delicious Vietnamese Pho Broth with Tofu.  It was full of flavor, warm from the dehydrator with coconut and zucchini noodles.

Both the sesame noodles and the Vietnamese broth had so much flavor and were incredibly satisfying.  Again, a little out of my traditional flavor profile, but surprisingly good!  Maybe I am simply developing an entirely new and different palate which I think is a good thing!


I was especially fascinated by the tofu we made to use in the broth.  It was just like tofu in texture and taste.  A very useful thing to know how to make to add to any number of things!


Earlier this week we also made some delicious crackers.  We did not plate them at school or even use them for anything in particular other than to learn how to make them so we took them home today.  With a few leftovers from my refrigerator I made some nice snacks for myself.  I had an avocado that I mashed with some leftover diced red onion and pepper and enjoyed that with the spicy flax crackers. 

I also had and apple, dates and a wonderful white mission fig (nature's fig newton) and some of the wonderful cashew cheese we made in session one leftover that I enjoyed with the delicious herb crackers. Wow, they were definitely my favorite.  Loved them!

And so I settle into my Friday evening and do a little research for my presentation on juice fasting for school and my environmental article for church.  I am happy and I am blessed and I wish the same for you.

Three Days into Session II

I have lived the last four weeks less than a couple miles from a mall.  Generally speaking I am not a mall person however, last Sunday on my walk, I was just curious enough to actually go in for the first  time to check it out.  And there it was .... HALLELUJAH!!  ... a Williams-Sonoma store!!!  It beckoned me inside, seriously, called to me!  The most incredible sales lady offered me a cup of espresso from the new espresso machine they were now selling.  I would give her name, but I am not sure I should for privacy reasons, but let's just say, she may be my new best friend here.  For probably the next hour I checked out all the beautiful things in the store.  Wow, it is the nicest store!  Seriously!  Here I am, in Oklahoma City to learn raw food cuisine and I am in a store specializing in things to cook with!  A few things I absolutely fell in love with are the cute colorful really little spatulas at the top of my blog (yes I have a red one already, but I don't have the other colors!) and these really, really, really cute tiny glasses....

They hold 3.25 oz.!!  They are perfect for everything!!!  Hot, cold, dessert, etc., etc.  Love, love, love them!!!  In addition to my own finds, my new best friend who calls herself the "gadget queen"  and rightfully so, showed me at least a half a dozen gadgets that looked like so much fun!  One of them is this little garlic (and onion) chopper... how fun would this be to use!?!

Good news is, all three of my new favorite things can be put to good use in raw food cuisine just as well as cooked cuisine, so I am planning a trip to my nearby Williams-Sonoma when I get home.  I do have to admit, I got a fabulous sales pitch for the Staub cookware that made me weak in the knees listening to what it does to cooked food.  I guess I am not a 100% convert yet to raw food.
  
Well, now onto Session II at 105 Degrees.  Yikes!  It is so much faster paced than Session I!  These four weeks will be pretty action (and stress) packed.  Right now we are focusing deepening our understanding of the building blocks of raw cuisine.  The food we have made lately is very light and fresh... Spring Rolls ...

Shaved Fennel Salad ...

Arugula Pear Salad ...

All very light and fresh tasting, making one think of spring! 


 Thank goodness for me, who is not completely used to eating this way yet and feeling satisfied, we had a little time to make a special sweet treat too. . . 

These are sold in the 105 Degrees gift shop in "bar" form.   We made them more like a big cookie.  And yes, it is really as good as it looks!


Last night we had the privilege of hearing Phillip McCluskey.  He is an exceptionally eloquent speaker and captivated a standing room only audience with his very personal poignant journey of self transformation on a physical, emotional and spiritual level.  Having been morbidly obese for most of his life, he reached a pinnacle turning point setting him on a life changing path that is truly inspirational.  In the course of two years he lost over 200 pounds on his own version of a raw foods "diet".  I left the lecture having really been "given" something special by him.  His message is not only one of weight loss, but a much bigger one of self-love instead of self-doubt, of stillness and being present instead of living in the past, and of positive thinking rather than negative thinking.  Things we all need to hear and remember on a regular basis.                    


Last but not least ... next week, we have not one, but two involved projects.  One is to think of a topic, research it, and give a five to seven minute presentation on it with "visuals".  Any ideas?  The only one I have right now is about the benefits of juice fasting.  I personally find this topic fascinating and often misunderstood.  


As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my blog!  It is fun to know I have "blog" friends out there!