What the Scale Says

The tricky issue of weight has come up yet again. I've found that since moving a month ago, I've lost about another 5-7 lbs. I've gone from a 6 to a 4, and as of my most recent pants-fitting, I'm the smallest I've ever been in my adult life.

I'm not really sure what all this means, so I plan on consulting my macrobiotic counselor soon. I suspect it has to do with the candida cleanse I did earlier this week. The cleanse was incredibly effective and I treated an overdose without having to resort to any sort of medication, but I've noticed that as soon as I cut sugars out of my diet, the weight drops off. I'm trying to start an exercise routine, but I've noticed that my distance from a grocery store really affects how often I shop and the quality of foods I purchase.

My body has also picked up with this thing it did the last time I dropped a lot of weight, where 2-3 nights a week, it just flushes... It's really bizarre, and I've tried treating this with kuzu, but I don't know whether I should allow this to happen or whether it's a result of acidity. But I'm getting bony, which I'm not sure I like...

What to do? Most of the macrobiotic women I know are SUPER thin, so if that's normal and natural then I'll accept it, but if not... I'd like to get it under control.

Alkaline Greens

I love these greens. I got the recipe from Ginny last spring when I was hovering over her stove and she placated me by feeding me. I'm easy to please.

BROCCOLINI AND LEEKS

This dish literally takes 10 minutes and is so healing when my body is too acidic! I had a sore throat for the last week, and literally within 24 hours, I am already feeling better and my digestive tract is healing and regulating from my move to Boston.

1 bunch broccoli rabe (alias: broccoli rappini)

1 bunch broccolini (alias: baby broccoli)

3 small-medium leeks

1/3 c. umeboshi plum vinegar ($2.39 at whole foods)

2-4 tbsp. sesame oil ($5-7 depending on the store)

Slice leek in half and wash dirt out of the leaves. Cut the remaining sides into half-disks and pan-fry in a HUGE pan or pot in the sesame oil until the leeks have turned bright green. Cut the bottom inch and a half off the rabe and the broccolini so it's not woody. Add the broccolis and mix well with the leeks. Pour the ume plum vinegar over the whole thing, mix well, and either cover or mix repeatedly for 10-15 minutes over a low-medium heat. Enjoy!

And Then Prometheus' Brother Stole A Cookie From the Gods, And Everybody Said It Was Kind of Gluttonous

I'm going to have to give Liz Lovely's Gluten-Free Ginger Molasses Vegan Cookies a stellar review.

They get a seat in the Snacking Pantheon. The only thing that I don't love about them is that they're SUPER high in sugar, so I'm not eating much, and saving the rest for later. I'm currently having... shall we say... blood sugar struggles? So I've been trying to limit my sugar intake for the week and balancing out the sugar I do eat with kuzu root and lots of daikon and seaweed to promote healthy intestines.

PRACTICING SAFE SNACKING

I always say that if you're going to splurge, go homemade or go home. That's why the biggest, baddest snacking I do is when a big box of Southern Scratch comes in the mail. I have cut back on my Olive and Sinclair habit after I realized that in the month of July, I spent approximately eighty U.S. dollars on artisan chocolate.

The problem I have with buying these high-sugar snacks (like uh... the one I totally just bought and ate) is that the cost to your body (and wallet) is rarely worth the quality that you get. They also tend to be less fresh, more stale, and less enjoyable than homemade goods.

Plus the easy accessibility (assuming you live in the giant lesbian vegan gluten-free race-blind macrobiotic cooperative socialist feminist bra-burning paradise that is Cambridge Massachusetts) means that you will probably enjoy the cookie less. They're not as special. Those of you who know me know that I like things special. I consider myself to be incredibly special. I am the kind of person who irons my sheets if I feel that my life is lacking in sparkle.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'm going to continue reading Amy Hoffman's "An Army of Ex-Lovers" and eat my hippie vegan food while I read about Cambridge in the 1970s.... mmm...

mmm...

groovy...

Guest Recipe: Chinese Sauces!

Last night I had a KILLER homemade meal with some vegetables I have eaten but never heard of and some deeply serious sauces. I mentioned to the beautiful and talented chef that I wasn't really accustomed to eating Chinese food having begun this macrobiotic diet because the big macro recipe genres in my life are:

-Latin!

