Summer Greens and Skin Problems

I plan to start cooking with some of the wonderful summer greens that have popped up in our gardens. We're growing collard greens right now, which should be good because I have epic acne from all the chocolate I've consumed this week.

Your skin is the canary in the mine as far as internal balance goes. If you have a blemish and are able to cure it through eating, it's a good sign that things are progressing internally.

To get this beautiful skin, I really push the dark leafy greens. A lot of people put dressings (pumpkin seed, umeboshi) on their greens which is fine and macro, but I like to live dangerously. Also, too much flax seed oil makes me weird.

I got this and many other techniques from Martha Stewart Living and adapted it to fit macrobiotic cooking. This is a wonderful way to put a subtle but lively twist on your summer greens, and the presentation is beautiful! I can't find a picture at the moment, but I saved this technique in "The Bible," which I'll tell yall about later.

SUMMER GREEN STEAMER

1 lemon, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

5-8 basil leaves which are GARDEN FRESH in the summer!

1 bundle dandelion greens

1 bundle hydroponic watercress (probably not garden fresh, which is good in my opinion. People with hydroponic grow operations are super shady.)

Place water in a deep frying pan and add lemon slices and bamboo leaves to the floating water. Place bamboo steamer in the water, and on the bottom shelf add your dandelion greens. Place the watercress on the top shelf. As the water heats, the essence of the basil and lemon will infuse your greens with a wonderful, light summer flavor with a technique that is perfectly macro, and best of all, the whole process takes less than ten minutes from the first slice of the lemon to the first bite of the greens!

Rehabilitating: I Was a Southern Teenager

Being a Southern teenager, my diet pretty much consisted of BBQ, fast food, Cracker Barrel, and cold pizza for breakfast. As a result, my face basically looked like my breakfast, and now I have a lot of scarring from acne.

My skin and hair have become much softer since I introduced more wakame and kombu into my daily diet. Some studies have shown that eating lots of these delicious sea vegetables results in an increase in collagen elasticity later in life... I noticed when living in Japan that pretty much all the women aged PHENOMENALLY. My host mother was 50 going on 25. I really do believe that this is because they eat a much greater amount of sea vegetables. Look younger, and don't let people stick needles in your face!

Another thing I love is French Green Cosmetic Clay. This stuff is amazingly powerful. It is crazy cheap (I get mine from Mountain Rose Herbs), free from a lot of the run-of-the-mill cosmetic chemicals, and will literally suck the toxins out of your face whether you want it to or not. Not a joke, it feels like an octopus is on your face, sucking in time with your pulse.

Tip: Don't use this stuff right before leaving the house. Give yourself a few hours to gussy up and recover, because your face will look like an infectious rash for about two hours following. I made the horrible mistake of doing this mask 30 minutes before my freshman homecoming in high school. Bad scene. Pictures to follow.