Ani Phyo's Blog, page 9

Stretch Into Spring!

Stretch your body and mind by trying a new outdoor activity this weekend!

The weather’s getting warmer, it’s staying light outside later, and summer is just around the corner.

My favorite spot for a super challenging stair climb in Los Angeles is at Baldwin Hills in Culver City, CA.

The views from the top of the climb stretch from beyond downtown LA to the east and all the way west to the ocean.

 

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Congratulations to Ani’s Raw Food Certification Course, Level 1, Inaugural Class!

We kicked off Ani’s Raw Food Certification Course, Level 1 on March 15, 16, 17th, 2013 to a packed house! It was a weekend of raw food making and eating, eco-green living inspiration, and happiness all around. Experiencing visible transformations as people detox on raw food for 3 days is incredible! The room’s happiness index kept rising up as our days passed, and people glowed.

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Ingredients From Our Local Farmers’ Market

 

Ani’s Raw Food Certification courses are held a couple blocks from the Saturday morning Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, where local farmers bring us seasonal produce that’s been picked just a few hours before. Sometimes, we’ll find heirloom ingredients available for only a week, or better yet…..dry farmed produce. That’s when the plants just thrive on their own, without watering nor chemicals! Fresh, local, seasonal, gluten free, vegan, and organic…what better way to detox and cleanse from urban toxins?

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Ani’s Raw Food Essentials: Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat

Video TRT: 4 min, 42 sec

This is a book trailer for my latest book Ani’s Raw Food Essentials. In it, I show you how easy it is to make a delicious, fast, raw food Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat, from pages 145-146.

Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat (bean-free)

Makes 4 servings

A vegetable chili made with chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, celery, mushrooms, and corn kernels. Spiced with cumin, and oregano for a real chili flavor similar to the cooked bean version. Top with Taco Nut Meat for an added layer of texture and south west flavor.

3 cups tomatoes, chopped
1 cup red and green bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup celery, chopped
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
1/3 cup mushroom, chopped, any type
1/3 cup corn kernels
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 batch Taco Nut Meat, below

Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl, and mix well. Scoop about 1/3 of the mixture into blender and puree. Scoop puree back into mixing bowl.

To serve, scoop into 4 serving bowls. Top with Taco Nut Meat, and enjoy.

Taco Nut Meat

Makes about 1 cup

 

Walnuts are ground and spiced with cumin and coriander to make this taco flavored nut meat crumble. Use it to top salads, soups, and inside wraps to add taco flavor and texture.

1 cup walnuts
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon cumin, ground
2 teaspoons coriander, ground
1 teaspoon Braggs or Nama Shoyu
1/4 teaspoon sea salt, to taste

Place walnuts into food processor, and process into small pieces. Add remaining ingredients, pulse to mix well.

Will keep for 1 week in fridge.

For organic ingredients and kitchen tools, visit my estore and Go Super Life!

 

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WATCH LIVE! Saturday 11am to 11.45am PST – “Ani’s 15-Day Fat Blast”

Sat, May 26th, 2012, 11am to 11.45am PST – we will be broadcasting LIVE! (as long as the internet connection is strong enough)

Join me  for this LIVE netcast celebrating my newest book “Ani’s 15-Day Fat Blast“. This event is being broadcast from 11 to 11.45am PST on Sat May 26th, 2012 from San Francisco, CA.

Please stop by if you’re in the SF embarcadero area:

Ferry Plaza Farmers Market: 1 Ferry building, San Francisco, CA 94111

(415) 983-8030

I’m starting to netcast for the first time again since I conceived of and executive produced ‘Fiber‘ back in 1995, before ISDN or T1 were available! ‘Fiber’ was the World’s 1st online fashion show event ever, and it was broadcast over copper phone lines to the Mbone at UC Berkeley, CA, and then out to the world!

Thanks for joining me here and for helping me celebrate my newest book “Ani’s 15-Day Fat Blast“! Love you all xo, ani

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Happy Lunar New Year 2012

I went down to Little Saigon in Orange County to celebrate Lunar New Year, Vietnamese style. Here I’m being fitted for my dress. Traditional Vietnamese dresses are called Ao Dai.

