Month: April 2014

My ski trip to Skoki Lodge

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Recently I experienced one of the best adventures of my life.  If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you might have noticed me in a silly looking beanie with a grin on my face set against a background of feathery whiteness.

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Me with my mate Kersti, outside Skoki Lodge

I’d flown to Calgary (you can read my post on this here) to do a cross-country ski trip to Skoki Lodge, a rustic hut in the middle of Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.

I promised many times over to share the details in a bit of a post explaining why it was such a bucket list filler. Let’s break it down.

And just so you know, half of my stay was hosted by Tourism Alberta, but as always views are all my own and I communicate this clearly to anyone wishing to host me. You’ll find my position on sponsored posts and advertising here.

1.    It’s a trip with a hard-to-reach, on-foot destination.

This is my favourite kind of trip and I spend a lot of time scouring the interwebs for hiking and biking (and skiing) routes that take you village-to-village. Skoki can only be reached by foot (unless you’re Prince William and Princess Kate who famously were flown in by helicopter). In winter you ski (carrying your gear) in summer you can hike or ride a horse.

At the same time, it starts and/or ends with a bit of luxury. We (my mate Kersti joined me) stayed at The Post Hotel in

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How I wrote my 8-Week Program Meal Plans

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The next round of my I Quit Sugar online 8-Week Program starts June 5 and you can sign up now and join the 300,000 other peeps around the world who’ve done it, either via my books or online.

Tandoori Chicken with Indian Rice Salad
The I Quit Sugar Tandoori Chicken with Indian Rice Salad

In this next round you’ll still have the option to choose from two Meal Plans: the standard (meat inclusive) 8-Week Program Meal Plan and the Vegetarian Meal Plan.

If you’re wanting to check it out and ask any questions, or sign up, click here.

One of the questions I get asked constantly, however, is whether the Plans fit with current dietary guidelines. The short answer is: abso-bloody-lutely. The longer one requires that I share how I actually devise my recipes, meals and plans…

1. I prioritise dense nutrition. At every opportunity. I find ways to supply foods with the densest nutrition in every meal. This means:

  • Prioritising (and adding extra) leafy greens and high-quality fat and protein at every meal.
  • Preparing food to preserve (and maximise) enzymes and bacteria for digestion.
  • Minimising toxins (from harmful grains and legumes) and empty calories (from, um, sugar and processed carbs).

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Who loves Danielle LaPorte? Want to meet her in Melbourne?

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I love how the interwebs work! As time passes a growing number of the Good Eggs who I’ve met online have been finding a way to interconnect and circle back and form a lovely, supportive e-Tribe. I e-met bloggers Gala Darling, Gabby Bernstein, Tara Stiles, Danielle LaPorte and Clare Bowditch all through independent e-avenues. And whattaya know, in the past month all of them have collided and intersected, and somehow I’ve been included in the ride. It’s almost become funny how often it has been happening.

Image via Pinterest
Image via Pinterest

Anyway. Let’s chat Danielle and Clare. Clare and I connected a few years ago over Twitter, and then over a cup of tea in Melbourne, and discovered we have much in common. Clare has since shared on my site about her autoimmune issues and earlier this year she interviewed me for her site. Huge heart. Hearty contributor to life.

Danielle – I’ve been mesmerised by her writing and lifestyle for yonks and used to follow her site White Hot Truth regularly. She tells it straight. I once wrote about giving yourself permission to quit “low rent” experiences, pivoting off a list Danielle put together, which included:

  • check your email whenever the hell you want.
  • return crappy products to their crappy manufacturers (because you can vote with your dollars).
  • not finish reading books that you’re not really enjoying. Don’t force it, close it.

You can read the rest here.

Another time I wrote about how some of the most successful bloggers had ditched comments on their sites, Danielle being one of them.

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I Quit Sugar on NBC’s The Today Show!

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Followers of my blog and social media will know I’ve been camped out in New York doing publicity for the release of the US version of I Quit Sugar. This morning I did a segment with Carson Daly on NBC’s The Today Show and made two of the most popular recipes from the book: Raspberry Ripple … Read more

Just Show Up

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One of the highlights of my stay here in New York has been connecting with author, blogger and spiritual junkie Gabby Bernstein. Gab did my I Quit Sugar program a few months ago, blogged and SM’d about it to her vast and adoring audience and suddenly we were in each other’s orbits.

