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Mushroom + Maca Tonic At The Chalkboard Mag Today

Mushroom + Maca Tonic At The Chalkboard Mag Today

Photos & styling by Lyudmila Zotova

Up early, run to work without breakfast, coffee one. Work while eating a huge lunch because you missed breakfast resulting in afternoon slump, pour coffee two. Get home and feel like crashing, but still need to do more work, pour coffee three. Frazzled and can’t relax in the evening, wake up exhausted in the morning. Rinse and repeat. Sound like you?

If…

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Mod Ikebana Succulent-Style Plant Meditations At Pigment San Diego

Mod Ikebana Succulent-Style Plant Meditations At Pigment San Diego

Pigment is the San Diego mecca of everything small batch, artisinal, thoughtfully crafted, quirky, mod, Bohemian, organic, vibrant, natural and beaming with plant life. Situated along the growing artsy block of 30th Street in the heart of North Park, Pigment is a mod Bohemian’s dream. On our recent visit, Milan beelined into the tee-pee in the front “living room” while I ran around…

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Sonia Faruqi's Project Animal Farm: An Uncensored Look At Factory Farm Cruelty

Sonia Faruqi’s Project Animal Farm: An Uncensored Look At Factory Farm Cruelty

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.

– The Dalai Lama

While we are no strangers to discussing the very real issues plaguing our modern food system at Garden Eats, today’s post is raw and hopefully emotional for most of you. We’re hoping that Sonia’s book is a game changer for people who eat meat everywhere and even for those who…

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COLD Food Therapy Soup For The Chalkboard Magazine Styled By Livesstyled

COLD Food Therapy Soup For The Chalkboard Magazine Styled By Livesstyled

While most parts of the country are cooling off to make way for fall weather, in true Southern California fashion, we’re experiencing yet another heat wave, typical of late summer and early autumn. Our need for hydration not only doubles, but the heat also compromises immunity, resulting in those all-too-familiar pesky coughs and dry, sore throats.

Traditional Chinese medical food therapy has…

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End Of Summer In The Garden Eats Garden

End Of Summer In The Garden Eats Garden

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Before the First Frost, Eat Your Celosia

Before the First Frost, Eat Your Celosia

As the first frost approaches, you’re no doubt gifting extra tomatoes and peppers to the neighbors, blanching broccoli to pop into the freezer and wondering if you can drink enough green juice to deal with all of the kale varieties you decided to grow. Some will let the frost come, naturally petrifying their gardens until spring, while others start pulling and composting… Have you considered the…

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Happy Fall Equinox Although It's Almost 90 Degrees

Happy Fall Equinox Although It’s Almost 90 Degrees

84, 82, 91, 81, 90… Hardly feels like fall equinox here in SoCal. The vacationers have gone back to wherever they’re from while the locals are quickly reclaiming the beach and waves. There is little other visual evidence that fall has arrived. No Uggs, no pumpkin spice lattes, no changing leaves, no rain boots- nope, none of that in sight.

Instead for us SoCal locals, we’re eating guavas, riding…

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SoCal Heatwave Calls For Cold Andalusian Soup

SoCal Heatwave Calls For Cold Andalusian Soup

It’s hot. No, it’s flaming. And, today it’s humid like the tropics. Not a favorable combo for enticing that appetite is it?! The thing is, you’ve got to eat- you’re sweating minerals by the minute. Great if you’re juicing everything in sight like us, but it’s not enough- you need some fat. Get some cold soup in your life today.

And, slow down. The heat is always a good reminder to give…

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Miyoko Skinner's The Homemade Vegan Pantry & Strangozzi al Tartuffo

Miyoko Skinner’s The Homemade Vegan Pantry & Strangozzi al Tartuffo

Of course I love vegan cheese expert, Miyoko Schinner’s, new book, The Homemade Vegan Pantry. She talks health, the environment, farmer’s markets, S L O W food, flavor, so much flavor… But back to the environment for a moment. I love seeing a cookbook that discusses ethical eats right from the gate- reminds me of the vegetarian-movement cookery books from the 70’s. Miyoko tells readers, “you…

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Science Approves My Kimchi 

The difference between standard fare kimchi and “functional” kimchi is this here little concoction. Functional foods are those aimed at improving or preventing particular health concerns that have been tested both clinically and in the lab to:

1. contain the nutrient levels they claim to and

2. bear evidence that those nutrients achieve a hypothesized clinical goal…

Functional translates to food…

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Drought Approved: Alt Grass & Succulent Minimalism 

If you’re itching to landscape {I am!}, but have been avoiding digging in, go for it now {quick, quick} while the ground is still moist from the recent tropical rains here in San Diego. Wait much longer and you’ll be back to an inhospitable environment for new plant-friends. 

Go for decomposed granite, barks and boulders. Make a less is more statement by sectioning off smaller gardens instead of…

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5 Additive-Free Bar Products & Our Bitters Lab Giveaway!

5 Additive-Free Bar Products & Our Bitters Lab Giveaway!

You don’t always have time to whip up your own vermouth or bitters or simple syrups, but you sure do want them to be derived from pure, bio-dynamic and organic ingredients without all of the funky stuff that commonly gets thrown into liqueurs, syrups and other bar-related products.

When you’ve got to buy, grab these Garden Eats picks or head to our fave shops and feel good about it!

Royal Rose…

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Coffee + Adrenal Tonic Shrub

My great-grandmother made shrubs of all sorts- likely to keep up with the boxes of produce my great-grandfather brought home from working at The Rochester Public Market- there was no chance she was going to throw away extra fruits or vegetables- so into soups, stews and apparently shrubs they went.

Seems every bar you visit offers a house-made shrub now, and why not, they’re another way to up…

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Teaching Culinary Cocktails at Matthew Kenney Culinary in Venice Beach

The last time I taught culinary cocktails at the Matthew Kenney Culinary Schoolin Los Angeles I had a blast experimenting with raw vegan cheese, unfiltered wine and fresh, raw kombucha {not to mention their artist/raw chef, Scott Winegard hand-crafted a divine vegan cheese plate to accompany our unfiltered Rosé for after class!}. Of course when education director and friend, Megan Dunn…

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Bitters & Shrub Syrup Cocktails Reviewed, By Warren Bobrow, The Cocktail Whisperer

Bitters & Shrub Syrup Cocktails Reviewed, By Warren Bobrow

Whenever Warren Bobrow says he’s publishing a new cocktail book, I get excited, very, very excited. Warren speaks my health & kitchen language- apothecary, homeopathic, restorative, small-batch… Words I live by and the ingredients I create with.

His latest, Bitters & Shrub Syrup Cocktailswas created in the spirit of medicinally-themed drinks, and to my personal delight, features mocktails…

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Five New Super Greens to Grow

If you have a home garden, you’ve probably grown lettuce, kale, spinach or chard. We tend to stick with what’s done well in the past, but this year why not try something new? Maybe you’re curious about some other varieties but weren’t sure of their taste or if they’re easy to grow. Either way, if you haven’t ordered your seeds yet, don’t fret. Go online and check out what’s new to you. We’ll…

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What Seeds Did You Decide To Grow?

It’s May, if you haven’t already chosen your seeds.. Ahem, what are you waiting for? :).

Need a little inspiration? Check out my suggestions over at Edible Finger Lakes Magazine and The Horticult where you’ll find my top picks for both east and west coast heirloom seeds, why they’re important and a few growing tips!

Have questions for Kath about whether a certain seed will do well in your soil…