Raw-Raw-Raw!

Kale-as-table-decor. Always a good idea!

I was super excited to get the invite: A plant-based raw-food brunch at a roving "pop-up" restaurant at an undisclosed Paris location. Hip and vegan! In Paris! The entry price for this Sunday underground event? €35 euro per invitee. More than I'd usually spend on brunch (or "lunch," as I like to call it), but I'd just gotten paid and considered the mild splurge an early birthday present to myself and my date--a fellow Scorpio and raw-food fan.

Amelie lets me grill her while she preps the plates.

Having committed to a Halloween party the night before, I wasn't sure how knackered I'd be after a night of spooky festivities, so I didn't commit until the 11th hour: Sunday morning, to be precise. When I emailed asking if there was still availability, I was surprised by the prompt response saying there were two seats left for the 1pm seating. OK: We'll take them!

We found Amelie's place easily; it was a mere fifteen-minute walk from our front door, up the street that sidles along the old graffiti-plastered rail-road tracks and into the 18e arrondissement. In a mid-century apartment complex, up several flights of steps, we were ushered into a bright and airy living space with pleasant green views out the windows and clean, modern decor indoors.

Amelie, who lived and studied in Canada for several years, let me grill her about her raw experience while she prepped the plates for the brunch's six paying guests. She also put up with my ooh-ing and ah-ing over her high-tech dehydrator and other pretty, utilitarian cooking accoutrements.

The dining area was divided into two spaces: A small table for two on one side of the room, and a roomier table for four on the other. Both tables had been set with plates, utensils, and an intriguing melange of edible treats.

Raw granola, fruit compote, apple-rosemary apples, and dehydrated chocolate-and-nut bars!

One of several herbal infusions offered to guests.

We were the first guests to arrive; five minutes after our entry, two others turned up. We learned they were married, and that he was a photographer, and she an artist. They knew Amelie's husband Benoit--also a photographer--which is how they discovered the event. Neither were vegan nor raw, but they said they enjoyed trying new things. How very un-French of them!

Still life with ginger.

Note the fancy dehydrator between the ladies' heads!

Next through the door was Palma, whom I'd met before at a raw chocolate-making class over the summer. She's Italian and very bubbly. I love listening to her speak French with her heavy Napolitan accent. Right behind her was the final invitee, a tall, friendly, stylishly dressed woman who drove in from the suburbs to share the dining experience.

The lovely salt we didn't get to try.

While we mingled and chatted and enjoyed each other's new-found company, Amelie proposed that perhaps we join together the two tables so we could continue the convivial conversation while we dined. We did and it was a great idea.

This raspberry-tinted elixir was made with beets, berries, apples, and other  tasty fruits and veggies.

Palma contemplates her plat principal.

Raw granola with banana, nuts, and spelt. I  could have eaten a kilo of this stuff. It was served with home-made almond milk.

We were offered a variety of water-and-herb infusions to drink--lemon and thyme, lemon and sage--followed by a vivid pinky-red elixir served in a champagne glass. It looked healthier and more refreshing than any bubbly I've ever sipped.

None of us knew whether the stuff at the table, which had a dessert-y look about it, was meant to be eaten then or at the end of the meal, but all of our hands migrated to the little glasses of granola and even tinier glasses of home-made almond milk, and the miniature cups of dehydrated apples with rosemary. We made a collective, if silent, decision to leave the compote with the chocolatel-y looking thing on top for the end.

At last, the plat principal arrived; a savory layered confection with a hint of curry flavor and a soft, flax-seed crust. I loved the fresh flavor of the root-vegetable "noodles," the turnip greens, and the soft, dehydrated squash. It needed a bit of salt, but nothing more.

The piece de resistance.

When we'd devoured every last morsel on our plates, scraped our compote cups clean, sipped the remaining  drops of juice from our glasses, and dabbed the final crumbs from the chocolate confection and licked them off our fingers, we rose from the table ensemble to bid our farewells and head back out into the streets of Paris to enjoy the remaining hours of a sunny autumn Sunday.

