Shore 'Nuff

Hello friends and enemies from sunny Hilton Head Island!

As is tradition, my family spends the first two weeks of July at the beach. We rent a giant house with a view of the ocean, run the annual Firecracker 5K, watch amateur fireworks displays, listen to kick-ass live jazz, build gigantic sand castles, and more or less seize each day beach-bum style.

This change of scenery was the perfect time/excuse to ratchet my raw foodism down a few notches. For those of you just tuning in, I've been attempting to re-balance the culinary part of my life after getting entirely too wrapped up in raw veganism. Even good habits can become bad if they start to take over one's life. I've always been able to convince myself to do and try different things when I'm on vacation because vacation is not "real life;" for two weeks out of the year I can completely re-invent myself, even if it is only temporarily. More often than not, though, the changes I make while living it up in the sand and sun end up following me back to Ohio and for better or worse, become "real life." Does this mean I am constantly living in a state of vacation? Possibly. I can think of worse fates.

Anyways. Though I made a few raw snacks before I hit the road (macaroons and grawnola and smoothies), I left my dehydrator at home. I brought my blender but so far it's only been used to make pina coladas. I've been raw before dinner the whole time, but I've also enjoyed grilled veggies over jasmine rice, pasta with steamed artichokes, pizza from the Mellow Mushroom, chips and salsa with my cousin's homemade guac, and Thai Red Curry & Summer Vegetables. Some days I eat all raw, others I don't. Mostly I'm eating and doing what I want, when I want.

And that, kids, is the true meaning of vacation.