Watch amazing healthy-living documentaries, for free!
Hey peeps! I want to share the low-down on an awesome site I was turned on to by my buddy Glen Colello of Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe. It’s called Top Documentary Films. At Top Documentary Films you can watch amazing documentaries for free!! This amazing resource uses video content that has been shared through other media sharing websites such as Vimeo, YouTube and MegaVideo to bring you an incredible assortment of brilliant documentaries and also provides a place to discuss the documentaries you’re enjoying!! Browsing through their Health category I’ve found ‘Food Matters’, Micheal Moore’s ‘Sicko’, ‘Super Size Me’, ‘McLibel’, and many more! One that caught my eye recently is ‘Simply Raw : Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days’. This film is amazing! Incredibly inspirational and very entertaining to watch! Be sure to check it out and the many other awesome titles this resource has available! So cool to see this great information being spread to an even wider audience!
Much love and happy movie-goin’! ~ Rory :0)
Experimenting in the kitchen with friends!
Hey Everyone! Amanda, Isabel, Shadow and I spent last weekend In Medford, Oregon hangin’ with our new friend Josephine and her family. Josephine has been rockin’ the raw scene here in Medford for years now! With an ever growing group of individuals she has put together regular potlucks, recipe classes, and lectures with awesome info and amazing turnouts! Bringing the community together and sharing the raw love… awesome work is all I can say… very awesome work!
Speaking of work.. Josephine asked if I could make the cheesecake that I had made at Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe the day that Shazzie dropped by! You know me and goofin’ off in the kitchen… I’m in! So I got started right away!
Josephine and her husband Wayne have been rockin’ the rawness for a while now and grow loads of their own organic eats! Wayne took me for a tour of their intensively planted garden beds and we harvested swiss chard, collards, squash leaves and some lambs quarters and stinging nettles (to get that edible weed goodness going!). After gathering this awesome assortment of greenage we headed inside where Wayne blended up a tasty and powerful green smoothie! “That’s your superfood!” Wayne said as we enjoyed it. I couldn’t agree more!
Greens galore!
Strawberries growing in bags on the garden's fence.. no space left unused! I love it!
The weekend with them was awesome! Saturday I went hiking with Wayne and his friend Larry through some of Oregon’s gold mining historical sites! That evening we all sat at the table sharing stories and shooting the breeze about going raw, as Larry is gettin’ into it. He sampled the cheesecake and thought it could use a lil’ salt. So I tried a sprinkle of sea salt on my slice and it was a nice addition. Then Larry tried the cake with a drizzle of Indonesian Style Soy Sauce. I put a lil’ on a bite…it was interesting and tasty! Josephine tried it as well and we pondered a raw version of this sauce and cheesecake combo.
Sunday morning we got to playing in the kitchen! I whipped us a cacao/maca/mesquite/lucuma smoothie to to get us going. Josephine had looked through my book and wanted to try my Turkish Style Cauliflower Patties (recipe in Gettin’ Raw) with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dipping Sauce, so we whipped up a batch together!
Cranking out some Turkish Style Cauliflower Patties!
Fresh and warm outta the dehydrator!
We were thinking of what to do for dessert and remembered last night’s experiment. Jose suggested we make a version of the Indonesian Soy Sauce with a lil’ cacao thrown in… for good measure! So we put together this awesome dessert topper ”Cacao Fig Vingarette Syrup”. The taste was freakin’ incredible! I’m always up for experimenting with wacky combos and this one took the cake… the cheesecake to be exact!
Cacao Fig Vinagerette Syrup... sooooo good!
Cacao Fig Vinegarette Syrup ~ An unlikely yet ridiculously tasty combo. I even used it as a salad dressing. It was so good we had to share the recipe!
Ingredients ~
4 Tablespoons melted coconut oil
3 Tablespoons cacao powder
3 Tablespoons agave (could substitute honey)
2 Tablespoons of Fig Vinegar (if this is hard to find I would try blending a couple of dried figs with a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar as a substitute. It can be blended right into the mix in your blender!)
Splash of balsamic vinegar for a lil’ tang!
1/3 teaspoon of sea salt
Wisk thoroughly together in a bowl or blend in your blender! Serve slightly warm as it will harden when cold. This effect makes for an awesome topping for a chilled dessert such as that cheesecake…
Give this syrup a shot and lemme know what you think! Speaking of chocolate we’re going to be back at Josephine’s September 8th as she’s giving me use of her home and kitchen to hold my Raw Chocolate Workshop!
She has previously hosted Elaina Love and Carmella, so I’m psyched to be rocking it out at her place! As we head off to visit more friends in Oregon we look forward to hanging with Josephine and Wayne again, an awesome dynamic duo!
