As some of you may know, I like to try and eat vegetarian 75% of the time. I am not strict about it or anything but I go through times where I feel like I’ve indulged a little too much and need to reset my body… which was the case after the holidays. I posted something on my social media stating I would be going on a cleanse… After about an hour, I got an email from David, boss man of Whealth….
I met David for the first time over the holidays. David, along with other local business’s organized a large effort to feed and clothe the homeless on Christmas Day. I volunteered to help and went over to a local shelter to help people find some new outfits. David is this super tall handsome guy with the most amazing energy, I just loved his enthusiasm and excitement! He is good peoples and I had a feeling we would be working together in the future.
David, upon seeing my social media status of a raw vegan cleanse, thought it would be a cool idea for us to join forces and organize a raw vegan dinner party at the end of this month. When we met to discuss, my issue with throwing such a party is there is a snotty perception of “Raw Vegan”…. and I didn’t want it to be like that. So we said, let’s have a hip hop theme to it. So we came up with “Raw Dinner”
We had to find a cool location… During the JC Art Studio Tour, I went to see Chantal Lamour Studios; an incredible loft in Downtown Jersey City! Chantal was gracious enough and excited to help us host this event. Wait till you guys see this place!!
We are also teaming up with Hip Hop DJ Reese to spin beats or (beets) while people enjoy some delicious foods. David and I spent about an hour coming up with hip hop raw vegan puns.
Turnup the Turnip
Afu-Ramen
Bonita Applecrumb
Sir Mix A lot of Vegetables
Master Peas
Do you guys have any? Comment below!!
Now since I am planning a party with David, it was natural that I needed to get a little background on him and Whealth JC. He invited me over to his apartment to cook (not cook) delicious vegan foods we will be serving at our dinner party, talk food, Jersey City and of course Hip Hop!
What is your name? David Trotta.
What do you do? What do I do? I mean it depends on what day it is. I have a few jobs, right now I’m the Director of Operations at Jacks Coffee. We have 5 stores downtown, and a huge store out in the Hamptons. On other days.. I’m currently building a business called WHEALTH and WHEALTH the basic mission is connecting the community. Whether that’s through a food event, or through getting everyone to go running together – whatever we can do to bring the community together that’s what were doing, it’s still new, so we’re still figuring out what it will turn into, but for now I team up with local business’s and do pop-up events around twice a month.
How long have you been cooking? Since I was 7 years old… my mom has a funny story about how I wasn’t allowed to use the microwave….
Why specifically the microwave? I was a kid, I think she thought I was going to blow something up! I woke up one Saturday morning to make grilled cheese, and I was like mom look! And she freaked out and was like I thought I told you not to use the microwave!!! I said, I didn’t, I used the stove. She was like uh, I guess I cant be mad cause I never told you not to use the stove!
That was probably when I really started cooking, my dad passed away when I was really young, so between myself and my brothers, we had to have dinner on the table, whether it was reheating stuff my mom already made prior or putting stuff together to make stuff….
I was such a chubby little kid, I was like THE fat kid growing up.
You emphasize healthy eating right? is that a result from growing up chubby? Yea for sure!
When did you make that change? It started, when I was a sophmore in highschool my mom sent me to a “health camp” like, fucking fat camp and I like went all summer. They teach you how to eat and you’re playing sports and they’re forcing you and pushing you the whole time. That was where I started to understand how to eat normal… instead of boxed mac & cheese or a half gallon of ice cream before bed. Of course that happens sometimes, but it can’t be all the time.
So I think I lost about 60/70 lbs and I felt on top of the world… and then I gained it all back… and then through my mid twenties lost it. My thing is to stay as natural as possible, like natural whole foods, nothing processed and that worked – and you begin to learn about nutrition and excersise.
Jacks has a vegan bakery in the city, our baker there was awesome and his baking comes from a very honest place, he had dietary restrictions so it was amazing what he could do with vegan food.
And that’s an interesting point, there’s such a stereotype that vegan or vegetarian food cant be delicious, and its not true it can be super indulgent. I brought my mom to Jacks, gave her a scone she was amazed it was so good and then I said its vegan and she started fake choking, HAHA. It’s kind of ridiculous.
I was really into running at the time and I was just thinking about what the best fuel was for my body, and doing tons of yoga too, I was just figuring out how to eat and I did raw vegan. Its something I did for a while, its very extreme but just like everything you need to relax haha. So if I didn’t watch what I eat, I have the worst metabolism, so I would gain all that weight back in 2 months.
So you eat meat sometimes too? All the time actually, I had Indian food last night!!
Nice. Well there won’t be any meat for our Dinner right? No! We are doing a Raw Vegan Dinner, mixed with Raw Hip Hop beats, the big thing for me about what life is and what I try to do is, to create an experience around whatever the product is, whether its dinner, or coffee, its got to have a full experience. So this raw dinner, who better with than to do it with you, and have some awesome hip hop beats while we eat delicious fresh foods.
So whatre we doing and the type of ingredients we are using? We are just fucking around right now, testing with bodega ingredients, day of I will go to the market and get all super organic and lovely stuff, right now we are making sunflower tacos, so crushed sunflowers, a little bit of crushed almonds, flaxseed, water, cumin, salt & peper, a little bit of avocado, thatll turn it into a type of faux-taco meat.
So good, how do you come up with this? I kindof will look at a picture, and im like that looks cool and good –
That means youre so talented! I have to follow recipies, most of the time. I feel like with raw vegan its something you can just throw stuff together, theres a couple tricks that you figure out down the road. Like how to make cheeses without milk, I might fuck it up from time to time but its doable, I feel like that’s how you learn your style of cooking.
So you cook every day? Pretty much.
That’s nice. I like to cook, listen I like to hang out with lots of people – and its less expensive to cook – so I can afford to cook for all of my friends. So my dad passed away when I was young and I think my uncle who took over the reigns and raised me, hes an antique dealer and he had his business partner, I didn’t realize they were gay and together until I was in my twenties, but they threw the fucking best massive parties and dinner parties, like they were antique dealers to the point of we could visit the MET and see pieces they donated, like crazy stuff. But the parties they threw were off the wall. They used to have a house in Mantoloking, right on the beach. There would be an orchestra or swans, the details were amazing.
So right now, im going to do a raw pickling of these parsnips with some lemon.
Since this event has a hip hop theme, what’s your favorite hip hop album? Wow… great question, so were listening to my favorite artists right now dialated peoples. That changed everything for me. I love the gangster rap, era. You cant go wrong, we talked about tupac the other day.
Biggie is my shit. My old boss got me into biggie, I always thought that snoop dog song gin and juice, he was saying he was smoking on mangos haha until I smoked weed, I didn’t get it growing up. I feel like all of my music is 90s hip hop and b-nuts.
What is your favorite JC hangout spot? Right now BROA is the jam. Mike is amazing, he’s so down to earth.. Broa just makes me feel at home.
What’s next for Whealth? Expanding on a few Jersey City projects, working more with the Greenville community. Hosting more events and being part of the farmers marked in the spring! But I am super excited to be hosting an event with you Lynn! Are we going to battle it out on the dance floor?!
To Purchase tickets for “Raw Dinner” Click the link below! Limited tickets available!!
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