Free Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal at Café Gratitude

If 10,000 households spend their Thanksgiving meal dollars on local food, we’ll invest about $446,100 into our communities. Sounds pretty good to me! But for those who won’t be preparing their own holiday meal this year, Café Gratitude will be serving a FREE Thanksgiving Meal at each of their restaurants.

For the past 5 years, every open Cafe Gratitude location (all in the San Francisco Bay Area) has served this free meal to an average of 300 people, as a way to give back to customers and to the community for their support and patronage all year long. On Thanksgiving, the cafes operate on 100% volunteer efforts, of both employees and non-employees. This year there will be four Cafe Gratitude locations serving the Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal, all open from 11am to 3pm. Please join in the festivities and bring your friends and family, bring someone new, or come serve your community!

Participating Locations:

San Francisco
2400 Harrison Street (@20th Street)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone: 415-830-3014

Berkeley
1730 Shattuck Avenue (@ Virginia)
Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone: 510-725-4418

San Rafael
2200 Fourth Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
Phone: 415-578-4928

Healdsburg
206 Healdsburg Avenue (in the Olive Leaf)
Healdsburg, CA 95448
Phone: 707-723-4461

To volunteer for the Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal at Café Gratitude, please arrive to the location nearest you, between 11am and 3pm. There is no need to RSVP. Together, all volunteers will serve as many meals as possible, until all the food is served.

Café Gratitude gives special thanks to Veritable Vegetable, Bariani Olive Oil, and other local merchants, who have donated food to the Thanksgiving meal in past years. To donate this year, please contact info@cafegratitude.com.

Will you be attending? If you don’t reside in the Bay Area, is there a free Thanksgiving meal in your city?

Café Gratitude has published several books with North Atlantic, including I Am Grateful, Sweet Gratitude, Sacred Commerce. They are all printed on 100% recycled paper!

CLICK HERE to learn more about Café Gratitude and to get more details about the Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal.

Healthy Autumn Fruit Cobbler

I admit that I’m hopelessly plagued by a persuasive sweet tooth. Holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving bring gastronomical temptations galore, trumping my otherwise healthy diet. You can imagine my excitement for Sweet Gratitude: A New World of Raw Desserts, a book chalk full of delicious guilt-free recipes! In honor of our current “Season of Temptation,” I’d like to share this delectable prescription for Pear, Persimmon, and Pomegranate Fruit Cobbler (from Sweet Gratitude). Good luck in your kitchen endeavors, and enjoy!

Fruit Cobbler

Makes one 9×9x2-inch pan of cobbler

WALNUT CRUST/TOPPING
3 cups walnuts
2 ounces date paste (weight)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon liquid vanilla
⅛ teaspoon salt

Process all ingredients until walnuts are still slightly chunky. Once ready, separate the crust into two equal portions. Sprinkle one portion evenly over bottom of pan and lightly compact. Reserve the other portion for the topping.

FRUIT FILLING
8 cups sliced fruit of your choice
(any combination of fruit or berries)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons agave syrup (optional)
1 tablespoon liquid vanilla
11/2 teaspoons cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon salt

FRUIT FILLING DIRECTIONS
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Evenly distribute the filling on top of the crust. Then crumble the remaining crust on top of the fruit and gently press. Decorate with fresh fruit slices.

Variations: Use pecans instead of walnuts for the crust/topping. This cobbler lends itself to endless variations of fruit that can be used. Be creative—use what you love and what is in season for the best result. Some of our favorite cobbler combinations are:
Apple/strawberry, white peach/raspberry/mango, pear/persimmon/pomegranate, and berry medley cobbler (blueberry/strawberry/ raspberry/blackberry).

Storage and life span: This dessert is best on the day it is made. Over subsequent days the cobbler will begin to juice and the nuts will get soggy. Keep covered in the fridge for up to two days.

Want to try your hand at Raw Cacao Fudge? CLICK HERE for the recipe.

Bay Area Raw Foods Event Lineup

I’m in my little cubicle at North Atlantic Books, my third day on the job as the new publicity intern, and I’ve been asked to write a blog on upcoming raw foods events. Initial reaction…groan. To understand the depth of my groan I should probably introduce myself and my relationship with raw foods, which, to be blunt, is a nonexistent one. I’m a college student living on pb&js and cereal, and have recently mastered the art of peeling string cheese into the perfect-sized strips. Sometimes I get the raspberry chocolate balance bars, which constitutes my serving of fruit for the day. David Wolfe has named chocolate a ‘superfood’. So, when you think about it, my balance bar gets double points on the healthy meter as both fruit and superfood qualifier.

