Michael Kenney, founder of Pure Food & Wine in New York City, has opened a new Blue/Green cafe at Equinox (an upscale gym) on Heights Road in Darien, Connecticut. Darien, CT is a small suburban community located just outside NYC, and is home to many Wall Street fund managers and "high finance" types.

The cafe serves raw juices (fruit, veggie, and nut milks) and appetizers (raw spring rolls, summer rolls, salads) and offers "Blue/Green To Go," where for $40 customers can pick up a day’s worth of raw food meals, including a green juice, a smoothie, two meals and dessert. The menu changes daily.

The raw food article below is excerpted from The Darien Times.

Darien Goes Raw, Gets Healthy
by Susan Chaves

So long fast food. Adios junk food. Good-bye carbs. Hello raw foods?

Noshing on portobello fajitas and sipping coconut water has become a popular alternative for people seeking a healthier lifestyle.

Darienites Michelle Mauboussin and Kim Walsh are two faithful followers of such cuisine that uses organic fruits and vegetables, seeds, nuts and sprouted greens.

“I love to eat this way,” said Mauboussin, adding that the change in her diet has resulted in clearer skin, a need for less sleep and an increased energy level. “It makes me feel so good that if I veer off it, I really feel the difference.”

Mauboussin was turned on to raw foods two years ago by Walsh, who began eating vegan-style a year earlier. Although initially skeptical about the practice, Mauboussin agreed to attend a raw food preparation class with her friend in New York City.

“I was immediately hooked,” Mauboussin said. “The food was so delicious and tasty. It wasn’t like I was being tortured.”

The positive experience prompted bringing a raw food juice bar to Darien. After a trip to the city last spring for another raw food class — this one led by Michael Kenney — approached the chef about opening a fourth Blue/Green cafe at Equinox on Heights Road.

“A lot of his restaurants are high-end and very expensive so I never thought he would come to a gym,” Walsh said. “When he said he would, I was thrilled.”

Blue/Green debuted in town last November and, due mostly to word-of-mouth, has experienced a steady increase in the number of customers.

“I’m amazed and thrilled with the response,” Kenney said.

This is Kenney’s first dalliance outside of the city since opening the first of 11 restaurants specializing in Mediterranean- and American-influenced entrees in 1993. After a successful seven years, during which he published two cookbooks, launched a catering and events company and created a line of gourmet food products for retail stores, Kenney’s culinary career began to crumble. His restaurants closed one after the other, leaving him in financial straits.

By 2004, Kenny bounced back with Pure Food and Wine, a raw, vegan restaurant in Gramercy Park he ran with his then-girlfriend. The pair also wrote a cookbook Raw Food, Real World.

Today, Kenney has left Pure Food and Wine and established Organic Umbrella, which oversees several business ventures focusing on a raw food lifestyle, including vegan and juice cafes, a raw food cooking class and a retail line of prepared foods. He also owns The Plant, a kitchen that, among other things, supplies food to Blue/Green and offers weekly raw food cooking classes.

“Getting into raw food had changed my personal life and my business life,” Kenney said. “I was definitely skeptical first, but the food changed my life. I’m never sick, I require less sleep, I have tons of energy and I’m 42, and never had a gray hair.”

He attributes the benefits to the fact that the foods are not processed, pasteurized or cooked above 118 degrees, meaning all essential vitamins and enzymes are left in tact. He said preparing the food is not difficult, just replace the stoves, ovens and microwaves with a dehydrator, Vita-mixer and juicer.

“The most challenging aspect is creating new cuisine that is tasty,” Kenney said. “You’ve got to be creative when putting things together.”

Some favorites at Blue/Green in Darien include the spicy mango spring rolls, vegetable summer rolls, Mexican salad, the all green juice and the mango, the raspberry and almond milk smoothie and the pear almond milk, cinnamon and hemp protein smoothie.

If people do not have time to dine at the cafe, there is Blue/Green To Go, where for $40 customers can pick up a day’s worth of raw food meals, including a green juice, a smoothie, two meals and dessert. The menu changes daily.

“It’s really about convenience and healthful food,” Mauboussin said. “So many people want it, but they can’t do it.”

That includes Mauboussin, a mother of five, who came up with the concept after finding she had little time to prepare the food she enjoyed. More recently, she started doing the Blueprint Cleanse, wherein people have nothing but six shakes a day for five days. Both the shakes and the program were developed by Zoe Sakoutis and are currently only available at Blue/Green for $300 for a five-day supply.

The New York-based raw food nutritional consultant has created four cleanses that increase in intensity. Raw 101 consists of raw food solids that are easily digested for people who are unfamiliar with healthy eating. Walk the Line is half solids and half blended drinks and serves as a segue to Blended & Smooth, offered at Blue/Green, is nothing but liquids and blended soups. Easy Being Green is the highest level and finds only the people most experienced with cleanses drinking green juices and coconut water.

