Raw Food Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow [Hardcover]

Two years ago I re-aquainted myself with the tenets of raw food, starting with Leslie Kenton who convinced me back in the mid 1980's. Many of my life and food choices changed with that. However, over the next 20 years my love of cooking became just that - cooking, with occasional forays into raw food again when I needed to lose weight/feel better. While holidaying in the US around 2000 I found "Juliano" who has been heralded with kick-starting the raw food movement there (with celebrity endorsements such as Demi Moore) but many of his recipes are very west-coast US specific with an emphasis on Mexican ingredients and mixing sweet and savoury things together which aren't to my taste. It inspired me with lots of everyday food but still didn't give me what I needed to provide a sophisticated "wow" when entertaining.

Back in the US for another year I realised I now looked like a local and needed to do something drastically to change. I turned first to Leslie Kenton who has updated her books, menus and recipes - hooray, inspiration to lose weight (20 pounds in 6 months thank you, I look and feel great). BUT I was stymied when entertaining..... then I found RAW FOOD REAL WORLD, oh man, this knocked my socks off. This is a raw food restaurant in NY city and I'm itching to go there one day. The book provides the WOW factor with the most astonishing combination of foods that we regularly entertain guests with. It is all vegan - not that you'd know it from the pictures - and please, don't let that put you off. This is not a tofu and beans book by any means, it is truly one of the most inspirational food books I've ever read and "cooked" from.

Try the Lasagne. This is thinly-sliced herb-marinated courgette strips separating layers of fluffy pine-nut ricotta, sun-dried tomato sauce with lush ripe tomatoes and basil pesto. This never fails to get a "WOW... what are we eating... can we have the recipe?"

Or how about the carrot coconut coriander soup with lots of raw carrot juice - oh, it's delicious. The desserts are divine, easy (enough) and are extraordinary. We had a low-alcohol guest to dinner last week and found a fabulous recipe for a pineapple/lemongrass juice that we added a sparkling ginger and lemongrass drink to. It was a terrific alternative to the champagne we served that everyone wanted to drink.

It must be remembered that this book contains recipes from a restaurant - not "Mum's kitchen". The quantities have been sensibly reduced but equipment like: food processor, blender, fruit/vegetable juicer, mandolin, sharp professional knives and dehydrator are often required. If you don't have a dehydrator replace items with crackers, purchased dried vegetables, butter pastry etc. The benefits aren't the same from purely raw and dehydrated food but this food is so different and interesting it's easy and fun to find ready-made alternatives. A glossary is included for the weirder-sounding ingredients but a local organic/whole-foods type store often stocks many of these or substitutes. Or, we just make our own, eg. need lime oil? We used macadamia oil with bashed lime zest and soaked overnight. Brilliant! (Not us, the inspiration!)

Often we need a lighter starter and main to go with a killer River Cafe dessert cake (definitely not vegan) - raw food meals are perfect without the predictability of salads.

This book is not for the starter in either raw foods or food preparation but if you desire raw food sophistication, love experimenting and preparing, or just love a talking piece, this book is to live (healthily) for.

Their sentiment is sound and the writing style invigorating. I've tried a number of recipes but tend to go for the simpler ones bc of the time to a)soak and b)dehydrate involved for many of the dishes.

The greatest problem for us raw vegans in the UK is sourcing - whilst they list US websites, they don't do similar for the UK and I've only had partial success finding even half the ingredients they talk about.

So be warned!

2 Weeks ago, before heading for my first trip to N.Y., which should include a dinner at PURE FOOD AND WINE, I finally ordered the book, though I swore myself to not buy any further raw food cooking books (the ones I own are more than enough).

The dinner at PURE FOOD AND WINE was impossible to describe. I had the highest expectations, but what we experienced was really overwhelming!!

My husband really was freaking out about the delicious food!!! We couldn't believe it was raw!!

When we came home the book was in front of our house door and it is our most loved souvenir now. But in fact it is the most beautiful book on raw foods I own. It's done in such an outstanding high quality layout/photos/texts/graphics, that you really will love to take it in your hands. The recipes are wonderful and vary from dummy-easy to a bit more complicated, but doable. If I had to choose only one raw-book to keep, it would definitely be this one!