Chef Dita

Officially a certified raw food instructor!! The three weeks at Living Light were AMAZING!. I went there not knowing what to expect and left there feeling really, really satisfied with myself. I felt like it pushed me in so many ways as a raw foodist, a food lover, a leader and teacher. I took in so much information that I need a few weeks just to process all of it. I didn't leave there feeling like a chef but with the knowledge that would equip me to be one. Just as anyone who graduates from culinary school (or any art school), it takes time to hone your skills. Since I've been home I've made incredible entrees, desserts and snacks. I attempt something new almost every day. Last Friday I had a dinner for a few friends and spent 8 hours preparing the meal. It was a lot of work but incredibly rewarding. Everyone loved it and there was almost nothing left save for a couple Vietnamese salad rolls and sauce that I finished up the next day. Here are a few more pics from my time at Living Light.

Teaching my first demo to the class. I taught them how to make Mexican Seasoned Rice.

Mexican food platter to die for. So good.

Learned to roll dolmas like a pro.

Dolmas in their glory right before I took them down.

Travel Channel star Kirsten Gum Treasure Hunter was in the class. One of the raddest girls I've ever met. Keep an eye out for her, she's amazing.

Minestrone soup

Zoom burger with sweet crispy onions and kale salad

My favorite dessert: brownie crumble with cashew cream topped with chocolate velvet and raspberry coulis. I die.

Sometimes our food got photoshoots

Here was my team's creation: Hot Mexican brownies. They were insanely good.

Pesto torte

Walnut date scones

Raw candy. I made a big batch of these for Valentine's day and ate 1/3 of them in a one night. I promptly got rid of them the next day. Not a good thing for me to keep around.

Mind blowing lasagna

Lemon tart

My chef photo. Think I'm gonna have to do a photo shoot with Matt, not my best face.

Living Light Week 1

Finished Fundamentals and Essentials of raw food this week. Seven days of lectures, demos, hands-on prep, recipe development, knife skills and glorious taste testing. I ate so much yet somehow managed to lose a pound. Bonus! A few photos from the past week:

The Mendocino coast is crazy beautiful. The whales are migrating this time of year. If you wait long enough you can see water spouts and tails flapping in the distance.





My room, and yes, that's my sock monkey. What?

My view of the ocean.


The school is housed in an old building with its own cafe, bookstore and marketplace.

We grew our own sprouts.



$4000 Kangen water filter. I want one.





Flavor dynamics class was so fun.

Watching one of the many demos

We drank green smoothies and watched the inauguration


Me with a couple of the chefs.

Ate the BEST salads every day for lunch.

Carrot pineapple kuchen

Crab cakes with cashew dill sauce.

Banana ice cream with warm chocolate sauce and raspberry coulis. Yeah, I did.

Made creamy miso soup in a recipe development class

Jump on the cheesecake train!


Two more weeks to go. Will probably not get a chance to post again till I get back after Feb. 7th.

Ciao!!

Living Light

Yesterday I drove up to San Francisco and spent the night with my friend Kristen and her husband in the city. We went to Cafe Gratitude for a raw vegan feast and mini shopping spree (I got a very exotic bottle of Palestinian olive oil...among other things).






This morning I drove up the coast to Ft. Bragg to start my culinary adventure. I'm settled into my very quaint room at the Living Light Inn and getting acquainted with my new roomie, a German/Japanese interpreter who is very cool (I have Only Child Syndrome so I was having anxiety attacks thinking about who I was going to be living with). I registered for my classes and now just looking over the curriculum for the next seven days. Looking around, I still can't believe I'm here. I've been dreaming about coming here for the past year and a half. I'm actually a little nervous that the fickle Gemini that I am will head into another career path like I do every couple of years. Right now, though, it feels really right to be here. My heart is on board with my brain for a change so I'm just going to try and be present in the moment and not worry about what I'll do with my certification when I'm done. At the very least, Matt is going to eat well the rest of his life.

Wish You Were Here

I lost you fourteen years ago today.



Miss you, mom.

Home At Last

Sunday night I returned to California with fun memories, great experiences, tons of luggage and a massive hangover. That's pretty much the way every NYC trip ends but this one went much longer than I had anticipated. It went from a six week internship to a three and a half month adventure. After I had finished working at Bonobo's I decided to stick around and sign up with Innovative Artists and Ugly Talent to see if I could do in NY what I do in LA. I booked a Reebok and a Nationwide Insurance print campaign which is not bad for a newbie to the scene but was hoping for more commercial auditions which are, unfortunately, few on the east coast. Nevertheless, it was nice to see that I can book jobs on both coasts and an impetus for me to come back next year. Matt and I will be doing some apartment shopping out there next summer but for now I've got plenty of projects to complete so I'll be hunkering down at home with studies, music and screenplay writing.

A few of my favorite things that I will miss:
My flat


McCarren Park Pool


Moto


Walks over the Williamsburg bridge


Cruising around the neighborhood


Roebling Tea Room - my favorite brunch spot


It was such a cool experience to finally live and work in my favorite city in the world. It was hard to stay home and study when there was so much going on in the city. Almost too much going on. I think I stayed home about a dozen times the entire time and it was only because it was raining or I was exhausted from the night before (explains why I haven't blogged in 2 months). Definitely looking forward to going back when the weather warms up and I've accomplished what I need to do here. Hoping to finish the Scouts record over the holidays and then raw culinary school early next year. Either that or riding Matt's coat tails over to Europe again next year. We shall see...

Grease Lightning!

Matt and I are the new proud owners of our very own veggie mobile. This 1981 Mercedes runs on diesel, biodiesel and vegetable oil and with its extra large tank can go 700 miles on one tank. The guy we bought it from hasn't paid for gas in 10 years! He also told us which restaurants around Long Beach we can procure some grease lightning (the smell is pretty potent though...expect major french fry cravings when we come around). We are planning on replacing both of our cars with veg burners and expecting to save around $6000 in gas per year. It makes me so happy to be driving a clean, green machine but it makes me even happier to stick it to the Man! Take that Big Oil!!

NYC So Far

It's been almost three weeks since I arrived here and I'm amazed at how fast it has gone by. Seems like I just got here yet I've done quite a bit. The first four days I used just to catch up with friends and get settled in. The six days after that I spent training at Bonobo's. It's been an eye opening experience to say the least. I've never worked in a restaurant before and, well, never had to deal with so many rude people in one day. New Yorkers are CRAZY. I'm at Madison and E. 23rd which I thought was a pretty mild mannered business area but for some reason it seems to be a weirdo vortex. Maybe it's because we're right in front of Madison Square Park which can be a little sketchy in the evening. Yesterday a guy high on heroin started lunging at people on the sidewalk. Luckily, I was on the opposite side of him and slipped out of danger. Anyway, I've learned a lot about the raw food restaurant business and realize it's not for me. I'd much rather be a personal chef and work with individuals than try to please hundreds of hungry people every day. I'm only working three days a week there now for the rest of the month and then I'm done. On my off days I'm studying and writing new songs. Matt was here for three days last week so we visited as many raw food places as we could and walked around the city fantasizing about where we would want to live if we could afford a place here. I absolutely love it here and would love to spend half the year here and half in California. I don't do winter so you will not see me out here with snow shoes but the summer is fantastic. I don't mind the heat and humidity. My skin looks so great, no wrinkles! woot!