Article Links:

New City, Chicago
“The skinny on raw food guru Karyn Calabrese”
by A. LaBan
http://www.newcitychicago.com/home/daily/chow/101899.html

Chicago Sun Times
“RAW - Will hot trend fly in shivering Chicago?”
February 26, 2003
BY Maura Webber
http://www.enchantedkitchens.com/suntimes_2,26,03.html

CBS 2 Chicago
Chicago Medical News:
“Raw Food Diet”
January 8, 2003
http://www.enchantedkitchens.com/cbs2_chicagomedicalnews_1,8,2003.htm

Transitions into a Living Foods Lifestyle

In response to the call for a much-needed change of view in our cultural diet and eating habits, Karyn Calabrese has worked as a nutritional counselor for the past 15 years. She guides her clients in the adoption of a living foods lifestyle which advocates the eating of raw rather than processed foods and utilizes wheatgrass for cleansing the body and strengthening the immnune system.

Karyn drank wheatgrass for four years and was a practicing lacto-vegetarian before fully entering a lifestyle of living foods. Knowledge of her own predisposition to cancer due to family history and poor eating patterns motivated her to eliminate all dairy products and processed foods from her diet. She learned her approach to living foods through self-application, readings and work with Dr. Ann Wigmore. Through her own lifestyle changes, Karyn has broken the transgenerational link of early deaths among the women in her family due to cancer and tuberculosis. At fifty-four, Karyn is a vibrantly youthful, energetic person who reflects how all of us can benefit from her philosophy.

Walking into Karyn’s living environment, one is struck with a pleasant feeling of abundance. In her kitchen there are organic fruits, vegetables, sprouts and wheatgrass. Juicers and sunlight meet the eye with a breath of health and wellness. Upon meeting her for the first time, I was embraced with a calm lightness and zest that gave me the hop and guidance needed to overcome my own dietary challenges.

Although Karyn adheres closely to Dr. Ann Wigmore’s program, which promotes well being through raw foods and wheatgrass, she is also an exponent of ancient Far East teachings that promote purification of mind through diet and self-analysis. As Karyn guides her clients in gradually readjusting their attitudes to food and cleansing, she helps people to come to the point that she reached after ten years of self-application and study. Most people overeat because they are malnourished physically and mentally, consequently becoming preoccupied with quantity instead of nourishment. Karyn believes that we can understand the toxic levels of malnutrition we have attained in health and in the state of our planet when we examine how commercialism has ruled our lives. Culturally, it is normal to be unconscious to how negative our bodies and minds are actually feeling; numbed and hypnotized by our media, we receive little endorsement to take responsibility to attend to and act upon what goes into our bodies.

Gradually moving into a diet that is self-nourishing brings us back to the responsibility of our own well being. Karyn says, “This is the real purpose behind eating… to nourish our bodies and our minds.” Most of us have been taught to view aging as a process of moving from feeling OK to feeling worse. Those who seek a change in their eating patterns are survivors of what Karyn refers to as a “culturally toxic mindset”. Her philosophy opens clients to re-member their body’s intuitive knowing of what is naturally right for them. This natural instinct is lost shortly after birth through what we are fed and what we are told.

A self-nourishing process embraces the morning with rinsing one’s fresh sprouts, preparing sauces made from living food and making rejuvelac, a natural beverage made from wheatberries or rye berries containing microorganisms helpful to digestion. Our attitude, therefore, slowly shifts to a more positive value system that adds to our wholeness. Karyn believes that living foods cleanse us to the point of cultivating a clearness of mind that supports a sensitive interdependent relationship to food, people and the earth. Instead of blame, resentment and expectation of others to take care of us, we shift to an attitude of self-reliance. She states, “I love to guide people to reach a point of self-reliance. Dependence on me would only lead to a co-dependent relationship.”

As a provider of a sacred ground to explore a living foods lifestyle, Karyn was the Founder and President of the Chicago Chapter of Learn to Live International. She had founded the Board of Directors, which fuels the vision to support others that seek a lifestyle change, or are struggling with a health challenge. People from various paths with varying belief system come, not just to acquire some exposure to the stories shared by those readjusting their attitudes about food and living, or to listen to those who are struggling with a health challenge, but to network. Karyn and all of us who participate in this vision wish to extend our gratitude to Dr. Ann Wigmore for all of her extensive research and promotion of our well being through wheatgrass.