Vivez Nature

I met another Aurelia at a veg event recently. She's a fellow vegan parisian who loves animals and cycling. (How many of us are there?!) Aurelia's day job is at an farmed animal-rights group, and on evenings and weekends, she sits on the board of the French vegetarian society, serving as their media liaison, among other things.

Last week we met at a little bar in Montmartre to talk shop, and Aurelia told me about an upcoming event in Paris called Vivez Nature. It's billed as a "Salon d'Agriculture Biologique" (organic agriculture expo) and sounded a lot like a smaller version of Expo West, a giant trade show I used to attend when I worked at VegNews. So, this past Sunday--a gloriously warm and sunny Indian summer day--I pedaled over to La Villette see how the French do this sort of thing.

It started off with an exciting bang: The first booth I laid eyes on was Sea Shepherd's. Cool! Next was an organization dedicated to educating the world about the environmental hazards of palm oil cultivation. I had a great conversation with a woman at that booth and came away thinking "I'll never eat Earth Balance again--for the gibbons!" It's depressing to think about how deforestation for selective crop growing effects primates and other animal (and plant) species throughout Borneo and the rest of Indonesia. Heartbreaking, but worth investigating.

After this somewhat interesting start, things slowed down to a boring crawl. The animal rights booths gave way to a bland series of essential oil vendors, soap stalls, and book booths selling hundreds of titles on various esoteric subjects, all seemingly written by the same author (?), among them "Urinotherapie." (I don't really even want to know what that is.)

Things became mildly interesting again when we got to the food aisle; here we found superfood chocolate, vegan cookies, natural wines, and organic breads made from non-GMO grains. Like every other event I've been to where free samples were being handed out, the masses descended upon the poor folks doing the distributing like famished zombies, spawning copy-cat behavior in everyone within grabbing distance.

I finally caught up with Aurelia at the Association Vegetarienne de France booth. She was mobbed, too. A wonderful sight to see is a mass of French people crowded around a booth offering information on veganism, animal rights, and environmental issues.

This isn't an event I'd pay to attend, but I'm glad I went, if only to have tasted this delicious palm oil-free, eggless noisette flour cookie made with vegan chocolate chips. Miam!

The Rain in Spain (falls mainly when I visit)

Not just an ordinary bakery, but a "bread boutique."

I planned this Spanish getaway in a last-ditch effort to relax beneath a fiery sun before the cold, gray winter sets in up here near the North Pole.

Ha ha. I could practically hear the weather fairies guffawing as I rode the drafty RER to the airport.

Who is this Santa Aurelia and what's her story? Still figuring it out.

I arrived on my "Saint Day" (a catholic thing, I think), which I believe should entitle the namesake to the weather of her preference. To be fair, that first afternoon, it was about 80 degrees and I did spend an hour or so sitting in a swimsuit on the beach, staring out to sea and imagining that the clouds rolling in from the south east were actually just passing through, and not settling in for a multi-day rain-fest.

"You've brought us good luck," said Mario, my Airbnb host. "It never rains like this in September, and we really needed it after months of drought."

The letterbox belonging to an average house on an average street in Malaga. Pretty!

The hibiscus and other tropical flowers didn't seem to mind the rain.

A fanciful stone walkway--one of many throughout the old city of Malaga.  

My daily Spanish breakfast

Public gardens teeming with fruit-laden lime trees.

So, what's a girl to do when she's stuck in a drizzly Mediterranean town in late September with four free days all to herself? Museums. Restaurants. Cafes. Long walks on slippery cobblestones beneath a borrowed umbrella. It wasn't exactly the balmy Andulician holiday I was yearning for, but it was still pretty OK.

Malaga is the city where Pablo Picasso was born (oh, and Antonio Banderas, too), and, as seems fitting, there are two museums dedicated to Picasso's life and work; I went to both. (If there was an Antonio Banderas museum, I never found it.) There are also museums dedicated to flamenco, wine, and modern art, among many, many others. I visited as many as I could--usually two or three each day, breaking for a long lunch in between, then mixed things up a bit by popping into covered markets, the occasional vintage clothing store, and cafes where salty nibbly things are always served with your glass of €1.50 vino dulce.

A typical afternoon apero.

A walkway to who-knows-where.

