PALM BEACH, Fla. — Juliano, a star in the raw food world, came to "cook" dinner recently in Palm Beach, Fla. He is a chef of a cuisine that requires no stove or oven – and definitely no microwave.

All five of the courses he prepared were made from "living" or raw foods, using a cutting board, a blender and a dehydrator.

Cox News Service photo (ENLARGE)

Celebrity raw-food chef Juliano, left, and his partner, Ariel Michaels, of Santa Monica, Calif., prepare creamy truffle linguini.

Juliano (last name, Brotman, though he doesn't give it out) and his partner, Ariel Michaels, were brought in from their Santa Monica, Calif., restaurant by Kipper Lance to make dinner for 75 friends and fellow raw foodists.

Lance is a raw foods devotee, and though she eats some cooked foods, it's all vegan – meaning it's all plant-based.

The diet has to do with enzymes, the "life-force" of plants. Raw foodists believe that cooking a food over 115 degrees kills the enzymes that are most beneficial to the body's absorption of the nutrients.

Juliano, a cookbook author and restaurant owner, is a celebrity chef in Southern California, where his namesake restaurant features "crackers" made from seeds, pastas made from squashes and sauces made from pureed nuts and oils. Celebs such as Woody Harrelson and Harrison Ford are frequent diners there, and Juliano claims Oprah may be hiring him soon as a personal chef for three months.

In Palm Beach, he found another set of fans – a group of diners who follow a mostly raw-food diet. Lance decided to gather those interested to hear a lecture by Juliano and eat some of his foods.

"I eat 50 (percent) to 75 percent raw, and the rest, vegan," Lance said.

She has been on the diet for more than two years; many others in the dining room had been following it for more than a decade.

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Most at the $50 dinner were there for Juliano's lecture.

High energy is the only way to describe the 38-year-old who claims to have started the raw-food movement 20 years ago.

"I'm not being modest, but in all honesty, I'm a genius," he said. "Before I started, there was mostly hummus and wheat grass. I started doing some underground parties, some rave parties and taking my foods to these parties back in the '80s. I was the first person who took nori, wrapped it in nut cheese and made a wrap. People want new food."

In loose-fitting white cotton clothes, Juliano is casual. He speaks enthusiastically in a type of happy-surfer speak – punctuated with a laugh – about the diet, yoga, being nice (the answers to all the questions in life, he said), posture and the benefits of sunlight and a swim in the ocean, which he says could cure everything.

"You can do yoga 22 hours a day, and it won't do you any good if you don't sit up straight and breathe through your nose the rest of the time," he chides his audience, the majority of whom are women ages 30 to 60.

Convincing those unfamiliar with the diet to try the foods isn't always easy.

"They expect raw broccoli and lettuce. Or from the vegans, a bland brown rice and veggies or tofu. Then they try my foods and say, 'This is amazing! I never knew raw food could be this great.'"

At 15, Juliano became a strict vegan, eating a "lot of pasta, bread, rice and soy," he says. It improved his health, and then he decided to take what he knew about foods – his dad was a well-known Italian chef in Chicago – and look for ways to make them "without all the toxins and poisons."

He started out using ancient cooking techniques. He sprouted buckwheat, ground it in a food processor and made a bread using a rock to cook it on in the Palm Springs desert.

"People were like, 'Wow – he made bread on a rock!' But they've been cooking bread on rocks for hundreds of years! This isn't new, but they just don't know about it," he said.

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He carried it farther once he went raw. He turns ordinary menu items into raw food items full of flavor.

"Half of our menu is a replica of existing foods. People think this is so hard, but it's easy. Once you know the rules, then you can break them. And you're not giving up anything," he says.

"There's nothing more decadent than blending nuts into a cheese. Anyone can take cream and butter and make a cream sauce, but using creamy nuts and oil to make a cheese and buttery sauce that's so healthy – you feel great after dinner and energized. They're used to feeling extra full and tired after a meal. With this food, you're totally energized. It's amazing. You can't argue with Mother Nature. Think about it: Every living creature other than man eats raw foods."

He uses the creamy nut mixture in many of the dishes including on a zucchini "pasta" as the sauce.

It's all about presentation, texture and taste, he said.

"I make a salmon' pate that's raw – grind some squash and add walnuts in the food processor til it's a salmon texture. Grind some seaweed down for the sea flavor, add a little beet juice for color, lemon juice and dill on top and it's a delicious raw pate."

Rice is made from cauliflower, pulsed in the food processor into grains. A burrito is made of the rice and hummus made from a mix of Brazil nuts and sesame seeds, which forms the "bean" mixture; and salsa tops the whole thing that's wrapped in a collard leaf.

For those who think they can't do it, he said anything's possible over time.

"Do any of you skateboard?" he asked the audience "No? Go try it – I can tell you it isn't easy. But you keep doing it for three weeks and something clicks, and it gets easier and easier and pretty soon, you're doing it."

