Traveling Vegan Part 3: Alchemy Juice Bar

During last weekend's Easter trip to CT, I managed to meet up with my old friend, Alicia. And by "old," I mean someone who knew me back in my electric guitar-Jack Daniels'-lawn-ornament-stealing days. I'd met her through Ducky, the drummer of the "band" I played in when I was sixteen. She was the little sister of a drummer friend of Duck's, and so we all kind of thought of her as the little sister, even though she was only a year or two younger than us. Need I say that she proved many times to be the most badass of us all? Those are stories for another blog, though. (Or perhaps they should be burned.)

Anyway, fast forward more years than I'm willing to admit, and Alicia and I are both married with kids and carnivore husbands, and trying to pursue a healthy, plant-based diet. Through the magic of Facebook, I've been able to watch Alicia build her repertoire of mouth-watering raw foods recipes for her business Naturawl Being, and was more than happy to sample the raw menu at Hartford's Alchemy Juice Bar on her recommendation. (Also, look at her photo -- this is what people are talking about when they mention the raw food "glow.")

I have to admit, although I've read enough about the raw vegan diet to realize it takes the benefits of a simply vegan diet to the next level, it's always seemed too complicated to me. Like I'd have to give up way too much. I can be compelled to give up hamburgers, thinking about the poor Being ground up to make them, but it's harder to pass by a nice, plump vegan bagel when I'm the only who suffers by eating it. Also, don't you need a lot of equipment? Dehydrators and super-blenders and spiralizers and such? No, Alicia assured me. Those things are nice to have, but definitely not necessary.

And so I've started to think about adding more raw foods to my diet. And since thinking about it, I've noticed that my kids gravitate naturally towards them. They're always eating raw fruit -- several helpings a day, in fact. They love when RC makes smoothies too. And raisins. And nuts. Makes me wonder if it's time to start trying to go raw one meal a day, now that I'm mostly vegan two meals a day anyway. Hmmm...

In the meantime, I leave you with more food porn from our fabulous raw lunch. (Sadly, I can't include the raw chocolate/coconut "maca-roon" because that was mow-mowed faster than the camera could catch it.)

Tantric Love Smoothie (berry tea, strawberry, banana, coconut, cacao & goji)

Stuffed Pepper with Flax Crackers

Raw "Pizza"

Kale Chips