I wanted to be a football player first. Before I even knew what it meant to "be", let alone could even comprehend growing up, what I wanted to "be when I grew up" first, before anything else, was a football player.

I was 3 years old when the subject was breached. I wore a humongous football helmet around the house and ran with no seeming direction - sometimes in circles, sometimes into walls due to oversized helmet vision - whenever a game was on television. But I also wore a mask and bounced on a spring hourse when Zoro was on. And acted out every A.A. Milnes character on the stage of my childhood bed when I was read "Whinnie the Pooh" bedtime stories. Think I was a do-er, right from the beginning?

Oh, how early we display our unique personalities...

I guessed his name right away - the man behind the counter. I just knew the man singing and chopping tomatoes had to be the chef himself. Who also turned out to be the owner, himself. Right in the heart of Salt Lake City's funky Sugar House neighborhood, next to the political-statement bumber sticker store. And the metaphysical book store. Third door down; tobacco and glass pipes. But proudly on this corner, with singing chopping chefs and abundant natural light; Living Cuisine Cafe, serving entirely organic, raw fare. The exact kind of joint I wanted to spend my 4th-year-raw anniversary.


Chef Omar Pure Heart's Nigerian and Lebanese upbringing makes for an exciting selection of dishes gigantic with texture and exotic in spice combinations; like a perfectly-crumbling-crust pizza with a delightfully unAmerican pesto.

Immediately after completeing shcool in Lebenon, our singing chef and his mother moved across seas to Utah, where Omar attended engeneiring university and his mother opened up the renowned Lebonese restaurant, Mazza Cafe, in the 2 million-person big/little city. Omar studied Geophysical Engineering for years before awakening to raw food for himself. Indeed the story of Living Cuisine Cafe seems unlikely indeed (but Chef Omar Pure Heart would certainly say it was divine): he went all the way for his love of raw vegan food, abandoned engeniering studies and opened Living Cuisine Cafe in July 2005 on only $3,000.

And now he stands with one assistant behind the counter just radiating - just radiating light with a smile as blinding as the Boneville Salt Flats, as he relishes the feel of a knife through a tomato and concentrates on feeding his customers. He knows he is feeding their souls and he knows the importance of his work. I've never seen a man bask in such genuine pleasure from slicing a tomato.

The kiwi-cacao pie, with macadamia creme, chocolate mousse and a gentle berry sauce was served in a heart shaped bowl. It feels good to eat food prepared with this much love. Heck, it feels good just to be in proximity of people as radiant as Chef Omar Pure Heart - people who have truly come alive.

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive.
What the world needs is people who have come alive."

My parents told me I could do it. They didn't giggle, they didn't tease, they just said, "You'll be the best football player ever, Honey," as I tackled another wall. When I was 8 they told me I'd be a fantastic children's book illistrator. When I was 11 I was a horror author and at 16 I was a tattoo artist, but the entire time I think I really knew it was dance - and they told me I could to that, too. All that matterred it that I had something to love and I believed it was possible.

What would life be if we, like Chef Omar Pure Heart, against all odds, believed we could do anything and then did it? Like a song in the kitchen, like the infectious blinding smile, like a knife through a tomato when we live our love.

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