Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Cedar Fort whereupon I am thankful to have such a diverse amount of novels and non-fiction titles to choose amongst to host. I received a complimentary copy of “Crave. Eat. Heal.” direct from the publisher Front Table Books (imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc) in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I had a heap of happy expectation about this cookbook:
After having the chance to talk with the author of Crave. Eat. Heal. I must confess, I was even more excited than I was originally when I caught sight of the book coming up on tour! When your seeking a healthier route to pursue in cookery and bakery explorations, you start to gather a proper sense about finding something that has the potential of being a wicked good read! For me, when I read the premise of how this cookbook was created and what drew the inspiration behind it’s creation of the writer to give it flight to home cooks and gourmet chefs alike, wells, I couldn’t wait to dig inside it’s pages!
I think we can all relate to the key topic points of craving food, thriving on what we eat, and seek a wellness of healing through foods which strengthen us rather than deplete our energy. We each take our own journey towards health and wellness, as these are just my own ruminative thoughts on a personal quest to unearthing recipes, cookbooks, and the cookery joy in finding like-minded cooks who find connection of insight within the folds of where food can lead us to venture.
Before you read my thoughts below, I encourage you to retreat inside our conversation and see what came of our joyful exchanges of foodie discussions!
Crave. Eat. Heal.
After struggling for many years with a raging sweet tooth and emotionally-driven cravings, author Annie Oliverio began the journey back to a healthy, balanced palate. This is a cookbook focused on plant-based foods that protect, nourish, and heal – yet satisfy “cravings” that can easily trip one up when striving to eat healthier foods or when feeling lonely, stressed or in the need of comfort.
Places to find the book:
Format: Hardcover
Published by: Front Table Books (@FrontTableBooks)
an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc (@CedarFort)
Add to Riffle | Available Formats: Paperback & Ebook
Converse via: #CraveEatHeal and #anunrefinedvegan
About Annie Oliverio
If there is an unnamed, undiagnosed condition where one suffers from planning, thinking about, and anticipating future breakfasts, lunches, and dinners while eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner, then I have it. And I don’t want to be cured. But I wouldn’t be opposed to having this ailment named after me.
I was fortunate to be raised in a home with two excellent cooks: my mom and dad. Mom covered the basics of breakfasts, lunches in brown paper bags, and a square meal at night. She also covered Thanksgiving and Easter dinners. Dad took over on Christmas Eve or whenever an ingredient—be it a stinky cheese or olives or eggplant or artichokes or polenta—caught his fancy. Sauce splatters and piles of pots and pans in the sink were guaranteed. Between mom and dad, my three siblings and I ate eclectically and well.
My own culinary journey got off to a rocky start when I began living on my own post-college. I went for convenience and speed (and sugary, fatty, salty) rather than quality. Slowly, however, I began buying more fresh and whole foods to make my own meals. At the same time, I was learning about what foods are best for our bodies. Long story short, my plodding and indirect journey led me to plant-based eating. I no longer rely on packaged, frozen, or prepared meals, and instead make everything we need right here in our own kitchen.
What about the non-food part of my life? Before escaping the mean city streets for the wild, windy plains of Oklahoma, I was an administrative assistant and office manager at a subscription fulfillment company in Boulder, at a think-tank in Santa Monica, at a university in Cambridge, MA, in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and at a non-profit in Washington, D.C.
I now spend a good deal of time walking the pastures trying to identify different types of grasses and insects, feeding hummingbirds, writing and reading, struggling to solve crossword puzzles (with a pen and a lot of Wite-Out), and blogging at An Unrefined Vegan and Virtual Vegan Potluck. I live in blissful satellite- and cable-free isolation with my husband, Kel, and our only son, Ike (part dachshund, part Labrador).
Have you ever wanted to find a cookbook that lies flat, illuminates the joy of cooking with crisp photographs, and encourages you on your quest to bettering your pursuit of healthy eats!?
