The San Diego community has been awaiting the exciting day when Casa de Luz, an organic, plant-based “dining room” style restaurant with cooking classes would open. The day has come! This informative article by local writer Janice Stanger gives us the scoop on how the idea came to fruition!

Reprinted from “The Perfect Formula Diet” blog by Janice Stanger

Wayo at the Groundbreaking Event

Casa de Luz Will Be an Educational, Healing Community Dining Room

Eating out can be challenging on a whole foods, plant-based diet. Of course you can find vegan food in most restaurants, but it may well be too salty, oily, high calorie, low nutrient, and unsatisfying. This is not unique to eating plant-based. So many restaurants cater to tastes that have been warped by industrialized fast food, unhealthy school cafeterias, microwaved dinners, and packaged junk snacks.

In this landscape of undesirable choices, Casa de Luz will be a notable example of how much better we can be fed. I was excited to learn that Casa de Luz, a 20 year presence in the Austin dining out scene, will be opening in San Diego. Their dining room, in a converted Salvation Army building in the North Park area, will also feature a cooking school so you can learn to make appetizing, healthy meals at home.

I was lucky to have a chance to sample the Casa de Luz food experience at a recent Meet Up. The food is deceptively simple.

In fact, while using whole organic ingredients, our chef created an outstanding meal that I still think of with longing. The tastes are delicious, satisfying, complex, and memorable.

Far from being a restaurant, Casa de Luz in San Diego will be a dining room. Customers will sit at large round tables so they can chat with fellow diners while watching the staff chop vegetables and create savory meals in the large, open kitchen. Just observing will be a learning experience. The idea is that experiential learning is a powerful way for people to change and incorporate this healthy way of living – more powerful than a simple class would be.

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Here’s an interview with George Vutetakis, known as “The Vegetarian Guy,” who wrote a great cookbook about the restaurant he started in Michigan years ago. He’s known in San Diego for roving around farmer’s markets and sharing his delicious recipes with the world.

Why and when did you become vegetarian/vegan?

George:  The decision to become vegetarian came in an instant when I was 14, vacationing with family in Greece. At one of the many feasts we attended, the two goats I had befriended the day before were served as the main course–hooves and all. The years following, I studied yoga and felt vegetarianism was a path consistent with the philosophies of balance, peace and connecting to the earth. I became vegan because I find most dairy sources to be unreliable and connected to the factory farm slaughter industry. Today, everything I do is plant-based.

What are some of your favorite foods?

George: My Greek grandmother’s cooking was a major inspiration. Many of her dishes are my comfort foods, such as: Horta, boiled greens with fresh lemon and extra virgin oil and Kaletsounia, spring pastries made with fresh amaranth or sorrel. I learned to cook formally in India and many of my favorite dishes are those which we cooked there. The traditional Gujarati dishes in particular: Dhokla, a steamed chana dal cake with a fresh coconut, toasted sesame, cilantro, chile and ginger garnish, Devra, Patra and Khandui.

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San Diego is taking off as a veggie-friendly city! New restaurants are appearing often (see vegsandiego.com) and we boast an active “Vegetarians Unite” meetup group (also see this San Diego Vegans meetup and others).

We are also fortunate to have local experts to help newcomers along the vegetarian path. Veg-Appeal’s informative classes are a perfect jump-start for those wanting to check out a vegan or vegetarian diet. Enjoy this upcoming class taught by the three lovely ladies of Veg-Appeal!

• Sunday, January 29th, 12:00 – 2:30 PM, Kearny Mesa (please note the new class time)
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Vegetarians and vegans are constantly asked, “Do you get enough protein?”

Some of us are not concerned, as we eat plenty of beans, nuts, quinoa and other sources of protein regularly. This helpful article looks at the protein issue in depth. If you want to supplement your diet, there are many protein powders vying for our attention these days. Health nuts have brought up Sunwarrior lately, so I wanted to put the company in the spotlight, along with the huge banner ad on the main page of this blog that you are welcome to click on! If you purchase Sunwarrior through that banner ad, you would thrill me by providing my first pennies off this website which started with a desire to inspire others. A few year later, the blog is overflowing with articles on events, restaurants, interviews with interesting people in the veggie movement, and beyond.

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With a 110-year-old friend

I started this blog a few years ago to hopefully inspire others on their path to health; once in awhile I need to recharge and get inspired myself. I am not a raw foodist, but being around all the health-conscious people at Raw Spirit Festival provided just that revitalizing effect.

The setting at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Arizona was amazing and decadent, with desert mountain views, a fancy pool with an innertubing “river,” and a giant Dr. Seuss gingerbread house in the lobby.

I attended one day of the festival, at which many friendly, happy-looking people were in attendance. Many booths shared their raw food products, healing sessions and such, and some highly nutritious foods were for sale.

