More than Plenty

I recently checked out a book from the library by the originators of the "100-mile diet." It's called Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. I'd heard about the 100-mile diet before. Occasionally when I describe macrobiotics as emphasizing eating locally people will ask if it's this. (It's not.) Macrobiotics encourages eating locally because you receive the energy of the local where you live. This means you're more likely to adjust to the proper temperatures of your locale because you're eating what was grown there in that temperature. Similarly to the issue of eating local honey because of the allergy immunity it provides, eating locally provides an energetic, yin-yang type connection to your earth. The creators of the 100-mile diet started it for the ecological reason of their dinner's carbon footprint. Even being vegetarians (that boasted of 59 cent meals when vegetables are cheap and plentiful) their average dinner traveled almost 1,500 miles. This is an interesting statistic and one that we should all be aware of. As Michael Pollan mentions in The Omnivore's Dilemma, is it better to eat locally or organic? These two are erring on the side of local.

Yet it's created some problems that luckily we would not face here in California. They have no oil and must rely on butter. They have no grains, since rice nor wheat grow near Vancouver. They have branched out of their vegetarian diet to become quite adventurous omnivores (oysters?!) all for the sake of having enough protein to continue biking around their rainy (though lovely) city. I never truly appreciated how much we benefit from being in the heart of California's bread basket of agriculture. I mean, I knew about the strawberries because I've been eating them non-stop since they showed up at the farmer's market several weeks ago. But olive oil, almonds, beans, and grains- I could not eat a macrobiotic diet without these staples.

That's why in the end the 100-mile diet will never work for me. Macrobiotics encourages you to eat your vegetables and fruits locally. Your beans from a 500 mile radius. Your grains from your continent and your seaweed from your nearest ocean. At least then I will not be eating apples from New Zealand (in the middle of the summer no less!) nor tropical fruit in the middle of a Minnesota winter. Which begs the question that gets asked of both macros and 100-milers, how can you do this in a typical Northern winter climate? Most people would say it's not possible. I think the authors would agree with me that you just have to plan ahead. Imagine your grandparents, or if not them maybe your great-grandparents. How did they survive winters before there were frozen TV dinners and microwaves? They canned fruits and vegetables. They pickled things. They stored roots in a root cellar. They froze things that could be frozen. So don't tell me it can't be done. It can be. It has been. And if our great-grandparents could do it before there were microwaves you can damn well bet that we could do it now.

Thai vs. Indian: Fight!

So I failed to get Thai food last night, as often happens on a Tuesday because the freaking restaurant is closed! Yes, that's right a popular San Francisco restaurant closed on a Tuesday. Alas, Tuesdays for some reason seem to be the day that I want to order take out. I've run into this problem a number of times now and still never remember until I call. Instead I went with Indian food. There's a great little Indian restaurant on Frederick and Arguello, next to Kezar Stadium, called New Ganges. It's actually an all-vegetarian Indian restaurant. It's very reminiscent of Vancouver, B.C. for me because there were so many vegetarian Indian restaurants there. I think I ate all-you-can-eat veggie Indian buffets almost every week-- at different restaurants too! So I like to support this place when I can.

I haven't eaten there in a while because the owner honestly drives me crazy. He's one of those people who thinks he can convince you of something or change your mind when all you want to do is order your favorite dish. It got so bad that I wouldn't go in there to eat and started only ordering take out. Then the take out got annoying because he would try to convince you over the phone. If I was the one to pick up the order he would harass me with kindness in the restaurant. Giving me mango juice and flowers. After a while all you want is to pay for your food and go. It's doesn't have to be a long interaction.

But the food is generally amazing. You can tell that it's all actually freshly made. The samosas are not frozen and then re-heated when you order. The food is not super greasy, though sometimes it can be overly spicy. Last night was perfect. When I called some woman took my order. She asked if I wanted it mild, medium or spicy. Since I've had super spicy things there before (so spicy no one at the table can eat them) I erred on the side of mild. She sounded shocked and asked again to confirm. "You want it all mild?!" As if such a thing had never happened before. Since I knew that D would prefer spicier and since I am slightly sick still I rescinded and suggested medium. And it was spicy. But in a good way. And the crazy owner was not there when I went to pick it up so I was very happy. Alas, he was not there to give me the special vegan dessert that he sometimes does but that thing never tasted good anyway.

