Blisters and Bruises

The transformation has certainly begun at Each Peach Café… Lori and I have the blisters and bruises to prove it! And we’re loving every moment of it.

The serious work started on Saturday, Feb 12th. Christopher (my partner, Happy Valentine’s Day!), his brother specializes in HVAC and other very useful odds and ends. We walked through the place, making a to-do list and a Home Depot shopping list. Lori and I spent the evening prepping for painting the drop ceiling on Sunday.

Sunday morning we took the multitudes of ceiling fans and lights down. We had been told it “looks like a lighting supply store” because there were so many of them, which was SO true. Then we replaced any broken ceiling tiles. All in prep for painting…

Painting with a sprayer. Yeah. I rented a sprayer from Home Depot that morning, and then let Mike go to town. Of course, it didn’t take long for us to blow through the 2 gallons of paint we bought on Saturday, so Lori desperately found me a paint store that was open on Sunday so I could dash out and get more in an exact match. It was crazy! We managed the get the whole front room ceiling painted and most of the walls primed in less than 4 hours. Wow. Painting with a sprayer is amazing, but doesn’t come without a price. Even wearing a mask, all of our nose hairs were painted too.

This spring cleanse can’t come soon enough for me!

Sunday night, Lori and I started the demolition portion of the renovation by ripping any cheap, ugly, poorly finished trim off everywhere we could. Fun stuff! And a great reward after such a long day of painting and running around.

I was not thrilled with the color of the ceiling after it was completed, and couldn’t imagine going through all that work again to re-do it. Thankfully, it looked much better Monday morning in the daylight and with rested eyes. And everyone else seems to love it! That was a nice Valentine’s Day surprise, but even better was the floor ripper-upper thingy that the property’s work crew brought in for us to use! Awesome! Lori and I ripped up almost all of the flooring and most of the glue too in about 4 hours, leaving behind a nice concrete floor. Just wait to see what we have in store for that!

We could both certainly benefit from a chiropractic adjustment after removing that floor. Worth it? We shall see…

Tomorrow, Tuesday, the trash pile should be completely removed and the floors completely ready for the next step. We may even have time to do the taping in preparation for painting the walls.

Very exciting!

Everyone has started asking about the Each Peach menu, which Lori and I began to hammer out over the weekend. We will serve a standard set of smoothies, with a seasonal smoothie added in every now and again.

Partial Smoothies List
Each Peach Signature > peaches, yogurt, vanilla, honey
House Blend > orange, banana, strawberry, blueberry, yogurt, honey
Monkey Mocha > banana, almond butter, cacao, coffee, yogurt, coconut milk
Blue Breeze > blueberry, lemon, yogurt, vanilla, honey

Add-in options include protein, flaxseed and spinach. All smoothies are also available dairy-free by substituting the yogurt with almond milk or coconut milk.

Other menu items include coffee and teas, wheatgrass, steel cut oats, a salad-of-the-day, a soup-of-the-day, healthy snacks like kale chips (I have all my friends hooked on these!), Richardson’s ice cream and assorted gluten- and dairy- free desserts.

We’re targeting March 19th for our opening, but there’s lots to do before then! Wish us luck, and if you come across any handy gnomes send them our way. Until then, check out our neighbors! They are all awesome… Like Shannon at Bikram Yoga Danvers, Steve at Centre Street PIzza, and Vanessa at Bella Salon & Day Spa.

Augusta

In the Beginning…

Yesterday I stepped into #6 110 Newbury Street, Danvers, MA, for the first time as a tenant, and it felt a bit like the beginning of an epic journey – like the Odyssey, or Star Wars. There’s a sense of the unknown; of pride and anticipation.

I promised to detail this journey, so I took several photographs yesterday to document the beginning.

There is a bay of windows and a counter to sit at along the front entrance. This is an area where people will be able to sit with laptops and hop on our WiFi, or just people watch through the windows.

There’s a nice long walk to the counter toward the back, with his and hers separate washrooms. A nice feature! Although, interestingly, the current décor in the men’s room seems more befitting a ladies’ room. No matter.