These dresses are super flattering with high side openings and wide, silky, flowing pants.

Next stop is the Vietnamese New Year Festival, where I found a baby cherimoya tree.

This marketplace made me feel like I was in SE Asia, except it was much colder here in California. Tons of tropical fruit like rombutan, cherimoya, and jackfruit. Yummy!

These magnolias are so pretty!

There were so many varieties of orchids at the Lunar New Year Festival. Check out the bulbous orchids at the top of this photo, hanging down.

It’s the Year of the Dragon. And, no Lunar New Year Celebration is complete without dragon dancers. These Vietnamese dragons, aka lion dragons, are made up of 2 people, while the Chinese dragons are much longer.

There were 4 different lion dragons in different colors. People were feeding the lion dragons ‘lucky’ dollar bills to ensure good luck and fortune for the new Lunar New Year.

And last but not least….. fresh durian! Here my friend and I are driving and eating durian in the car. We actually think durian smells good! Sweet and delicious. I guess I can only be friends with people that love durian too. Hahaa.

Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy New Year that’s filled with tons of love, bliss, health, and prosperity. May we all choose to live long and be happy! xoxo

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Ani’s dineLA Restaurant Week Vegetarian Roundup

dineLA is an exciting 2-week dining event created by the Los Angeles Convention and Visitor Bureau (aka LA, INC) to introduce diners to hundreds of neighborhood restaurants throughout Los Angeles County. LA’s a huge county full of many great spots for food and drink. So, to help filter through over 300 participating restaurants, dineLA’s invited me to call out a few restaurants offering vegetarian dineLA menu items. I live in West Hollywood, so most of my recommendations are for spots in my area.

For dineLA, participating restaurants offer a fixed 3-course menu for lunch and/or dinner…a great way to taste popular dishes. If a restaurant offers only 1 or 2 vegetarian items on their dineLA menu, many will let you order just those vegetarian items, so do ask. You’ll also find a few vegan and almost raw items too.

With so many great dineLA restaurants, it was challenging to choose just 10! Here’s a few vegetarian items to look for. If you prefer vegan, ask to leave off the dairy. It’s that simple. Click each link below to view their dineLA menu:

Akasha  - Chef Akasha and I share a similar outlook for living a life that’s eco green, treading lightly on our planet Earth. Her dinner menu includes a Black Kale Salad, Olive Oil Croutons, Sheep Cheese, Meyer Lemons Vinaigrette – I love kale for it’s texture, color, flavor, and potent nutrient profile. Meyer lemons have a sweeter, less acidic flavor that the more common store bought lemon varieties. Akasha’s desserts sound yummy too: Salted Caramel + Chocolate Fudge Sunday (sounds so gooey and decadent), Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and a Flourless Tiramisu (I always like to choose flourless as a  gluten-free option). Akasha is a sustainable business that was built using reclaimed materials, is lit with LED lights, and uses hemp material for their aprons.

View Akasha’s menu


Bar + Kitchen  - Located inside the O Hotel downtown LA, this spot has a wonderful ambience. For lunch, they’re offering a Watercress + Endive Salad with Pears, Maytag Blue Cheese, Walnuts, Honey Sherry Vinaigrette which sounds amazing as the sweetness of pears and the bitterness of endives pair well together. Also, a Roasted Mushroom Toast with fried egg and whole grain mustard. For dinner, they’re offering a Butternut Squash + Ginger Soup with Creme Fraiche and Spiced Pepitas (super seasonal), Farrotto (aka farro) with roasted broccoli, aged white cheddar, and crispy shallots. Farrotto mimics risotto, and is a thick and chewy whole grain similar to barley. Desserts are the same of lunch and dinner, choose between a Banana Pudding, Warm Chocolate + Peanut Butter Cake (peanut butter and chocolate, yum!), and Butterscotch Pot De Creme.