Indian food is not terribly macrobiotic unless you happen to live in India. Generally it's too spicy and tropical in a way that macrobiotics frowns upon. But the last few days have been unseasonable warm here so spicy food makes sense suddenly. Normally (or at least during the summer) I need warm, filling food that you usually find in the middle of winter. But a nice spring day when it's actually warm is the perfect time for some spicy food. I was also trying to cure myself of a cold so spicy food helps with that too.

One pot meals

Ok, I know I've mentioned my obsession with sweet potatoes. Again last night I made sweet potato chips. They got fairly burnt but didn't stay super crispy (at least not in my lunch box today). I also made a all-in-one-pot meal (excluding the chips). I'm a big fan of cooking everything together- fewer dishes to clean up! On Sunday I made an extra huge batch of brown rice and lentils. I cooked 3 cups whereas usually we only do 1/2 or 2. This is enough rice and lentils to last through the millennium. Or almost. I've been running out of clever ways to use them. The first day I put it in the soup I was making. (Again one pot.) The second day, yesterday, I put it in the stir fry. Today? I might have to order take out. I'm planning on going to a book signing for Dale Pendell. Yes, of the Pharmako/poeia fame. He seems like a fascinating person so I am even skipping a show that D's band is playing to do this instead. I love getting books signed! I feel like a little kid about it.

I will report back on the take out options. It will probably be Samila Thai (I think that's what that place is called.) It's on Haight St. near Cole. They have pretty standard Thai food with a few vegan anomalies which are worth checking out. They make a fake fish dish which is pretty good if you like spicy. It's also better if you are sharing dishes with the whole table. On its own it's very much just the "fish". I think they have some other things that you can get with fake meat as well. I'm not a huge fan of the fake meat so after trying the "fish" (and determining that it was too damn spicy for me!) I've stayed away from them. I tend to go with the standard "tofu and veggies with peanut sauce". The one other thing that puts this Thai place above the rest is that they offer brown rice. Hooray! That's always the disappointment of ordering take out, especially Chinese or other Asian specialty. There's a mound of that crappy white rice that polishes your insides (in a bad way). I'll support almost any restaurant that serves brown rice. It's such a staple of my diet that it's hard to be without it, especially when white rice is the substitute. sigh.

Your environment

The other day someone at work mentioned how much your environment, the physical realities of the place you live, work, and sleep, affect your mental state. I didn't want to go all new age-y on her so I simply nodded in agreement. What I wanted to say was that if your environment is not grounded, i.e. you've just moved, you're perpetually messy, you live with chaos, then those energies affect how you feel throughout the day. I think this works with food too. I need really grounding food when I have a lot of heavy duty thinking and tasking to do. When I have no responsibilities I like to have lighter, dreamier food.

I've just started reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I know, it's a huge NY Times best seller and everyone else has read it ages ago. That's fine. I have a tendency to avoid books that everyone else likes because I don't trust that I will agree with everyone. I usually don't. I'm hard to please and have very high standards when it comes to literature or writing in general. Grammar mistakes, poor sentence construction, and general sloppiness just piss me off. And yet I can't stop reading a book once I've started, so I have to finish even the worst drivel. Hence I try not to start anything until I'm sure I will really like it. I was not sure about Eat, Pray, Love. It seemed so cliched. I used to work in a travel bookstore and spent all my time reading these kinds of travel/ spiritual quest/ memoir. They are roughly all the same. Man/woman goes to foreign locale and learns lessons about life/ experience/ specific skill. But this one had been on my radar for a while. A friend had read it and told me it was ok. Not "fantastic, you must read this!" but "ok." So when I saw it at the library I thought, "Well, why not?" Since I got it from the library at least I won't be spending any money on it.

I have to admit through my skepticism that I am enjoying it so far. The Italy section made me want to go to Italy. Not so much for the art or the culture, though I'm sure that's nice, but for the food. As a vegan I'm not sure I even could eat in Italy, certainly not the way she did sampling everything that was suggested to her with a healthy side of gelato. It did make me want cheese though. I find that missing cheese is the one thing that is hard for me as a vegan. Macrobiotics helps more than that awful fake vegan cheese but something is not satisfying me in my regular diet the way cheese would. Anyone have a cheese substitute suggestion? I've seen the recipes for miso/tofu cheese in the macro books and they just don't look good. Anyone ever tried those?

