Cherie Soria Interview by Alex Malinsky

Cherie Soria Interview by Alex Malinsky

Question #1: What are some raw food staples in your current diet. Are you 100% raw?

I enjoy a fruit smoothie every morning and a large green salad and/or blended green soup every day. In fact, my diet is made up primarily of fruits (both sweet and non-sweet) and greens. I eat very little nuts, grains or legumes. Even though I teach people how to make gourmet raw cuisine, I eat very simply at home. I have been eating mostly raw for 13 years, but I am not 100% raw 100% of the time, although I never cook at home and choose to eat primarily raw vegan foods on a daily basis. On occasion, I go out to eat and will have mashed potatoes, cooked beans, or grilled vegetables with my large green salad. I never eat fried foods, flesh, or vinegar, even in small quantities. I definitely don’t feel as energetic when I eat cooked food, so I don’t choose to do it often.

Question #2: How did you start on raw foods?

I began my raw journey in 1992 when I went to Puerto Rico to study with Dr. Ann Wigmore, after reading books about the amazing results she achieved using wheat grass and raw food to heal cancer and other terminal illnesses. I was curious about Dr. Wigmore’s work and thought a vacation in Puerto Rico sounded like a good idea. I had no intention of trading my cooked vegan diet for a raw food diet, but after witnessing the amazing healings that transpired there, I came home a true believer in the power of the raw food lifestyle. I knew that the majority of Dr. Wigmore’s clients would return to their old way of eating, because her diet was designed for cleansing and healing. I understood human nature enough to know that most people would be bored to death if forced to eat that way the rest of their lives, because food has to feed more than the body, more than the emotions--food must nourish the soul. So, as soon as I returned home, I began creating foods that were delicious, satisfying, comforting, and nourishing. Foods like lasagna, burritos, burgers, spaghetti, pizza, brownies, and ice cream, are not easily forgotten. My goal became to make them organic, raw, and health-promoting—leading to the birth of the gourmet raw cuisine I teach today.

I left Puerto Rico and immediately began teaching raw vegan culinary arts—first in my home, then through community colleges and vegetarian conferences throughout the country. In 1996, I published my first recipe book, Angel Foods Healthy Recipes for Heavenly Bodies. I included some cooked vegan recipes in that, because I wanted the raw message to reach people who had no idea what raw living foods were. In those days, there were no gourmet raw recipe books. Later, my friendship with Viktoras Kulvinskas motivated me to start Living Light Culinary Arts Institute.

Question #3: How did Viktoras influence you to create a culinary institute?

In 1992, when I studied with Dr. Ann Wigmore, I had already been teaching vegetarian culinary arts for 20 years. Dr. Ann loved the raw foods I was inspired to create and she told me that I would be a beacon of light for her teachings. She suggested that I go out and share my delicious raw living cuisine with the world, so I took her advise and stopped teaching the cooked vegan classes around the world and began teaching classes in raw vegan foods. I spend every spare moment creating my new culinary art, gourmet raw vegan cuisine.

Shortly after returning from Puerto Rico, I began catering the National Essene Gatherings at Breitenbush Hot Springs and become friends with Viktoras Kulvinskas. He and his wife, Youkta loved the gourmet cuisine I was creating with raw vegan foods and invited me to cater their yearly retreat for women in the healing arts. Viktoras was adamant that the style of cuisine I had created should be taught to the top chefs in the world. About the same time, I met an inspiring woman named Dr. Janedare Winston, a professor and teacher of the living food lifestyle, who insisted that I should devote myself to teaching teachers, so there would be an army of people sharing the live food lifestyle with the world. “One person can only do so much,” she told me. I felt I had received a mandate from these three people, whom I admired, to create a school designed for the purpose of teaching individuals, chefs, and instructors of raw living foods. I called it Living Light Culinary Arts Institute because I wanted it to reflect the interconnection of all things and kept remembering what Dr. Ann had said to me about being a beacon of light for her teachings. I also wanted it to express my commitment to living lightly on the land, eating light, and being in the light, so Living Light Culinary Arts Institute was born.

Question #4: What are the goals of Living Light Culinary Arts Institute?

At Living Light we are committed to teaching individuals, chefs, and teachers of raw vegan culinary arts. We have a strong focus on teaching teachers because we seek to influence the greatest number of people. Individuals, chefs, and teachers are represented fairly equally at each training session. 1/3 of the participants attend because they want to add more delicious raw food to their own diets (and that of their families), 1/3 want to incorporate raw cuisine into their professional careers (or make a career change and become a professional chef), and 1/3 are passionate about raw foods and want to teach it to others. Our Mission Statement is: Living Light Culinary Arts Institute educates and inspires people to reach the highest standards of leadership and professionalism in raw culinary arts while promoting balance and happiness in their everyday lives. Through training, personal support, and unconditional acceptance, we empower participants to share their gifts with others in joyous celebration of healthful living.