“I wanted to bridge the gap between starting the cleanse and the extreme,” said Sakoutis, who launched her line two weeks ago after a year’s worth of trial and error. “It’s been a slow humiliation. I used myself and my mom as guinea pigs.”

Her cleanse, inspired by what she learned during time spent at the Anne Wigmore Institute in Puerto Rico, incorporates a lot of papaya, sprouts, greens and coconut water as well as a little bit of health science and a touch of behavioral science.

“When people understand what certain foods are doing for them, they want to go out and eat it,” Sakoutis said. “So I’m really interested to see how the cleanse does. I think it’ll be really great.”

Mauboussin and Walsh rave about the cleanse, saying the drinks are “very satisfying” and curb hunger throughout the day. In fact, Mauboussin said one Blue/Green customer has lost 35 pounds doing the cleanse and eating raw food.

“Blue/Green is the talk of the town,” said Mauboussin, noting that she has received e-mails, phone calls and letters thanking her and Walsh for “making Darien a healthier place.” “It’s great to see other people feeling good and being so enthusiastic about it.”

That bit of news is music to Walsh’s ears.

“It has been my dream that people in town would start feeling the way I feel every day,” said the mother of three boys. “Two weeks after I started eating raw food I felt 15 years old and was begging my kids to play with me.”

While raw food suits her just fine, Walsh said eating it all the time is not for everyone. However, she said introducing just a small amount into one’s diet can make a difference.

“It’s not all or nothing,” she said. “You can add more raw foods into your lifestyle and you’ll feel better.”

A recent press release published by "Drinks Media Wire" highlights RAWvolution, a new raw food cafe, in Santa Monica, California.

Raw Food Café Brings Food and Consciousness Together in One-Stop Shop

New raw food cafe and market in Santa Monica serves up prepared raw food to dine in or take out and raw food snacks and treats.

Not your typical raw food restaurant, Euphoria Loves RAWvolution L.A.’s healthiest hangout is a haven for food lovers to enjoy a prepared meal or purchase snacks and ingredients to create their own meals at home.

“We wanted to create a space that could exist as a community center where customers come to share food and consciousness together,” says Euphoria Loves RAWvolution Owner and raw food lifestyle coach Janabai Owens. “Euphoria Loves RAWvolution’s approach to the raw food movement is non-dogmatic. We want this lifestyle to be accessible to everyone so people can eat healthy and get on with their lives.”

The café, which is open for lunch and dinner, features raw entrees, side dishes and desserts prepared by co-owner and renowned raw food chef and “RAWvolution” author Matt Amsden. To meet the needs of busy locals, the café offers food by the quarter pound or meal specials that feature an entrée and two or three side dishes. Chef Amsden creates a selection of entrees such as Big Matt with Cheese, Italian Pizza or Stir-Not-Fry and side dishes include Cucumber Dill Salad, No-Bean Hummus and Eggless-Egg Salad, to name a few.

"The flavor of raw food is so fresh and alive because it is as nature intended full of living water and life force,” says Amsden. “We shop local farmers markets and Santa Monica Co-Op for the freshest and finest organic ingredients. We want our customers to know that the food they purchase from Euphoria Loves RAWvolution is the best they can get.”

The meals can be taken to-go or eaten in the bright, bohemian café. In addition to the prepared meals, the growing grocery section features a host of superfoods including raw chocolate, exotic fruits, futuristic supplements, organic treats and radiant body care. Shoppers can explore the products and learn about the health and beauty benefits from the knowledgeable sales staff.

For those raw food fans who are unable to regularly visit the café or live on the other side of the country Euphoria Loves RAWvolution also offers “The Box,” a food box filled with a selection of two soups, four entrees, four side dishes and two desserts, designed to feed a customer for four to five days. These boxes, which have a celebrity and local following, can either be picked up at the café or are delivered via Fed Ex to the customer’s home. The Box allows raw food lovers to easily eat healthy delicious meals, prepared by Amsden, in their own home.

Even though many people eat healthy, they often put toxins in their body by unknowingly using harmful skin care products (lotions, perfumes, soap, makeup, etc.). Reading the label on your skin care products is just as important as reading the label on the foods you eat.

According to studies done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, levels of toxic metals and pesticides can be found in the blood and urine of most Americans. Harmful chemicals are found in many skin care products including shampoos, soaps, shower products, and toothpaste. Over a period of years of applying these products directly on your skin, or in your mouth, the buildup occurs in the system since the skin is a highly absorbent organ.

