Loving Foods Early History
The story of Loving Foods begins with a Pie. This isn’t about mom’s apple pie, or one lone pies adventure saga, nor is this a hidden mathematical conspiracy (pi sign) it’s just a story about getting high on pie and loving every moment of it.
In the icy winter of 1992 I traveled from New York City to Maui to visit a childhood friend. I had been already introduced to raw foods, was vegan and 80% raw at the time. I was told about this group of people living at a community in Huelo that were raw foodies and friends of Viktoras Kulvinskas, whose book first introduced me to living food. I ventured down to the jungle hideaway at Hale Akua Shangri La and met Lenny Watson, a highly skilled massage therapist and active yogi. He and I enjoyed a great connection and both shared many interests. Lenny decided to share with me his evolution of Viktoras’s live food pie. He proceeded to create one of the most delectable dishes I ever encountered, a mango sapodilla coconut crème pie. I was thrilled with this new idea of raw desserts. I had been transitioning to all raw food and the only thing cooked left in my diet was dessert. I used to love the vegan chocolate cake at Angelica’s Kitchen in New York so much I’d eat 2-3 pieces a day. I now had the know how of how t o create fantastic raw pies. After leaving Maui, I went to live and study with Dr. Ann Wigmore. She had so many incredible things to teach and share and her energy bubbled. I learned some raw desserts at the end of one session and practiced my skills making raw treats at the end of the next session. When I returned to NYC I gave up eating out and began to make food for myself as I had learned and practiced for many months. I had finally found my path to becoming 100% raw.
I had a friend Josh from Long Island who used to come and visit me in the city with his friend Courtney who loved to make food. She would spend the day playing in my kitchen making food. She was glad to trade her work for knowledge I shared and the blessings my scene in NYC offered. Eventually, I left the city and moved to Woodstock. I decided to create a business out of the Raw Pie and desserts and at the time it was almost Halloween. I put out adds as Loving Foods and asked Courtney to help me make pies to sell. We got our first orders and by Thanksgiving we had sold 40 pies. I loved the pie life yet I longed for the fruit filled bliss of Maui’s warm embrace. As winter collapsed upon the east coast I quickly made my escape out to the land of tropical breezes and exotic fruits.
This time I stayed for many moons and realized that Maui was my home. At the retreat center where I stayed they served food. Each night at dinner I made my own special raw food meal. One night I had a fantastic spread and one of the other guests asked me where I got such amazing looking food. I told him that I ate only raw vegan food and had made it myself. He asked me if I could make some food for him and his friends for the next night. I agreed and prepared them a raw food feast. They enjoyed the meal so much they asked me to cater an event for 100 people for a 10-day workshop. I instantly agreed and called my friends and hired them to help me make food for the event. The workshop was a huge success and on the last day I received a phone call from the head of the retreat center in Hawaii. He said he heard about the great job I did for the folks at the workshop and offered me a job as the head chef of the center. I returned to Woodstock and packed up my home and began my journey across the globe to Hawaii.
On my way to Maui I stopped in San Francisco to study with a Kung Fu master I had met. While staying in San Rafel I lived in Sami Mahal, a Sufi and Buddhist temple/house. I would travel into the city and seek out what fruit and raw food I could find at the farmers markets and health food stores. One day a friend took me to RAW. I went in and Juliano came out to our table and offered us shots of aloe juice and sprouted rice salad. After eating there a few times I eventually befriended Juliano. I saw a strong lack for desserts and decided to help fill his need. I had been toying with this idea of a torte or a fruitless pie. There was a huge box of hazelnuts in the walk in and I found dates and coconut as well. I managed to get some carob from the health food store and made the first carob-hazelnut torte. I heard about Imar Huchins teaching a raw food class down in the Mission district and Juliano and I went over to share some torte with a fellow raw foodie. Imar was making raw pies and we all had a dessert feast. There happened to be a news reporter from the San Jose Mercury, who actually put Juliano and I in the story.
When I finally arrived in Hawaii I had a bit of a dilemma. The retreat center wanted me to make cooked vegan food as well as raw food. I really didn’t want to compromise my morals yet I wanted to explore my culinary world some more. I took the job and hired my girlfriend Renee as the assistant chef and we began Loving Foods Catering Company. There were people that lived in the surrounding houses near the retreat center that would often sneak in to eat the leftovers of our food. It eventually got so extreme that one day the owner of the center came down to the dinning hall and said ” there’s only 10 people in this workshop and there are 18 people eating dinner here.” I said ” I’m well within the budget and I don’t run the gate I run the kitchen” He replied: “they’re here for you, for your food, you need a restaurant.” I smiled and said: “I do, I quit.”
The next week Renee and I moved off of the retreat center and into our own place. We continued taking catering jobs as Loving Foods and began to plan our restaurant. We gathered our funds, friends and focus and began the journey to The RAW Experience.