View Bar + Kitchen menu


BLD  - Owner and Chef Neal Fraser and I both had recipes featured in the Food + Wine Magazine’s Annual Cookbook, which was how I first discovered BLD, a great spot for comfort foods. BLD always offers vegan items on their daily menu. Vegetarian items on their dineLA dinner menu include a Roasted Carrot Soup; Grapefruit Salad with Fennel, Avocado, Pecorino Cheese, and Tangerine Vinaigrette; and a Butternut Squash Gnocchi. Now that’s an antioxidant and vitamin C blast from beta carotene, grapefruit, and tangerine…yum. Desserts include a Warm Monkey Bread with Bourbon Creme Anglaise (Monkey? I must figure out what this is, love monkeys!) and Banana Caramel Ice Cream, or a Bittersweet Chocolate Pudding Parfait with Peanut Butter Pudding.

View BLD menu


Lexington Social House - Owner Junella Chin is a fellow Cornell Alumni, and on their dinner menu they’re offering a Local Beet Salad with Tangerines, Pistachios, Arugula, Aged Goat Cheese, and Lemon or a Local Apple and Pomegranate Salad. Packed with vitamins and antioxidants for boosting our immune system for the winter months, a farmer once told me we should be eating a pomegranate daily for its vitamins and nutrients, to boost our overall health. So, the Apple Salad will help me eat more pomegranates! For the main, Parpardelle with Kale Pesto…love Kale! And dessert is a choice of Apple Tart, Monkey Bread (I’m year of the Monkey and love everything Monkey!), or Flourless Chocolate Souffle with and Almond Milk Cream (dairy-free, perhaps gluten-free too, nice!).

View Lexington Social House menu


Loteria! Grill – Hollywood  - Owner and Chef Jimmy Shaw tells me since most of his food is meat stock based, he is offering optional vegetarian/vegan sauces. For lunch, Esquites with corn, crema, guse anejo, onion, epazote, and chile; Chile Relleno De Quesillo O Picadillo (the red sauce has meat, so ask for the green tomatillo sauce that’s vegan); and desserts include Helado De Chocolate O Chongos, Guava Cheesecake, and Poached Pear. For dinner, he’s  offering a puree of Chile Poblano; an interesting Hibiscus Flower Salad that sounds beautiful; Ensalada De Milpa Asada; and 3 desserts to choose from including Crepes, a Rum Custard Ice Cream (recipe inspired by Nuns of the Convent of Santa Clara in Puebla, how intriguing); and the Guava Cheesecake.

View Loteria! Grill – Hollywood menu


Penthouse at the Huntley  - This is one of my favorite spaces as it sits at the top floor of the Huntley Hotel with amazing view of the ocean and Santa Monica. I’m forever grateful to Exec Chef Seth Greenburg for inviting me in to  spend the day with him in his kitchen teaching me his molecular gastronomy techniques. The lunch menu has several vegetarian items including a Romaine Hearts Salad with Sourdough Croutons and Lemon-Caper Dressing. I love capers, which are a pickled vegetable and a great source for probiotics that aide digestion. Spicy Tomato Capellini; and 3 desserts to choose from including a Chocolate Lava Cake, Creme Brulee, and Profiteroles.

View Penthouse at the Huntley menu


Ray’s and Stark Bar  - Bravo to Exec Chef Morningstar for being named Best New Restaurant 2011 by Esquire Magazine. Chef Morningstar has a garden where he grows some of his green and herbs behind the restaurant. Dinner items include Little Gem Lettuces, Truffled Rice Agnolotti with hen of the woods mushrooms and wild arugula, yummy; Aged Nantes Carrots; and choice of 2 desserts: Chocolate-Peppermint Mousse or Johah Gold Apple Crumble or Variations of this week’s market citrus. I was stoked when Morningstar told me his boss Master Chef Joachim Splichal gave him a copy of “ Ani’s Raw Food Essentials ” to use while designing recipes and menus for Google campus.

View Ray’s and Stark Bar menu


RH at Andaz West Hollywood  - I was taken to this restaurant recently and was pleasantly surprised to see that about a third of their menu is vegan, with a “V” denoting vegan items placed throughout their menu. For lunch, Vegetable Soup; Caesar Salad; Truffle Grilled Cheese with Fries (I love truffle anything!); Portabello Mushroom Burger with Fries; and an Agnolotti Pasta. For dinner, Vegetable Soup; Heirloom Tomato Salad with Burrata and baby arugula. Heirloom tomatoes have been open-pollinated, are not hybridized, and are not genetically modified. Truffle Risotto with wild mushrooms (I love mushrooms for flavor and they have been used for centuries in Chinese Medicine to boost immunity). For dessert, choose between Apple Tart or Chocolate Cake.

