Como Shambhala

File: 49-food-UTT

Section: food

SubSect: under the table

Hed:

Subhed:

P/Q: I was skeptical at Demi Moore, Sting, and Woody Harrelson for endorsing such life choices, but I was surprised to find myself a believer.

Text:

After months of fattening my liver with the ills of deep-fried objects, tasty animals, good wine, coupled with little sleep, little sunlight and little exercise, my boyfriend deemed me toxic. He surprised me with a week of detoxification in Bali. If staring at palm trees, waddling in sun-kissed lap pools, and listening to the gentle trickles of afternoon rainfalls won’t pull me out of this waste-filled city lifestyle, then I don’t know what will.

I downed my welcoming drink, a blend of cucumber and mint, nature’s healer, while taking in Ubud’s layer cake rice fields from our villa. I read and read, and I slept and slept until I woke up with the birds and geckos. Though it felt like a week’s worth of slumber, it was only 7am the next morning. I dressed and made to it to morning yoga.

The thing when you treat your body well is you don’t then want to fill it with crap. At the resort’s raw food restaurant, Glow, I read delicious descriptions of raw food dishes written by skilled wordsmiths as cut-up lettuce leaves can’t possibly taste as good as this read. This sounded promising: heirloom tomato, semi-dried tomato, zucchini lasagna with pine nut ricotta made with ingredients grown on the resort’s estate. It sounded like a cake of sliced vegetables, but more importantly a safe choice. What came out was a stack of paper-thin vegetables dressed in peppery olive oils and blessed with stone-pounded pesto so green it looked alive. And that’s the point of a raw food diet; nothing on the plate is “dead”. The jicama, pine nut and shiitake maki roll with wasabi tofu was not as hippie as it sounded. It had the texture and complimentary flavours of a good sushi roll minus the expensive protein that usually makes sushi rolls worth eating. Lastly, a young coconut was shaved to resemble noodles, the same treatment was done to carrots and daikons and the strands were turned into a beautiful mess of spicy “noodles”. If ever there was a meal to be thankful for, this is it.

I was skeptical at Demi Moore, Sting, and Woody Harrelson for endorsing such life choices, but after trying raw food, I was surprised to find myself a believer. I continued with morning yoga overlooking a crater filled in by palm trees, floated in pools of sacred spring water, hiked in Jurassic jungles and studied the behaviour of butterflies all while thinking about my next raw food adventure.

We didn’t miss meat at all. That was until we took a ride into town and stopped by the barbecue shack Naughty Nuri's, made famous by its ribs and praises of Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert (who met her husband there). The clouds of smoky tender ribs on a hot grill hypnotised us in; the inapposite pairing of New York-style Martinis served here were better than ones served in New York; and sitting in the setting of a best-selling chick-lit was too much to pass on. Sat on a bench, we ate platters of wet ribs and sipped gin martinis. Here, I realised my love for pork and alcohol.

The next day, I got back to my yoga and raw food diet. I ordered something that was completely foreign to this city dweller: nut “bread” made with nothing cooked over 40C. The “bread” was compressed wheat and nuts, which formed a hard cracker, unbreakable with the blade of our table knife. Bite by bite, I cut my gums with sharp raw nuts while enjoying the burn of the lemon-dressed avocados in my wounds.

Day four, it rained and mosquitoes came out for their dinner. One leg into my jeans and I could tell they wouldn’t fit. How could this be? They fit just four days ago. I buttoned up and an instant muffin top appeared. I’ve been eating vegetables all week (sans Naughty Nuri's), how am I getting fat?

Back at Glow, I drank my papaya sunrise with a plate of fruit. The acid stung the cuts in my mouth. I told the general manager about my jeans and my swollen mouth. It’s probably bloating, we offer colon therapy (read: colonic) to alleviate the problem, he suggested.

A constant city diet of fast foods, rich dinners, white sugars and gin and tonics didn’t make me puff up, so why the hell would fresh fruits and vegetables do it? The next day I stepped on a scale. I was two kilos heavier. I couldn’t fit in my pants. I was gassy. I was the fattest I’ve ever been.

I sat meditating at one of Begawan Giri’s waterfalls to forget my troubles and thought about life as a woman of leisure. They sleep as much as they need, read as many books as they want, and had time for things like sitting under waterfalls… Then it came to me as I exited my alternate state: all this inactivity and relaxation is getting me porky.

Stress and city life burns calories, while blue skies and butterflies brings on fat-bliss. Vanity wins this round. I like my skinny jeans too much. I’ve got to get off this healthy stuff and retox.