Not only is the skin highly absorbent (I've read studies that say within 2-3 minutes whatever is applied to the skin is absorbed into the bloodstream) but it is also the body's largest organ and is used for elimination of toxins. Instead of using lotion sold in the grocery store, consider using organic virgin coconut oil, instead. Pure coconut oil is known for its benefits to the skin. For soap, I use 100% pure olive oil soap (the soap itself is green and can be purchased at local health food stores such as Whole Foods).

***

Press release below from a new line of natural skin care products called Raw Gaia.

Raw Gaia, a Brighton-based natural skin care company, announces the launch of an unusually pure range of hand-crafted creams, moisturisers, lip balms and massage bars made using only 100% organic, raw and vegan ingredients.

The main benefit of a skin care product made with raw, living ingredients — such as cacao butter, cold-pressed oils and essential oils — is that the body is nourished from the life force, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals present within these substances. In contrast, a high temperature treatment — such as that used to make the vast majority of skin care products — destroys most of this goodness.

Managing director Lisa Lennon comments: "Our products are made by hand, carefully avoiding temperatures above 40°C, to ensure the ingredients retain all their living energy. This makes Raw Gaia truly different."

Raw Gaia's skin care range is free from petrochemicals, artificial colourants and parfums, glycols, lauryl sulphates, parabens, preservatives, synthetic additives, bulking agents and hidden ingredients. Products do not contain any toxic transfatty acids, as the oils are not heat treated.

Hector Bolanos, sales and marketing director, adds: "Our products are absolutely pure — so pure that you could in fact, eat them. As a result of their purity and living nature, they are highly nourishing and effective. Many people have said their skin starts to feel firmer and softer, blemishes and dark patches start to disappear, that their eczema has improved after using our products."

All Raw Gaia products are available at selected stores or can be bought online.

About Raw Gaia
Raw Gaia was started in Brighton by Lisa Lennon and Hector Bolanos during 2006. For many years, the couple searched for the ideal moisturiser, made with ingredients as fresh and close to nature as possible. Unable to find anything suitable, Lisa started experimenting in the kitchen and making her own creams. Eventually, she came up with a product that is one of the purest creams on the market. The success with this cream led her to develop a range of other skin care products.

Two raw food restaurants (Neshama and Cilantro Live!) were recently featured in The North County Times, a newspaper serving San Diego and Riverside counties in southern California. Excerpt below…

North County home to two raw-foods restaurants
by Louise Esola

A "Royale Cheeseburger" with all the trimmings.

It's not what you think. Nothing's been touched by heat or flame, and everything came from a plant, served cool and raw.

The patty is made of sun-dried tomatoes, flax seed, red peppers, garlic and mushrooms. The bun is fashioned out of almond pulp, flax and buckwheat. The layer of cheesy spread is actually made of cashews, soaked and beaten by a food processor. The tomatoes, lettuce, onion, avocado and other natural fixings aren't in costume.

You'll find this dish on the menu between the enchilada and spicy three-layer burrito at Cilantro Live!, one of two raw-food restaurants serving vegan, all-organic fare that have opened in the last four months in North County.

Cilantro Live! opened in February in the Carlsbad Village Shopping Center. Neshama, off Highway 101 in Leucadia, opened in May with a menu of Asian and Mediterranean-inspired cuisine, such as "couscous" made of cauliflower and angel hair "pasta" made of zucchini strands and fresh crushed tomato marinara.

Together the two are giving local vegans and adventurous eaters a taste of the fresh, all-natural cuisine dubbed simply "raw." According to the rules of raw food, everything must be plant-based and organic —- naturally grown with no pesticides or chemicals. And raw —- nothing can be cooked past 118 degrees in order to keep the enzymes of the all-natural food alive.

At Neshama, that means foods are never prepared past 115 degrees and at Cilantro, it's 95 degrees, both well below the raw-food requirement.

"We're pioneering here, we realize that," said Mozy Kashte, who opened Neshama behind his popular salad-and-sandwich eatery Mozy's. "But we hope this will catch on. People who come in and try this have said they'll come back."

Cilantro Live! owner Cristina Guzman, who first opened a Cilantro Live! in Chula Vista three years ago, said her second location comes with a following of diners from North County and Orange County who made long treks south, traffic and all, to indulge in vegan fare.

"This kind of food makes people feel good," she said. "We take Mother Nature's beauty and give people a lot of energy. They feel alive."

A night out on the town

For people like Carlsbad resident Valerie Fogelstrom, the two restaurants are providing dinner choices for those whose strict diets call for plants and seeds.

Fogelstrom, 54, classifies herself as part raw vegan, with up to 80 percent of her diet coming from uncooked vegetables and seeds. The rest of her diet consists of steamed vegetables and lukewarm miso soup.

