Seeking Food - By Ketojinic

After a long and hard process of researching, pitching, and making new friends, my project, "The Raw Truth" that explores the burgeoning raw food movement in LA, has been greenlit to be made this semester. We are are already in our 4th weekend of principal photography and that's why I've been away for so long. Please follow us until the end of this semester at: http://therawtruthmovie.tumblr.com/ That is where I will try to update as much as possible and I promise to come back to this blog circa December 10, 2010, when we premiere. Thanks for reading!

There is a place in New York called Chikalicious which when I first heard of it, I thought it was a fried chicken place. But, it's not. Behold the delicious dessert bar. I can't help but get the red velvet cupcakes (which they're always sold out of), and the affogato. Behold the Affogato. ice cream macaron red velvet cupcake bread pudding I don't know if this place is overrated or underrated but over the years whenever I go to NYC, I stop by here as part of my routine (and levain of course). 

EAT MY BLOG is Sat June 19th in We Ho's Tender Greens. I will be premiering my Bolivian Empanadas to the public. Bolivian empanadas are traditionally made only with a cheese filling with a powdered sugar coating outside. This lends to a sweet and salty, gooey and crunchy empanada that is extremely addictive. The native Bolivian cheese they use for these empanadas are Mennonite cheese that cannot be found in LA. Trust me, I've looked (though I did hear you can export it from Norther Mexico). For my version, I had to use the local cheese and I mixed a few different kinds to get the saltiness and the crudeness of Mennonite cheese but it's still much more gooey than I'd like (much more like mozarella than feta). If you're raw or vegan or trying to be, there are plenty of options. I saw some raw stuff on the menu too! Though mine is meatless, it is not vegetarian because some meat by products are used. So if you're not doing anything, please drop by. It's from 1...

I was so sad when I couldn't get reservations for Ludo 4.0 because it was sold out as soon as word got out. I wailed and complained for a good 20 minutes before going back to the film school hard knock life. I would read all the great reviews on other people's food blogs like choisauce or gastronomy or gourmet pigs or mattatouille or caroline on crack or food she thought . Basically, everyone and their moms had gone to previous ludobites v1.0, 2.0., 3.0. and now 4.0. Imagine my surprise when I got a random mass email asking for people to step in for last minute flakers. I didn't even personally know this woman but she offered up 4 spots. I pounced on the chance, took 2 of the spots (hey, I'm not greedy), and dreamt about what I'd eat before I finally arrived at Gram and Papa's last week. Because it's BYOB, we brought a Soviet sweet champagne my main squeeze scored at a neighborhood Jon's (if you've never been to Jon's market on la brea and f...

The LA Wine Fest is coming to town!!! At Raleigh Studios on Melrose, right across from Paramount Pictures. Last year, I couldn't go and I was pretty sad but I'll be there this year and you should too. If you buy tickets and type in "jin" for the promo code, you can get $15 off single day tickets. For more information, go to http://www.lawinefest.com/ . For wine haters, there will also be tequila, beer, food. For wine lovers, this is where you should be June 5 and/or 6th. Also, for all you raw foodists, I read in a raw food cook book that wine is actually okay on the raw food diet. So really, we can all enjoy this event!

I pitched my documentary about the raw food movement and got chosen! Woo woo! So next semester, I'll be able to go and film with a real film crew with faculty backing. So excited. As for my raw food diet, I've been going at many different "percentages." I'd like to go close to 100 percent for at least a week but I end up falling at day 3 or day 4. I still try again the next day but it's really hard without an eating plan and convenient go-to foods. For next week I think I'll try to buy foods that are easy to eat and that's on the go so that I will always have snacks on me. At the same time, I need delicious raw meals that I will WANT to eat. Some of the snacks I bought at erewhon were definitely hit or miss. I should review some of the things I'm eating here. I'm also realizing what I like and what I don't like in terms of flavor and texture. I never realized that I don't really like dill. Nope, definitely not a dill person.

