Rawdyssey: Bahay Kalipay revisited

Cashew cheese, dehydrated caramelized onions on top of flax seed crackers.

Though raw food keeps on being prominent in this blog, I must clarify, that I am not a raw foodist. To date, I'm a food enthusiast, raw and cooked. Mostly cooked, based on my history. Very vata, I'm not the kind of person who would usually feel full on a green, leafy salad. So, my love affair with warm meals have been on-going. 

However, raw food keeps on popping up for me, wherever I travel, through the people I meet. All over, people are choosing to eat differently. And I am totally fascinated by this. 

BK Breakfast: fresh fruits with dehydrated
coconut meat, sprouted buckwheat, and goji berries,
topped with carob-coco milk.

My introduction to raw food began at Bahay Kalipay in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, March 2010, when my friends and I visited the energy healing center for the very first time. At that point, my contact with raw food seemed mostly through TV and print media, where the buzz about the seemingly extreme diet was tinged with some irony and humor. What I didn't know then was that this 5-day-long encounter with raw food and Inner Dance, the main purpose of our coming, would start a fascination with the raw food movement.

On Dec 3, 2012, I returned to Bahay Kalipay, my fourth trip to the retreat center, to teach for a couple of days before going to Maia, a raw-food and coconut intuitive community just an hour away from Bahay Kalipay. 

I always find these trips to Bahay Kalipay interesting. It brings up a lot of stuff for me. Before going, I get a little edgy about "going raw." I worry wether I can sustain a dynamic yoga practice while there. When I get there, I question whether I will feel full on what they are serving. It always looks so small in comparison to cooked fare. I'm always ok in the end, always getting to the point where I've had enough with plenty of food still on the table, always consuming so much less than what I'm used to. 

Daniw and her son, Sinag. 

I'm still a huge fan of putting my food to fire, but I have to say that Daniw's "cooking" and the food she serves in Bahay Kalipay really makes me question my ideas about food, it challenges me also, showing me that there is a million and one ways of eating raw food. They come in all shapes and all sizes, all textures and all flavors. 

There's also a certain mindfulness that kicks in when you are intentionally eating raw. I find I eat slower. I savor more. There's this sense that all of my parts, my mouth, my stomach and my mind, are really working together get the most out of the experience. 

There's definitely something to eating more raw foods. Without going to extremes, it makes sense to add into our diets more live foods that contain enzymes (which are killed in the cooking process) and that are high in nutrients. 

Thank you, Daniw, for another amazing raw food experience! Thank you Bahay Kalipay! 

http://www.daniwsconsciouskitchen.com

http://www.bahaykalipay.com/

This last trip, Bahay Kalipay, was actually the first step to a 3-week long stay. In Bahay Kalipay, I would enjoy the ingenuity of the raw kitchen, helped along with a dehydrator and a high powered blender. After just 3 days, I would be launched into Maia, where sacred simplicity amounts to eating coconuts or at the very most simply prepared hand-made raw food. More to follow on Maia, another food-altering experience...

Here are some of the amazing dishes at Bahay Kalipay this time around. One dish that I wish I had a photo of was with amazing kelp noodles:

Spaghetti anyone? Cucumber pasta with fresh tomatoes blended with garlic and spices. 

There's always desert at BK: chocolate mouse.

To left: fresh pineapple with paprika. Raw noodles
made of hicama, carots and sprouts.

Cabbage salad with seaweed pesto.

Curried veg on top of flax seed crackers.