spillings, babbles & tales on the fly

Just arrived in Saskatoon yesterday, for the beginning of our prairie run, starting today.  Last week we hit BC and Alberta and the audiences were WONDERFUL! I thought we had a lot of bodies the first week, but it was actually Edmonton that held the 10,000 screaming fans! While Edmonton’s show was the largest, and one of my favourite shows thus far, I have to say that Sunday night in Lethbridge was pretty wicked and comes a close second, if not possibly my favourite of the week.  

During the day, the workouts are getting harder, but easier to prepare for mentally.  I’m starting to get into the mode of anticipating them, which is exciting.  I’m not feeling quite as sore, because I tell you, my ass was hurt-ting from stairs, lunges and squats!   

Anyhow, I’m not sure that mentioned that while on the road I always try to scout out a raw/living foods (if I’m lucky) or vegetarian/vegan restaurant and Edmonton was the new and exciting place that I visited last week where I found a lovely place called Noorish.  And because we had a day off in Edmonton, I was able to visit the restaurant twice while I was there.  I tried to consume as many of the dishes so that I could get a good taste of what there was to offer…and I almost did!

And honestly, everything that I had was really good!  I’d say that I tried pretty well everything that was on the raw menu — pizza with a side of massaged kale (pictured above), fattoush, ‘Stir-fry’ kelp noodles, the brownie and a little maca caramel chocolate — it was ALL very tasty!  I wish I had more days to try some more desert, but it’s all good…now I have somewhere else to go!

Friday night, in Cranbrook was our first big bus party celebrating Tracey’s (Johnny’s manager) b’earthday.  The bus was jumping!  It was so much fun.  We spend so much time onstage performing that it’s a nice release to spend some down time enjoying the company of the the folks you work with, you know?  Just to meet and play in a different light.

Looking forward to tonight’s show and hitting the ‘peg (Winnipeg) in a few days.

Two weeks down, four to go!

We’re five days into the tour and still on the west coast of Canada. Sun, mountains, fresh air and really wonderful tasting water. Seriously!

We started in Victoria first, which is located in Vancouver Island and it’s beautiful as its ever been every time I’ve been. Miku and I practically lived at this cute little raw/living food spot called Cafe Bliss, that was stocked with this tasty granola (which I wish we’d gotten more of), the Bliss Salad and the Seaweed Salad, oh yeah and the juices, were my favourites. And the chocolates were pretty good as well! On our last day in Victoria, I dropped into a little boutique called Sarah’s Shop — a vegan boutique owned by the beautifully tattooed bombshell vegan goddess, Sarah Kramer, who has written the acclaimed vegan cookbooks ‘How It All Vegan’, ‘La Dolce Vegan’ and ‘The Garden of Vegan’.

Not only did I walk out of there with two beautiful hugs and treats, bigger than that, I walked out of there inspired to be and stay unique and a reminder that hard work pays off.

Leaving the island meant that we had to get on the ferry, but this time, a small group of us joined our trainer, Robert, for a workout on the upper deck (reminiscent of his marine workouts) — it was memorable…once in a lifetime, to say the least.

Next stop was Kamloops, which I’m so sorry to dog the Kamloopians (I don’t know what the people of a Kamloops are called), but because of the paper mill, this place has a unique smell…hell, it stinks! — which the longer you stay, I guess you get used to. Aside from that, it’s a beautiful little town, with some very big hills that we climbed, again with Robert. It was a huffy and puffy walk up those hills and there were moments I needed to pace myself, but I made it!

We all made it up the hills and posed on top of our accomplishment. I gotta say though, thank goodness for THAT hike because it prepared us for the hike of LIFE, the following day in Kelowna. After a good workout in the parking lot with Robert, a few of us re-fueled and headed on a ‘leisurely’ jaunt. It was neither leisurely, nor was it a jaunt, it was a serious climb!!

We did a few vertical climbs! I kid you not! And let me tell you, that once waking up the next day in Vancouver after those climbing days, I walked away from the previous days with a renewed confidence in myself. An unwavering belief in what I could accomplish with a clear, focused and a doubtless spirit. Fuck, I didn’t have time to doubt shit while climb straight up any of the hills that we climbed, I had to keep going up.

Lastly, Vancouver, what did I get from Vancouver besides the sunshine, mountain fresh air, great food (thanks to Gorilla Food - another cute little raw/living foods spot) and eyelashes? 10,000 flaming hearts singing Fire It Up in the middle of the show. It’s such an amazing feeling to feel a wave of pure love energy from a crowd of adoring fans. It’s absolutely beautiful to be receiving just a bit of that, but equally as beautiful to be witness to it.

And there is my week gone by…five more weeks to go!

We’re baaaaaack! And we had a blast!  

Unlike earlier this year when we went to Cannes (southern France), this time we stuck to northern France, travelling eastward to Besançon and Mulhouse(close to Switzerland and Germany) and westward to Rennes (by the English channel). We stayed in a beautiful chateau in Chavenay for two days (about 40 minutes outside of Paris) and took a trip to Paris on our day off.  

Driving from city to city really puts into perspective how big that country is!  Put it this way, our drive from Rennes to Besançon took almost 9 hours. 