View RH at Andaz West Hollywood menu


Simon LA  - Owner and Exec Chef Simon is all about making his diners happy, and is super accommodating with substitutions and requests. So just ask to leave out the cheese or dairy if you’re looking for vegan. For lunch, Market Roasted Vegetable Kale Salad with Fennel Pollen and a Sherry Vinaigrette; Mascarpone Polenta; and 3 desserts: Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Vietnamese Banana Creme Brulee, and House Made Kit Kat (omg, yum!). For dinner, Spinach Salad with dates, persimmon, blue cheese and a warm sherry vinaigrette. Desserts include Warm Goat Cheese on Toast with Frisee and toasted almond and citrus zests, Sea Salt Chocolate Pot De Creme, or a Lemon Poppyseed Cake with Blueberries.

View Simon LA menu


Tar Pit  - Chef Jason Fullilove (great last name!) has moved over from Campanille to revamp the Tar Pit menu, and is offering 2 vegan dishes on his dineLA dinner menu including a Terrine of roasted vegetables, caramelized kumquats, and plantains or a Pasta with winter root vegetables, roasted tomato, and bitter greens. Love kumquats this time of year for their tart flavor, beta carotene, and vitamin C. Choose from 3 desserts including Bandy Chocolate Cake, Bananas Foster topped with toasted marshmallow (whoa), and Apple Tart Tatin.

View Tar Pit menu

:: Check out photos from the dineLA  Kickoff Celebration at the W Hotel in Westwood last week with my Exec Chef friends.

Join the discussion on my Facebook page and at Twitter.

Watch my award-winning cooking shows on YouTube.

Download my free 2012 Healthy Jumpstart report with tips for recharging your immune system, nourishing your body, and boosting your metabolism at www.RawFoodRockStar.com.

 

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dineLA Kickoff Celebration

dineLA Restaurant Week is a 2-week dining event created by the Los Angeles Convention and Visitor Bureau (aka LA, inc) to introduce diners to hundreds of neighborhood restaurants throughout Los Angeles County.

:: Check out my dineLA Vegetarian Roundup – my top 10 picks for restaurants who have vegetarian and even vegan items on their dineLA menus.

To celebrate, dineLA hosted a party at the W Hotel in Westwood last week on Jan 11th, 2012 with flowing scotch, champagne, beer, and wine. Though I’ve taken a break from drinking, I had to have just one scotch because it was Highland Park 12 year, neat with one ice cubes on the side please.

Chef Jason Fullilove from The Tar Pit has the best last name ever! He may look familiar because he was on the 1st episode of Chef Hunter on Food Network last month. Keep a look out, as he’ll soon be on Cooking Channel too. Finally, diversity on TV, yeah! Chef Jason’s food is yummy. For dineLA, you will find 2 vegan dishes on his vegetarian menu including a Roasted Vegetable Terrine, Winter Root Vegetable Pasta, and a choice of 3 decadent desserts.

Executive Chef Chris Morningstar from Ray’s and Stark Bar, hailed by Esquire Magazine as “One of the best new restaurants of 2011″. Bravo Chef Chris! Chris and I first met while we were both preparing for our Test Kitchen dinners as Chris’ dinner was the night following my 2-nights of Ani Phyo’s Gastrawnomique. His menu was completely opposite mine….all animal products vs. my vegan raw. I get a kick out of the fact his last name, Morningstar….it’s the brand name of popular vegan and vegetarian breakfast sausages….though Chris’ expertise is with meat. Ray’s and Stark Bar is a Patina group restaurant, and I was super stoked when Chris told me his boss and Master Chef Joachim Splichal had given him a copy of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials to use while creating menus and recipes for Google campus.