Ethiopia

I ate Ethiopian food for dinner tonight. There's a restaurant on Haight street, really not very far from home, called Massawa. I think I went there once years ago with some friends, the same friends who treated me to it tonight. The time years ago I remember not being impressed. I didn't like the spongy fermented bread (injara) and I thought too many things had tomatoes in them. Tomatoes are usually avoided in macrobiotics because they are part of the nightshade family and therefore vaguely harmful. Apparently if you have arthritis you should avoid nightshades as well as they can exacerbate the condition. I don't have any real health problems that keep me from eating them, but my partner does, so we tend to strictly avoid them. We've been on tour for the last few weeks so I took the opportunity to overload on them. I had potatoes made up as cajun french fries a few weeks ago. And now this Ethiopian food, which really did have tomatoes in pretty much everything. I found I enjoyed the injara much more than in the past. I think my tolerance for fermented things has grown over the past few years what with our experiments with sauerkraut, amazake, and pickles. So this time I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it greatly.

In other news, I am trying to harvest wild yeast. I am hoping to land some of the famous San Francisco sourdough yeast but since I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing I may be lucky to get anything at all. So far I have a small bowl with flour and water and raisins (for the sugar). I had read that you could use raisins or other dried fruit as a way to get it started but I don't know if you were supposed to take them out or not. Mine are still in. If nothing happens after a few days I guess I will compost this and try again, with perhaps more instructions.

House of Light

I recently spent some time in Austin, TX for the South by Southwest music festival and hence there has been a delay in writing this. The festival was great, if only because it was almost 90 degrees. I went swimming in a natural springs pool that was naturally about 60 degrees year round. It was heart-stoppingly cold, even on the blazingly hot day.
I also ate at a macrobiotic restaurant called Casa de Luz. Not only a beautiful calming environment but also an amazing restaurant and community.
The restaurant also runs a natural cooking school which was tempting enough to make me want to move to Austin. But really it was the food. We ate there for dinner and then lunch the next day. Each meal included soup, salad, raw veggies (like cut carrots, broccoli florets, etc.), brown rice, beans, root veggies, kale or other green leafy veggies, basically a huge amount of food. The best deal of course being lunch because you get the same amount of food for half the price of dinner. I also bought cookies each time (almond butter and ginger snap). The ginger snaps helped me survive my incredibly difficult and stressful flight back (weather canceled my first flight, the next day the airline canceled my flight!) This was all great inspiration to make it to my local (Oakland) macrobiotic restaurant, Manzanita. It was fabulous in the same way that Casa de Luz was. Now if only someone would open a place like this in SF. (Please!)

Rice Krispie Treats

Rice Krispie Treats were a favorite from my childhood. When I became vegan I thought I had lost the chance to enjoy ridiculous marshmallow-y sweetness. I mean, yes, there are vegan marshmallows. I've used them for making S'mores around a campfire, but I'm not sure they should really be used for anything else. They are a bit odd texture-wise, and god only knows what's actually in them. As a macro-vegan I'm much more concerned about what's actually in the substances I eat than I am about just eating a vegan version of something. I have since found the most amazing recipe for these kinds of things that will make even omnivores think they are eating the real thing (or at least ask for the recipe!) Plus these are super simple and easy to make which should be the point of rice krispie treats anyway. This recipe is from The Hip Chicks Guide to Macrobiotics, a truly wonderful book that everyone should read. It has some great suggestions if, like me, you are a sugar addict and some great ways to move into macrobiotics slowly and smoothly. It also has some women-specific advice which I found very helpful. In fact, I loaned my copy to a friend many moons ago and need to get it back!

Here's the recipe (pictures to follow later tonight):

1 cup brown rice syrup
2/3 cup almond butter
dash of vanilla
dash of umeboshi vinegar
Puffed cereal (I like this Puffed Kamut variety because it holds up much better than the rice ones do.)

Put all of the ingredients except the cereal into a small pan over low heat, stirring frequently. Once the almond butter and rice syrup have melted together and you start to see small bubbles, take it off the heat and pour into a large bowl. Add the cereal and stir until well coated. I also like to add chocolate chips (dark chocolate, so they're vegan) at this point. They mostly melt in the heat of the mixture but occasionally there is a whole one which is fine as well. This makes the treats even more of a treat, because, duh, chocolate! Pour the mixture into a greased pan and press it firmly to all the edges. Let cool for a while (or as long as you can wait). Then cut with a sharp knife.

I have taken these when traveling or camping because they hold up much better than cookies do (no crumbs!) and sort of work like little energy nuggets. I highly recommend them.