Love Notes

Before Thanksgiving I remembered reading about a little girl named Elena Desserich. Her story was so touching that I incorporated her method of sharing her love into my own way of sharing. You see, Elena passed away from an inoperable form of cancer when she was only 6. However, her wisdom has proved to be far beyond that of a 6 year old in my opinion. After her death, her parents and little sister started finding literally hundreds of love notes that Elena left hidden all over the house for them. This beautiful child understood and had the vision to leave her family with the most profound method of comfort and lasting love. How often do we get the opportunity to fully express our love for those we care about and let it go? Some of us have a lifetime and waste it and yet a child of only 6 has left behind more love notes than most of us see in an entire lifetime. I am reminded of a quote from one of my favorite movies, "Thirty seconds well used is a lifetime." What can you accomplish and how much love can you share in just 30 seconds? It seems to me that Elena, accomplished multitudes in 6 short years.

So how have I incorporated Elena's legacy into my life? I've taken up writing love notes again. Nothing long. They don't need to be. When I was younger I would write pages and pages which was great at the time, but now I am enjoying hiding my own stash of love notes for my family to find. I often update my status on my social sites sending out words of love. I constantly tell my family and friends that I love them. I guess this is why I love Elena's story so much. I want to take every opportunity to love to the best of my ability. Now, I can find another way to share. I urge you to do the same.

The picture that I have posted is one of Elena's drawings. Her family plans to publish a book called Notes Left Behind with a collection of her love notes. What a wonderful tribute to a life well lived.

I love you.

Thai themed dinner!

I had such fun preparing this Thai themed dinner for friends in October that I've just been waiting for a chance to share it. The recipe in the big bowl is Thai Curry Vegetable with Coconut Rice and it was fantastic! The picture does not do it justice as this is such a visually colorful dish. I prepared this for non-raw foodies and they loved it. I got the recipe from the Nuts about Coconuts video from Jackie and Gideon Graff http://www.sproutrawfood.org/ Every recipe that I have prepared from this video iw delicious and I highly recommend it. Tell them that Barefoot sent ya!



The curry flax crackers are my own recipe. I make tons of these. So portable and great with avocados for a quick meal or snack when traveling. Also I found some raw farmers cheese during an excursion to a winery that I topped with basil for my dairy eating friends. We had olives and fermented garlic (looking for that recipe) and grapes to compliment this meal. It was so filling that I had half of the Thai Curry Vegetables and Coconut Rice left over.



Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the amazing dessert that I prepared. So you will have to take my word that it was just so unbelievable and probably the very best raw dessert I have ever prepared. The recipe? From the Nuts about Coconuts video that I mentioned earlier. It was the Carob Mousse Cake. Hands down, best raw dessert ever. Your non-raw friends and family will never believe it. I topped it off with one last recipe from the same video, which was the Coconut Cream. This recipe deserves another post all it's own. It is so wonderful and I have used it for some many other things and have even been inspired to create my own version of this as well.