Exec Chef and owner Kerry Simon from Simon L.A. is offering several vegetarian items on his lunch and dinner dineLA menus including Market Roasted Vegetable Kale Salad, Fennel Pollen, Sherry Vinaigrette (I love kale!), Spinach Salad with Dates and Persimmon, plus desserts that look amazing like a House Made Kit Kat. Yum! Chef Kerry is very accommodating, is happy to let you order items from the dineLA menu, plus is fine with you making substitutions and requests. So just ask, and you shall receive!

dineLA asked artist Phil Lumbang to illustrate chef characters that were being silk screened onto canvas dineLA bags for everyone. What a fun idea, and very cool bag. Chef Chris Morningstar had a character screened onto his chef jacket, super cute!

Shana Wong (LA Magazine), William Karz (LA, inc), Shelley Leopold (LA Weekly), and I watching the screening of characters onto the canvas bags.

Our hostess Stacey Sun is red. She makes dineLA happen. Thanks Stacey! Excited to check out new restaurants beginning next week!

Join our discussion on my Facebook page and at Twitter.

Watch my award-winning cooking shows on YouTube.

Download my free 2012 Healthy Jumpstart report with tips for recharging your immune system, nourishing your body, and boosting your metabolism at www.RawFoodRockStar.com.

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Donate Life Rose Parade Float, New Year Day 2012

New Year’s Day 2012 I took a trip out to Pasadena’s Rose Bowl to help with the Donate Life float for the Rose Parade, which was on Jan 2nd this year. Donate Life is an amazing organization that raises awareness so we stick that pink dot onto our driver’s license, to help save lives by being an organ donor. My dad was a kidney recipient, so this organization rings very close to my heart.

This is the beautiful finished float. The folks sitting on it are the stars of the show…family members of donors from 2011. The stories I heard yesterday were so moving, and I broke into tears numerous times. One woman’s 9-year old daughter had gone to the hospital for an ear infection. The hospital misdiagnosed and mistreated her (not uncommon), and she died. Her mom was proud to share how her daughter lives on in others, literally, and that her daughter has saved many lives by being a donor. You can see the portraits of each donor on 6 clock faces, a total of 72 donors are honored.

My good friend Vicky is a ‘red jacket’ and one of the team leaders on this huge project. She’s been here working on the float for weeks from early morning until 11pm. A huge undertaking, whew.

We are all misting the flowers with water before the float is moved outdoors for judging. It was gorgeous in Pasadena, 80 degrees!

Everything on all of the floats in the Rose Parade are all organic! This means only living materials like flowers, leaves, seeds,…all put on by hand.

Look at this detail….mustard seeds painstakingly glued onto the surface. Wow.

Beans and flower petals have all been attached by hand.

This is the bed of roses underneath the clock with the moving hands at the front of the float.

Look closely and you can see each of these red roses has a wish tied onto them.

When the float moved outside into the sun, all the colors popped so brightly! You can see the driver of the float inside the open door. The driver can’t see a thing, and is guided by audio by someone outside the float.

At one point, everyone held hands in a circle around the float. It was very moving. And even the judges teared up and cried when they talked with the donor families and heard all the incredible stories. Today, I discovered (since I don’t have a TV to watch the parade myself) that our float won one of the top 3 trophies and the craftsmanship award for outstanding showmanship and dramatic impact over 55 feet! Yeah! I also heard that floats cost about a half a million dollars to build! Great exposure and for a wonderful cause.

This was one of the best, most memorable New Year Day’s of my life. What a way to spend the 1st day of the new year. Plus, I felt like it was in honor too of my dad, who was so very blessed to have had a kidney transplant, which helped extended his life another 10 or 12 years. I learned that a liver lives for 100 years, so even after someone passes from old age, a liver can be donated to help another person live. Amazing.

I’ve chosen to be an organ donor for as long as I can remember, and I hope you will also consider joining me in helping save lives so someone else may live one more day! For more information check out Donate Life.

 

 

 

 

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Ani Phyo + Vegetarian Times Magazine: How To Dice

TRT: 4 min, 12 sec

Let me show you how simple it is to cut uniform cubes with potato and carrot in this video I shot with Vegetarian Times Magazine. Wardrobe provided by my favorite eco luxury designer Linda Loudermilk.

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