No need to look any further than Crave. Eat. Heal. as Ms Oliverio has outdone herself by presenting us with a feast for our eyes and a mindfulness approach to seeking a path towards true wellness out of owning what our cravings are encouraging us to eat whilst supplementing the naughty bits with re-invented recipes which strive to seek harmony not imbalance! This is the type of cookbook you wish you had when you were up late on a wicked horrid food craving and eating all the processed naughtiness that leaves you wrecked with a stomach ache!
Not only does Oliverio understand how food can be as tethered tied to our emotions as much as our hormones, but she has this keen sense about how food is relative to our moods. She gives suggestions with near-poetic prompt headings that draw your mind to think twice, and your foodie soul to celebrate the joy of eating something new, but something not quite as wicked as where your old habits led you! Opening Crave. Eat. Heal. feels like an awakening spirit of clean slate proportions and epic desires to seek out the ingredients in order to produce what is found on the pages — foods where you do not think about the nutritional values as much as the joy of ‘tasting’ the wholeness of a well-lit cellular enriching treat for the palate!
She has bang-on clarity for understanding how to ‘listen’ to what your body is attempting to tell you (about what your missing and what your daily needs are in regards to food) whilst giving you a bit of a guilt-break on how those internal desires and signals can waylay you on a path of unwell tendencies. The reasons they become unhealthy is because the choices we make to ‘feed the immediate need’ of those wicked awful cravings sets us up to fail because we insta-grab the wrong variation of how that craving can be rectified. We’ve all been there — especially women in particular, where you have this in-human longing to ‘eat something that meets your needs’ yet with a heap of remorse for knowingly eating something that is empty of any healthy attributes and benefits. Even moderation won’t save you from chronic choices which do nothing to add to your healthy glow but only seek to leave you downtrodden in a sluggish lathyritic state of ‘ugh’.
Upfront and interpersonal in her disclosures about her own food journey from a past of making the choices we’ve all made ourselves to a present where she changed her future by re-assessing her approach to the foods she craved to taste vs the foods which would heal her body. As you read her journey you appreciate the pace of how each of us strive to make change – positive change – on our own lifepath of startling discoveries which give us the strength to continue to pursue our own authentic selves. Life is a journey we all recognise this, but to equate the journey to include an awareness about food, nutrition and the cycle of wellness is one leg of the journey you have to be willing to accept rather than to remain in the status quo. Wherever we are, we are owning our own truths and living our own paths towards where our future is awaiting us. What I found refreshing about Oliverio’s take on her journey, is if you can find a measure of peace in what she’s relaying to you about her journey, then the joy is twofold tripled and doubled down in growth of being shared.
She even breaks down the new ingredients you might not be familiar with seeing in your home by introducing you to what they are and how they fit into her foodie lifestyle. This is a cookbook for foodies who are seeking ‘the next level of joy’ in their culinary pursuits; without the heaviness of traditional eating and a freedom of being around living foods which balance out our systems in a natural state. She even breaks down the essential small kitchen appliances or gadgetry we can aspire to forging for our own kitchen’s upgrades! Honestly, I know at some point I have to get to a point where I can do *something!* with my dehydrator other than seek out recipes that make me wonder why I’m not using it! I claim it’s a lack of counter space — but is it, or is it an uncertainty of sorting out how to use it!?
I appreciated the ‘quick reference bullets’ at the end of the recipes themselves where you find such wicked awesome references like ‘gluten-free’ or ‘oil-free’ or is it an easy recipe vs how long it will take to create. The pictures will make your mouth water with an intense need to bake or whip up the ingredients as quickly as you can acquire them! The smoothies and drinks made me itch with anticipation the most, because I am always quite wicked happy to find something uniquely different to ‘drink’ than mere water or my go-to standards for fresh veg juice! She creates an experience in a glass that makes you crave her recipe verse having only a mild curiosity about creating a drink out of fruit and dates! The one that held the most interest of appeal for me was the Sunshine Smoothie (page 145) which felt like the perfect companion to a volcanic Summer!
