Category Archives: Travel

Raw Food in České Budějovice (Czech Republic)

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I’m staying with a friend Martina in a little village in the Czech Republic, today she was busy so I spent the day by myself exploring the nearby city of České Budějovice.

Shelf of raw food products in Czech organic shopMartina told me about some organic shops and a vegan restaurant for me to check out – but I was surprised to find lots of raw food in one of the organic shops and a full raw food menu in the vegan restaurant!

In the first organic shop I went in, Slunecnice (which means Sunflower) on street Chelcičkého number 78/21 there were three shelves like the one to the right full of raw food products: crackers, nut butters, snack bars, raw chocolate bars, etc. Two of the shelves were dedicated to LifeFood products, which is a Czech raw food company I know about from my last visit the Czech Republic many years ago.

I bought myself a couple of Czech made raw snack bars and an Italian raw chocolate bar, here are my thoughts:

 

Italian raw chocolate barCacao Crudo by Loverdiana – Organic Raspberry flavour Raw Chocolate bar made in Italy

I was particularly attracted by the packaging for this bar! It was raspberry flavour which was really good and strong, slightly tart as expected which complements the chocolate well.

It was a large 50g bar and relatively  expensive so I expected something really special – it was very good and the chocolate was comparable to most raw chocolate bars, but not extra special like I was expecting (the packaging also made me expect something extra special!)

Other flavours were available, you can find out more on their website cacaocrudo.it

Open raspberry raw chocolate bar

Tyčinka Kakaová – Organic Raw Chocolate Snack Bar

Tyčinka kakaová - raw snack bar

A very simple snack bar containing only dates, sunflower seeds, almonds and raw cacao. It had a good fruity flavour with a light chocolate touch, and I could taste the sunflower seeds. Great texture, overall really good.

Made by Markol Food, but information only in Czech so probably not available elsewhere.

Chitta Raw Slim Relax raw snack bars

Chitta Raw Snack Bar - Jujube flavourAnother raw snack bar, this one with more depth of flavour, with a few more ingredients. There were three types available in the shop, “Energy”, “Sport Activity” and the one I got “Slim Relax”. I didn’t get it because I need to slim (I definitely don’t!) or was in the mood for relaxing, “energy” might have been more useful for my city tour, but it sounded like the best flavour with jujube, quite a rare fruit also known as Chinese date apple, something we grew back when I used to live at Ecoforest.

The ingredients were dates, hazelnuts, jujube, raisins, chia seeds, cocoa beans and carob and it was delicious. Great flavour and texture, quite sweet but not too sweet. Only thing is that it wasn’t organic unlike most of these kind of raw snacks.

Slunce – Vegan Restaurant with Raw Menu

Fridge of raw cakesThe surprise of the day was Slunce (meaning Sun), the vegan restaurant. I wasn’t particularly interested in going, but I happened to walk past it and notice the mention of raw food so I had a closer look. Once I saw the fridge full of cake and confirmed that they were all raw, there was no turning back! It was very hard to choose which one to try, but in the end I went for the blueberry “cheesecake” (raw vegan). And yes, it was delicious!

Raw Vegan Blueberry Cheesecake

I didn’t eat anything else but there was a full raw menu, only in Czech but it included nori wraps and lots of salads (the lady who was there spoke some English). They also sold a selection of organic dried nuts and seeds, plus delicious fresh dates. Maybe I will get to go with Martina who can translate the Czech for me!

Slunce is located at Krajinská 238/23 and they have a website here: restaurantslunce.cz

If you have any Czech raw food tips, feel free to comment below.

Berlin – Photos of The Wall

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I’m in Berlin for a little while, yesterday I went to explore the city and see what is left of the wall, a section about 1.6km long which is now covered with artwork, some of which is really beautiful with inspiring messages.

There are organic (“Bio”) shops everywhere in Berlin, often with local organic produce, and of course raw chocolate bars and superfoods, I’ve seen the LoveChock raw chocolate brand everywhere.

Berlin is a very green city, parks everywhere, even a small forest (Plänterwald) along the Spree river.

