Austrian Home(UN)cooking

Dehydrated veggie burgers made of sprouted quinuoa, nuts
and other raw goodies, fresh salad, raw ketchup,
cooked short grain brown rice and wild rice.

Everywhere around the world, I am meeting people who are eating differently. They are experimenting, researching, looking for new ways to nourish themselves. For Boris and Renee Georgiev, of Yogazentrum Ganesha in Vienna, it started with the birth of their daughter Kaiya, which inspired them to delve into the raw.

Breastfeeding mom, Renee thought carefully about what kind of nutrition she wanted to be passing on to Kaiya. So she started to eat more and more live, fresh food. With Kaiya in mind, going raw was very natural. 

On our last day in Vienna, Renee and Boris invited my friend James and I over to their home, treating us with a mostly raw meal. Fresh salad, veggie burgers (made of sprouted quinuoa, nuts and other goodies) that was dehydrated in a Sedona--my first encounter with the first class dehydrator. So far, I've only seen the Excalibur in use in Asia--paired with cooked brown and wild rice. Our hosts, I think, knew of our love for cooked grain.

Flax seed crackers (made with flax/linseed, salt, and water)
was made in a Sedona Dehydrator.

Renee also made some tasty linseed (or flax seed, they are one and the same) crackers via the Sedona. And fresh ketchup with the Vitamix blender. Anyone "raw" will have these two must-have kitchen items: a dehydrator and a Vitamix, which breaks down all sorts of food with its 4-horsepower engine.

After lunch, Renee whipped up some fresh almond milk with the Vitamix, which was just sublime mixed in with energizing bowls of Japanese matcha green tea. 

Our happy lunch party: James, Natalia, Mirka, Boris, Renee--
the days raw alchemist holding baby Kaiya.

With raw food you can't help but taste its goodness. You can feel its effects on the body almost immediately, feel how light and revitalizing it is.

Our final meal in Europe was evidence of fine hospitality: good food, great company--Slovakian Natalia and Mirka, also as lovely as Boris and Renee, joined our lunch party, and we were all on the same page, so to speak, starting the meal with Sanskrit meal prayer "bramha panam," which we all knew and could chant seamlessly in unison. And the meal was beautifully harmonic throughout.