I am not great at yoga, I don’t own a dehydrator, and I’ve never been to Burning Man. I moved from New York City to Los Angeles after college, calling myself an Angeleno for close to eight years before returning to my home city for work. Truth of the matter is, I deeply miss the West Coast and the sunny, relaxed LA lifestyle. So, I decided to bring what I could back to New York.
One of the greatest parts about living in Los Angeles was the access to fresh ingredients, whether sourced from any one of the city’s ubiquitous farmers’ markets or from the healthy market Erewhon. Suffice it to say, it was easy to be lazy and still eat a super-healthy diet while living in Los Angeles. But then I moved to New York . . . and all that changed. No more fresh duck eggs, no more strawberries in December, and worst of all—no more handmade almond milk. That’s when I decided to make my own.
I first experimented with homemade almond milk on a whim while living back in LA. I don’t have any medical dietary restrictions that would prevent me from drinking dairy milk, rather, I just prefer the taste of a vanilla bean–enhanced, rich glass of almond milk. And after having one too many highly addicting almond milk–based smoothies at my local wellness eatery, Café Gratitude in Venice Beach, I decided to figure out how to make my own. What I quickly found was that homemade almond milk is not just incredibly simple to make, but it outshines anything you’ll find at a restaurant or in a refrigerator case. And likewise I found that the occasional bloating I experienced after drinking cow’s milk never happened when I subbed in a nut-based alternative.
Since my move back to New York, I’ve been re-creating Southern California in my kitchen by making a range of alt-milks (almond, cashew, pine nut, coconut, hazelnut, pistachio to name a few) in various hues, colored with natural, health-boosting ingredients such as spirulina (seaweed), matcha (antioxidant-rich green tea powder), turmeric, and more. I got so swept up in milk mania that I decided to start a nut milk business, and after partnering with a friend to host a pop-up at her restaurant, Mimi Cheng’s in New York’s East Village, I realized I had to name my product. One day, I looked at the rainbow of milks I had created: pink, purple, yellow, orange, blue, green. The milks were colored with ingredients straight from nature, and likewise fortified with myriad good-for-you properties. It’s like nature’s magic, I thought. I started thinking about fun, colorful, somewhat magical things, and the word unicorn came to mind. And that’s when it hit me: My healthy rainbow of milks should be called Unicorn Milk.
From Unicorn Milk to Unicorn Food
Unicorn Milk has since morphed into Unicorn Food—where I use many of my milks as ingredients to build an array of foods both sweet and savory. But I should backtrack for a moment. In 2014, I decided to change the way I eat. I didn’t want to follow a diet per se, but instead listen to my body about the foods that made me feel good and those that made me feel bad. I eliminated most gluten from my diet (I am not totally gluten-free by any means—if there’s a slice of Paulie Gee’s pizza on the table, I’ll likely eat it), deciding not to cook with it or keep gluten-containing ingredients at home. Likewise, I cut down on white refined sugar. There’s zero nutritional value in that stuff, and study after study pegs sugar as our mortal enemy, linking it to numerous diseases. Ditching sugar was a tough one because I have a major sweet tooth, so instead of eliminating it entirely, I switched over to natural, more nutrient-dense sweeteners with a lower glycemic index like coconut palm sugar, raw honey, dates, and maple syrup. This is also how I became an accidental almost-vegan. What I mean by that is, my job requires being an omnivore; when dining at a restaurant, I will try anything on the menu. But at home, I eat a primarily vegan diet (though I do enjoy honey and bee pollen). I didn’t set out to do this. It really was an accident. One day I realized that I mostly ate vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds and used coconut butter as a cooking fat. I don’t buy products marketed to vegans (so much of what’s out there is overprocessed), I just eat a vegetable-heavy diet and skip the dairy. And that’s how Unicorn Milk led me to Unicorn Food!
Almost Vegan
The foods I eat at home—and the recipes in this book—are almost vegan. That is, they’re heavy on the veggies and exclude all animal products with the exception of honey and bee pollen. Although most traditional vegans eschew those ingredients (since they are insect-made), as someone who eats vegan-ish primarily for the health benefits, I have no problem with them; they’re filled with antioxidants and other healthful compounds. If you would rather avoid them, you can almost always swap them out for the sweetener of your choice.
The idea behind Unicorn Food is simple: beautiful, delicious, nutritious, and fun foods (and drinks) for the average human looking to slant his/her diet a bit more toward wellness. It focuses on healthy ingredients with vivid, naturally derived colors, and recipes that taste incredible and look gorgeous on the plate. The recipes are easy to make and deceptively healthy. After all, I shouldn’t have to tell you that you’re eating a gluten-free, vegan muffin—it should be as delicious as any other muffin, except the one I am feeding you is ten times better because it is gluten-free, plant based, and made from whole foods. I want to stress that by and large these are approachable recipes that don’t require any crazy kitchen equipment—hey, if I can make these in my tiny New York City kitchen, so can you! In fact, many of these recipes are so simple that they don’t even involve cooking. Anyone can mix chia seeds and almond milk, I promise you!