We learned of a pipe burst just after signing the lease, which is why there is a section cut away along the entire bottom edge of the drywall. Lots of work to do… But very much looking forward to it!

The countertop/cabinets left by the previous tenants will be moved to the back room for work space and storage. They actually left quite a few useful things… And some not-so-useful things too, like the used fly paper. Needless to say, there will be quite a transformation taking place over the next several weeks.

Near the back counter, the space opens up quite a lot, making room for all sorts of possibilities. Then there is a large back room with plenty of space for a three-bay sink, dishwasher, storage, dehydrators, etc. And, there’s even a small back office. It’s such a workable space, with endless options, we are so excited to get in and get to work!

More to come…

I was asked for the coconut chips recipe. It’s VERY simple:

Coconut Chips
Young Thai Coconut Meat
Lemon juice
Salt
Cayenne

Mix together until “chipped” coconut meat is well coated. Dehydrate until crispy.

Enjoy!

Augusta

Raw Food Classes for Everyone

Have you ever wanted to take a class, but couldn’t justify it due to either the expense or commitment of time? I certainly have… Photography, piano… The list goes on.

However, I’ve had the pleasure, nay the joy, of teaching raw food preparation classes for the past two years, because I DID make the financial commitment and time commitment to train with Alissa Cohen and the Head Chef at Grezzo restaurant, Leah Dubois. The restaurant no longer exists, but Leah’s recipes are featured in the new Raw Food for Everyone cookbook authored by Alissa. I am grateful for that experience, because adding raw food to my life has changed my life. And I believe learning how to add raw food into your diet in a way that is fun and delicious can benefit everyone.

It’s no secret the ingredients we use for our classes are expensive, and some of our classes literally take days of food preparation before the class even begins. For this reason, the cost of taking a raw food class can be cost prohibitive… especially in the current economic climate. An intensive class can also be a rather large time commitment – for example, the Level I and II classes we were teaching, back-to-back, consumed an entire weekend. I don’t know a mom with kids in sports who can commit to an entire weekend doing something for herself… Do you?

For these reasons, Denise and I have taken the time to come up with new classes to suit anyone’s wallet and lifestyle. We feel adding more raw food to any diet is important enough to make learning how easily accessible. From free 1-hour seminars, to half-day advanced preparation classes, we offer something for everyone. But you have to want it for yourself!

Green Smoothie Spring Detox Seminar
Date TBD, 6:30pm - 7:30pm
55 Amoskeag Street, Manchester, NH
Join us for a quick one hour seminar about the many benefits of green smoothies; and how to make delicious, HEALTHY green smoothies that even your kids will love! FREE.

Italian Family Dinner - Raw Style!
Date TBD,
176 S River Road, Bedford, NH
This abbreviated course will teach you how to prepare a delicious Italian-style raw food meal your entire family will love! You will leave with introductory knowledge of how to prepare fun, delicious raw food, and your very own spiral slicer to get you started. $50.

Just Desserts!
February 4, 2011, 7 - 10pm
452 Brent Street, Manchester, NH
This evening course will teach you decadent, gourmet, easy-to-make raw food desserts that will wow even the most discerning dessert connoisseur! Excellent class for mothers and daughters to take together. $100.

Raw Food Basics
March 13, 2011, 9am - 12pm
452 Brent Street, Manchester, NH
This half-day course will teach you the fundamentals of the raw food diet through the preparation of easy, delicious raw food meals. $100.

Sprouting and Dehydrating
March 13, 2011, 1pm - 5pm
452 Brent Street, Manchester, NH
This half-day course is designed to demonstrate sprouting and dehydrating techniques that take you beyond basic raw food prep. Learn how to create dishes you never thought you could make raw... Like pizza! From this course you will be proficient in preparing elegant gourmet meals. $250. Prerequisite: Raw Food Basics. $325 to take both classes together. 

Visit the Each Peach Calendar for updates to the classes, seminars and events. Or sign up now to start your journey towards a healthier, more beautiful and radiant you! Register at least 3 days prior to the event by sending an email to abarstow@eachpeachcafe.com with the following information:

Full Name
Email Address
Mailing Address
Phone Number
Class/Seminar Title
Class/Seminar Date

We hope to see you soon!

