Peter Melov, Live Food Activist and Sal Anthony, Soft Capitalist
I've just posted some multimedia about this intriguing, outspoken and let's face it, super buff Aussie social activist, Peter Melov:
MOVIE: Peter Melov Live Food Cooking Class - 3-part video showing us how to make his signature chocolate balls, loaves and not fishes
Photo Gallery of the class
Melov's credo: Coconut!
"A medium chain saturated fat that is understood by the human body."
However, he is adamant his cooking is really just to sweeten people up for his real message, that of social awareness about the sinister politics of the food pyramid - and what he believes are the lies and propaganda we ingest along with bad food, thereby supporting big Pharma, conglomerates and other organizations that feed the need for greed.
"My family think I'm crazy," he says. His family are medicos and apparently "obese, got acne, health issues ..."
I met Peter after eyeing off his caco-nib-studded chocolate balls at the Bondi Junction weekend market, Sydney. A magnet for a cyclist who'd just done a 40km spin for sure. One bit and the brain tells you - this food is real, it's alive. It's just ... satisfying.
Ancient grains like quinoa and buckwheat - never modern GMO wheat - are sprouted and used as the carb in most of his cakes, breads, soups and burgers. A bucket of fermenting vegetables - which the unintiated would throw on the compost heap - is used as a piquant flavoring. Coconut in all its forms is used as the fat and binder, blackstrap molasses is the sweetener and Magnesium Chloride is considered a vital sprinkle in everything.
Two large food processors are his tools of the trade - the addition of either chocolate not to the creamy, fluffy white base results in either a main course dish or dessert.
"The idea is one simple formula you can use in many ways, to make cooking easy, not a headache, therefore making being healthy easier," he says.
I can't work out if he has a website - Googling him gives inconclusive results, but you can contact him by email perhaps: petermelov at tpg dot com dot au, and at his incognito shop at 244 Oxford St Bondi Junction, opposite Macro Wholefoods.
UPDATE: There IS a website ...
www.SuveranCafe.com
Ph. 612 9369 4040 (or from overseas, +61 2 9369 40404)
I promise you, the food is worth the trip to the weekend market.
Sal Anthony on Soft Capitalism
Meanwhile thousands of miles from Sydney, I stumbled across both the raw food restaurant and "movement salon" of Sal Anthony, an Italian restauranteur turned raw food and fitness convert.
Sal use to operate an established eaterie in Manhattan's Little Italy ... until the landlords hiked the rent higher than Paris Hilton's sari. So he closed it and concentrated on his other places, while advancing his health and wellness cause.
If you look at the "Vanish America" video on his site he talks about the notion of "soft capitalism."
Soft capitalism, according to Sal, is where 4 people sit down at a table, and when you get up all four have made a bit of money. As opposed to one person making out and the other three being left dead in the water.
I like this soft capitalism, I fantasize about a society run like this. Imagine if Obama or Cain came out with this as a platform!
At his Movement Salon you can get into all kinds of prosthetic acrobatics using his AIM Yoga, Pilates and Gyrotonic machines. On first glance, a station looks like a cross between a fully fitted-out 4 poster of fantasy and a workout device you can operate without even getting out of bed.
"It's fantastic," said a young Russian client who says she buys the packages and comes at least once or twice a week.
Less exotic (and less expensive) are his Yoga and Pilates classes, which you can buy from as little as $12.50-$15 a class as packages - that soft capitalism again.
"My aim is to have a class that's a bit more affordable to make it accessible."
Without locking you into a monthly gym membership, it's a bargain for NYC, I'm told, though on my budget, if it was $10 a class I'd buy a bunch. I did one class for $15 and it was excellent.
Even more excellent is the free soup, bread and cake served daily to customers - although his raw food menu doesn't quite extend to his Salon. For that you have to go round the corner, where I tried one of his carob balls. There were different to Peter Melov's - based on dates, nuts and carob rather than coconut, quinoa and currents.
Like Peter's recipe, it was delicious - not too sweet.
Which goes to proved there are many ways to make good food by spurning processed ingredients and old methods.
"No more ossobuco for you!" I told Sal cheekily.
"And I make a damn good ossobuco too!" he twinkled.
Link to this article:
www.galfromdownunder.com/petermelov or www.galfromdownunder.com/salanthony
Comments
Yes the food & message is good but please be aware that sometimes even a good intention can be ruined by ego. I was a former associate & have first hand experience of the "dark side" of Melov. There are many ways & many tools but be wary of the messenger that condemns others & claims enlightenment.
clay
Appreciate your post. One thing I've learned from the school of hard knocks is that people trying to make a difference are almost always unbalanced to some degree. I was once told that it requires a certain degree of ego to even attempt to go against the tide because you will almost always be dragged down by the mainstream majority. With these people you can either ignore them, get on board their cause, or fight ego with ego! So many ways to handle it. Now, you should see my dark side sometime. Scares even me :o)
Lynette
some more great insite from a former associate!