DAY 30... Yes you can...

Eat too much raw food! I'm not kidding. Last night I ate too much. Yes, I did. I ate too much buckwheat...

Oh I know, pick yourself up off the floor and stop laughing. Funny isn't it. No seriously, dry your eyes, stop the convulsions, get rid of the post-hysterical-laughter hiccups and look at me seriously. No mirth allowed here.

Boy how things can change in 10 days. I never thought I would hear myself say 'Gee, enough already, curb the buckwheat!'. But I have an excuse, really I do. Let me explain.

Although I celebrated getting through one week of raw, the book Minisizeme, celebrates after 10 days. It makes sense really. It's a 40 day plan and 10 days in is a quarter of the way through. So because I am a person of excess, I like to celebrate both occasions - after every 7 day week and then because I'm following the book after every 10 days too. Hell, why not? I may as well get all the excitement I can it's not like I'm going to crack open a bottle of champagne or anything.

So on day 10, The Book (I'll now refer to my Minisizeme guide as The Book) gives you a recipe for raw pizza to celebrate. Raw pizza huh? Yes, I thought the same - yuk. And let me tell you, it's one of the more complicated recipes because of it's timing. Soak the buckwheat for 30 hours, prepare the 'cheeze' (that's a raw word for cheese) and let set for 2 hours. Man, it was like orchestrating a dinner for 20 people.

Anyway, as I am prone to do, I followed the recipe diligently and completed all the steps in the order I was supposed to. And, the more I sliced, blended, chopped, mixed, grated and mashed, the more I thought "This is going to taste disgusting".

As my prep time got longer, my hopes and dreams got shorter. Here was my big celebration dinner, the first pizza I'd eaten in 10 days and it was going to suck.

Let's face it, cheeze made from pine nuts simply isn't comparable to cheese made from cows milk. And pizza sauce made with red cabbage is not the same as the red goo oozing out from that piping hot Dominoes pizza that gets delivered to your door now is it?

Big fat NO is my answer. Yes, I used the word fat. Fat, fat, fat - big fat no!

But I forged ahead, because that's what I do, I forge. And, because the ingredients were really expensive and I simply hate waste. And, because I had spent what seemed like ages making this, I wasn't going to give up. And, because I'd promised my husband, my lovely husband who held my hair back when I puked on day 2, pizza for dinner. And, after 10 days of salad for dinner, if I didn't deserve pizza, he certainly did.

So, I made my buckwheat crust, and I topped it with red cabbage pizza sauce and covered that in pine nut cheeze and held my breath as I cut it using a pizza wheel (talk about hanging onto another life and living in hope) and I mentally wondered how quickly I could whip up another raw dinner at 7:30pm because I knew after the first bite we would throw it out and still be hungry.

My husband giggled nervously and said 'why don't you go ahead and have the first piece, you worked really hard to make it, and after all, it's your celebration.' And I knew then, he was preparing for a fall. He wasn't going to touch that stuff until he had seen the expression on my face.

I took a deep breath and bit. Then chewed and chewed and chewed. In that moment, I realised that my life still lacked trust.

When I went to my first yoga class all those years ago, I had to let go and put myself in the hands of the teacher - that teacher happened to be Siri Datta. And she held me, and helped me and nurtured me through those first trembling steps.

When I went to my first yoga retreat alone and was exposed to different ways of looking at life, and different ways to heal and different ways to eat, I had to trust. And Siri Datta, again stepped up and guided me through the uncertainty.

And when I was ready to try my first bite of raw pizza, I should have trusted that the very same Siri Datta would not have suggested something disgusting for me to eat on this new journey into health. And she didn't.

My eyes flew open, a smile spread across my lips, ' this tastes just like pizza I almost screamed', losing some of my topping down the front of my shirt at the same time. 'It is soooooo good'. And I gobbled and gobbled and gobbled until I had eaten just a little too much of this raw pizza, in exactly the same way as for years, I'd eaten just a little too much of cooked pizza whenever I'd eaten it.

Now let me add a little disclaimer here. Hubby did not feel the same way. He kept mumbling something about 'where's the cheese?', which he had every right to mumble about. But he hasn't been totally raw for 10 days. And he isn't the one who has committed to not eating a smidgen of cheese for 40 days. And he isn't the one who thought that the word 'pizza' was out of his lexicon for good. So, I think I can safely say he had a little less invested in this dinner than I did.

For me however, this was a momentous occassion. Raw pizza, who would have thought? And so that is how I came to overeat a buckwheat-filled pizza crust.

So do you know what I'm going to do today? I think I'll have some left overs for lunch and I'll deal with the over-excess of buckwheat a little later.

Farewell Mac and Cheese

You see, there I go lying again - I told you I needed this blog so I would be accountable! What the title should have read is 'Farewell Mac and THREE Cheeses'. Yes, I am definitely of the opinion that while one is good three is better!

Actually I have never been a huge mac 'n cheese fan. Of course as a child mom made it and I enjoyed it, but then it sort of petered out in the family and I don't ever remember it being the comfort food I would turn too when life got tough.

Sometime ago, I remember my dad being very excited. He had invited me over for dinner and said he had discovered a no-fat mac 'n cheese that was out of this world, I could hear him kissing his fingers while we talked, he was so proud. In my head, the whispering voice said ' low fat, what's the point?', but it was my dad how could I resist?

Of course I raced over to the house picking up some flowers en route for mom and sat down expectantly awaiting this genius of cousine - comfort food that was healthy.

What I got on my plate was a pile of whole wheat macaroni, a few melted stringy bits of cheese and a big slice of grilled tomato on top - it was simply, well, horrendously aweful. My dad looked at me, his eyes sparkling, macaroni shoved into his cheeks chomping away furiously. 'Great, isn't it? And it's almost no calories.' he said with his mouth full.

Oh boy, that was the time I realised I wanted more from a meal. I shoved all of mine under a lettuce leaf and went to make some toast.

Needless to say, whenever mom and dad invite me for mac 'n cheese, I seem to have a prior engagement!

Then a few years ago, I discovered this Martha Stewart mac 'n 3 cheeses from Everyday Food http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/macaroni-and-three-cheeses now we are talking people. This is comfort food at its finest. This is the velvet cheese sauce you could drown every one of lifes hardships in and come out feeling like you have won. This is the food you cosy up to on a cold night when your date stood you up and you've run out of ice cream. This is the food that makes you go weak at the knees for its simple perfection.

So, last night was my farewell to this dish I have come to know and to love. By next week, I will no doubt be drowning out lifes curve balls with celery and a shot of wheatgrass - doesn't quite have the same ring to it as mac 'n 3 cheeses does it?

By the way, a little disclaimer here. I do actually eat salad and veggies with my food, but as I'm about to eat RAW FOOD for 40 DAYS, I'm not going to bore you with the joys of a romaine lettuce, or the delicate curve of a vine ripened tomato. No, there is plenty of time for that. For now, it's about delicious food full of cheese and goo and yumminess.