Question #5: How many instructors do you have? Do you personally teach any of the classes?

People who attend our trainings know that we are more than a business—we are a family of conscious individuals devoted to excellence, connection, and transformation of body, mind, and spirit. Right now we have eight outstanding chefs and instructors who are 100% committed to teaching gourmet living foods. The students love having a variety of instructors and have the opportunity to work one-on-one with each of us. I teach a large percentage of the classes, too, because teaching is my passion and I love to connect with the students on a personal level. My partner and co-director of LLCAI, Dan Ladermann is a certified Hippocrates Health Educator, and teaches most of the classes in raw nutritional science.

Question #6: Can you describe some of the courses you offer that would introduce newcomers to raw foods?

Our entry-level course is FUNdamentals of Raw Living Foods. We consider this to be the first step toward a new culinary awakening, because it opens a whole new world of raw cuisine to people who wouldn’t have believed it possible. At Harbin Hot Springs this two-day course precedes the chef training, but it is also offered in many areas of the country as a one-day intensive. During this introductory workshop, students attend dozens of superb culinary presentations teaching a wide variety of raw, delicious easy-to-prepare appetizers, fruit smoothies, soups, sauces, salads, dressings, entrees, patés, wraps, rolls, nut milks, nondairy cheeses, dehydrated goodies, such as crackers, and amazing desserts. Included is how to use all the essential equipment and supplies necessary in a raw kitchen, and instruction in sprouting and kitchen gardening. Even though we consider it a basic course, it is so full of information that people who have been preparing raw foods for years are amazed at how much they learn.

Question #7: If someone wanted to be certified as a raw chef, what training would the person need?

Following FUNdamentals is our second level class, Essentials of Raw Culinary Arts, a 5-day hands-on workshop that expands on the FUNdamentals course. Students gain the confidence to transition to a healthy lifestyle and the foundation necessary to attend LLCAI’s Associate Chef and Instructor Training. Students work one-on-one with a variety of the world’s most outstanding raw food chefs and teachers, with a ratio of one instructor per 5–6 students.
In this workshop, students learn the secrets of gourmet raw food preparation. They gain an understanding of flavor dynamics, and some basics of raw nutritional science. They become skilled in knife technique and familiar with kitchen equipment and timesaving gadgets of all kinds. Students particularly love learning how to combine herbs and spices to create classic and ethnic flavors without using recipes. Recipe development, learning to balance textures and flavors within individual recipes or entire menus, creating raw variants of cooked food recipes, while learning to organize and manage a raw food kitchen, are all part of the curriculum that prepares students to go on to the next level, the 10-day Associate Chef and Instructor Training. By the time students have completed the chef training, they can confidently prepare everything from appetizers to desserts, create their own recipes, organize dinner parties, teach classes, and have fun while doing it!
We also offer classes in Raw Event Catering and Food Design, Elegant Entertaining, Ethnic Flavors in Recipe Development and RawFusionGourmet Spa Cuisine.

Question #8: Tell us more about the raw food instructor training.

We have a strong commitment to teaching teachers, and do everything we can to teach and mentor individuals who want to teach. The fact is, everyone who chooses to eat a high-raw diet will be asked questions about it and will share it with friends, so even those students who do not plan to teach classes to the public, will benefit from taking the course. The instructor training includes everything a teacher needs to confidently teach a culinary class, including planning and organizing, marketing tips, public speaking, and cost analysis. Once students have graduated from the teacher training, they are eligible to purchase our Instructor Empowerment Kits, providing everything they need to teach successful classes. We also advertise these standardized LLCAI licensed classes on our website to assist our graduates in marketing their classes.
LLCAI supports individuals in making life choices that promote health and well being in all aspects of their lives, including career changes. Many of our former students are now making a living teaching raw food classes, writing books, and catering raw events.

Question #9: Who are some of the raw chefs who have trained at Living Light or written recipe books?

Roxanne Klein, who was recently featured on the cover of Bon Appetite magazine as one of the 10 most innovative chefs of the decade trained with us about a year before she opened her highly acclaimed restaurant, Roxanne’s. I placed one of my protégés, Chad Sarno, and another chef training graduate, Suzanne Alex Ferrara, with Roxanne to help her with recipe and menu development for the restaurant. All three of them have since written recipe books of their own. There are many other internationally known instructors of raw foods who have trained with us and several who have authored raw recipe books. Some came to us as novices and others were already raw food chefs and teachers, but wanted an opportunity to work with me personally. The numbers of people who have taken our workshops or graduated from our chef trainings who have written recipe books are too numerous to mention. A few names you may recognize are the Boutenkos, Renee Loux-Underkoffler, Alicia Ojeda, Elaina Love, Nomi Shannon, Rose Lee Calabro, Matt Samuelson, Ito, Rayek, and many others.

