A Fool And Her Money, Sonny!
God, how I love shopping at The Heritage. I always have, but now that I'm eating about 70% raw vegan I feel like I could spend hours there, maxing out my credit card. Even though all I bought last night was Alba facial cleanser, raw tahini, yerba maté, organic mangoes, and a bag of cacao powder, which I am trying out to see if it will be a safer, healthier, and more important chocolaty pick-me-up to my deadly quadruple espressos I intake about three days a week. More on that later.
It's a shame it's about a 20-minute drive down by the ocean, and traffic/parking is a nightmare. There really is no other health food source close to where I live. Whole Foods is in downtown Norfolk (another parking catastrophe) and Trader Joe's is all the way out on the peninsula. The Farm Fresh across the street from my house has about two half-aisles of "organic" while the one down by my work has a whopping three half-aisles. Fresh World around the corner is great for a wider variety of produce, cheaper than Farm Fresh as well. But alas, for my one-stop organic/raw shopping needs I need to go a good 20-30 drive in either direction out of my way for the slightly more esoteric items, like agave syrup or even something as simple as raw coconut oil. Maybe I'm spoiled, having a grocery store I can run across the street to whenever I'm out of one little thing. I need to live how the rest of the world lives. By their inante hunting instincts! Hunting and gathering! Foraging! And here I used to make fun of Alvin the vegetarian with all the lame "eats shoots and leaves" jokes.
I did learn today at work that cacao powder doesn't dissolve well in cold almond milk. It floats on the surface dry as a bone, and boy does it get everywhere. But I found if I stirred it a lot until the milk started turning chocolate-hued, then scooped up the excess powder off the surface with a spoon and threw it away, it made a rather tasty cold chocolate milk (I put one small packet of Stevia in it but I think the almond milk already sweetens it pretty decently). I did discover that the powder appears to be very water soluble when I rinsed the gook out of my mug and spoon in the sink, so I think I'm going to make water-based hot chocolate next time and see how that pans out. Not that I'm really craving chocolate that much anymore, but I have been reading up on cacao a lot lately as a "superfood" supplement and how it energizes you without the caffeine crash or addictive properties of coffee. Funny enough, since I don't eat sugar anymore I don't really feel the need for anything to force me awake anymore. Still, if I can get a freaky buzz off of cacao powder every now and again it'll be just like old times at the First Colony cafe with the gals back in Ghent fifteen years ago. Woot-woot! *snorting line of cacao*
It's a shame it's about a 20-minute drive down by the ocean, and traffic/parking is a nightmare. There really is no other health food source close to where I live. Whole Foods is in downtown Norfolk (another parking catastrophe) and Trader Joe's is all the way out on the peninsula. The Farm Fresh across the street from my house has about two half-aisles of "organic" while the one down by my work has a whopping three half-aisles. Fresh World around the corner is great for a wider variety of produce, cheaper than Farm Fresh as well. But alas, for my one-stop organic/raw shopping needs I need to go a good 20-30 drive in either direction out of my way for the slightly more esoteric items, like agave syrup or even something as simple as raw coconut oil. Maybe I'm spoiled, having a grocery store I can run across the street to whenever I'm out of one little thing. I need to live how the rest of the world lives. By their inante hunting instincts! Hunting and gathering! Foraging! And here I used to make fun of Alvin the vegetarian with all the lame "eats shoots and leaves" jokes.
I did learn today at work that cacao powder doesn't dissolve well in cold almond milk. It floats on the surface dry as a bone, and boy does it get everywhere. But I found if I stirred it a lot until the milk started turning chocolate-hued, then scooped up the excess powder off the surface with a spoon and threw it away, it made a rather tasty cold chocolate milk (I put one small packet of Stevia in it but I think the almond milk already sweetens it pretty decently). I did discover that the powder appears to be very water soluble when I rinsed the gook out of my mug and spoon in the sink, so I think I'm going to make water-based hot chocolate next time and see how that pans out. Not that I'm really craving chocolate that much anymore, but I have been reading up on cacao a lot lately as a "superfood" supplement and how it energizes you without the caffeine crash or addictive properties of coffee. Funny enough, since I don't eat sugar anymore I don't really feel the need for anything to force me awake anymore. Still, if I can get a freaky buzz off of cacao powder every now and again it'll be just like old times at the First Colony cafe with the gals back in Ghent fifteen years ago. Woot-woot! *snorting line of cacao*
posted by Melissa at 5:55 PM
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