Kombucha! :0)
Kombucha is one of my fave beverages, and wait, before I go ranting about how much I like it…,I oughta stop and clue ya in on what exactly Kombucha is. Kombucha is a probiotic, living, fermented tea that is LOADED with enzymes, friendly critters to support your digestive system, organic acids and detoxifying elements. Sound awesome? Well it did to me as well when I read the myriad health benefits listed on the first bottle of kombucha I sampled back when I was living in PA.
Amanda and I picked up a bottle of this interesting concoction for the first time around the same time I got started with raw foods. The first sip was reminiscent of carbonated apple cider vinegar…ok….although not delicious, intriguingly the flavor grew on me, and about an hour after finishing it Amanda and I both noticed, not only a warm feeling in our stomachs, but also a burst of energy! I started doing some research on this fizzy living beverage and found that it was brewable/growable at home! Being a DIY kinda guy, and learning that it’s inexpensive to brew your own, I was IN!
Showing off the SCOBY at my first 'bucha workshop at Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe as Glen Colello films
About 2 years ago we picked up our SCOBY (which is short for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) and got brewing! I was so psyched up to add this to my raw and living food concocting experiments, and it really brought me back to those days of raising Sea Monkeys and other weird pets…only this one I would be eating. I did lots of research on this wonderful brew, and watched other home brewer’s adventures on YouTube. After creating some batches that were a wee bit south of that fizzy goodness we had experienced from the health food store, I pulled off a batch that was outstandingly good and cost a fraction of the pre-bottled stuff!! As if that wasn’t neat enough, I can now add my own fun flavorings to the kombucha when I bottle it up for the second fermentation, flavorings such as fresh squeezed ginger juice, blended wild blueberries, or vanilla bean pods! Oh yeah! Turning a ridiculously healthy beverage into a tasty one that could rival soda….now that’s the kinda stuff I’m into! :0)
Fast forward to my life now, doing raw food presentations and talks, I noticed people’s faces light up when I would mention my kombucha brewing endeavors during a raw food workshop. So I did a kombucha creating workshop at Catch a Healthy Habit Café shortly after moving here to CT, which was very warmly received. The videos of this first workshop (taken by Glen Colello of Catch) can be found at his YouTube channel (which I HIGHLY recommend ya check out if you’re interested in raw foods and healthy living! There have been many, many awesome speakers at the Café and Glen has filmed large portions of their talks! So there is a wealth of fun info there waiting to be watched!)
Flash forward to just last night at Catch, where I presented my second kombucha workshop and I shared much of the cool new info I’ve picked up about culturing, brewing and flavoring this bubbly, healthy drink! Again, Glen has shot some awesome footage of my workshop (which I had a blast doing!) and I can now give you a sneak-peek of what it would’ve been like to be there!
This first video gives you a good idea of the equipment you’d need to start brewing your own goodness at home…a lot less than you might assume!
Part 2, I get into some of the other fun uses for your SCOBY….from bath toy to band-aid, a zoogleal mat can perform many tasks! :0)
Part 3, Where (and where not) to brew your culture and putting some love in your brew!
Part 4 Finishing off your brew, other brewing vessel options and why you should or should not use your SCOBY as a hat.
Raw Chocolate Fudge Sauce!
Hey everyone! For all those who couldn’t make it to my “Just Desserts” Class at Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe, here’s a lil’ taste of what was being whipped up!
Chocolate Fudge Sauce~
5 Dates (pitted …and checked for “frass”!)
1/4 cup of water
1/2 cup of agave nectar (or if you’re a freakin’ beegan like me, raw honey)
5 tablespoons of raw cacao powder (oh yes!!)
1″ piece of vanilla bean pod (or the seeds of a 1″ piece if you’re using a standard blender, or a 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract)
pinch of sea salt (to amplify the yummy goodness)
Blend everything until silky smooth. This cacao-concoction will keep in your fridge for 3-4 days and makes an awesome ice cream topping as well as a heck of a good dip for fresh strawberries or slices of ripe bananas!
The class was a blast and lookin’ forward to my next one “Viva la Mexicana!” hope to see ya there! :0)
Doing some fun Raw Food prep classes at Catch this month!
Hey everyone! This October I’m going to be presenting a couple of fun raw food preparation classes at Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe!
The co-conspirators of rawsomeness at Catch, Glen Colello and Lisa Storch :0)
Thursday Oct. 15th 6:30 pm
Just Desserts!~ I’ll be showing you how to put together some really quick, easy and delicious raw desserts! There will be Q&A and of course sampling!! I’m gonna be whippin’ up the following~
Strawberry Pie 
Banana Ice Cream
Chocolate Fudge Sauce
Fig Walnut Brownies!
