Veggie Restaurants Unite! Cafe Gratitude Helps RAWvolution

Posted by Talia Shapiro – February 28, 2013

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Categories: Food & Nutrition

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Café Gratitude, a wildly popular organic vegan (mostly raw food) restaurant chain with locations sprinkled across the California coast, is a favorite foodie destination for celebrities like Emily Blunt, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rashida Jones. But Café Gratitude is more than just a place to see and be seen. Founders Matthew and Terces Engelhart pride themselves on the restaurant’s use of a business practice called “Sacred Commerce” that focuses on building a spiritual community at the workplace. They even wrote a book about it! (See Sacred Commerce: Business as a Path of Awakening.)

Now Café Gratitude is taking its mission of  “a world of plenty” to a whole new level. To help save their rival raw vegan dining establishment RAWvolution that is in dire straits, Café Gratitude Venice will donate the profits from their bestselling Gratitude Bowls purchased during the first week in March to RAWvolution. When asked why they’ve chosen to support the competition, Ryland Engelhart, the owner and general manager Café Gratitude Venice said, “There is strength in numbers, so we say the more the merrier when it comes to places to get delicious, organic food.”

We applaud Café Gratitude for lending a helping hand. If you’re in the Los Angeles area this week, consider stopping by Café Gratitude or RAWvolution to grab a bite. If you don’t live in L.A., think about preparing a Gratitude Bowl at home. Here’s a delicious-sounding recipe from I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude that packs a nutritious punch!

I Am Whole “MACRO” BOWL

For each serving you will need the following:

¾ cup shredded kale
1 cup cooked rice/quinoa or I Am Wholehearted RAW VEGGIE RICE (see recipe below)
⅓ cup I Am Alive KIM CHEE (see recipe below)
¼ cup sprouts
¼ cup grated carrots

To assemble, layer all ingredients in a bowl in the order they appear above.

 

I Am Whole-Hearted RAW VEGGIE RICE

Makes 2 cups “rice”

10 ounces parsnips or celery root (before peeling)
¼ cup pine nuts
1 pinch finely chopped garlic
Salt and white pepper to taste

Peel and grate the celery root. Spread onto a chopping board and cut into shorter, more rice-like segments. Finely chop or mash the garlic and pine nuts almost into a paste. Toss this with the root rice and add salt and pepper to taste. Dehydrate 10–30 minutes at 115° to achieve a softer texture.

 

I Am Alive HOMEMADE SAUERKRAUT AND KIM CHEE

Makes about 16 cups Sauerkraut

2 heads green or purple cabbage, or a mixture (purple cabbage will turn your kraut pink)
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons caraway seeds (optional)

or . . .

Makes about 16 cups Kim Chee*

2 large heads cabbage: Napa, green, or purple, or a mixture (purple cabbage will turn your Kim Chee pink)
2 large carrots
¾ pound daikon radish
½ pound burdock root
1 red sweet bell pepper
2 tablespoons salt
½ cup minced ginger
3 tablespoons minced garlic
3 minced jalapeños
1 bunch scallions, sliced on the bias
1 ounce hijiki (optional)

* Kim chee is very flexible. I like to cut all my veggies a little differently so in the end they are distinguishable. For instance, the carrots could be cut into half moons, burdock sliced on the bias, sweet pepper julienned, and the daikon full moons. The variations on kim chee and sauerkraut are endless, and the boundaries can overlap. You can add apples and onions to kraut, and fruits such as pineapple, firm peaches, and other stone fruits, flowering vegetable tops, radishes, or wild greens that grow in your area to kim chee.

Note: This makes a medium-spicy kim chee.

Tags: Raw Foods Vegetarian & Vegan

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