Here’s my review of Rod Rotondi’s new recipe book Raw Food for Real People, as originally published in issue 14 of the Funky Raw magazine. (The magazine also includes an extract from the book.)
Five years ago, Rod opened his first raw food restaurant, Leaf Organics, and has since opened several more raw restaurants. With that experience, he is well qualified to write this book in which you can learn how to prepare your own restaurant quality raw dishes. The book begins with Rod’s journey to raw food, which includes his experiences of living in Jerusalem and Sinai. Combined with the fact that Rod is from an Italian American background, this adds quite a variety of influences to his recipes.
Then there are sections on transitioning to a raw diet, guest sections from Brian Clement, Robert Young and Gabriel Cousens plus Rod teaches us how to use knives, how to open coconuts and how to grow sprouts, including a detailed sprouting chart.
Then come the recipes. From pizza to lasagne, hummus to falafel, the sections include crackers and bread, breakfast, appetizers, soups, entrées (what we call mains in the UK) and deserts. Every recipes is described clearly plus variations and ideas for experimenting are given. Finally, there is a section on feeding children a raw diet.
Just reading some of the recipes and looking at the colour photos makes my mouth water, I’m very much looking forward to trying some of them out.
185 pages, printed on 100% post consumer waste recycled paper. ISBN: 978-1-57731-673-2
You can buy this book now at Amazon.
December 12th, 2009
Today for the first time we finally went to SAF and I’ve got to say I was very impressed. It wasn’t a planned trip so I didn’t have my camera with me, but good to know you don’t always have to book in advance.
For starters we shared a “cheese tasing plate”. Three types of raw vegan cheese, bread, crackers, marmelade, apple slices and celery sticks, beautifully presented. The macadamia nut cheese was very much like dairy cheese whilest the two cashew cheeses were more like patés, all three were delicious.
For main course I had Pad Thai, couldn’t fault it, lots of flavour, well presented and a good portion size. Jolita had the lasagne which was also delicious. We also had a side dish of greens and flowers, although the dressing was far too salty.
By now we were both pretty full but wanted to try some desert, so we opted to share a coconut cheesecake. Again, it was delicious, very creamy with a raspberry sauce. Although for the price, the portion size was a little small.
If you’ve not been, I definitely recommend you give SAF a try. 152-154 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3AT. www.safrestaurant.co.uk
December 7th, 2009
Today I saw this sundial which I though was very clever. I’m continuing to upload my photos over at Flickr.
November 10th, 2009
Today I walked from Tortosa to Xerta mostly along the Rio Ebro and then back along the Via Verde (green way) which is a dissused railway line which has been converted to a footpath, the roundtrip was about 30km.
Food for the day:
For breakfast I had a mix of sprouted seeds (hemp, sunflower and pumpkin) with soaked goji berries, figs and apricots
Throughout the day I had about 5 kakis, 8 satsumas, a few dates and cacao beans plus an orange and some carob pods I found along the way.
When I got back I had a custard apple and then a large salad with wild greens I picked during the walk, courgette, olives, a tomato, some fresh dulse, sprouted rye and some onion basil and olive cracker.
More photos on Flickr.
November 8th, 2009
I’m currently travelling in Spain and thought I’d post some photos from my trip.
I’m in Tortosa in Tarragona Province and I was very supprised to see Booja Booja raw ice-cream for sale on an organic stall in the market. There were two organic stalls, one with fresh fruit and veg where I got some delicious cherimoyas (custard apples). The fruit here is just divine, eating lots of kakis (persimmon) at the moment. Tomatoes with lots of flavour, so different to the UK!
November 7th, 2009
I was walking in the forest when I heard a pitter-patter sound, like the sound of water dripping from the leaves after it has rained. But it hadn’t rained recently so I stood still and watched to see what was falling. Beech nuts! I’ve seen the empty outer shells before but never the actual nuts – I think the squirrels get them if you’re not quick.
The individual nuts were falling out of the outer shells onto the ground. I picked up a nut and found that unlike most nuts it was very easy to open with my finger nails. The nut looks a bit like a pine nut, and surprisingly it also tasted a bit like a pine nut.
I’ve done a little research and found that beech nuts (also called beechmast) are high in tannins and shouldn’t be eaten in large quantities. Soaking them for 8 hours or more and then rinsing them removes some of the tannins and probably makes them easier to digest.
We opened and then soaked the ones we collected and made pesto with them, not quite as creamy as when made with pine nuts but still delicious.
October 8th, 2009
At the weekend I got some cherries from the farmers market so for this evenings social, I made this cake with fresh cherries:
To make the base:
Put 70g of buckwheates, the mulberries and dates into a food processor and process until you have a crumbly mixture. Add a tablespoon or two of water and process again and the mixture should start sticking together. Add the rest of the buckwheaties and the cacao nibs and process briefly so that there will be some crunchy bits left. Press into a cake tin.
Fruit layer:
Take about 500g of fresh cherries, remove stones, chop into quarters and spread out on the base.
Topping:
- 2 mature (brown) coconuts
- 5 tablespoons lucuma powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
- 1 teaspoon agave nectar
- about 10 cherries with stones removed
- a few squeezes of lemon juice
First make coconut cream from the coconuts: open, remove flesh and chop into pieces. Blend until fluffy. Squeeze through a nut milk bag to get the coconut cream.
Stir the lucuma,vanilla powder, agave and lemon juice in to the coconut cream.
Blend up the cherries and mix them in. Hopefully the mixture should be relatively thick now (but still liquid enough to pour), if not you might need to add some more lucuma.
Pour over the cherries on the base and place in the fridge to set.
Hope you like it!
June 30th, 2009
Sometimes I hate computers! As some of you may have noticed, rawrob.com has been down for almost a week. All the posts from the last 12 months and all the images are still missing – I’ll get that sorted as soon as possible.
While you’re waiting for me to get sorted, why not try some of the new flax crackers we’ve got in the Funky Raw shop: fire flax crackers, supergreen flax crackers, raw onion, olive and basil bread and onion and vegan cheese bread, all made with sprouted seeds.
June 13th, 2009
We’ve started a new event at our house every Monday evening from 7 to 10pm, a mini social gathering where you can meet other people into raw food, plus get free advice on your diet. Jolita will be making her amazing raw cakes and you will be able to purchase items from the Funky Raw shop.
- Free raw advice / Q+A with Rob and Jolita
- Freshly made raw cake £4 a slice
- Free herbal tea
- Browse our library of raw and wild food books
- Buy from the Funky Raw shop
- Paintings and ceramics by Jolita to view and purchase
We’re just 10 minutes walk from Walthamstow Central tube/train station. If you want to attend, full details are here.
June 1st, 2009
I wasn’t sure about the usefulness of Twitter, but I was finally convinced that I should join so you can follow me: raw_rob. I’ll pass on any snippets of raw food news plus Funky Raw updates.
May 5th, 2009
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