The cost of the class is $25 a person RSVP preferred, but walk-ins welcome as well! :0)
Tuesday Oct. 27th 6:30 pm
Viva La Mexicano!~ We’re gonna be whippin’ up some tasty dishes just in time to warm up our cold weather diets with a lil’ spice! Samples and plenty of Q&A! :0)
Rawfried Beans 
Sunflower Sour Cream
Zesty Salsa
Rawdawg’s Fave Guacamole
Fajitas!
The cost of the class is $25 a person or sign up for both classes for $40 (pretty sweet deal, eh?) RSVP preferred but walk-ins also welcome!
To RSVP for either (or both) of the classes, contact Glen Colello via email at catchahealthyhabitcafe@yahoo.com or call 203-521-7648
Lookin’ forward to seein’ ya there! Peace, love and rawness! :0D
Kevin and Annmarie kickin’ it at Catch!
Kevin and Annmarie Gianni stopped by Catch this past Tuesday for Cinco De Mayo! Kevin did a fun impromptu live video direct from his phone to twitter! Gotta love technology :0)
Click the above pic to check out the video!
Annmarie rockin' the food prep and Kevin talkin' about all things fun and healthy!
The evening was a blast! Kev and Annmarie did an awesome talk/food prep demo! The food was Mexican inspired, in honor of the holiday. An awesome taco “meat” made with sunflower seeds, carrots and spices that could easily win over any carnivore or raw foodies taste buds! This mix was served on romaine leaves with a dallop of spicy mole sauce (featuring raw-cacao powder) , a mix of avocados and tomatoes and generous topping of cashew cheese. Muy Bueno!!
Viva la live foods!!
During Annmarie’s demo Kevin gave a great talk about all things health! The main topics were the principles of his new book “High Raw”. The book is awesome for the average person getting started with raw-foods. Its focus is not setting a goal of 100% strict raw but, rather goin’ for a high percentage of raw-foods and the awesome health benefits that go along with it! I agree whole-heartedly with this approach to raw-eating as goin’ “100%” may seem too lofty a goal to start out with. When I first got into raw my goal was 70% and it just went on from there gradually and naturally winding up where I’m at now!
Kevin also got into many other subjects regarding health, from not gettin’ caught up in health protocols without stopping to check and see if they’re necessary, and the importance of not over complicating the simple truth that eating more fresh fruits and veggies is good for you! Great advice and a lot of fun anecdotes from their fun travels in the Kale Whale exploring the many venues and people in the world of healthy living!
After the talk ended and the crowd headed home Kevin and Annmarie hung out for a while chatting with Paul. Glen and myself. I told Annmarie how jealous Isabel was that Amanda and I had got to tour the Kale Whale at their send off party and she suggested right away that I invite them to come down so she could show her around it! Amanda and Isabel arrived and we all had a great time shooting the breeze and goofing off. We love what Kevin and Annmarie are all about with their mission of spreading healthy info through their work and they felt the same way about what Amanda and I are up to with our videos and my raw food classes, they even loved the smoothie jar bags we had given them for their trip! Annmarie hooked us up with a bottle of the Tooth Soap that they’re selling (amongst a slew of other healthy and raw-living goodies they’ve discovered during their travels!) and it’s awesome stuff! Check out Amanda’s post about it.
For an incredible wealth of fun, informative videos and drool worthy recipes I suggest you check out Kevin and Annmaries’ site www.renegadehealth.com and look into Kevins’ book at www.GoHighRaw.com ! Peace and happy healthy wishes everyone! :0)
The big 3-0!
Hey everyone! Long time no see! Things have been goin’ good and goin’ full steam since the big move here to CT! It’s been a transition for me and my family but, a very cool one. Lotsa fun stuff to catch you all up on, ain’t that the way it goes? When you have a whole buncha stuff to write about …you don’t seem to have the time to sit down (get in writing mode) and write about it! More of this jabbering to come but, first I wanna get it out there that this Friday April 24th I’m reaching the 3 decade mark! :0)
Check out more of my antics at www.RawFu.com !
Now if you asked me what I thought about turning 30 back when I was around 20 I’d probably have been like “blah” or worse, but after all the changes I’ve went through since gettin’ with the raw-foods and exercising I’m actually looking forward to it! Heck I feel waaaaay better now than I did back then! Besides the weight loss (which was a big change!) I have so much more energy, less aches, pains and stuffiness, and I rarely get sick! It’s been an interesting and sometimes challenging journey to where I’m at now, but it was always fun (as any raw-food journey should be. Keep it fun and you’ll keep with it!). If you want to check out why I went raw, here’s a link to an older post. I’m lookin’ forward to seeing where I’ll go from here and sharing some of my adventures, misadventures and things I learn along the way with everyone in hopes that it’ll inspire others to give this tao of munching a chance and seeing where it leads them!