Like many with similar diets, going out for dinner is often a major challenge, she said. That's why she's the organizer of a North County raw foods meet-up group that holds monthly potlucks to share dishes and recipes. She says the restaurants offer colorful and succulent choices for a diet that could border on bland.

"I'm so excited," she said of the new restaurants. "Like anyone else, it's nice to go out for a social occasion, it's nice to go out and have something raw. It's nice to have beautifully prepared food once in awhile."

The foods offered at restaurants such as Cilantro and Neshama fall along the lines of raw gourmet. The result is a great-tasting break from what's usually prepared at home, she said.

While Fogelstrom said she may not have the budget to dine out often —- most entrees cost between $10 and $16 at both places —- she enjoys having the choice.

David Wolfe, cofounder of Nature's First Law, a nationwide raw-food diet information clearinghouse based in El Cajon, said raw food restaurants are on the rise.

"When I started out (12 years ago) there were two raw food restaurants in America; now there are over 60," he said. "This makes it easier for everybody. We don't have a lot of options, and raw food (restaurants) are creating options for us for dinner or lunch."

Wolfe said the raw food movement itself is catching on. Books, many of which he sells on his website, and publicity coming from celebrities boasting all-raw-food lifestyles are helping fuel the push for what he calls a healthier diet.

Experts and nutritionists have long argued that vegan diets can lack essential protein found in traditional diets that include meat and fish. But Wolfe and other fans said the vegan, all-raw approach can be balanced by incorporating high-protein vegetables and nuts into everyday eating.

Guzman, a longtime vegetarian who "stumbled" onto the raw movement before opening her Chula Vista restaurant, said it's all about playing with the colors and flavors of food to prepare balanced and attractive meals.

"Everything is our creation," she said of Cilantro's extensive menu of cold soups, salads, appetizers, main courses and desserts.

Guzman said bright-colored foods tend to have stronger flavors and more subdued ingredients carry lighter tastes. Blending the two is much like creating artwork, mixing the strong with the mellow, she said.

"Mother Nature has so many colors, you can't get anything wrong."

Natasha Baze, who helped Kashte open Neshama last month, said the food's vibrant colors also make it look inviting.

"That's the great thing about raw —- the food keeps all of its natural colors," Baze said.

Artistic food

The decor at both establishments is for patrons a hint of the colorful palette of dishes that lies ahead.

The walls at Cilantro are home to large canvases of modern, simple artwork in vibrant colors. Lush wheatgrass centerpieces adorn each table.

At Neshama, the theme is a marriage of Middle Eastern and Asian with satin-like pillows for seats in the outside patio and dark wood to add depth. Tropical flowers in glass vases are scattered simply on tables.

"We want the place to invite people and to relax and energize them," Kashte said. "Like the food we serve."

Both restaurants rely on bare-bones kitchens lined with food dehydrators, processors, juicers, and blenders to prepare dishes. Because some foods take longer than others to prepare, the work often begins days before.

For example, one of Cilantro's top sellers is a "Buenos Vida" wrap that calls for rice. To prepare raw, hard rice for eating without cooking it, it is soaked for several days in large pans of cold water. The same goes for nuts used in the dishes to make such items as nut "cheeses" —- both used as fillings and toppings for such dishes as Cilantro's alfredo sauce and "Roma Raw-violis."

Neshama uses nuts and seeds to make creamy pates to fill its chile rellenos and coconut wraps.

Nuts are also some of the main ingredients in desserts. Ground almonds are used to create pie crusts, for example. Nuts are also beaten into butters to create creamy fillings, topped with fruits.

When it comes to preparing dishes, the fillers and toppers are made ahead and refrigerated, then added to the various entrees. "It's a lot of preparation," said Guzman, while showing the stacks of trays soaking various nuts and rice in Cilantro's walk-in refrigerator.

The food, garnished with sprigs and vegetables, is like pieces of art at both restaurants.

As for naming their dishes, both restaurants rely on monikers borrowed from mainstream, cooked foods — like the lasagna at Cilantro and the Moroccan stew at Neshama.

But Kashte said the names are merely references.

"If we use the term 'cheese' or the term 'tuna,' it's just to mimic the feel of the food," said Kashte. "It's to give people a guide when they have never tried this before."

As for Cilantro's "Royale Cheeseburger," Guzman has her own take:

"This is the way the cheeseburger was meant to be eaten," she said. "This is what people ate hundreds of years ago. The cooked food is trying to copy Mother Nature."

Neshama
133 Daphne St., Leucadia, CA
(760) 944-9168
Hours: 5:30 p.m. 9:30 p.m. daily, closed Tuesdays

Cilantro Live!
300 Carlsbad Village Drive, Carlsbad CA
(760) 585-0136
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily