People magazine did an expose on macrobiotics and raw food and featured a glowing photograph of Gwyneth Paltrow.

For some reason, raw food eluded me over the years. Until this last Sunday Night when Phil and I hooked up with the SF Professional Food Society’s lovely and driven, Maureen.

Maureen has a blog, that was dedicated to her Julie&Julia-esque project where she cooked 52 raw food recipes in 12 weeks (RAW by Charlie Trotter & Roxanne Klein). Talk about determination, hilarity and skill-acquiring.

As she showed us her kitchen and we flipped through her cook books, I started to get an idea of how difficult it was and is to cook gourmet (raw or not) all the time. The ingredients that you

have to decipher, look up in your Funk & Wagnalls and then try and find…?!?!?! Incredible.

I mean, here in the Bay Area we have access to every sort of ethnic market, farmers market and trading post imaginable. And still, Maurine and I snickered over wing beans and dried limes. But the results of all the hard work of mastering new techniques, buying expensive equipment and scouring the far corners of cities across the Bay — is unparalleled, delicious, healthy, crispy, crunchy FOOD. Really, almost nothing “hippy dippy” about it. I even loved the cheese (more about that in the next post!)

Nutritious needs are being met with all the seeds, vegetables, fruits and grains. You feel full faster and less bloated and “Post-Thanksgiving-like” afterwards. The whole experience was a complete culinary sensation. From the intense, fun and thorough preparations to the actual concocting of recipes — it’s uninterrupted food and kitchen time.

Episodes of the ilk, which are slowly disappearing from kitchens across the nation. It’s nice to see, meet and dine with people who still very much care about what they eat. From production to consumption.

…
The Kale Chips featured above, were a beautiful snack. Balanced with sugar and salt and healthfulness.

Simply slice kale into strips, douse with both maple syrup and raw soy sauce. Then set in a dehydrator for 6-12 hours. Remove from machine and enjoy! Et voila!