Living Foods Saved my Marriage
I have been asked to do an article by a friend about Raw Food and the effect it can have an the life of an individual. As you will see from previous entries, I am well aware of the influence diet can have on what we do and how we act, so thought it would be an interesting exercise to consider this in a potentially real-life situation, rather than the 'Q&A/comment' style that most lazy journalism follows. I hope you find it interesting. Check out this blog for some further thoughts and the website of Silvia Clausin, who was kind enough to recruit me to contribute. Needless to say, the recipes are all hers.
LIVING FOODS SAVED MY MARRIAGE
I have a confession to make. This Valentine’s Day will mark the beginning of the third year of my marriage and I think it’s going to be the last. It’s hard to admit it, and I know this isn’t a simple thing to say, but it’s going stale. It’s not like we don’t like each other or don’t talk to each other, but in terms of physical attraction, forget about it. We haven’t had sex in four months, I don’t think I’ve kissed her in two, and I don’t miss it. I’m not interested. I don’t care, and I don’t think she does either.
Now as I understand from the countless copies of Marie Clare that litter our bathroom, there are many reasons for a loss of desire for your partner. Stress, children, work, boredom...downright hatred, infidelity, the reasons go on and on, but when I sat back and thought about it none of these applied to my marriage. Our reason was different, more unique, more complicated. We have gone stale for a reason that they haven’t thought of, and this reason is food.
In the first year of our marriage we always cooked for each other, and I mean properly cooked. Two hours in the kitchen, chopping, brazing, marinating and sautéing. We’d share our dinner with a glass of wine, talk about our days, watch a bit of TV and then go to bed and make love. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and I’d like to think she felt the equivalent about me. However, for no reason in particular, a few months ago this stopped. I’m not sure why - maybe we just got lazy, or complacent - but our cuisine slipped from high class evening dining to grease-laden drunken sludge fests. From Leek and Taleggio Risotto and Lamb Cutlets with Daphinoise, it became microwave curries, takeaway pizzas, or sausage and chips if we were lucky. It was at the same time that this change took place that our desire for each other began to slip.
I can see the moment now, a horrible wet November night when we shared a mutual greasy Chinese together, then both fell asleep on opposite sides of the sofa, full up and lethargic from all the grease and overcooked rice. For me that night is a sad reflection of what our feelings have descended to over the last few months.
Anyway, from today I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m going to do something about it. I still love my wife and I‘m sure she still loves me and I’m sure we can find this again somewhere. So this Valentine’s Day I am going to make her dinner once again, and a proper dinner as well, something different, something that is going to give our relationship a shot in the arm, because as far as I’m concerned we have this dinner to save our marriage. That is how important this meal is.
The big question is what? What is the food that is going to change our perception of each other from pieces of human furniture propping up the sofa for an evening, to lustful teenagers unable to keep our tongues away from each other for longer than thirty seconds? What can I use? What can I make that will return this desire to us, and that will keep it with us for longer than just a few moments of hopeful longing?
I asked my male friends down the pub:
‘Rohitnol?’ one suggested.
‘Red wine?’ another thought.
‘Lots of flowers and some Chris De Burgh,’ said a third who is no longer my friend.
‘Oysters,’ said the young barmaid categorically. ‘All women love oysters. They’re quite sexy to eat. Oysters, strawberries, cream and baileys. And figs.’
I stared at her and her worryingly assured teenage eyes. If she thought this, a girl of her age, than she must be right. Nineteen year olds have a way of simplifying things after all. Yet...yet would it really work. Was it that simple – foods that looks a bit like penises and vaginas, or semen?
I woke up that morning with a hangover and lay in bed, thinking it over and over:
‘Why are we eating why we are? Is it because we’re comfortable, way too comfortable with each other. Is it the culinary equivalent of going to the toilet while she’s in the shower?’
‘What is wrong with the food we eat? Its fatty, it’s processed, it gives us no energy, it numbs our brain, it makes me feel depressed. It doesn’t even taste that good. It’s just simple and easy.’