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SALAD

Veganic Baby Medicinal Wild Herb Salad With 'Kreamy' Ginger Garlic Dressing

For the ginger-garlic dressing

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly chopped ginger

1/4 cup garlic, de-centered

2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon nama shoyu (see cook's note)

1/2 teaspoon Celtic sea salt

11/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

For the wild herb salad

1/2 cup red onions, sliced

21/2 tablespoons olive oil

11/2 tablespoons nama shoyu (see cook's note)

1 cup arugula

1 cup romaine lettuce

1 cup red leaf lettuce

1/2 cup fresh basil, destemmed

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, destemmed

1/2 cup fresh parsley, destemmed

1/2 cup fresh mint, destemmed

1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup shredded red cabbage

1 cup mixed sliced veggies (cucumber, celery, red bell peppers, etc.)

2 avocados, halved, pitted and scooped into wedges

1 cup soaked wild black seaweed

1/2 cup tomatoes, chopped

12 black sun-dried olives, pitted and chopped (optional)

2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, destemmed and chopped

2 teaspoon sesame seeds

1/2 bunch chives, chopped in half

To make the dressing, place the ginger, garlic, lemon juice, nama shoyu, Celtic sea salt and 1/2 cup of the olive oil in a Vita-Mix blender.

Blend on high; add just enough olive oil to get the mixture to turn over. Once the ginger and garlic have broken down into a smooth cream, slowly add the remaining 11/8 cup olive oil. You may have to stop the blender periodically as the dressing thickens to stir the oil in manually with a spatula.

Set aside while you make the salad.

To make the salad, marinate 1/4 cup of the red onions in 11/2 teaspoons of the olive oil and 11/2 teaspoons of the nama shoyu for a minimum of 10 minutes either ahead of time or while you prepare the other ingredients. The remaining 1/4 cup red onions will be used fresh.

Toss the arugula, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, basil, cilantro, parsley and mint with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon nama shoyu and lemon juice.

Distribute the mixture evenly onto four dinner plates and add equal amounts of the following ingredients to each: red cabbage, mixed veggies, avocado, marinated red onions, fresh red onions, soaked wild black seaweed, tomatoes, black sun-dried olives, rosemary, sesame seeds and ginger-garlic dressing.

Garnish with equal portions of chives across each salad.

Makes four servings.

Substitutions: The herbs listed in the ingredients column are only suggestions. Use any combination of fresh herbs you enjoy, or you can use an organic salad mix. You also can substitute the arugula/romaine/red leaf lettuce mix with an organic herb salad mix.

Cook's note: Nama shoyu is a raw, unpasteurized soy sauce. It's available at some health food stores.

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Appetizer

Atlantean Sea Soup

2 cups (about 2/3 ounce) dried five-color seaweed salad (see cook's notes)

3 cups (about 1 ounce) dried wild black seaweed (see cook's notes)

53/4 cups glass-bottled spring water

1/4 teaspoon Celtic sea salt

5 to 10 tablespoons nama shoyu (see cook's notes)

1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice

2 avocados (not overripe), halved, pitted and peeled

2 tablespoons garlic, minced

1/2 cup basil, chopped

Combine the 5-color seaweed and wild black seaweed with the water in a large bowl; this allows it to soften while you prepare the remaining ingredients. (The five-color seaweed needs to soak for a minimum of 5 minutes.)

Add the nama shoyu, garlic, basil and lemon juice as you prepare them.

Mash one of the avocados and dice the other; add to the soup. Mix all, and serve cold.

Makes four servings.

Substitutions: You may substitute or add any other good vegan-processed seaweed to this soup.

Cook's notes: Many of the obscure ingredients used in this recipe can be found at planetraw.com. Nama shoyu is a raw, unpasteurized soy sauce. It's available in some health-food stores.

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Side Dish

Stuffed Belgian Endives With Hungarian Paprika Pine Nut 'Cheeze'

For the nut "cheeze"

1 bag of cashews

Salt to taste

Juice from 1/2 lemon

Water to thin

1 teaspoon of each: paprika, cilantro, onion powder, garlic, salt

1 tablespoon nama shoyu (see cook's note)

1 lime, zested and juiced

For the recipe

6 heads Belgian endives, destemmed

1 cup nut "cheeze"

Stem and clean the endive leaves, separating them.

To make the nut cheeze, blend a bag of raw cashews, with salt to taste, half a lemon, juiced, and enough water to make it spreadable. Add herbs and seasonings and nama shoyu; stir in lime zest and juice.

Spoon mixture onto endive leaves. Warm in dehydrator if you choose, before serving.

Makes 18 to 24 servings.

Cook's note: Nama shoyu is a raw, unpasteurized soy sauce. It's available in some health-food stores.

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Main Dish

Creamy Truffle Linguini

8 cups "pasta" (raw zucchini sliced on mandoline or spiral slicer, marinated in 3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon salt)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon Celtic sea salt

1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, de-stemmed

6 tablespoons black truffle oil

Water from soaking seaweed (in soup)

1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice

11/2 cups Nut "Cheeze" (see recipe above)

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, de-stemmed and chopped

Place the pasta, olive oil, and Celtic sea salt in a large stainless steel bowl. Using a rubber scraper, turn the mixture over, taking care not to break the "pasta." (Warning: Don't scrape a metal spoon against a metal bowl ... unless you want toxic metal particles in your food!) Add the black truffle oil, seaweed water and lemon juice. Fold gently with spatula to evenly mix the ingredients.

Add the nut cheeze, and then fold to thoroughly coat the pasta.

For a pretty (yet optional) presentation, serve each portion of pasta on a sheet of nori with a vegetable garnish on the side. Sprinkle with parsley and flowers.