LA (Santa Monica) Day 3

After much delay, I finally got around to finishing up the posts
on the LA trip from two weeks ago.

Lots of other things have been coming up,
so this last post was on the back-burner for a while...
wait...lets say it was on the bottom shelf of the dehydrator.
That's more like it :)

Day 3 was our last full day in LA, so we headed over
to Santa Monica to eat at Euphoria, visit the community garden,
and hang out with John from Sunfoodliving.com.


We didnt even take pics of anything from Euphoria.
We were visiting with one of Dawn's friends and I
didnt feel like looking like some tourist and taking pics
of everything...at Au Lac, I HAD to, but this time it was no biggie.

Im not really going to get into the food there.
I would say go and try it and see for yourself if you dig it.
The Egg-less salad was really good, as was the Spirulina Earth Pie.
HOWEVER...the S.E.P. at Lifethyme will ALWAYS rule the roost
as far as we are concerned. Here is one other thing.
Matt Amsden (of Euphoria) has a GREAT raw food prep book.
Its WONDERFUL. Dawn and I make the onion bread all the time...
(with 10% of the recommended nama shoyu however),
so I was really excited to finally have HIS onion bread.
It was more like an onion tortilla...not thick at all and bulging with onions
like the ones we make. Wait...more like an onion chip. Wait again...more like a..chip.
We didnt even really taste much onion. Big let down.
Maybe someone in his kitchen was getting lazy that day...who knows?
Check out his recipes for sure though...we really love them.

Matt...if youre reading this...take it as some loving constructive criticism.
And if you want to know what a good raw burger tastes like...
go to Quintessence in NYC. Dan has it down like no other.
I am NOT being negative...there is just room for improvement.
We really want you to be the best, and we want everyone to be blown
away when they eat there so the COME BACK again,
and tell all of their friends to go to your place too.
It pays to put out a good quality product.

After lunch we went to the community garden.
The growing season in LA is so long and productive...
maybe that growing season makes up for the car culture.
You could really grow everything you need, and then just order
your superfoods online and be totally set. Its so great there for that.

Some shots of the gardens...

A little bee doing his thing...

Since we had some free time before meeting John,
we drove over to Venice on Lincoln Blvd where I shot
that job for Acura back in March. I wanted to see if I could
find some wild aloe again.

This is what it looked like 2 weeks ago,

And this is what it looked like back in February.
Such a difference.

Not exactly a place you would look for wild food,
but it was off the main road, and everything was untouched.
You never know what little jewels you will find off the beaten path.
This was the aloe vera back in February -

And then me with it in May.
Everything was teaming with life back in Feb...
now it seemed cold and abandoned.
Timing really is everything in life.

So I got a few leaves, and we were on our way to meet with John.
We talked and walked...had some kombucha and green juice.
He has a ton of cool projects going on,
and gave me some insight on getting my work published.

He just sent me this TED video...I believe we can all learn something from this.



We met up with Bueller from Bueller's Kitchen for dessert
at Cru again (couldnt resist...the dessert is too good!)

Bueller is doing really well...tweaking her diet and learning more
about herbs now too. One great thing about food and nutrition
is that there is always room for more knowledge.
People are discovering new things all the time!
We are just on the tip of the iceberg everyone!

We went to leaf the next day with Dawn's dad, then
he dropped us of at LAX. We were both glad to be going
back to NY. There is just too much driving time in LA.
It takes up way too much time of a person's day.
AND THE STRESS! I forgot how tense it can get on the freeways.
Talk about an acidic environment. People need to do some walking
meditations and get things together. In a strange way, Im glad that
gas is going up. Maybe it will get people off the road
more and that is good in SO many ways.


When we returned to NYC, we went to Quintessence right away.
My two favorites now are Quintessence in NY, and Au Lac in LA.
Others are good too, but these are in my opinion, the best by far.
Sorry to offend anyone else, but its just one man's opinion.

Check out all the Loquat seeds I saved too!


I am sprouting a bunch right now. I could start an orchard
with all of these. Save your seeds!

Speaking of sprouting...check out the black sapote seeds
I sprouted about 6 weeks ago.


They are doing SO well. I am so glad I decided to bring seeds
back from my trip. One day they will be in the greenhouse...giving
the zaniest fruits Ive had yet. Chocolate pudding fruit. Maybe 3 years!

TONS more to come! Hope the weekend was great!


-A