‘What will one night of Oysters and Bananas change? I wasn’t sure. Not much. We’d feel a bit stupid. We might have a bit of forced drunken sex and then that would be it, it’d be straight back to Sausage Casserole again.’
We needed something that we could stay with and something completely different at the same time. It had to make us feel alive, to make our bodies want more than to sleep and shit and sit on the sofa.
Then, as I flicked another magazine on the toilet minutes later it came to me:
‘FOOD COMES ALIVE!
Raw Vegan Silvia Clausin tells of the possibilities of a diet of organic, simple foods, brought locally and kept in their natural living state:
“Your body gets what it really needs, rather than it what it thinks it wants. Processed foods, junk food, they convince us that they are satisfying when they are not. To become what they can be our bodies need as much goodness from food as possible, not just a quick fix of additives and preservatives and that is what the Living Food diet can give you. Since I started I feel totally different – my mind is clear, my body is energised, even my sex drive has improved!’
Living foods? Living foods? What was this mad woman talking about?
‘It’s true honestly,’ she continues. ‘If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself.’
‘Bog off,’ I thought, and flushed the toilet for the third time.
However, for the rest of the day it continued to play on my mind. Suddenly my Cornish Pastie didn’t taste so good at lunch. Why did that woman munching on her Feta salad look so happy? Was that a spot appearing on my face? What about a chocolate bar? I love chocolate bars, or...or do I?
The more I thought the more confused I became. Why was I eating what I was? Why was I so anti this whole vegan thing? What was wrong with trying something different just to see what happened? I only ate what I did out of habit after all, why couldn’t I change that? If it didn’t work I could just eat something else. It was my life after all; I could do what I wanted. Anything had to better than where I was at the moment, letting TV dinners slosh around my stomach, ruining my life and my marriage.
‘Caroline,’ I said to my wife as we sat down to dinner that evening in front of some programme about how to look good with no clothes on. ‘You know it’s Valentine’s Day this Saturday?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, staring at the TV screen.
‘Well, how about I cook for us in the evening? Make something nice, you know, like we used to.’
‘Yes,’ she said, fondling a plate of Singapore Noodles. ’Yes, okay. Now pass the remote could you?’
That was it. There was no doubt about it. Our lives needed something different, drastically different , we were heading directly down to divorce, obesity and cardiac arrest. We didn’t need a quick fix; we’d been doing that for the last five months. We needed a lifestyle choice.
I consulted Sylvia’s website, wondering what hellish, nut-filled monstrosities would await, however it didn’t look too bad. She’d produced a Valentines Menu for start, making me wonder if perhaps more people had the same idea.
Valentine Menu
Entrée
Beetroot and pate ravioli
1 beetroot (peeled and thinly sliced with mandolin) ( 8 good slices)
½ cup of sunflower seeds (soaked)
1 Tsp of miso (unpasteurized)
2 Tsp of olive oil
1 Tsp of rosemary (fresh)
2 Tsp thyme (fresh)
½ cup of water
1 garlic (grated with the small grater)
Process all the ingredients well except for the beetroot and a few leaves of thyme, when you have a pate-like consistency make it into 1 inch balls and place it in the middle of the sliced beetroot. Decorate with the thyme leaves and drops of olive oil.
Salad
¼ of a juicy lemon (juiced)
2 Tsp of vanilla infused oil*
Pinch of salt flakes
1 cup of watercress
1 chicory
2 dried figs (chopped)
2 Tsp of dried cranberry (sweetened with apple juice)
Walnuts (soaked overnight and chopped)
Chop the end of the chicory so you can take the leaves without breaking them, take the ten bigger ones or so and place them in a round flat salad dish. Mix the oil, lemon juice and dried fruits. Chop the rest of the chicory and toss in a bowl with the watercress. Just before serving mix in the bowl the dressing then place it all on top of the chicory leaves in the flat plate and sprinkle the rose petals and salt flakes on top.