This morning I had coffee. I had to. I was so tired. I still brought my lunch and ate most of it - Korean seaweed salad, kimchi. But, I also had beer and tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa. At least the only non raw things were the beer and the tortilla chips. I then had another large cup of iced coffee. I decided to only go raw by 50% today, which essentially means I am not on the raw food diet anymore since I have to be over 75% to be considered a raw foodist. Actually, I'm not sure how the percentages work...by calories or by intake or volume? Regardless, I'll get back on track tomorrow after the pitch. As for now, I'm going to inject myself with any sort of toxin near me so I can survive this pitching process. Hopefully I'll get this pitch and be able to go on a longer raw food journey. =D

Pretty Proud of myself that I didn't eat any of the millions of pizzas that were facing me. Even though I had two glasses of alcohol, which I was expecting to do as a celebration of picture locking our documentary , I still maintained a raw diet starting with raw cereal and ending with a very elaborate green leafy "sushi" which I will call..."vegetables wrapped in raw nori" because...that's what it was and that's what it tasted like. It took me way too long to make them because it's just not intuitive yet. For example, if I were to cook food and I only had basil, cilantro, and kale, I'd add garlic and olive oil and sautee it in a frying pan to have some cooked herby kale. Well, I had all those ingredients but I had trouble putting it together. I ended up making 2 liters of "dressing" which tasted good but way too garlicky. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the entire garlic clove. I forget that raw garlic is just so much stronger than c...

Really quick. I noticed that I got angry a lot today. Like everything pissed me off. I mean, I'll admit the things that happened to me were pretty annoying even on a normal day but maybe it's because I'm going through withdrawal and I'm really stressed out about this pitch tape but I got super angry and I pretty much stayed angry all day long. I had a few dips of happiness and complacency but then when I got home, I got fired up again. I'm a little more calm now. I blame it on the detox because it's easier than saying I have anger issues...which I don't. Anyway, I ate a lot of raw food today. Instead of telling you what I ate this time, I'll show you. I ate these throughout the day. I couldn't finish my salad because it was too big. I already lost 3 pounds. fruit salad with kombucha. I added a slice of blood orange into my kombucha. I couldn't finish my fruit salad so I took the rest "to go." My salad. Some guacamole that I packed to ha...

I woke up and DIDN'T have coffee. This wasn't too hard because I was slowly taking coffee out of my daily diet anyway. Thankfully, I didn't have to eliminate major addictions all at once. What also helped is that I've been eating meat sparingly the last few weeks, with just an exception here and there for special occasions. I remember eating like this when I grew up with my grandmother. She rarely fed us beef or chicken and we almost never ate pork. We ate fish on a regular basis, and lots of Korean stews and soups and noodle dishes. I miss her! She used to always tell me how Kimchi was so good for me and how that's the reason why Koreans live a long life, etc. I never really believed her, thinking kimchi was just old spicy cabbage. A few years back, Koreans were saying that the reason we weren't affected with SARS was because of our kimchi. Crazy talk, right? Raw foodists seem to believe that kimchi is one of the most healthy foods on earth. For realz? I grew ...

So some of you may know and others not, but I have a major life event happening in the next 8 months and I want to get nice and trim for it. Instead of abandoning my food blog as I undertake this dietary change, I decided to use this blog to chronicle my journey. Hopefully it will inspire people to try a raw restaurant or even try going raw for a few days. Your body will thank you. Today was my first fully raw day and I decided to do it today since it would be easy! I was going to be at the Raw Food Bazaar all day anyway, interviewing people for my potential documentary. The hardest thing about dieting for me, is making it too difficult or tempting. I didn't decide to go raw until I was actually at the Bazaar and thought, wow, if I started NOW, I wouldn't have to really think about it. So I did. I told my raw friend that I was going to give it a week. So this is what I ate all day: 1 young coconut A raw dish including sprouted chickpeas, kale salad, kelp noodles Grape Ko...

Wow. Doing research for my new documentary film on Raw Food has been tremendously eye-opening. Who would have thought that raw food could be so tasty? I've been gravitating towards the sweet and delicious types, usually with fruit or coconut based concoctions that were easy to make and "safe." This all changed when I went to Au Lac Fountain Valley. Now, I see just how much imagination and creativity it takes to make raw food and that savory dishes as well as sweet dishes are completely possible, delicious, and best of all, good for you. One of the things that really scared me about committing fully to a raw food diet was having to give up my beloved rice. As an Asian American (can I call myself American?) rice has been a staple in my diet and thus far, I have not seen rice in the raw form in the restaurants I've been to (perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough?) until I had Chef Ito's soaked rice dishes. Here is what I was so blessed to try: Bread with chimichurr...