Berlin wall - Peace for all that lives on this earth

The text translates as “Peace for all that lives on this earth! Care for what’s living!”

Berlinwall Berlin wall Berlin wall Berlin wall Berlin wall Dancing to Freedom - Berlin wall

For Sale: VW Camper Van, cheap but needs TLC

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Edit: This van is now sold.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may remember this post where I told you all about the VW Camper van we bought and moved into. Well, five years later it is now time to sell the van. Unfortunately it is not in good condition any more and really needs someone who knows what they are doing to buy it and fix it up.

This van is currently in Portugal, but we will be driving it up to London in September ready to be sold (it is UK registered). As we won’t be in the UK for long I’d like to at least provisionally arrange the sale before we arrive.

Basic specification: VW T4, 2.5L Petrol (with GPL conversion which doesn’t work properly and not economical to fix), Automatic gearbox (replaced a couple of years ago), Left Hand Drive (imported from Germany, great for travelling in Europe), first registered 1993 (K reg), LWB (Long Wheel Base), fixed high top, Westfalia California Club conversion.

I’ll list some of the major parts and their status:

  • Side sliding door is very broken, it’s fine when it is closed but falls off when you open it – there is a technique for opening and closing it, but it really needs fixing.
  • Engine is doing quite well. Approx 291,000 km (approx 181,000 miles).
  • It does have some kind of problem that no-one seems to understand, it sometimes makes a sound and jerks a bit when changing gear, usually when going up a steep hill – the guy at the auto-gearbox garage said that it wasn’t a problem with the gearbox.
  • There is a leak in the radiator system and it needs topping up after almost every journey – I keep trying to get it fixed but it is never completely fixed.
  • Ignition switch is a bit dodgy, but there is a technique to starting it which works fine once you know it.
  • Fuel gauge doesn’t work most of the time. Fuel tank is 80 L but recently I’ve only been able to get 60 L in it, don’t know why.
  • Temperature gauge doesn’t work most of the time
  • Fair bit of rust, but so far nothing which is a problem for the MOT
  • Fridge is broken
  • Tap leaks a little bit (only when turned on)
  • Twin burner gas stove works fine
  • Fiamma wind out awning works fine (this is attached to the side of the van), really useful to give some shade in summer.
  • Also includes a full awning, although we have never used it, we didn’t take it with us travelling as it took up too much space inside the van
  • Mains hookup works fine, with 2 European type sockets in the van.
  • Heater in campervan part doesn’t work (heating in cab when engine running works fine)

The “rock and roll” bed is great, we find it very comfortable and fairly easy to set up. There is lots of cupboard space and storage space. Driver and passenger seats are “captains chairs” which swivel round to allow 4 people to sit around the table, and provide space to make the bed. There are two tables, a small one which is attached and easy to just lift up, or a larger one which is stowed away in the top bed area.

Seats 4 when driving (it has 4 seat belts), and sleeps 4, two on the main bed downstairs and 2 in the bed above which pulls out on runners, although it is designed for children, not for claustrophobic adults! The mattress for the upper bed is missing – we just use that top area for storage.

The layout is great with the kitchen at the back, which can be used even when the bed is out.

There is currently an 80 watt (at least, it might be 90 watt, I can’t remember) solar panel attached to the roof and a 1000 watt inverter which I am allowing for in the price, I could remove these if you don’t want them. This is connected to the two existing leisure batteries which power the lights, tap and 12v socket, and the inverter for using some mains powered equipment (we use it for a blender).

MOT until end of September. I’d prefer to sell it without a new MOT. The last few years it has cost around £1000 to put it through the MOT. If you want to buy it with an MOT I would be happy to sell it for £1000 extra and put it through the MOT for you. (Based on a firm sale with deposit, only cancelled and deposit returned if it can’t get an MOT or would cost too much to get an MOT)

Edit: This van is now sold.

