The "raw food" phenomenon came up recently when I was hanging out with friends at a local coffeehouse. We bantered back and forth a bit on the subject before my friends departed.

As they left, this earnestly young girl appeared at my table and planted herself in the seat next to me.

"I heard you talking about raw food," she said, "I'm going to a raw food party at a friend's house tonight. Are you going?"

"What, pray tell, does one eat at such a party" I asked, "other than salad, I mean?"

"Well," she replied, "there's soup."

"What kind of soup?"

"It's made from raw vegetables in a blender. We blend it into soup."

"Is that what they're calling 'soup' these days," I asked, "because, back in my day, we called that 'crap'."

Nonplussed, in an earnest sort of way, she continued, "People bring a lot of different things. You can bring anything."

"Can I bring a hot-plate?" I said.

She laughed a gentle little laugh and said no; patiently explaining that nothing served at a raw food party was cooked.

"So can I assume Steak Tartar will be served?" I replied.

"No," she giggled, "you can assume most everybody, if not everybody, there is a vegetarian."

"How long have you been a vegetarian yourself and why did you become one?" I inquired.

"I started about three years ago. I was eating a lot of ham at the time and I was getting sick. So I stopped eating meat altogether."

"I'm not too fond of ham myself," I told her, "but it sure tastes great with eggs and hash browns. So you've got to give ham props for that."

We spoke for a few more minutes about the raw food experience - and how much healthier she was feeling these days - until, suddenly, she bolted from the table and literally ran out the door, saying, "I've got to go now."

She was a cute girl but, as she told me herself, she doesn't eat meat. No meat of any kind will ever pass her lips. So, obviously, I'll never be dating her. I prefer a woman who swallows a bit of meat from time to time.

But all this got me to thinking and I soon found myself checking the local phone book for the nearest raw food vegetarian restaurant. Only one was to be found - its mission (as stated on the menu when I visited) is "to make fresh, organic, living vegan foods more accessible by providing a central meeting place for like-minded individuals to gather and enjoy fine, live cuisine."

That's sure saying a mouthful.

I dragged a fellow blogger, Liz of Heart Failure fame, with me because I know she always enjoys a good shenanigan.

The café was teeming with Rastafarian White Boys with dreads akimbo and Birkenstock-clad girls giving that wild eyed stare - all with convictions matched only by body odor.

It was a feeding frenzy the likes of which had not been since the Last Supper or a Spielberg shark movie circa 1977 - but done up vegan style - as these granola monkeys gnawed their way through metaphorical bamboo cages built on lifestyle alone.

It was an awesome - no, make that rawsome - sight to behold!