-Japanese!

-Italian!

I find that most Macrobiotic people from the South tend to go from cooking bacon & grits soul food to whatever Macro recipes they can get their hands on in a cookbook or at a potluck. Because, let's face it... it's pretty impossible to adapt the Southern diet to the Macrobiotic diet. You basically have to start fresh. At least the Greeks can still use chickpeas. There is really no place for ham hock in a food energetics spectrum... I think it's sulking somewhere on the yin-yang scale between blue cheese and crack cocaine.

Here's dinner:

Menu:

A Vegetable that I have narrowed down using my excellent Chinese Food About.com skills to Chinese Water Spinach/Kang Kong/Swamp Cabbage

Nutritional Yeast Tofu with Tomatoes and Onions and a Peanut Sauce

Plated Jasmine Brown Rice. That's right. I did say plated.

Here's how she did the vegetables. These are literally the butteriest vegetables I have ever had in my life outside of the context of actual butter.

BUTTERY CHINESE WATER SPINACH

1. Go to an Asian Grocery Store. Get some Chinese Water Spinach and some Fermented Bean Curd Chunks in Sesame Oil. This is the bottle we used:

It is amazing and I'm using it forever and ever.

Mince about 4-5 large cloves of garlic, take 1 tbsp. of the bean curd, and mash together to make a paste.

Heat oil in a skillet, add mash and cook until golden brown. Add water spinach and combine, cooking until dark green. Easy and SO GOOD!!!!!!

Peanut Sauce recipe to be forthcoming. I was already stuffing my face by the time she got to making the peanut sauce.

The thing that was interesting was that she was like "None of this is probably macro." ALL of it was macro. I think that because those of us who cook from the books are so accustomed to making--more or less-- the same 10 dishes over and over again, it can strike our friends and loved ones that macrobiotic cooking is a limited spectrum of dishes and methods of preparation. Her dinner was actually proof to me that there are SO MANY amazing dishes you can make that are vegan, gluten-free, and macro!

Product Review: KIND Bars

I'm a mad snacker. I'm grazing constantly. At my former place of work *queue melancholy violins* I had a fully functioning brunch buffet operating under the counter.

So I take my snacking very seriously. Here is a list of gluten-free vegan granola bars that I can't get enough of. My dream is that one day I get famous enough that they start sending me this stuff for free, because I can't lie, these granola bars are so expensive... them's crack prices.

KIND BARS:

This brand is fantastic. It's basically Just Nuts and Fruit with Glucose Puffs, Whatever the Hell Those Are. They run between $1.33 at Whole Foods on sale and $2.29 at the co-op I shop at in Boston where they seem to think that our relative distance from civilization justifies the exorbitant price raise. Maybe I'm judging without knowing all the facts. Maybe one out of every two KIND bar trucks gets taken down by pirates crossing Huntington Avenue.

The Good:

Almond Walnut Macadamia + Protein

Holy crap, that's a big granola bar. Okay. Just shrunk it. I like this one the best because there's a tantalizing saltiness that I just can't get enough of... Also there's protein, so if you're stranded without your gluten-free and vegan food, this one will get you where you need to be.

Almond and Coconut

This is much sweeter than most of the KIND bars, and is harder to chew for those of you with hinge difficulties. I also sometimes find that coconut is a bit harder to digest, so for me this bar falls under the category of "Sometimes Food."

Mixed Nuts

This one's really simple. It's nice if you, like me, adhere to the belief that eating coconut before noon makes you an alcoholic.

The Bad:

This is the Almond Cashew bar with Omega 3. Offensively sweet. It tastes like a runny fruit leather snack with bursts of nuts... and I can't decide if the nuts are restful islands in a sea of bad ideas or if they're road blocks on the Journey to Completion. Because for $2.29, it doesn't matter how disgusting the thing is. You have to finish it. There are starving hipsters in the Haight Ashbury area who would kill to have a vegan granola bar.

The Weird: Advisable / Unadvisable

This is a bar made entirely of Sesame & Peanuts (With Chocolate). Once you get past the fact that, come to think of it, you've never actually eaten straight sesames in this volume before and wow, now that you mention it, it's mildly unsettling for a reason you can't quite place... it's actually really good!