City folks eat for free

There has been an excitement growing in me as the summer has progressed. I really want to share my reason for this with you.

Can you keep a secret ?

I eat for free!

Ok,, you may be wondering WHO is feeding me .. free ??

Yup.. free! I just walk up the street and plums literally fall in my path. Ta da!

Know , if I did not know this was an edible plum, I may have just walked right by. But, I had my spider senses in full activation that day. The plum was a japanese plum. They are pretty hard to see in the tree because the leaves and the plums are the same colour.

Here are some great finds I have found this week alone!

In my next post, I will tell you how you too, can start foraging for food. Even if you live in the city !

Banana Split

Last Thursday we had a class on making Raw Banana Splits at Planet Organic in Victoria BC.

The class was awesome!!

We had many people return from other days, and had some new people who came up to me and said..

 " EJ, we were told to come to these classes because they are SO good!! I Loved your class.. thank you !"

I must admit, I find it spectacular when people get so much good out of my classes, that they want to share them with others!  

Here are some pictures of the LIKENESS of the Banana Split we made! We were so busy teaching and showing that we forgot to take pictures.

The next day, I made this one at home.. we don't happen to have any banana split bowls. So I used what we had. A martini glass!

It was a super hot day here on the Island, and the ice cream started to melt pronto! 

This one is made with 

Strawberry Ice Cream

Fresh Raspberry Coulis

Chocolate Sauce

Chopped Walnuts 

and 

A fresh Cherry

It was sooo good. I did not even finish the photo shoot of it before I started to eat up the chocolate coating, which got all crunchy and yummy! 

Raw Banana Split Class

Tomorrow Is BANANA SPLIT DAY

The plans are all in place
Chef EJ ( ME!) will be teaching this class with my lovely assistant Dani to help out .
Thurs. July 16
6:30 -7:30 pm
Planet Organic
Mckenzie Ave and Quadra St.
Victoria BC

You will learn how to make a scrumptious guilt free... RAW Banana Split
These Recipes will be shown at the class and you will be given the print outs of them too!

Super Fast and Easy Chocolate Ice Cream
Chocolate Sauce
Raspberry Coulis

So tell all your friends, and Join us at this FREE class! YUMMY!!!!

Treasures to be found !!

I have been taking the time to really get to know my neighbourhood by foot the last few weeks.

Since I live in an area where there are many coves, I have been finding the very coolest flowers and places.

These beautiful Lavender I used to make some Lavender Cashew Creme. I did not use very much lavender, but boy! How supremely strong they are in a bit of creme! Especially when just picked.

I took the picture by a cove that I found at the dead end of a street. Getting down the rocks so I could be closer to the water was pretty tricky. As it turned out, there were so many bushes with prickles on them towards the water, ( and a pretty steep drop off) .. .I just decided to stay up where I was! You can see how beautiful it is though.

The Pink Flowers are from the Motherwort Plant. These are the only motherwort I have seen in Victoria. I was talking to a friend at the a raw pot luck recently, and she said she had found some here. Confidently, I told her it was the wrong climate on the west coast for it. She was pretty adamant, and I look silly now! Thanks Dianna,, for setting me straight!Motherwort used to grow like a weed in our garden when we lived in Toronto! Actually , many people think it IS a weed! And my neighbour there suggested I keep the kids away from it, because he was SURE it was stinging nettle. But it has very powerful medicinal properties for helping women before and after childbirth as well as other stages of a woman's life.

You can read more about the amazing benefits of it here

Very Tall and spiky , thistles are either blooming or just about to bloom as you can see in this picture here.

There are a number of varieties of thistle, sow thistle, bull thistle and Milk thistle to name a few. I don't know what this one is exactly, but it was pretty! Please comment and let me know!

The fantastic orange flowers are from the Nasturtium plant. You can eat the petals. My daughter tried them the other day, and very carefully tasted one petal. Her discovery ? Pretty spicy!! They are great to add colour to salads.

I thought the white parts of the leaves looked liked stars!

Have a walk around your neighbourhood, see what you can find!

Then, come and comment on what you have found. Share with the rest of us.

A conclusive decision

I love making desserts. I love taking pictures of the desserts I make. I love making raw chocolate and all things that have raw chocolate in them.

I have decided that THESE are the things, which I LOVE that I am going to put more of my energy into,, since it is so much Fun!

Today, Dani and I made some awesome Raw Chocolate and used very pretty molds to make it looks so special.

Soooo.. there will be MORE desserts posted, MORE chocolate pics, and even some recipes.
I am writing a raw cookbook now, and these photos will be in it,, and recipes for them too.

Yesterday Dani made an amazing Chocolate Cake with Banana Chocolate Ice Cream in the middle.

She went out to take some pics, and when she was just finishing, I came out to take some too.

I could have sworn she said..'I'll be right back, I am just going to download these pictures'. So.. I took a few shots, then got distracted by the amazing holes in the cherry leaves above my head, and waited... and waited.. and waited for Dani to come back!

When I turned to take more pictures of the cake, it seemed the top middle was sitting lower than I had remembered. So I took MORE pictures, as this was pretty cool.

I finally brought the cake inside and saw Dani at the computer, downloading her pics. I asked why she did not come back.. she said she had told me that she was done. She also said, since the cake was filled with ice cream, she was not too surprised it was sinking in the middle!

Good thing we were close to the kitchen, and able to get the knife out and see the inside. MMMMMMM.... One peice, that was all I said she could have ( even though it was HER cake!), and I need more pics! Here is one of the inside.. ooozing out. YUMMY!!