Sal Barbe, M.A. wrote this article. Sal Barbe is a transpersonal psychoterapist in private practice in Evanston. He can be contacted at 708-864-1905.


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Root Seller
Mary Ann Williams Eats in the Raw At Karyn’s Fresh Corner

The almond is the king of the nut world, according to Karyn Calabrese. This was news to me. I always thought the king of the nut world was my brother, Ralph. However, I will defer to Karyn in matters of vegetables, nuts and grains. Since this summer, she’s operated Karyn’s Fresh Corner, a restaurant where the food is “beyond vegetarian”. No meat, no milk, no eggs, no dairy. And believe or not, not cooking.

How, you may ask, can someone run a restaurant without cooking?

It goes like this: You say sauté Karyn says puree. You say sear; Karyn says sprout. You say bake; Karyn says dehydrate.

The theory behind all this non-cooking is that the food comes to the table with its enzymes intact. According to pioneer nutritionist Dr. Edward Howell, enzymes make all body functions happen. They stimulate brain activity, make sight possible and help digest food. When food is cooked, it requires more enzymes to digest. The enzymes get distracted by the awesome task of sorting out martinis from filet migon. Your brain slows down. Your gut stops up. And you get old ­ fast.

A return to enzyme-rich raw foods is the key to handling the stresses of modern life, according to Howell. His solution: to return to a diet much like that eaten by “primitive man”.

I’d rather eat at Karyn’s. I went expecting to be served something that would appeal only to a bunny rabbit. But I found that her ability to balance texture, flavor and that odious culinary term, “mouth-feel”, is masterful. She manages to mix up the textures enough to keep the food interesting. Sometimes she’s even able to fool you into believing that what you’re eating isn’t good for you.

Consider Karyn’s taco. Sprouted beans are mashed with cumin and other taco seasonings, then topped with spicy radish sprouts and fresh salsa. The whole thing is wrapped in a slightly wilted cabbage leaf and secured with a toothpick. Sliced tomatoes and slivered carrots are served alongside. You don’t necessarily hear mariachi music in the background when you eat one, but it tastes good.

With the switch to raw cuisine, there’s a tradeoff in texture, almost like the translation of a word into another language. The crack of a tortilla is replaced by the crunch of cabbage leaf. The ooze of melted cheese becomes the smooth of mashed beans. But it works.

One of the specialties of the house is the almond pate, a mound of pureed fresh almonds and spices. It has a rich, full, satisfying flavor. And it’s served with a basket of dehydrated grain chips ­ which are not totally crunchy, but they’ll do ­ and slices of Essene bread, the dense, chewy sprouted-wheat bread that’s almost like fruitcake. The sprout salad ­ sprouted chickpeas, carrots and other vegetables on the side ­ makes for a very nice meal.

Some of Karyn’s concoctions seem bizarre. For example, the seed cheese is made from ground sunflower and other seeds that are allowed to ferment. The resulting silky paste has a sharp flavor like… chicken liver pate. Strange, but very interesting.

Karyn’s excels in desserts. The last time I had lunch there, my friend ordered the apple pie, while I had the blueberry delight. Our slice of pie was appropriately wedge-shaped and consisted of slices of crisp apples layered in a spicy applesauce, in a crust of dehydrated nuts and grains. The crust wasn’t entirely convincing, but the flavor of the apples was so fresh and bright and delicious that it really didn’t matter. While Karyn’s apple pie doesn’t exactly make you think of Mother and Home, it’s excellent in its own right. The blueberry delight was even better. A thick, creamy, yogurt-like sauce of cashews and other mysterious ingredients enveloped the large, sweet blueberries. At the bottom of the bowl was a little cache of crunchy nuts and grains. It was out of this world.

I went into Karyn’s feeling skeptical: Radical diets concern me. It bothers me when people ­ as people will ­ start believing that, with the right diet, they’ll never grow old or be depressed or have another worry. There’s something immoral about the notion that if you just find the right carrot juice, all of your problems will go away.

I’m happy to report that Karyn’s provides good food in an atmosphere that’s wholesome without becoming “veggier than thou”. The restaurant is bright and cheerful. The atmosphere is relaxed. And the food is very interesting.

To my surprise, in the middle of the night I started craving Karyn’s almond pate and curry-flavored mock tuna salad. I found my nightgown-clad self, barefooted as primitive man, sneaking down to the kitchen for leftovers. Was this a conversion experience? I doubt it, but there’s something to be said for guiltless nibbling in the night.


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