Question #10: Your book Angel Foods has a spiritual quality along with both cooked and raw food preparation. Would you share the essential message of the book with our readers? Are you planning another book?

I spent many years championing EarthSave and learned the importance of meeting people where they are. That is why my book, Angel Foods, is not 100% raw. It is 100% vegan and contains about 125 raw recipes and 125 cooked recipes. I feel my place is to help people move in the direction of healthy living without judgment about where they are or how far they want to go. I have a gentle approach and consequently I attract a lot of people who are not vegetarians when they first come to our school. My book reflects my spiritual approach to life. I believe that love and appreciation are powerful creators, and I use prayer and intention as a means of creating a joyful life. It was inconceivable to me to separate my spiritual self and my work, even though I was warned that many health food stores would not carry a recipe book that included spiritual content. I have a second book in print that was written in Spanish, called Comiendo Pura Vida, which means “Eating Pure Life”, which is 100% raw. I coauthored it with a Costa Rican, Rodrigo Crespo. Angel Foods has now been published in German and I am working on a third raw book, and have two others that will follow.

Question #11: The raw food movement has grown a lot in the last few years. Where do you see it heading?

The raw food movement is growing faster than the vegetarian movement did in its infancy because people don’t have to give anything up. They can simply add more delicious raw foods to their diet. The more they eat the better they feel. Raw food is less threatening than diets that restrict certain foods. Also, it just makes sense to people that the more raw food they eat the better they will feel. We have over 300 Living Light instructor graduates out there sharing this message with people who are sharing with others, and so forth. It is exponential growth!

Question #12: Can you please tell us some of the current projects you're working on and/or developing?

We are currently working with The Institute for Vibrant Living, a non-profit 501(c)(3) that was created for the purpose of promoting a raw plant-based diet. The institute is interested in assisting us in realizing our dream for a permanent location for the school and can receive tax-deductible donations to acquire a facility that will provide us with the space to manifest our vision. The facility will also offer other leaders of the raw food movement a place to offer on-going workshops. You can contact IVL about contributions at dan@vibrantliving.org

Question #13: Is there anything else you want to share with our readers?

There is an amazing event coming this spring that will rawk the world. It is The Amazing Raw Food Hike-a-thon. It begins this Earth Day, when Doug Walsh begins the 3,000-mile Continental Divide hike over through mountains and dessert from Mexico to Canada on a 100% raw food diet. I urge everyone to support his efforts and get out the word about this incredible feat! Doug created the hike as a means to raise money for our permanent school location. He is a graduate of our chef training program and believes in the work we are doing. This is his way of doing his part to help. If you are interested in pledging money for his walk or just want to learn more about it, check out our web site, www.rawfoodchef.com

If you are in a position to help us create a permanent school for Living Light, can assist financially or write grants, or donate equipment or supplies, we can use your help. We are beginning our eighth year in existence and we are ready to evolve to the next level. With more classes offered, we can reach even more people. You can also help to support us by telling others about our school and by shopping at our on-line store, which offers supplies, books and equipment for the raw vegan kitchen. We also need commercial kitchen and equipment for the culinary school, juice bar, and deli.

If you desire a more healthful and conscious way of life, want more energy and vitality, want to learn about environmentally friendly cuisine, and the benefits of raw organic foods for your health and for the planet, Living Light Culinary Arts workshops and retreats are perfect for YOU! Please call us at 800-816-2319 or 707-964-2420 or visit our website at www.RawFoodChef.com

Question #14: Can you share with us a favorite recipe?
Since you asked what foods I eat most, I will share one of my staples with you—a very simple soup recipe that I eat almost daily. The herbs can be varied to change the flavor and different diced vegetables or flavored oils can be drizzled over the top to add variety.

Garden Blend
Serving Size: 4

2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup orange juice or 1 apple, cored
1 cucumber
1/8 bunch parsley, washed well
1 avocado, peeled and seeded
1/2 bunch de-stemmed kale, romaine lettuce or other greens
1/4 bunch cilantro, fresh basil, or dill
1–2 green onions or 1 tablespoon red onion (optional)
1 clove garlic (optional)
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons of unpasteurized light miso or 1 teaspoon Himalayan Crystal Salt (or to taste)
1/2 red jalapeño pepper or dash cayenne (optional)

1. Combine ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. Pour into individual bowls and serve immediately.
2. For variety, garnish soup mixture with seasoned sunflower or pumpkin seeds, or top with salsa, fresh corn kernels, diced avocados or tomatoes. A drizzle of herb-infused oil, chili oil, or pumpkin seed oil adds a gourmet touch.

NOTES : 1 serving = 12 ounces of soup