To infuse vanilla oil put olive oil in a small bottle and inside a vanilla bean, leave it in the window seal for a few days so the light goes through and impregnates the oil with the vanilla flavour.
Main dish
Risotto with apple curry sauce and
1 cup of cauliflower
1 parsnip
1 cup of almonds
1 yellow apple
4 Tsp olive oil
pinch of salt
2 Tsp of curry sauce
1 clove of garlic
1 lemon
1 Tsp of ginger
2 Tsp of minced basil (save a couple of leaves to decorate)
4 medium Chestnut mushrooms (laminated)
4 Tsp of white misso
4 unbleached dried apricots (chopped)
Green leaves
Process the cauliflower, parsnip and almonds until they have the same size as rice (more or less). Add the white miso, basil and a Tbsp of oil and add to the mix. Make the apple curry blending well the apple, oil, curry sauce, garlic, lemon and ginger. Place the risotto mix in a small bowl or round mould if you have it, press it in well and then put a plate on top and turn upside-down, now the risotto should have the shape of the mould. Then place the mushrooms and dried apricots on top and the green leaves around or by its side. Cover graciously with the curry.
Pudding
Almond and honey ice-cream topped with violets
2 cups of soaked almonds
1 1/2 cups of water
¼ tsp of sea salt
½ cup of honey
1 whole vanilla bean (open it and extract the seeds)
a few violet flowers
Blend the almonds with the water well until it looks like pulp, then strain it with a cheese cloth. Pour it back in the blender and add the rest of the ingredients except for the violet flowers. Pour the creamy liquid in an ice-cream maker* and follow the instructions. Scope it in a nice cup and decorate with violets and honey.
Much to my surprise I actually knew where most if these ingredients were in the supermarket. Not all of them I grant you that - I mean what on earth was misso? - but in general it seemed relatively simple to put together, even to someone like myself who hadn’t made a proper meal for three months. At least I didn’t have to cook anything.
So on the evening of Valentine’s Day 2009 I served up the whole menu as appears above. We sat a table, with a glass of wine each and we talked, mainly about what we were eating. The TV was off and the radio was off. I didn’t want any interruptions. It was us and the food, and the results were even better than I’d hoped.
‘So what is this?’ Caroline asked me, tucking into a second helping of Ravioli.
‘It’s Beetroot and...’ I began, before thinking better of it. ‘It’s a totally new way of making ravioli.’
‘Oh,’ she said, looking at me with a concerned smile. ’It’s really...really quite nice.’
Then as we tucked into the main course.
‘So...so you haven’t cooked anything?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all. I’m trying to keep the food in its most natural state, to ensure none of its goodness is lost.’
‘Yes,’ she said, with more excitement this time. ‘Yes. It’s a bit of a different experience eating it like this, but...but its good. Different.’
‘Different, but good?’
‘Yes. It’s nice, really nice.’
I could see uncertainty ebbing away from her face, and her eyes beginning to glint as she looked at me from over the table.
‘More wine?’ I asked.
‘Yes please.’
‘We’ve got ice cream coming for pudding.’
So yes, as it turned out, the evening was a success and Valentine’s day marked a new point in the happy marriage of myself and Caroline.
Oh and don’t think for a moment I‘m some surreptitious Vegan propaganda-merchant here. I’m not, I promise. I still have the occasional Cornish Pastie for dinner. Caroline and I still get a takeaway ever Friday night, but we also eat a lot of Living Foods at the same time. It doesn’t dominate our lives. We haven’t wasted away. We don’t knit out own jumpers. We are just normal human beings who like to eat differently now and then. And yes, now you’ve asked we do have sex once in a while and it’s just as good as I remember it.
I guess that’s the thing about food, it’s always important not to just take it for granted. Think about it once in a while, and think about what you can try that’s different. Don’t get bogged down like I did. Try and keep things fresh and certainly never let things go stale. I don’t necessarily think that it was all the good things in the meal that I cooked for Caroline that evening that made the difference, but it was the sense of difference, the trepidation of trying something new and the exhilaration of tastes and flavours we’d never had before, that really did change us for good, and now we’ll never look back.