Augusta

Cleansing Comes Down to Timing

It’s the first of January. You wake up with a fresh-from-the-Holidays extra 5 pounds around your mid-section, and resolution-strength promise to yourself to swear off sugar, alcohol, wheat, dairy and caffeine. For at least a month.

The first few days go well. You’ve survived without sugar and caffeine by filling up on green smoothies and raw nuts. Then you stumble over some delectable home-baked morsel brought into the office by a well-meaning coworker, and one slip brings a lofty dietary plan crashing down to reality.

A week later, you try, again, to control your baser food instincts, growing more dictatorial with yourself with this attempt. You even consider the Master Cleanse* (lemon, maple syrup, cayenne) you’ve heard so much about, to really flush the fat cells out and toxins along with them. STOP.

*We do not advocate doing the Master Cleanse, as it can be very dangerous. Please seek out a licensed holistic nurse practitioner (like at Londonderry Whole Health), or try gentler cleansing and fasting techniques like those offered at Each Peach Café this spring.

Though the start of a new year may feel like the appropriate time to clean the ultimate house, A.K.A. your body, January is not the season for cleansing. Just like other living things, winter is the time for your body to rest – think the slumbering maple, bear and squirrel. Cleansing in winter is destined for failure.

Eastern medicine tells us fasts and cleanses are best undertaken in the spring, “when people have the sense that they’re coming out of the dark winter and into the light. They want to shed layers, literally and figuratively,” explains Marcy Balter, a board member at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Once a raw-food diet purist, Balter extols the benefits of “warming” foods during cold winter months. Like the soup from our January 12th Winter’s Day post.

Fasting and cleansing makes your liver work overtime, which is extra taxing during colder months. The best way to give your liver and digestive tract a rest this time of year is simply to eliminate the biggest inflammation-causing offenders – coffee, beer, red meat, processed sugars, and bread – and calming foods.

Curries – cinnamon, turmeric, coriander and ginger warm the system and move clogging compounds like mucus out of the body.

Garlic – fights fungus, the yeast candida and inflammation.

Cacao Nibs – has four times the antioxidants of green tea and is the most magnesium-rich food known. Perfect addition to a smoothie for a serotonin and endorphin boost to lift winter blahs.

Lemons – increases body temperature and circulation to clear toxins. Hot water with fresh squeezed lemon is perfect first thing in the morning and before each meal.

Water – lots of it. You can’t clean anything without sufficient amounts of water. The general rule is an ounce of water for every 2 pounds of body weight. Daily. It is difficult for me to drink cold water in the winter, so I leave my water out at room temperature or heat it up and add some lemon.

Still worried this won’t be enough to get you warm-weather-ready (shorts, tank tops and eeek, bikinis)? Each Peach Café is offering a variety of challenges (free), cleanses, and fasts this spring to help educate, motivate and provide support.

In the meantime, everyone is welcome to join me and Denise at Amoskeag Chiropractic this Wednesday, January 26 (weather permitting), for a FREE seminar all about the miraculous coconut. Learn why the coconut is so effective in supporting healthy thyroid function, enzyme systems like the pancreas, and removing excess weight!

In preparation, we opened a case of coconuts last night so everyone can try fresh coconut water (same electrolytic balance as our blood), and a delicious chocolate mousse made from the coconut meat and coconut oil.

Milk-Chocolate Mousse
2 C cashews, soaked 4 hours
1 C young Thai coconut meat (or avocado)
1/4 C raw cacao powder
2-1/2 t vanilla extract
1 pinch of sea salt
1/2 C agave nectar
1-3/4 C filtered water
1-1/2 C coconut oil, melted

In a high-speed blender, blend all ingredients except the coconut oil until completely smooth. With the blender running, slowly pour in the coconut oil. Continue to blend until oil is thoroughly incorporated. Transfer the mousse to a covered bowl and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight to set. Yum!

Next post: step-by-step instructions on how to EASILY open young Thai coconuts. Yourself. At home. With photos.