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Farmer Harvesting Camu Berries

What is yet another amazing food coming from the Amazon rainforest which contains about 60 times more vitamin C than an orange?

Camu (or camu camu), a berry dubbed the ‘Queen of Vitamin C’ by Navitas Naturals, is a nutritious rainforest fruit that has only recently become known to people in North America. The Navitas product is a pure organic powder. Each 5g serving contains 1,180% of the daily recommended intake of Vitamin C – a higher naturally occurring Vitamin C content than any other food on the planet.

This antioxidant-rich berry is also a great source of potassium, calcium, protein and beta-carotene. Camu also contains serine, thiamin, leucine and valine – powerful phytochemicals and amino acids that are known to have a wide range of therapeutic effects.

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Article by Raw Spirit Festivals

For the first time, Raw Spirit participants can bring in the New Year in an exquisite desert paradise just north of Phoenix, Arizona in the most elegant, sweetly-spiritual, healthful, cutting-edge, fun-loving, conscious, abundant, musical, interconnected way imaginable December 30, 2011 to January 1st, 2012 at Arizona’s most magnificent 5 star resort, the JW Marriott Desert Ridge. It features 300 Audubon Society-approved acres, lush lawns, mountains views, trails, 4 acres of heated palm-lined swimming pools and rivers, plus a gilded Wildflower Ballroom reserved exclusively for the Raw Spirit New Year’s Festival.

With a theme of “Inspiration, Education, Meditation & Celebration,” participants can expect to have plenty of fun while learning the latest information in health, eco and spiritual living via dynamic presentations and musical performances, including educational sessions by an eclectic array of doctors who are also research authors on natural health. Plus, raw vegan chefs will offer organic raw vegan demos & tastings, amidst a plethora of playshops on yoga, dancing, meditation, singing and more. Meanwhile, attendees can sample an organic raw vegan dishes and shop at vendor booths.

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Sipz in North Park

Sipz Fusion Cafe, the makers of great meatless Asian food,  finally opened their long-awaited North Park location. It’s in the perfect spot between CorePower Yoga and Rancho’s Cocina North Park, which has been offering numerous vegan options for years. Around the corner are the all-veggie Spread and Casa de Luz San Diego’s soon to open macrobiotic vegetarian restaurant with cooking classes.  The proximity of several veg-friendly places works well for health-conscious folks in the area and for people enjoying the monthly Ray at Night art walk.

The Sipz in North Park is owned by the same sister and brother team and features the same high quality food as the bigger Clairemont Mesa location. The North Park spot has a big window for watching the area’s characters passing by on the street, creatively painted walls, and a nice overall ambiance. They’ve got friendly waitstaff too.

My friend and I stuffed our faces with some appetizers: lettuce wraps and potstickers, followed by my longtime favorite, “Spicy Basil” with fake chicken. The food satisfied us just like the Clairemont Mesa location.

Sipz in North Park is open for lunch and  dinner daily. Watch for the grand opening in February- date TBA.

Delicious TV’s new television project is featuring popular vegan chefs through a six-episode cooking series to be distributed on public television. Since the episodes (half hour each) will be available to all stations via satellite, this project could explode as they will approach cable stations and eventually overseas markets.

Each week’s mash up is designed for universal appeal – every episode can be watched by followers of various diets. Join known chefs and cookbook authors Terry Hope Romero, Toni Fiore, and Miyoko Schinner every week in their own kitchens as they whip up some easy and tasty fare. A guest chef will be included to add some spice.

Betsy Carson’s “Totally Vegetarian” on Delicious TV has been seen nationwide and her recipe podcast VegEZ has reached more than 4.5 million people. She also produced Vegan Hotspot, a celebrity dining series.

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Reprinted from Vegan Mainstream, written by Jessi Stafford

Compassion Couture is a brand spanking new start-up run by the ever-fashionable and driven sister team, Jill and Tracey Spiritus. While working in the “hustle and bustle of corporate America,” the sisters realized they wanted a little more, and subsequently redirected their focus with a stylish, animal-friendly site to connect high-end eco-friendly, vegan fashions with the consumers who are seeking those types of items. Vegan Mainstream recently chatted with the dynamic duo to find out how they choose the trends to place on their site, how they got their start as entrepreneurs and what’s in store for the future of compassionate high-end wares.

Vegan Mainstream: How did you get the idea to start Compassion Couture?

Tracey Spiritus: It kind of stemmed from the fact that I was having a really hard time, personally, finding products that had qualities in line with my values. I really searched hard for products that were not made from animals and where the labels were conscious of the environment as well. I wanted to start a place where I could find all these items in one spot. [I wanted to develop a site that people would be able to come to] and not have to weed out things that weren’t well-made or that were just vegan by accident, but that were also fashion forward.

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