Living food may not be for you, but I promise it’s worth a try. It is certainly better than food with no life at all.
LIVING FOODS SAVED MY MARRIAGE
I have a confession to make. This Valentine’s Day will mark the beginning of the third year of my marriage and I think it’s going to be the last. It’s hard to admit it, and I know this isn’t a simple thing to say, but it’s going stale. It’s not like we don’t like each other or don’t talk to each other, but in terms of physical attraction, forget about it. We haven’t had sex in four months, I don’t think I’ve kissed her in two, and I don’t miss it. I’m not interested. I don’t care, and I don’t think she does either.
Now as I understand from the countless copies of Marie Clare that litter our bathroom, there are many reasons for a loss of desire for your partner. Stress, children, work, boredom...downright hatred, infidelity, the reasons go on and on, but when I sat back and thought about it none of these applied to my marriage. Our reason was different, more unique, more complicated. We have gone stale for a reason that they haven’t thought of, and this reason is food.
In the first year of our marriage we always cooked for each other, and I mean properly cooked. Two hours in the kitchen, chopping, brazing, marinating and sautéing. We’d share our dinner with a glass of wine, talk about our days, watch a bit of TV and then go to bed and make love. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and I’d like to think she felt the equivalent about me. However, for no reason in particular, a few months ago this stopped. I’m not sure why - maybe we just got lazy, or complacent - but our cuisine slipped from high class evening dining to grease-laden drunken sludge fests. From Leek and Taleggio Risotto and Lamb Cutlets with Daphinoise, it became microwave curries, takeaway pizzas, or sausage and chips if we were lucky. It was at the same time that this change took place that our desire for each other began to slip.
I can see the moment now, a horrible wet November night when we shared a mutual greasy Chinese together, then both fell asleep on opposite sides of the sofa, full up and lethargic from all the grease and overcooked rice. For me that night is a sad reflection of what our feelings have descended to over the last few months.
Anyway, from today I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m going to do something about it. I still love my wife and I‘m sure she still loves me and I’m sure we can find this again somewhere. So this Valentine’s Day I am going to make her dinner once again, and a proper dinner as well, something different, something that is going to give our relationship a shot in the arm, because as far as I’m concerned we have this dinner to save our marriage. That is how important this meal is.
The big question is what? What is the food that is going to change our perception of each other from pieces of human furniture propping up the sofa for an evening, to lustful teenagers unable to keep our tongues away from each other for longer than thirty seconds? What can I use? What can I make that will return this desire to us, and that will keep it with us for longer than just a few moments of hopeful longing?
I asked my male friends down the pub:
‘Rohitnol?’ one suggested.
‘Red wine?’ another thought.
‘Lots of flowers and some Chris De Burgh,’ said a third who is no longer my friend.
‘Oysters,’ said the young barmaid categorically. ‘All women love oysters. They’re quite sexy to eat. Oysters, strawberries, cream and baileys. And figs.’
I stared at her and her worryingly assured teenage eyes. If she thought this, a girl of her age, than she must be right. Nineteen year olds have a way of simplifying things after all. Yet...yet would it really work. Was it that simple – foods that looks a bit like penises and vaginas, or semen?
I woke up that morning with a hangover and lay in bed, thinking it over and over:
‘Why are we eating why we are? Is it because we’re comfortable, way too comfortable with each other. Is it the culinary equivalent of going to the toilet while she’s in the shower?’
‘What is wrong with the food we eat? Its fatty, it’s processed, it gives us no energy, it numbs our brain, it makes me feel depressed. It doesn’t even taste that good. It’s just simple and easy.’
‘What will one night of Oysters and Bananas change? I wasn’t sure. Not much. We’d feel a bit stupid. We might have a bit of forced drunken sex and then that would be it, it’d be straight back to Sausage Casserole again.’