Augusta

A Date with Kale

Last night Denise hosted our monthly post-cleanse pot luck at her house, to which I brought the Free Range Chickenless salad from Alissa's latest book Raw Food for Everyone. It's delicious! And easy to make. And was a huge hit. At the pot luck, we also be prepared lots of cheesy kale chips! Of course, they weren’t done and ready to be munched on last night... but oh how delightful they'll be after a day or so of dehydrating.

The Kale Chip "Cheese"
- 1 C cashews (pre-soak for 4-5 hours)
- 1 1/2 lemons (juice from)
- 2 T water
- 2 T nutritional yeast (or more!)
- 1 T paprika
- 1/2 red pepper
- salt to taste

Place all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. Rub the "cheese" all over broken up kale leaves until coated. Dehydrate 24 hours or longer. I don't know how long they'll stay crunchy after they're removed from the dehydrator, because they've never lasted long enough to find out! So, so yummy. Kale chips going into the dehydrator pictured below:

An update on the progression of Each Peach Cafe smoothie bar... We are unable to come to an agreement about the terms for the space we like at the moment, so our negotiations continue and our search resumes! There is so much real estate available right now, I don't foresee any problem finding the right space AND the right offer. In the meantime, Lori and I have some fabulous things in the works to make our delicious, healthy smoothies available sooner than later... Stay tuned.

Free Range Chickenless Salad
- 1 small zucchini, coarsely chopped
- 1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped
- 1/2 C Quick Cheese (1/4 C macadamia nuts, 1/4 C cashews, 1 t nama shoyu or Braggs, 1 t lemon juice. Combine ingredients in food processor and add water as necessary)
- 2 T apple cider vinegar
- 2 1/2 t Salad Seasoning (celery seeds, cumin seeds, dash of red pepper flakes)
- 1 shallot minced
- 10 to 12 grapes, halved
- 1 apple, cored and diced
- sea salt, pepper, paprika to taste

Whisk together the cheese, vinegar, salad seasoning, and other seasonings. Add zucchini, celery, shallot, grapes and apple, and toss to coat. Arrange with radicchio, romaine, or other leaf of your choice. Serve!

Enjoy!
Augusta

Join Us for Ladies’ Night!

The holidays are upon us… Black Friday is only days away… I have decided to do what I can this year to not only shop for locally grown produce when possible, but also to support local small businesses over the holidays. And the perfect opportunity to do just this is to join us at Nicole’s Salon and Day Spa Friday, December 3rd from 7-10pm for their Night of Shopping and Fun!

For one night only, Nicole’s is offering 15% off gift certificates and products, and will feature other local businesses including Aine’s Boutique of Reading, Designz by Jackie, Simple Pleasures Fashion Jewelry, Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, Avon, Roots, and us (Each Peach Café)! I’ll serve a raw dessert, and Lori will mix up our special house smoothie for everyone to sample. Definitely stop by if you can!

Last Sunday, Lori and I attended ZuZu’s Healing Arts annual Holiday New Age Expo in Peabody, MA, where different health experts and vendors of all kinds participated. We especially enjoyed meeting Carolyn Kelley, owner of In Joy Organics, and learning more about the thyroid. Lori was super brave and did the iodine test along with the rest of the group (she’s severely allergic), and both of us discovered to no surprise that we both need more iodine in our diet. I purchased the In Joy Sea Shakes, both original and zesty flavors, which combine sea salt and seaweeds. I highly recommend both! We will definitely carry this product at Each Peach Café once we open for business.

Last night I got a call from one of our raw and living food students who met me and Denise through our raw living foods seminars at Amoskeag Chiropractic, and has already taken both Level I and the Desserts class. She was looking for a little help with recipes she’s preparing for Thanksgiving, which I thought was fabulous! Talk about putting your new food prep skills to the test… The ultimate test. I asked her to share with me how everything is received at the BIG MEAL. Stay tuned…

So, whether in MA or NH, join us at Nicole’s Salon & Day Spa in Stoneham, MA, Friday, December 3rd for Ladies’ Night, or at Amoskeag Chiropractic in Manchester, NH, Wednesday, December 15th for the Raw Living Snack Seminar. Both are FREE!

Augusta