[warning: rant included. i'm not good at rants, and if you want jolly fun times, except for maybe a picture of some bandaged fingers, skip everything between the ** demarcations.]

for some reason, even though it’s gotten mighty chilly here and i usually want warm foods, i have been craving raw. i live across the street from a raw vegan restaurant called ecopolitan that makes this amazing “spicy thai noodles” dish that i based this off of. it definitely didn’t taste the same, but i really liked what i came up with.

i’ve never really made raw food before besides the obvious salad, **even though i have a copy of raw food real world in my cookbook shelf. i bought it because the person helping me told me it was the most popular, and initally i just wanted some good nut cheese recipes when i was first going vegan. this book is totally gross and i haven’t picked it up in a long time, mostly because of the cover, the non-food pictures, and the didactic writing (with bonus love story!) about how “pure” you have to be to experience all the benefits of raw diets to “get the glow” (which is apparently something you can recognize in other people when you’ve gone totally raw). some of the recipes take two days to make, and many of them require some pretty expensive equipment and ingredients (checked the price on raw nuts lately?). while i definitely know the benefits of going raw, or even just upping one’s intake of raw fruits and vegetables, i firmly believe that this lifestyle, as presented in this book, is classist, elitist, and totally off-putting. while there is mention of certain items being expensive, there is no suggestion of how exclusionary this diet, full-time, is for most people on a financial and time basis. the authors are clearly well off (they spent two weeks at their beach house to go raw and detox) and have a lot of idle time to ponder the interesting dilemma of discussing with their architect how to design an oven-less kitchen. what makes me even sicker is that i’ve read all this. recently a made the great suggestion that i throw away the paper cover jacket, which has helped me feel less embarrassed and angsty when i see it. and i recently referred to it to make some really tasty vanilla nut milks, and consider some nut cheese recipes. i like raw food (salads are delicious!), i just don’t always like the gourmet, foofoo/foufou lifestyle often attached to it via cookbooks, even though i am aware of my implications in it with some of the ingredients i splashed out on for this recipe. i’m only human. but at least i am aware of my hypocrisy.** anyway, on to the tasty food.

first, the ingredients:

i set about making noodles out of my daikon radish, carrots, and zucchini with my totally amazing (read crappy and overpriced kitchenaid) mandoline. like an idiot, i decided i could pass the veggies through without the awkward and annoying holder. the result:

i was still getting fresh crimson blood on my forefinger leaking out the bandaid three hours later.

i made a tahini-cayenne dressing with ginger, fresh squeezed lemon, lime, and satsumas, and poured it over the noodles:

the ecopolitan menu description mentioned a cucumber-jalapeno sauce. i made something up.

the above sauce also included some fresh coconut water. this was my first experience cracking open a coconut. the delicious meat will feature later:

say hello to feijoa!

this was not in the dish i’d eaten, but while picking up some extra ingredients at the co-op, these caught my eye. feijoa originate in south america and are also referred to as guava-pineapple. they grow on a type of evergreen tree. it’s really hard to describe the scent and flavor, kind of like citrus fruit and kind of like pine cones. but i liked them!

feijoa and pineapple, cut:

i put the dressed noodles in a bowl, topped with the cucumber-jalapeno sauce, sprinkled on some chopped cilantro, tossed the fruit on top, and finished it with shredded coconut and almonds:

then i used the remaining coconut meat and water with some pineapple and feijoa to make a pina colada:
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this was all really really good! immediately my nose started running and it really felt like i was being cleaned out on the inside. though i’m curled up under a blanket and planning on something warm for dinner!