When it came to food I had already been to Cannes earlier this year, so I had prepared myself for head scratching when asking for a salad without meat, but when asking for it without CHEESE as well? I’d almost forgotten how wrong it was — it’s sacrilege!  Needless to say, being vegan in France proved to be challenging, never mind raw vegan and trying to go out to enjoy time with the band.  I sucked it up and eat some cooked food…it was good, it was fine.  And I did try some compté cheese from Besançon.  The whole winter/summer cheese thing is fascinating — basically the cheese is different in the winter versus the summer based on what the cows are eating.  Wine, of course, was plentiful and goooood!  Wine went with everything.  Lunch, dinner, nightcaps — had to wean myself out of that in coming home.  

Our first show in Rennes was massive!  I felt like a superstar leading up with all these interviews.  I was nervous about speaking french, cause I hadn’t in such a long while and my best french line was “Je parle français un petit peu” translation “I speak french a little bit.”  Anyhow, by the time we’d finished the show, there had to be about 2500 people out in the hall.  I headed to the merch table and was met with flashing cameras and a lineup of people wanting my autograph!  

Our second show in Besançon was cool too, it was more intimate, but still impactful.  I jumped off the stage in my 5 inch heels to get a dude in the audience to ‘Bang It Back’ — and he did.  There was an awesome group from London sharing the bill with us called Murkage — HIGH FUCKING ENERGY!

Our last — and my favourite — show in France was in Mulhouse (mul-hooooose).  When we got to the venue for the show, we were met with a frozen bottle of ABSOLUT vodka (photo courtesy of Hill Kourkoutis) — all good cause it made for a fucking high energy show under the red light of the Noumatrouff.  And that’s where we saw Brigitte as well — sexy, sexy french sisters singing.

And then we left for London — stopped at Vimy Ridge on the way, at Rob’s insistence.  Besides the heavy, dark, creepy, gloomy feeling we got driving down the road to the monument, we were all pretty moved by being there.  And it made us damn proud to be Canadian!

London received us ravenously hungry, helplessly lost (no thanks to our GPS lady….recalculating) and getting accustomed to driving on the other side of the road.  We were staying in this cool loft apartment in East London (Hoxton/Hackney area).  I got to know the area by running almost every morning and getting lost — best way to get to know a city, right?

Our first show in London was at this cool multidisciplinary venue called RichMix — they had an exhibit happening in the basement and I heard they do dance performances there.  We shared the stage with our fellow Canadian sister, Maylee Todd — she was great, as per usual.

Show number two was in Brixton and I was really looking forward to that, cause I kept hearing about Brixton being a cool part of town, where all the black people, namely West Indians resided.  We ate some West Indian food because we were in the region to do so and rawked Windmill Brixton.  The other band backed out, I guess they’d heard us coming. hah.  Later that night we happened upon an open mic that was around the corner from our flat — band was tight and the good singers could really sing…shit!

I’ve been dying to go to this raw/vegan food restaurant called Saf and I’d been literally running by it every morning, not even realizing.  Had dinner there and it was nice.  The cocktails and their mixologists(I call them that, because they were more than bartenders, they were on some Tom Cruise ‘Cocktails’ type shit!)  were the stars of the show for us.  So much so, we went back as the whole band and got a little tipsy on some expensive organic cocktails and ended the night in a gentlemen’s club — tame and a little lame, but a fun family outing.

Our last show was more acoustic, Hill and Donna played guitars and Rob played his sousaphone — that was the first time we’d done a show like that and it was really different.  Different in a good way.  We ate some awful Indian food beforehand, which was NOT a good idea, but hunger sometimes makes you do stupid things and regret it later.

All in all, it was awesome.  I loved it. Can’t wait to go back.

peace, love & butterflies,

sbt

MORE photos? click here.

This looks like it’s from Belmonte Raw @BelmonteRaw — I’ve had it and loved it.

Mediterranean Salad

(via yummyrawfood)

some moments in NYC

Water:  800mL

—Workout—

Breakfast:  2 large Fuji apples w/Caramel Camel Dip (made from 16 Medjool dates)

Water:  800mL

Lunch:  Carrots, Celery + Cucumber w/Veggie Pate and 3 Green Crackers (Lydia’s Organics)

Water:  800mL

Dinner:  Wild Rice Salad 

Water:  800mL

Movie Snack:  4 Medjool dates w/ 16 almonds + small handful cashews

—-

Felt a lot better today, not so gassy…I think it may’ve been the raw garlic on the salad ( I can only do so much garlic too!).  I love love LOVED the caramel and apples, wow!  That blew my mind!  I’m a little upset that I don’t have anymore dates to make it for tomorrow.  I loved the wild rice salad too and I thought I’have another full meal, but I just wasn’t hungry, so I’m listening.

Breakfast:  2 small pears, 1 large apple

—Workout—

Water: 800mL

Snack:  handful soaked almonds

Water:  800mL

Lunch: Good Ole Collards and Sweet Peppers (recipe) + veggie pate

Water:  800mL

Dinner:  Salad + Dessert:  Doughnut Hole

Water:  800mL

—-

One thing I’m noticing after having come off Master Cleanse, because my system is so clean, I’m sensitive to everything.  I can’t do too many nuts.  And I’m doing less than I ever have. I’m bloated beyond belief!  But, I will say that everything that I have eaten has been super tasty!  I will be adjusting tomorrow for sure, and eat less, because I’m stuffed!!

I just made this for lunch, sooooooooo good!  check out more recipes and menu suggestions from Raw Foods On A Budget

(I substituted cashews for Brazil nuts, cause I’m allergic)

organickale:

Raw vegan food pyramid.

Rose-Marie Swift (via beauty-n-innerlight)