Hilarious: Rushing to get to Better TV show to chat #iqs AND LOOK WHO I RUN INTO!?!?! The ephemeral Gabby Bernstein (an #iqs convert)!
Hilarious: Rushing to get to Better TV show to chat #iqs AND LOOK WHO I RUN INTO!?!?! The ephemeral Gabby Bernstein (an #iqs convert)!

The funny thing is this: our books – I Quit Sugar and Miracles Now – both came out in the US on exactly the same day (last Tuesday), they both feature 108 recipes and spiritual tricks (respectively), then we randomly met each other on launch day when we appeared on the same TV show here in NY (she heard my voice in the corridor), then we dined that night. And then we shared some more.

I don’t talk “God” or “soul sistas” or about channeling The Light, but I’ve always had an affinity with people who do. I guess it’s because I talk, feel and live this stuff, but from a slightly different slant. Same view, different angle. And there’s nothing I like more than to look at the view while perched alongside someone who evokes it tantalizingly differently to me.  It gets me thinking fresh. That’s

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Slow food (and Paleo) Guide to Calgary and Lake Louise

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This is a straightforward post to complement my longer spiels about my adventure to Skoki Lodge.

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Oh Canada…

Both Calgary and Lake Louise are fantastic whole food destinations. So many of the places I checked out during my stay banged on about 100-mile-radius produce, pasture-finished meat and eating nose to tail etc. It was super refreshing. As a base for exploring the region, Calgary is great for 1-2 days and certainly some of the cafes and restaurants are worth checking out before heading off to nearby mountain adventures. I’ve included some Lake Louise information, too. Because it rocks the Rockies!

Just a quick note on Canadian service before we move on: It’s seriously the best in the world. Canadians are notoriously nice and they do hospitality with so much earnest care. Almost worth visiting just for this lovely touch.

And just so you know, half of my stay was hosted by Tourism Alberta, but as always views are all my own and I communicate this clearly to anyone wishing to host me. You’ll find my position on sponsored posts and advertising here.

River Café

This place is magical – a cosy, barn-like place with an open fire and a great bar area located on an island in a river that runs through the centre of town. Big windows look out onto the park (geese frolicking in the snow!) and you lose all sense that you’re in the middle of the city. I walked there from the Kensington Riverside Inn a little further up the river at sunset. I drank anamazing red from a list featuring lots of organics and ate…

Local pasture-finished Angus sirloin on an eggplant caponata with fiddleheads (fern buds that grow nearby at the start of spring) and cod served with cabbage rolls.

And…

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Slow Food (and Paleo) Guide to Seattle

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Seattle is a slow and whole foodie playground. Let me illustrate just how so with this example: the other night at Sitka and Spruce, a Capital Hill restaurant featuring local produce, I had one of my gut aches. When I have a gut ache I generally take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in some warm water before eating. It settles things. So I tried my luck with the cashmere sweater-wearing waiter and asked if the kitchen might have some ACJ, used for cooking purposes. “I believe we ferment our own…one moment.” He promptly arrived with a mug of the stuff, along with my glass of biodynamic Burgundy. For, while not flagged in neon lights on the menu, the entire wine list is organic, natural or biodynamic.

It would all be tediously “Portlandia”, except I was in Seattle, where this kind of eating is very unpretentious.

I love this Seattle shot... Granny on her iPhone at one of the most Portlandia joints in town (Sitke and Spruce)
I love this Seattle shot… Granny on her iPhone at one of the most Portlandia joints in town (Sitke and Spruce)

Which makes things fun for someone like me. Actually it was food that brought me to Seattle – the city is regarded as the second best restaurant destination outside Manhattan, has the second largest wine industry outside California and it’s a mecca for food bloggers. Like my mates Shauna at Glutenfreegirl, Aran at CannelleVanille and my new mate Mickey at Autoimmune-Paleo. All of us have autoimmune disease, all of us connected online, all of us wanted to meet. Ergo, a jaunt to Seattle.

In addition to a bunch of other amazing wholefood nuts I met while in town, as well as the Visit Seattle team, they helped me put together this Portlandia-without-the-pretence guide. Enjoy.

Paleo eats

* Out of the Box: A Paleo food van that pops up around the place. Fantastic fare, like pork belly with cauliflower rice…you know the kind of thing. The also do meal delivery…good for hotel room service!!