Living in Portugal, Forest Gardening

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I’m a bit behind with this blog! I’ve been spending more time over on Facebook, you can follow me for shorter updates and ‘like’ Funky Raw for raw news. But I do plan to start updating this blog again now, as we’ve finally stopped travelling and found somewhere to live… The article below gives an update to our life, it was originally published in Funky Raw Magazine Issue 26:

If you remember back to 2010 my partner Jolita and I set off on a journey to find a place to live – land where we can grow our own food and run raw retreats and holidays. Well, eight countries and two and a half years later, our travels have come to an end, and our new life starts in Portugal. We’ve purchased 5 hectares of land in a “Parque Natural”, relatively remote and peaceful, with its own spring for drinking water in a reasonable climate – hot summers and mild winters, we still get some frosts in winter but also some lovely sunny days.

Orange TreeThere are lots of olive trees on the land plus a few other fruit and nut trees including figs and kakis and so far we’ve planted apples, pears, figs, cherries, apricots, lemons, almonds, blueberries and raspberries. And we’re looking forward to planting a veg garden in the spring.

Our land

We want to create a forest garden so we read the book Forest Gardening by Robert A de J Hart. It is a wonderful book, although not the one we were hoping for! This book is a general introduction to the forest garden concept, told through the author’s own experience of growing his forest garden, with ideas on how forest gardens can change the world for the better. The book we wanted is a practical guide to creating a forest garden, we’ve now ordered what we hope is the book we need, Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford. We watched a couple of videos on Youtube from Martin, he’s been doing a lot of research on forest gardens whilst growing one in Devon.
The idea behind a forest garden is to try and emulate a natural forest for minimal maintenance and environmental benefits, but with trees and plants which produce food and other useful resources, making use of 7 layers – large canopy trees, small trees & large shrubs, shade tolerant shrubs, perennial plants & herbs, ground cover plants, climbers & vines and root vegetables.

House

We’re happy to report that there are loads of wild greens on the land and lots of wild nature, birds, frogs, and some interesting lizard creatures we’ve never seen before, orange with black spots!

There are two houses on the land which we are in the process of restoring ready for running our retreats, more news soon…

Raw Chocolate Mulberries – in Portugal

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I’m not doing a great job of keeping this blog updated with our travels! We’re in Portugal again, been here for about 3 months and quite possibly it is where we will decide to stay.

A couple of days ago I was in a health food shop in Lagos and saw Raw Chocolate covered mulberries and I just had to buy them!

Interestingly the ingredients were just white mulberries, cacao powder and cacao butter; no extra sweetener like there is in the choc mulberries we sell at Funky Raw – those have coconut palm sugar in them.

They were delicious, the only problem was that the chocolate melted fairly quickly as it is still hot here.

The company Iswari have a range of organic superfoods such as acai, wheatgrass, lucuma, goji berries, etc, which we have noticed in several health food shops around Portugal. It seems to be a Portuguese company and according to their website, they also operate in Spain, Ireland and the Czech Republic.

Greece – Photos from our travels

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We spent almost 3 months in Greece, from mid Jan to mid April, mostly on the mainland, although we did go to one island, Evia. The most surprising thing was the weather, it was a lot colder than I was expecting! Although we did have some really beautiful weather too.

This was our route (only approximately, you can only have a limited number of points on Google Maps):

We got the ferry from Bari in Italy to Igoumenitsa and then fairly quickly travelled down to the Peloponnese, assuming it would be a little warmer there, although it wasn’t much different. We stayed on a campsite in Gythio for a month over the worst of the winter, the campsite has a large shared room with heating where we could spend our time when it was too cold and wet!

Click on any photo to enlarge, then you can scroll through the large versions.


Hope you like them, please feel free to leave your comments or questions below.

Raw in Athens

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Until now, the only “raw food” we’ve had in Greece has been the fresh fruits and vegetables from the markets. It’s been of exceptionally high quality, but sometimes I want some prepared raw food… Synchronistically, I got an email from an American living in Athens about writing for the Funky Raw magazine, perfect timing for us to get some tips for raw food in the capital.