We needed something that we could stay with and something completely different at the same time. It had to make us feel alive, to make our bodies want more than to sleep and shit and sit on the sofa.
Then, as I flicked another magazine on the toilet minutes later it came to me:
‘FOOD COMES ALIVE!
Raw Vegan Silvia Clausin tells of the possibilities of a diet of organic, simple foods, brought locally and kept in their natural living state:
“Your body gets what it really needs, rather than it what it thinks it wants. Processed foods, junk food, they convince us that they are satisfying when they are not. To become what they can be our bodies need as much goodness from food as possible, not just a quick fix of additives and preservatives and that is what the Living Food diet can give you. Since I started I feel totally different – my mind is clear, my body is energised, even my sex drive has improved!’
Living foods? Living foods? What was this mad woman talking about?
‘It’s true honestly,’ she continues. ‘If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself.’
‘Bog off,’ I thought, and flushed the toilet for the third time.
However, for the rest of the day it continued to play on my mind. Suddenly my Cornish Pastie didn’t taste so good at lunch. Why did that woman munching on her Feta salad look so happy? Was that a spot appearing on my face? What about a chocolate bar? I love chocolate bars, or...or do I?
The more I thought the more confused I became. Why was I eating what I was? Why was I so anti this whole vegan thing? What was wrong with trying something different just to see what happened? I only ate what I did out of habit after all, why couldn’t I change that? If it didn’t work I could just eat something else. It was my life after all; I could do what I wanted. Anything had to better than where I was at the moment, letting TV dinners slosh around my stomach, ruining my life and my marriage.
‘Caroline,’ I said to my wife as we sat down to dinner that evening in front of some programme about how to look good with no clothes on. ‘You know it’s Valentine’s Day this Saturday?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, staring at the TV screen.
‘Well, how about I cook for us in the evening? Make something nice, you know, like we used to.’
‘Yes,’ she said, fondling a plate of Singapore Noodles. ’Yes, okay. Now pass the remote could you?’
That was it. There was no doubt about it. Our lives needed something different, drastically different , we were heading directly down to divorce, obesity and cardiac arrest. We didn’t need a quick fix; we’d been doing that for the last five months. We needed a lifestyle choice.
I consulted Sylvia’s website, wondering what hellish, nut-filled monstrosities would await, however it didn’t look too bad. She’d produced a Valentines Menu for start, making me wonder if perhaps more people had the same idea.
Valentine Menu
Entrée
Beetroot and pate ravioli
1 beetroot (peeled and thinly sliced with mandolin) ( 8 good slices)
½ cup of sunflower seeds (soaked)
1 Tsp of miso (unpasteurized)
2 Tsp of olive oil
1 Tsp of rosemary (fresh)
2 Tsp thyme (fresh)
½ cup of water
1 garlic (grated with the small grater)
Process all the ingredients well except for the beetroot and a few leaves of thyme, when you have a pate-like consistency make it into 1 inch balls and place it in the middle of the sliced beetroot. Decorate with the thyme leaves and drops of olive oil.
Salad
¼ of a juicy lemon (juiced)
2 Tsp of vanilla infused oil*
Pinch of salt flakes
1 cup of watercress
1 chicory
2 dried figs (chopped)
2 Tsp of dried cranberry (sweetened with apple juice)
Walnuts (soaked overnight and chopped)
Chop the end of the chicory so you can take the leaves without breaking them, take the ten bigger ones or so and place them in a round flat salad dish. Mix the oil, lemon juice and dried fruits. Chop the rest of the chicory and toss in a bowl with the watercress. Just before serving mix in the bowl the dressing then place it all on top of the chicory leaves in the flat plate and sprinkle the rose petals and salt flakes on top.
To infuse vanilla oil put olive oil in a small bottle and inside a vanilla bean, leave it in the window seal for a few days so the light goes through and impregnates the oil with the vanilla flavour.