This was me at 20 years old
This is me at 30!
Who says getting older has to be a bad thing?
I’ve got a lot of other stuff to report and catch everyone up on, but until then I’ll leave ya this fun lil’ video showing some of the cool synchronicities that have been popping up since I’ve landed in CT. What we’re the odds of running into Phil and Shazzie at the same time? I don’t know but, it was a lotta fun! They both have an awesome energy about them and it was kick-@$$ shootin’ the breeze and hangin’ at the cafe.
Peace everyone and keep it rawkin’! :0)
Breathwork, raw-get togethers and chocolate tahini banana bon-bons!
Hey everyone! Been a lot of cool stuff goin’ on lately! These past two weekends I’ve been hanging with Jody and Joey Allen (of LovingLifeCafe.com) and their guest, Chris Carlton (of Purelyraw.com). We had a great time shooting the breeze and sharing recipe ideas. We also enjoyed an amazing dinner of raw tacos with a combination of Jody’s amazing mushroom based taco “meat”, fresh made salsa, and flax/corn tortillas with Chris’s delicious sunflower seed and avocado based version of re-fried beans and sunflower seed sour cream. Awesome, awesome stuff! I brought over a cacao-coconut crusted tahini/date cream pie! *didn’t get a chance to snap a pic before it got annihilated* The recipe for that bad-boy is gonna be in the e-book I’m currently working on!
This past Saturday we had a get-together again at Jody and Joey’s and got sample some of Jody’s friend Arelenes’ salt-and vinegar cured, marinated eggplant slices (pickled eggplant)….oh my freakin goodness! They we’re amazing! The process takes about a month or two to create but, after sampling them I felt it’d be well worth the wait! After snacking on them and passing around some of my chocolate tahini banana bon-bons, we watched ‘ Zeitgeist ‘. A very interesting documentary examining our current monetary system and how it affects our lives and the structure of society. Doesn’t sound all that thrilling when I describe it but, it had some brutal accounts from “economic hit men” and a visionary idea of a society which can be based on a system other than our current money driven one. Idealist and Utopian but, still fun to imagine! After the movie Chris busted out the guitar and rounds of classic rock and some his own original and beautiful songs! Great time!
Aside from his amazing story of his raw transformation and incredible weight-loss, Chris is also trained in Rebirthing. Which is an amazing system of breath excercises originally created by Leonard Orr. Chris picked up on our fascination with it during our talking and offered to come over and give Amanda and myself a personal session. I won’t get into the lengthy and fascinating history of Rebirthing but, I will say that the results are beyond what I expected. I had done meditation in the past and still do from time to time to center myself and relax, but this was a totally different experience altogether! If you’ve done meditation before, then imagine when you’ve reached a deep sense of relaxation and calm…now times that by about a thousand! Really great stuff! For more info on my experience check out the blurb I wrote for Amandas’ blog.
Chris is a great guy, and although he says thanks are not necessary as hes’ passionate about sharing the benefits of this practice. I have to give him thanks again and to Leonard Orr for creating such a cool exercise!!
Now for a recipe!
Chocolate Tahini Banana Bon-Bons!*say that five times fast!*
Yummmmmy!
You’re gonna need the Nutella inspired raw chocolate tahini dip from my video at Catch A Healthy Habit and you could use the homemade tahini recipe from my last post as the base for it!
Now slice some sweet-ripe bananas into 1″ long slices, arrange them on either a baking sheet or plate and freeze them until firm.
Take your frozen banana chunks and, using tongs or chopsticks, dunk them into the chocolate tahini dip and arrange them on a plate coated with either coconut flakes, ground nuts, or sesame seeds. Refreeze!
Voila! You got a tasty ice-creamish treat! If you have issues with cacao you could easily substitute with carob or just do the tahini, honey, salt and vanilla for a vanilla bon-bon. Get creative with them and enjoy!
Hittin’ the road!
This December 3rd (weather permitting) we’re heading to CT. My ol’ hometown of West Haven to be exact! We’re gonna be visiting my family (who’s been really gettin’ into raw-foods and my Mom in particular has been having some awesome health benefits.. rawk on Mom!). Connecticut has been rockin’ the raw since I’ve moved away several years ago.. Kevin and Anne Marie Gianni, Phil Mclusky and Glen Colello among others are spreading the word of raw-food as well inspiring and educating many!
Glen Colello’s place.. Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe opened several blocks from where I used to live! My family has been going there a LOT and have all sorts of good stuff to say about it. They make some awesome meals, have a butt-ton of raw food supplies, superfoods, and have hosted numerous workshops, supported cleanses and speeches including one by Mr. Wolfe himself!
Lookin’ forward to seein’ all my friends and fam in in December, miss you guys and gonna be making some yummy stuff when I get there!