The old cathedral, built in architectural styles spanning the centuries. It's still not finished! (The church keeps running out of money. Ahem.)

I bought a kilo of these delicious clementines from another stall and paid €.50. My kinda prices

Inside Malaga's Altarazana market, which dates back to the 14th century. Avoid the fish and meat aisles if you can; the fruits, veggies, olives, nuts, and other goodies are off to the right side. 

Funny olives stuffed with pickles. Mmm .... different!

A little organic stall inside the covered market.

Lunch at Loving Hut. They're everywhere, and I'm pretty happy about it! 

The vast white gallery inside the museum of modern art. I loved this place!

In the courtyard of the Museo de Artes Y Costumbres Populares.

Sampling the local wines at a popular watering hole. Your tab is written in chalk on the counter top.

Barrels and barrels and more barrels of local wine. All sweet. Very sweet! And delish.

One of more than a dozen flamenco-costume shops clustered in the north of town; this one geared toward the (really) young set.

Spain has a lot going for it: The people are friendly and good humored, the architecture is interesting and varied, the dining scene wasn't the giant pork-fest I'd been warned it was, and, I imagine, the beaches are even more beautiful when bathed in sunlight. Before my next trip, I will definitely consult with the meteorologists and, to be extra safe, I'll aim for a mid-summer sojourn. But I will likely keep to the same sort of itinerary, crammed with wonderful art, delicious food, and wide-eyed wanderings through tradition-soaked towns.

A fanciful wrought-iron gate in north Malaga. 

The lunch possibilities at El Piano, one of two vegan restaurants in Malaga.

And for dessert, we have ... lots of yummy-looking things that I did not try.

My lunch.

I never knew San Miguel was a Spanish beer. There's a giant brewery near the airport, where they may or may not make their "Eco" cerveza. 

The soy yogurt selection at the supermarket.

Cauliflower soup at El Calafate

Afternoon hot-chocolate break.

con churro! (Singular--those things are deep-fried and dangerous--one was plenty.)

La playa at moonrise on my penultimate day.

Fake meat in a can! Woot!

Why, si, yo gusto bien un otro vino bianco. Gracias.

A Spanish sunset.

The Great B12 Debate

Author, speaker, and nutrition expert Vesanto Melina,
looking fabulous at 70!

The Association Vegetarienne de France recently hosted a lecture by respected vegan-health expert and author Vesanto Melina. Vesanto has written and co-authored many books on the subject of eating healthfully on a plant-based diet, including the titles Becoming Vegan and Becoming Vegetarian.

The one-hour presentation--centered on vegan-nutrition fundamentals--was given in English, with two french translators hard at work for the mostly francophone audience. I would guess that there were more than 100 people in attendance. Pretty good for a Wednesday night in Paris!

The B12-curious audience.

Vesanto used her warm and engaging personality to dispel myths and educate us on key issues relating to vegan diets, then turned the mic over to the audience, who had plenty of questions. All. About. B. 12.

B12!

One of the information tables at the Paris event.

There are, apparently, a lot of unanswered questions about B12. Can we get it from nutritional yeast? What about sea vegetables?  I've heard mushrooms have B12. How about spirulina?

NO!

Well, micro-amounts at best, but not enough to meet our bodies' B12 needs. If you're vegan, it's time to face facts, she said, more or less. You need to take a B12 supplement.

Vesanto and her translation team on stage.

In the past, I've taken B12 supplements--sublingual drops and tablets, and regular ol' vitamin-style pellets--but found that whenever I'd take them, I'd get insta-acne. Weird. Vanity triumphed over any health concerns I had, so I stopped taking it and simply increased the already-bountiful quantities of Marmite and nutritional yeast I was eating.

B12 deficiency at its most extreme results in severe damage to the nervous system. Symptoms include numb fingers and toes (I have this a lot, but chalked it up to "poor circulation"), depression, and memory loss. Ouch!

Are you vegan? Do you take a B12 supplement? What's the experience been like for you, before and after starting to supplement?

After introducing myself to Vesanto, she told me she was using
my latest article in VegNews Magazine to help her navigate
the vegan scene in the City of Light. What an honor!