Refreshingly simplistic with wicked good possibilities spun out of ingredients you can gather within most small townes and cities who are stocked with health food stores or grocers who have a healthier section in-line with their regular offerings; augmented by your purchases at a local farmer’s market, I can honestly say this is a book you want in your hands as you tick off your shopping list! Write down the recipes that leap off the page and ignite an itch to try — these are the pages where a new appreciation for fresh food and raw ingredients becomes tandem to a newfound taste of beauty within the light of spirited blissitudes.
This book review is courtesy of Cedar Fort, Inc.:
One thing I have wanted to seek out is a way to talk about what befits a book blogger’s soul – part of what makes our soul happy is the food we consume, which is why time to time I will be showcasing a healthy-minded cookbook or baking book to augment this side of my life into my book blog. For this reason, I am still quite grateful Front Table Books and Cedar Fort gave me my initial chance to feature a cookbook — as it marked a transition moment for me, as I started reviewing for their Front Table releases in 2014 whilst continuing now in 2015, I will be regularly featuring non-fiction titles as much as dipping into the Foodie Fiction section of literature which compels my heart to discover.
Follow future installments by: #TheBookishFoodie
Virtual Road Map of “Crave. Eat. Heal” Blog Tour can be found here:
{ Prior to today, I helped kick-off the JOY of this tour with a wicked sweet Interview!}
Find out which Front Table Books I hosted in 2014 + which ones are coming in 2015!
Visit with me again soon!
Kindly leave your thoughts, comments, & reactions for Ms Oliverio in the comments section!
In conjunction with my “The Bookish Foodie” Feature on Jorie Loves A Story:
Quite wicked happy on this being the last cookbook feature on my bookish blog for 2014, before I kick off new features & showcases in 2015 where I am going to be highlighting both fiction and non-fiction Foodie delights! I have always appreciated “Foodie Fiction”, but I am also an amateur sous chef who likes to experiment in the kitchen with her Mum! I grew up with a keen interest in savory and sweet decadence from a Mum whose culinary wanderings spanned the world. We were always a family who were considered to eat ‘bland’ food due to the fact we limited our salt intact, and we never used black pepper! Ironically, it was through the herbs and spices my Mum always fused into our cooking adventures that first sparked my own interest in getting a bit more involved than merely developing a ‘taste’ for what I appreciated. I developed my own yearnings for Indian spices (i.e. Curry Powder, Garam Marsala, Turmeric, etc) and foods, as much as I always had a hankering for extra garlic cloves due to a high concentration of Italian foods I consumed growing up. I wanted to merge my bookish joy of reading ‘Foodie Fiction’ with my quest to uncover a healthier and more vibrant way to eat, live, and thrive. Therefore, I decided to begin featuring what I consider fit under this new Feature of Jorie Loves A Story: The Bookish Foodie! As I am *exactly!* what the title eludes — I’m a bookish girl who has a Foodie soul! Drop back and spend time with me to see where this Feature takes me!
{SOURCES: Author Biography, Book Synopsis and Book Cover of “Crave Eat Heal”, the blog tour badge, and the Cedar Fort badge were provided by Cedar Fort, Inc. and used by permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Cookery Delights | Savoury & Ambrosial | Cookbook interviews by the Bookish Foodie Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Jeffrey Deng. The Bookish Foodie badge created by Jorie in Canva. Comment box badge created by Jorie in Canva. Jorie Loves A Story Cuppa Book Love Awards Badge created by Jorie in Canva. Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2015.
Tweets on Twitter about “Crave. Eat. Heal.’:
#TheBookishFoodie is gearing up for lovely day of #foodie delights on #JLASblog! Get to know Annie Oliverio http://t.co/5mruWUl1r5 #foodie
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) May 28, 2015
.@AnOlive | @FrontTableBooks #CraveEatHeal #cookbook of epic joyful #foodie delight arrives http://t.co/dKiaz3Rcn5 pic.twitter.com/LvetIlOttd
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) May 29, 2015
Leave a Reply