Vegan, Really Good!

I know there are a lot of people who live the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle and find it hard to have options when they go out to eat.

So here's a link to my review of Present Moment Café, a Raw Food Vegan place in St. Augustine, which is fantastic!

http://www.eujacksonville.com/pages/10-4-07/presentmomentcafe.htm

I would love for a place like this to open up in Jacksonville. Even the non-veggies (at least the ones that aren't freaked out by creative dishes) will love the stuff at Present Moment. The juice bar alone makes it worthwhile.

Here's a link to a great site with info on the Raw lifestyle and Raw

Restaurants, with plenty of beautiful pictures of what a well-prepared Raw dish can look like.

http://www.rawchef.com/index.php

This site will get you a respectable list of Raw Food recipes.

http://www.living-foods.com/recipes

How to really, really enjoy chocolate

1) Close your eyes. Scientific studies have proven that the sense of taste is heightened in a dark room, so make it really dark and close your eyes once you’ve placed some heaven-sent chocolate in your mouth.
2) Don’t just chew and swallow. Chocolate only comes into its full flavor when it melts a little, so eat small bites and let it melt in your mouth before you swallow it. Some chocolate connoisseurs even keep a special warming pad to heat their chocolate to just the tasting right temperature, without being sticky. I’m not so hi-tech, though I do love it so.
3) Start with a clean palate. If you’ve eaten something sweet just before tasting your chocolate, your taste buds will be overloaded with the sweet taste and the chocolate will taste bitter. Coffee with chocolate may seem like a great choice, but you won’t get the full richness of your chocolate if you take strongly flavored coffee with it.

(The sweet confections above are from Claude's Chocolate's in St. Augustine)