So on Friday night, we went to Nice ‘n’ Easy Bio Cafe, 60 Omirou Street, an organic restaurant which has 3 specifically raw items on the menu. They also have a range of salads which are almost raw. From the raw menu, I ordered a mock tuna dish, which was ok but fairly bland. I also got a green salad which came with goats cheese (not sure if from raw milk but I ate it, was delicious) and sun dried tomatoes, with a wine based dressing (probably not raw), this was really good. We tried to order the raw dessert, but they didn’t have any left – that’s the problem with places where raw food is only a small part of their menu. The website is only in Greek, but the menu was in English and the staff spoke English.

We had more success in the organic shop at 30 Nikis Street (not far from Syntagma metro), I think it is called Emporio Trofimon, but easy to spot next to a vegetarian café called Avocado with a colourful avocado painted on the wall. As well as the usual organic fruit and veg, there was a wide range of raw foods: raw chocolate bars (we got a couple of coconut Om bars), Biscru crackers, raw snack bars and a wide range of superfoods including lucuma, camu camu, acai, raw chocolate ingredients and more. Probably a better range than in most organic shops in the UK!

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for, the obligatory photos of the Acropolis:

Croatia – Photos from our travels

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I got a little behind with travel updates – for now I’ve skipped forward to Croatia, which was November – December last year. Croatia is a really beautiful country, and the local food from the markets was of amazing quality.

Click on any photo to enlarge.

Croatia has over 1000 islands, this is a little island called Lošinj, just below Cres island. It was really beautiful here. I was very supprised when I found that Pula has a Roman Amphitheatre, in amazing condition. Plus other Roman buildings.
Near Pula is a wild peninsular called Rt Kamenjak. Wild and beautiful. Pazin is an interesting little village, but the best bit is in the ravine, really beautiful but so cold as not much sunlight.
Pazin ravine. More coastlines on Krk Island
Plitcitce National Park was one of the most beautiful places I have been. A completely unique landscape with lakes and waterfalls, made even more beautiful due to the November frost.
More in Plitvitce.
And more Plitvitce. Waterfalls in Krka National Park.
Forest in Krka National Park We got a ferry from Makarska to Brac island.
An amazing beach which sticks out into the ocean, called Zlatni Rat (Golden Beach) on Brac island. Korcula town on Korcula island, a short ferry trip from Brac island. Dubrovnik is amazing, the old city is surrounded by the castle like walls.
Another view of Dubrovnik We went for a great walk along the coast from Dubrovnik. The sunsets in Croatia were almost always beautiful, the colours this night are amazing.

Real Raw Lemon Cheese Cake Recipe

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After a short break in London, we’re back on the road. We’re heading to Croatia, but had a little detour to Slovenia. It’s a beautiful country, loads of forest and wild nature. On Saturday we went to Ljubljana, the capital and found an amazing market. Loads of organic veg stalls, plus we got organic raw milk, raw butter, raw sour cream and raw cheese.

I love cheesecake, and it is actually very easy to make raw cheesecake, assuming you can get some good raw cheese to start with. We got some soft plain curd cheese, it needs to be fairly plain to make into cheesecake.

I didn’t measure the ingredients, but I think this is a recipe where it is hard to go wrong.

Base
brazil nuts
apricots
a few cacao beans (optional)
1 tsp vanilla powder
grated lemon rind

Topping
cheese
lucuma
honey
grated lemon rind

For the base, you want an approximately equal amount of nuts and dried fruit, you can use various combinations of fruits and nuts. I soaked the apricots for a couple of hours so they would process easier, but you don’t want them too wet otherwise the base will be soggy. Put all the ingredients in a food processor until it forms a sticky ball. If you need more liquid you can either add a little lemon juice or water. As you may know, I don’t generally eat dehydrated food as I find it hard to digest, so this base was soft and sticky, but you could probably dehydrate this is you want a more traditional cheesecake.

For the topping, just mix all the ingredients together. The more lucuma you add, the thicker the mixture will become. And of course, the more honey, the sweeter. (The cheese I used was very soft so I only needed to mix it with a spoon, with a firmer cheese you may need to blend.)

I’m sure there are many variations you can make instead of lemon.