Truth be told, I’m a tad ashamed of my ignorance on all matters food. I suppose I find the world of food a bit intimidating. But the benefits of raw foods are undeniable. The raw food diet is one of the 5 most popular diets in the world. Individuals who are on a plant based diet are 200 times less likely to develop cancer. Additionally, they are 20 times less likely to develop heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Statistics like these are hard to ignore and explain why the raw food movement continues to gain momentum. I guess an awareness of the choices we make, including the foods we consume, is all part of growing up. I’m optimistic that I can really learn something while keeping viewers up to date on this important subject. Listed below are some of the major raw foods events happening throughout the summer, including some of our own authors as the feature. And who knows…maybe you’ll catch me at one of these local events. Look for me with the raspberry fudge balance bar crumbs on my shirt.

Local Raw Foods Lineup, Summer 2009:

June 11 David Wolfe Copperfield’s Books appearance
People just can’t get enough of Naked Chocolate, Eating for Beauty, The Sunfood Diet Success System, and Superfoods author. Here he gives his last California appearance before heading up to Oregon.
Location: Sebastopol, CA
Time: 7:00 pm
Click here for more information.

June 12-14 31st Annual Harmony Festival
Superfoods author David Wolfe will be speaking on his nutritional discoveries including my favorite…how chocolate can save the world! The festival features hundreds of speakers, workshops, and musical performances including Matisyahu, Dead Kennedys, and India.Arie.
Location: Santa Rosa, CA
Click here for tickets, info, and complete lineup.

June 17 Novato Raw Food and Healthy Living Group June Meetup
What better way to talk raw food and health than in the midst of a delicious potluck of simply prepared, fresh, whole foods. Dr. Connie Burns will give an introduction on Naturopathic Medicine and Alternative Healing. Bring a dish for 8-10 people and try the mouth-watering concoctions of your fellows
Location: 800 DeLong Ave. Suite 100, Novato, CA 94945
Click here to RSVP or get more info.

Monday Night LIVE! @ Café Gratitude
Matthew and Terces Engelhart, owners of the Bay Area’s many Café Gratitudes and authors of The Abounding River Personal Logbook, I Am Grateful, and Sacred Commerce started this Monday night tradition in January 2009 and it’s been an absolute sensation with raw food lovers ever since. The educational speaker lineup is truly impressive. And if you’re new to Café Gratitude you’re in for a real treat. Here are just a few of the upcoming speakers:
June 15 Done Weaver: Remineralize the Earth
June 22 Bruce Horowitz: Raw Foods Chef, author, Sustainable Living
June 29 Cherie Sonia: Founder/director of Living Light Culinary Institute, author
July 13 Blake Bertlius: NLP practitioner
Click here for complete summer lineup.

July 25-26 Raw Health Expo 2009
The ultimate farmers’ market has arrived! Celebrated as the first expo to have a fully-functioning California Certified Farmers’ Market, this expo will have over 75 booths set up for your perusing pleasure. Speakers include Nomi Shannon, author of Raw Gourmet and Victoria Boutenko, author of 12 Steps to Raw Foods, Raw Family Signature Dishes, and Green Smoothie Revolution.
Location: Santa Rosa, CA
Click here for lineup and ticket information.

July 25-26 Sacred Commerce Workshop
Change the way you view the workplace into a spiritually fulfilling society and reap the benefits. Sacred Commerce authors and owners of the deliciously vegan Café Gratitude, Matthew and Terces Engelhart host this two day workshop.
Locaton: SF, location TBA
For more information e-mail: infoa@cafegratitude.com.

August 23-29 5th Annual Vibrant Living Expo
Raw food event of the year! Culinary demos, mini Green Lifestyle film festival, health panels, speakers, workshops, and delicious gourmet raw food.
Location: Living Light Center, Town Hall, and Masonic Hall  Fort Bragg, CA
Click here for more information.

A Holiday for Mind, Body, and Spirit

In the midst of holiday madness, we here at North Atlantic Books would like to invite you to take a deep breath. Inhale. Feel your abdomen rise and your lungs expand to their full capacity. Slowly exhale, letting first your chest and then your abdomen draw inward. Repeat as necessary. Ahh.

Stressful or relaxing, the holidays are what you make of them. We think they’re the perfect time to indulge the mind, body, and spirit — both yours and those of the people you love. But instead of candy canes, how about some raw cacao truffles bursting with anti-oxidants? Instead of a Rudolph sweater, how about some inner peace?

We think everyone on your gift list will benefit from a little peace, joy, and wonder. With that in mind, we’re pleased to introduce some of our newest books.

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a delicious, guilt-free dessert. In fact, there are over 50 of them in our new dessert cookbook Sweet Gratitude. From pear-ginger cheesecake to macadamia butter truffles, these confections by the dessert chefs at Café Gratitude are raw, vegan, and free of refined sugar, preservatives, and gluten — and so delectable that no one would ever suspect that they were good for you. Check out the recipe for raw cacao fudge!

