A recent post by my sister on her “Om Cooking” FB page, sums it up:
“My mom makes the best cheesecake, the baked kind that fills a gigantic spring form pan, the kind that you keep slivering away at until you have eaten the whole thing! This is my raw variation. Cashews and macadamia nuts kissed with lemon and vanilla, cultured with acidophilus on an almond crust with fresh organic strawberry balsamic coulis and fresh berries!”
Mystee’s not so cheesy cheesecake
She’s posted a photo of the cake, so perfect in its presentation it could sit in the window of a Patisserie on Rue de Seine in Paris.
Mystee is the daughter who inherited the cooking gene… and then some. She has taken a course at The Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC and studied with Matthew Kenney at his raw cooking school in Santa Monica. She’s taken numerous workshops (that sound, to me, to be straight from the pages of Harry Potter) on elixir craft and fermentation and spent over 25 years healthily honing meals for her own family while gaining a loyal following in the Rocky Mountain community of Banff —the epicentre of all things healthy and wholesome.
Mention “raw” to me and I’m more likely to be thinking about a file on my camera than something I’m about to ingest. Of course, as the mother of two, (who lived as a hausfrau in Switzerland for ten years where kids still leave school for a hot lunch every day) I do, of course, cook but it would be fair to say that it’s not the kitchen that inspires my creativity and I can be rather impatient when it comes to following a recipe. My ideal dinner leans more toward a bubbling pot of Gruyere cheese with a dry Chenin blanc and perhaps a closing grappa to settle the tummy. If this all comes with a table of good friends and family, even better. I’m not prepared to totally give this up, but I admit, I need to up my nutritional game.
Raw Greek Pizza from Om Cooking.
In six months I turn 50. There’s been talk, (that hasn’t entirely omitted the idea of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro), about what to do for this monumental birthday. But on the phone recently with Mystee, the truth comes out.
“I just want to be on solid ground for my 50th birthday. To reach professional goals that will help to secure the future, for the girls and me, but I also want to make some changes that will keep me feeling half my age, for the next fifty years”.
Our father recently turned 89 and has the vigour of someone in his thirties. He’s frequently spotted, by bemused locals, gliding on his rollerblades or rising a couple of hundred metres in elevation over Banff Town, on his mountain bike, to take in the view. Yes, we’ve been graced with good genes and I figure if I’m going to be living in this body for another half century, I had better be looking after it.
So, instead of bracing myself for my sister’s next culinary Facebook post, I’ve decided to gather my strength and face it head on. Shortly after our conversation, I send her an email:
“Here’s the deal Myst. I want to be inspired to make meals that are healthy, for myself and for the girls. If you could send me some recipes, meals, snacks and drinks, I’m going to make one each week and write about it — even if the result isn’t pretty. Kind of an “If I can do this, anyone can, Julie and Julia, scenario.
So, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to stare down the unrefined, the whole and the raw and turn them into something my teenage daughters will eat. Stay tuned and wish me luck but feel free to mock and/or encourage me as you see fit. I can’t do this on my own!
Fondue. So easy, so simple. so good….