Main dish
Risotto with apple curry sauce and
1 cup of cauliflower
1 parsnip
1 cup of almonds
1 yellow apple
4 Tsp olive oil
pinch of salt
2 Tsp of curry sauce
1 clove of garlic
1 lemon
1 Tsp of ginger
2 Tsp of minced basil (save a couple of leaves to decorate)
4 medium Chestnut mushrooms (laminated)
4 Tsp of white misso
4 unbleached dried apricots (chopped)
Green leaves
Process the cauliflower, parsnip and almonds until they have the same size as rice (more or less). Add the white miso, basil and a Tbsp of oil and add to the mix. Make the apple curry blending well the apple, oil, curry sauce, garlic, lemon and ginger. Place the risotto mix in a small bowl or round mould if you have it, press it in well and then put a plate on top and turn upside-down, now the risotto should have the shape of the mould. Then place the mushrooms and dried apricots on top and the green leaves around or by its side. Cover graciously with the curry.
Pudding
Almond and honey ice-cream topped with violets
2 cups of soaked almonds
1 1/2 cups of water
¼ tsp of sea salt
½ cup of honey
1 whole vanilla bean (open it and extract the seeds)
a few violet flowers
Blend the almonds with the water well until it looks like pulp, then strain it with a cheese cloth. Pour it back in the blender and add the rest of the ingredients except for the violet flowers. Pour the creamy liquid in an ice-cream maker* and follow the instructions. Scope it in a nice cup and decorate with violets and honey.
Much to my surprise I actually knew where most if these ingredients were in the supermarket. Not all of them I grant you that - I mean what on earth was misso? - but in general it seemed relatively simple to put together, even to someone like myself who hadn’t made a proper meal for three months. At least I didn’t have to cook anything.
So on the evening of Valentine’s Day 2009 I served up the whole menu as appears above. We sat a table, with a glass of wine each and we talked, mainly about what we were eating. The TV was off and the radio was off. I didn’t want any interruptions. It was us and the food, and the results were even better than I’d hoped.
‘So what is this?’ Caroline asked me, tucking into a second helping of Ravioli.
‘It’s Beetroot and...’ I began, before thinking better of it. ‘It’s a totally new way of making ravioli.’
‘Oh,’ she said, looking at me with a concerned smile. ’It’s really...really quite nice.’
Then as we tucked into the main course.
‘So...so you haven’t cooked anything?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all. I’m trying to keep the food in its most natural state, to ensure none of its goodness is lost.’
‘Yes,’ she said, with more excitement this time. ‘Yes. It’s a bit of a different experience eating it like this, but...but its good. Different.’
‘Different, but good?’
‘Yes. It’s nice, really nice.’
I could see uncertainty ebbing away from her face, and her eyes beginning to glint as she looked at me from over the table.
‘More wine?’ I asked.
‘Yes please.’
‘We’ve got ice cream coming for pudding.’
So yes, as it turned out, the evening was a success and Valentine’s day marked a new point in the happy marriage of myself and Caroline.
Oh and don’t think for a moment I‘m some surreptitious Vegan propaganda-merchant here. I’m not, I promise. I still have the occasional Cornish Pastie for dinner. Caroline and I still get a takeaway ever Friday night, but we also eat a lot of Living Foods at the same time. It doesn’t dominate our lives. We haven’t wasted away. We don’t knit out own jumpers. We are just normal human beings who like to eat differently now and then. And yes, now you’ve asked we do have sex once in a while and it’s just as good as I remember it.
I guess that’s the thing about food, it’s always important not to just take it for granted. Think about it once in a while, and think about what you can try that’s different. Don’t get bogged down like I did. Try and keep things fresh and certainly never let things go stale. I don’t necessarily think that it was all the good things in the meal that I cooked for Caroline that evening that made the difference, but it was the sense of difference, the trepidation of trying something new and the exhilaration of tastes and flavours we’d never had before, that really did change us for good, and now we’ll never look back.
Living food may not be for you, but I promise it’s worth a try. It is certainly better than food with no life at all.
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