Upon hearing that the menu at the retreat would consist of raw and living vegan food, not all of us knew what to expect. However, we were presented with abundant, scrumptious, and creative culinary masterpieces that left nothing to be desired.

Every day that we were in attendance, we took breaks from the curriculum in order to enjoy three amazing meals, as well as two snacks, which were prepared on site from scratch by the highly gifted chef Yesim Gumus (see the images below). In the participatory spirit of the retreat, everyone took a turn helping out with meal preparation and clean-up, guided by the all-knowing Yesim. Self-taught in the culinary art, Yesim explained that while she uses recipes as a guide, mostly she just works from intuition.

Here are some images of us enjoying the food.

At the end of the weekend, feeling cleansed and rejuvenated, it was with sorrow that we went home to our stoves, microwaves and processed foods. However with our new appreciation for raw foods, undoubtedly many of us will make the effort to incorporate this type of healthy food into our daily diet. And we have help in doing so as all the recipies will be available here in a pdf that you can dowload (coming soon).

Written by Deborah Lightman ((workshop participant, volunteer at the Sustainable Living Network)
.