After taking a few more shots as the sun went down, the cake went back into the freezer for another few hours. Once frozen all the way through.. it was incredible! Another coup for Dani and her amazing dessert making abilities! Glad I have her on MY team!!

Making Cookbooks....and other goals!

My little 5 year old daughter and I are on a similar path... we are both making our own cookbooks. Hers is awesome. She has stapled a few pages together and is making recipes out and getting us to print them for her on the pages.  Yesterday she made a new recipe and named it 'Magnificent Food of the world!'  How can I beat that ????

It is amazing to me how she has such an innate talent for making food. She knows just the right things to put together to make something taste great. Rarely is the times she has put ingredients together that do not match up. I am so impressed. I learn so much from her about so many things! 

I have taken photos of her making food, and the food she has made. It is all raw, and mostly desserts. It will be so much fun to have it out in the public and show that when it come to creating food, it is an ageless activity. You do not have to be a teenager, adult , middle age or senior to create beautiful food. You can be 3, 4 or 5 even!! My little one started creating at 3. I only feel sad I did not write down what she did then.  But I do have a lot from being 4 and 5. 

My cookbook is equally fun to do!  I love creating, and eating the creations I make. I have such a blast in taking the photos for them, and now playing with them to edit them.. I am sooo lucky! To do what you love is so great!!!

 I was sooo excited about all the great projects I have been working on that I stayed up to 6 am doing some of them last night. ( or this morning) Having so much enthusiasm to create something you love is the best thing ever. I have more projects that I have thought about the last day or so that I have wanted to work on in the last few years, but put them on hold. Today, I started to think more about those too....

I thought I would share with you what they were.. so that I can 'get it out there'.

Ok.. here it goes!!!

1. Make a raw food cookbook
2. Make raw chocolate for sale , to anyone who wants it. Get it on a website, in stores, in markets.  I have made some already and people have loved it so much! 
3. Make a regular newsletter.
4. Make a raw bakery that sells desserts in my city, and maybe even sell them online. I am not sure about that yet. A raw bakery is something I would LOVE to do.. I love Love LOVE making desserts. So maybe a raw Cakery is more like it!! 
5. I have started to design a new website for Inspired Joy Photography. High Vibration photography that uplifts your vibration. Keep these inspiring photographs in your home, wallet, car, pocket, somewhere close to where you can see them always so that you feel joy and love and peace in your life! I am SO very excited about this! Photography is part of my life is such an intimate way, sharing these photos is in this way is as much a gift to me as I put them forth in the intention of which they were made. With love and connection to spirit.  I was inspired by Wayne Dyer on this recently, in his book the power of Intention. A MUST read!!!
6. Creating an online gallery where people can order the photos and have them printed, matted, framed and delivered all at the same place! It is such a great site!!! 
7. I need to find a Canadian Equivalent of this site, so the customers in Canada won't have to go cross border shipping. 
8. Teaching more classes and getting people to know they are available. So many people want to learn more about how to prepare food. Whole foods Vegan and Raw Vegan. There has been a process for me on this.. that there are people who want to learn how to make raw food, and vegan food. There are very few people that want to be 100% raw, but there are so many who want to learn how to introduce more raw foods into their life. So having the option, and teaching both gives people choices. 
9. Creating a community with people of all ages to come together to create art, food, and do something to help the community out. 
10. I have been dreaming of this for years and years. Within the last two weeks it is starting to take a bit more shape as more people want to become involved. I am so excited about this project too.. as it brings vulnerable members of our communities together to create stronger ties to each other and the bigger picture. Youth and Seniors are often left 'out' . Not feeling like they can make much of a difference, it is important to have everyone who wants to create to be involved. From community gardens, to markets, to learning and teaching, art and helping each other out in small and large ways. I think this is going to be so MAGICAL!!!! And so much darn fun too!!
11.  Having edible herb and wild green walks in the area and in the forest closeby. I live by a mountain and near the ocean. I know about wild greens, and love to share. However I think there is more to learn and today I asked a very learned friend in herbs and wild food if she would want to participate in the walks with me, and she said YES!!!
12. Creating loving, musical, artistic community that meets regularly to enjoy company, food and do what they love to do best! This is beginning to unfold too.. as I connect more with musicians and artists all over my city. It is so beautiful. I want it to happen faster, but I think it is happening just at the rate it is supposed to. ( though I am still impatient!!)
13.  The last birth I had was so incredible and so very different than most women have ever experienced or many women could even DREAM to happen, that I felt a true calling to share that such a birth was and IS possible. We often hear and see depicted in media of painful childbirth. It does not have to be that way. ( and I don't mean by drugs!! LOL) . I am not sure how I am going to get this info out there, but I know it will show up somehow.

I have 82 things on my list of things I would like to do... and these above, hmm.. 13 of them that I stopped at, what a great number! These are just ones that are strong and manifesting right now. There are more coming up.. I can feel it! 

I would love to hear how you are manifesting  your dreams, and wishes. What you want to happen in YOUR life. And how it is coming along... I feel so thrilled to see how this all comes to be. 

OH.. there is a HUGE one that I would love to see manifest sooner rather than later. A beautiful home for my kids and I to live in that is affordable, in our geographical area, and is all the things we dreamed of.  I have 4 kids.. this has made affordable housing something I still am looking to manifest. I know it is out there.. I just wish it would turn up somehow .. soon!!!