* 50 North (University District): A wonderful American restaurant with plenty of gluten-free options; a great place for dinner. The fish and chips are excellent [I usually opt for sweet potato fries instead of regular ones – Mickey]. The lamb burger and BBQ pulled pork sandwich (without the buns) are also tasty Paleo options.

* Sea Breeze Farm (at the U-district market Saturdays and Ballard market on Sunday, year round): Every week this farm brings their best freshly butchered meats, raw dairy, and prepared goods all raised on their sustainable family farm to the market. Buy some  Porchetta for a snack as you walk the market. [They sell the best pork belly I

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my sugar-free strawberry and vanilla kombucha recipe

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All this kombucha experimenting has become something of a hobby. This recipe I’m sharing today kinda brings much of the tweaks together – how to make a fructose-free kombucha (using rice malt syrup), and how to pimp things up a treat, using the right quantities of essences and fruits. This combo really does work amazingly … Read more

How to let go… when you’re an A-type

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I’m a wholly neurotic, frenetic A-class example of an A-type. If you’re an A-type too (I know a few of you follow me on this blog) you’ll be with me on this: We know we need to let go, release our grip and chill the fork out, but…it requires clever trickery.

The view over the valley at Gwinganna. (Photo by Jo Foster.)
The view over the valley at Gwinganna. (Photo by Jo Foster.)

Indeed, it’s our very A-typeness – our ability to apply clever techniques – that gets us to something approximating “letting go”, usually via our body. And this is fine. So fine.

One of my tricks when I’m due for some letting go is to force myself into lockdown. I’ve escaped to a tin shed in the forest, plunged into remote wilderness on my own for a few weeks, and disappeared to a Hare Krishna camp.  The last few days before I left Australia I was locked down in a wellness retreat (for those of you wondering, there’s only one that I recommend. I have done for a number of years, freely and with conviction – Gwinganna in the Gold Coast hinterland. Their principles are sound and their care true).

I don’t like retreats (Groups! Organized activities! Being told what to do! Touchy feelyness! Eek!). But my A-type brain knows when something has to be done about something.

In this case, that something was chronic exhaustion ahead of a six-week book tour in America and UK. I needed boundaries and bush and calm and no internet and, yes, a bit of touchy feeliness.

But none of this is my point. My point is sharing a trick for letting go I came across in a group (!) breathing exercise one

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A bone marrow custard recipe… Plus a giveaway!

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There’s a lot about this recipe that gets me excited. Bones. Marrow. Warm, dense, nutritious custard. And a breakfast food not based on grains. I realise the combined effect could be a little challenging for some, but I invite everyone to think openly and consider the incredible health (and environmental and ethical) benefits of eating like this.

Bone marrow custard, recipe below
Bone marrow custard, recipe below

I should flag, the recipe comes courtesy of the lovely Jenny at The Nourished Kitchen who recently sent me her new book, by the same title. I’ve been following her blog for years and love her informed and clever approaches to healing foods. If you’ve been enjoying my kombucha recipes and other fermented foods, then you’ll get a wholesome kick from going the next step with her culinary inventions…kombucha vinaigrette, chicken foot broth and stewed beef heart with root veggies and porcini mushrooms!

This cookbook is a compendium of how-our-grandparents-used-to-eat recipes that do the farm to table fan-dangle. It’s very much aligned with my philosophy: whole and real foods, with value placed on quality and nutrient-dense foods, eating local and caring for the environment. It also includes organ meats and raw dairy, and a chapter on salt, time and the art of fermentation – one of my favourites!

Bone marrow can taste a lot like browned butter, which is why you’ll often find it in sweet custards and desserts in older cookbooks. Long leg bones provide delicious, buttery marrow. Purchase them pre-cut, or ask your butcher to cut them 1-3 inches (3-8 cms) thick to make scooping out the marrow a little more manage-able. While you can remove the marrow from the centre of a raw bone, roasting the bones significantly improves the flavour of marrow and makes it a bit easier to remove.

Bone Marrow Custard with black pepper and parsley

Jenny: “Cream and eggs nicely complement roasted marrow in this simple savoury custard, while the fresh flat-leaf parsley adds a clean, bright flavour to balance the richness. I often serve this custard for a late but substantial breakfast

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