For the more artistically inclined (not to say that food, especially raw vegan desserts, can’t be art), we bring you The Unknown Hieronymus Bosch. Considered a forerunner of surrealism, Bosch was a renaissance painter whose idiosyncratic work is a blend of phantasmagoria, metaphysics, and religion. Filled with insightful commentary and glossy, full color prints, Kurt Falk’s book offers a contemplative, spiritual path into the enigmatic world of Hieronymus Bosch.

And for the modern art lover, there is renowned artist Alex Grey’s Art Psalms. Delving into the link between art and spiritual growth, Grey (whose art you may recognize from Nirvana and Beastie Boys album covers) presents his exuberant, expressive artwork with poems and writings that fuse profane with divine, creative with spiritual.

While there may be no place like home, there’s also no place like Damanhur, an eco-society in northern Italy committed to its ideals of art, sustainability, and the sacredness of the individual. In this oversized coffee table book brimming with full color photographs, Damanhur and its awe-inspiring subterranean Temples to Humankind –sometimes called the modern Atlantis — spring to life. Avoid the hassles of lost luggage and delayed flights this winter: see the wonders of Damanhur from your very own armchair!

And finally, in honor of the season, we present Creating Peace by Being Peace by Gabriel Cousens. Peace bumper stickers and dove-themed cards are all very well, but real peace begins deep within ourselves. Spiritual teacher Dr. Cousens synthesizes decades of his work and philosophy into a Sevenfold Path towards attaining peace with your body, mind, family, community, culture, environment, and divinity. Now that sounds like a New Year’s resolution worth keeping.

Peace and happy holidays from everyone at North Atlantic Books.

Chocolate in the Raw

Healthy dessert is not an oxymoron. And to prove it, here’s a gorgeous collection of raw vegan cheesecakes, pies, cookies, ice creams, and chocolates—all totally free of refined sugars, partially hydrogenated oils, and preservatives. Penned by the dessert chefs at Cafe Gratitude, Sweet Gratitude: A New World of Raw Desserts is a lavishly illustrated and expert guide to creating everything from White Chocolate Lavender Cups to Pomegranate Cheesecake.

Armed with more optimism than expertise, marketing intern and chocoholic Jennifer decided to try the Sweet Gratitude recipe for Raw Cacao Fudge. Here’s her annotated version of the recipe:

RAW CACAO FUDGE (makes 25 squares/35 balls)

• 1 cup raw cacao butter. (If asking for this at Whole Foods earns you a blank stare, head for the body care aisle and substitute a tub of 100% pure food grade cocoa butter.)
• 3 vanilla beans. (Individually boxed in the spice section.)
• 1 cup light agave syrup.
• 1/2 cup raw cacao nibs, finely ground.
• 8 1/2 oz raw cacao powder. (Cacao powder tends to be sold in 8 oz packages, so I added more nibs.)
• 3/4 cup raw almond butter.
• 1/2 tsp salt.

Melt cacao butter by placing jar in a bowl of warm water. Slice the vanilla beans in half lengthwise; thoroughly scrape insides and add to blender. Add melted cacao butter to the blender and blend until vanilla is broken down and feels warm. Pour into large mixing bowl; stir in salt, agave, and almond butter by hand. Grind cacao in clean coffee grinder (or mortar and pestle), add to bowl with cacao powder and stir by hand until smooth. (I also added about 1/2 cup dried tart cherries.)

Transfer mixture to an 8×8 pan lined with waxpaper, using a spatula to smooth the top. (The batter was very thick for me, so I shaped it into 1″ balls instead.) Refrigerate about 20 minutes or until hard.

Comments from the folks at North Atlantic Books:

“Very chocolatey without being too sweet.” —Talia

“Decadent, chocolatey, crunchy fudge.” —Dylan

“Like a giant chocolate bar smashed down into a tiny ball of goodness.” —Terri

“Fresh, rich, but not overwhelming. Chocolatey but in a really clean way.” —Allegra

“An intense chocolate experience which actually feels good for you. Heavenly!” —Hisae

(Which is really just to say that you, too, can win the popularity contest at the office if you bring these in.)

In the spirit of Cafe Gratitude, Jennifer is grateful to:

• the clerk at Country Sun in Palo Alto who told her that cocoa butter was kept in the body care section
• the marketing department at North Atlantic Books, which agreed to let Jennifer loose in Whole Foods; and
• Kevin, the quintessential supportive boyfriend who, without complaining once, ground all the raw organic nibs using a mortar and pestle.

CLICK HERE to read more about Sweet Gratitude.

CLICK HERE to check out more raw foods cookbooks.

CLICK HERE to visit the Cafe Gratitude web site.