Below is the e-mail I sent out to recruit for the last detox diet food exchange
Hello everyone,
I am detoxing again this automn. In the spring we had a detox clan and we exchanged our meals and it worked-out really well. Besides each person’s unique tasty eats, we ended up exchanging our experiences, enthusiasm, culinary know-how, and solidarity as well during the 14 days. We are detoxing from Sept. 10th to the 23rd. The way it worked last time, is we each cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for 1 day each week for the amount of people that participated (4 people). We met twice to exchange food (once a week). We came with our tupperwear containers and stocked-up. If we have more people, that means everyone cooks less. These are the rules:
1. No red meat
2. No chemical additives or processed food
3. Organic when possible
4. No dairy
5. No gluten
6. No refined sugar
7. no vinegar
8. No booze
9. No drugs
10. No cigarettes
11. No caffine!
12. Things that help eliminate (laxative)
13. Expectorants (things that make you sweat)
14. Diuretics (things that make you pee)
15. Things that support your immune-system and clensing organs
16. Get exercise
17. Get sleep and rest
18. Get down time- meditation
19. Drink infusions, stuff that calms in the evening
20. Lots of liquids!
21. No more than 1 cup of tea a day
22. No toxic people, media, etc.
23. Keep clean
24. See what comes up!
Some people have suggested doing a day or 2 of just fresh juice or just raw fruit and vegetables. I think that should be a personal choice. Let me know what you think. If you are interested, let me know. If you are not, you do not need to write to explain why- it’s ok! If you are unsure, please do not embark, I only want the energy of people that are able to commit in ernest. If you really want to do it, but feel that you are incapable of cooking 3 meals for everyone for 1 day, let me know and you can enter into a financial arrangement with me and I can take you under my cooking wing. Looking forward to it! I attached a document about detoxing- vitamins, things that are good for different parts of the body just to give the basic principles.
Majiza- forward it on to the familia. Joanne- I think you expressed interest as well.
Sincerely,
Mélissa xox
Anyone who knows me knows I have a bit of a soft spot for salt, spices, aromatics and hot food. I grow a variety of herbs and at the end of the season, I have a surplus. There are many things we can do with the masses of left-over herbs: drying, pesto, perfumed oils and salted herbs. I tend to dry a bit, make a bit of pesto and make salted herbs. Every year, the thing I have the most of is basil. I like pesto as much as the next girl, but I like other things too. I’ve started making pestos with a few different nuts just to switch it up a bit, but I’ve also started making my own blends of salted herbs besides the Bas-du-Fleuve style. I make Calabrese, Provençal, and Indonesian-style salted herbs now. These are recipes I made-up. They are my way of grouping and preserving a concentration of flavours from a certain culinary tradition, so I can add their essence to a dish. Salted herbs are good for soups, stews, sauces, salad dressings, or anywhere you want to put salt and flavour!
When I did a cooking internship in Calabria with Luigi Quintieri at La Tavola di Melusinda he showed me that the key flavours in Calabrian cuisine were mint, garlic, basil, pepperoncino (hot peppers) and lemon zest. There were alot of Moorish tones to Calabrian food.
Here is my recipe for Calabrese salted herbs
Salt, garlic, mint, basil, lemon zest, pepperoncino
Calabrese salted herbs
400g of basil
200g of mint
1 head of garlic
zest of 3 lemons
2 to 4 hot peppers of choice (you can use dried chilis of you want too)
1/4- 1/3 c. of sea salt of choice
a little olive oil or water to make the paste smoother
Wash the basil
Chop the garlic and the hot peppers
Zest the lemons
Blend everything in the food processor adding a little water or olive oil.
Wash the herbs. Slice the garlic and hot peppers. Zest the lemons. Put all ingredients in a food processor. Process until smooth, adding a little water or olive oil. Mix in the desired amount of salt. I use grey salt or fleur de sel, but you can use something much cheaper as you will probably use the salted herbs for cooking and not finishing a dish. If you want to do an even more Moorish version (pardon the pun), you can replace the lemon zest with minced preserved lemon. Enjoy! Thank you Luigi for the inspiration!
