Snacksgiving Is On The Horizon!

At 6:20 AM, I was reading my wedding magazines on the subway headed home to Nashville when the cabin caught fire. Boston is a city of hardened, jaded individuals for whom ads have been placed on the streets and subway cars, reminding them to be nice. I ran out of the subway car at the next stop, looked behind me, and saw that with the exception of the conductor and a handful of sane individuals (who were all wielding fire extinguishers), the rest of the passengers were calmly reading their papers, engulfed in smoke.

This is because they would rather go up in flames than give their hard-earned seats to some Johnny-Come-Lately who got on at Arlington.

It's good to be home in Nashville. Down here, building catches fire, folks get out.

As you've probably gleaned, I'm here in Nashville shopping... finishing my grad school applications... cooking delicious Snacksgiving.

Here's the menu for my non-turkey, non-stuffing, non-hospital side of the table:

Scottish Salmon with a Caper "Cream" Sauce

Slow-Cooked Lemony Collard Greens

Buttered Vegan, Gluten-Free Rolls (It's Thanksgiving. There's gotta be rolls)

Cornbread Dressing

Almond Mousse Tarts in a Rolled Oat Crust

Two years ago, I spent Thanksgiving week hooked up to a morphine drip in the hospital. While that certainly has its merits (among them, strolling confidently through the ER in an open-back gown), I plan to spend this week eating health-supportive food, sleeping in a bed that doesn't get lifted up and down by remote control.

When I get back, I'm having a wonderful Cranksgiving in Boston. Cranksgiving is Christmas/Thanksgiving with your friends. On Cranksgiving, we eat leftover Indian food loaded into plastic Solo cups because we don't know what happened to the plates, and complain. Cranksgiving was founded by individuals in the service industry as a means of alleviating holiday stress. Let me tell you, there would be a lot more poisoned Christmas hams and tinsel stranglings if it weren't for this most hallowed of evenings.

Please Don't Feed the Andrewmals.

So I have a pretty rad little brother. He is a man of few words who lives on buckets of fried chicken and devotes large quantities of time to the study of the way of the ninja. Andrew and I share a mutual appreciation of the N64 video game consol, and we both love to cook.

Andrew cooks bacon-wrapped beef with a wine reduction and a shaved parmesan crust.
I cook steamed collard greens with an umeboshi-lemon dressing.
Andrew cooks boxed Funfetti cakes.
I cook gluten-free vegan corn muffins.

We've been trying to talk him into a vegan diet, but Andrew's really against it. He exercises for 2-3 hours a day, lifts weights, runs with rocks, and grinds trees into sawdust with his bare hands. I get that.

My argument is that if he's going to keep eating meat, wheat, dairy, and sugar, these things should at least come from real, whole foods. It's one thing to eat a cake your grandmother baked from scratch. It's another thing to eat a bag of Skittles that contains chemicals used in embalming the dead.

I've planned a menu that uses real, whole foods. This is skirting the definition of macro, as Andrew is quite resistant to the diet. Those of you who are my regular readers will see how I've woven macro/vegan recipes into a menu that LOOKS decidedly "un-macro."

Appetizer

Spring Rolls a Sweet Homemade Hoisin Sauce

Main Course

Kimchee (Korean pickled cabbage) Soup

NOTE: Many jars of Kimchee have SHRIMP in them. If you have a shellfish allergy, be aware! It's worth scouring the health food store to find an organic, whole-foods kimchee. The stuff you get at Asian grocery stores is, for the large part, not macro. See my later post.

Side Dishes

Korean Beansprouts

Napa Cabbage with Fermented Tofu Sauce

Andrew doesn't like dessert and I'm on a real Honeycrisp apple/pomegranate kick, so that takes care of that. I'll post the cabbage recipe tomorrow.

The reason I'm posting this menu is that I'm sure we all have friends, especially teenagers and young adults, who are REALLY resistant to the macrobiotic lifestyle. But many of these people love Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food, which is just a few small simplifications away from a delicious macro meal!

If the person you are cooking with is not macro, and the thought of a vegan meal sends shivers down their spine, one could add thinly shaved pork to the Kimchee soup (recipe to follow), and the napa cabbage dish I'll provide above is typically done with tomatoes. If you're trying to stay within a pretty clean macro diet, you will, of course, want to leave these ingredients out.

The Holidays and Cooking with Intention!

It's crazy to think that with Halloween behind us, the holiday season has begun! I don't know about y'all, but my mind is racing coming up with ideas for holiday meals that will support my health during the season of cookies and turkey!

Side note, Halloween was a blast. I avoided most of the temptations of the season (except for these ridiculously good Curtis Street gluten-free dairy-free pumpkin muffins my coffee shop carries... ate about ten of those). Here's a picture of me and May at the Halloween party we... WON THE COSTUME CONTEST AT! I mean... we're macro-bots. Consider that pun. I just came up with it. It's pretty good.

For many macro people, this is the season when the MOST people think that we're limited in our diet. It's glaringly obvious when we pass on the turkey, stuffing, and pies that we are living with a "restricted diet."

But to me, this couldn't be farther from the truth. This is the season in which we're reminded of blessings, and my heart is so joyful going into it aware of how far I've come!

The thing about illness, especially deep, digestive or organ illness is that it rarely exists in a bubble. I mean, if you're having problems that are bad enough that you're in the hospital for Crohn's, celiac, hemophilia, etc., chances are, there are other members of your immediate or extended family who are having health problems as well. I have a cousin, an amazing girl who really lives life to the fullest, who suffers almost identical health issues as I do. Last Thanksgiving, she and several other members of my family ate the macrobiotic menu I prepared with me!

I don't know about y'all, but I know I've been so lost lately in the anxiety of preparing for graduate school, budgeting for six months of unemployment, and getting ready for the holiday season, that I've been all anxiety and have forgotten to center myself.

The other day, I was preparing to meet with some professors from school who were going to evaluate my work and (hopefully) write me letters of recommendation, and I was so anxious that I cried. This happens a lot lately. Lots of things make me cry. Country music makes me cry. Ironic bus rides make me cry. Basements make me cry... I wonder if it's Freudian. Everything I learned last year about taking care myself flew out the window, and I had totally forgotten that God's grace is subtle and constant. Looking back, I hear Mark 4:40, in which Christ stands among His disciples and says, "And still you do not believe?"

Many people in my life are quite ill this year. When I come home, I know that at least three of the people who I'll cook for among my family and friends are contending with serious, life-threatening illnesses. I don't have the knowledge or ability to cook a macro meal that will heal them the way a counselor will, but I know that I can cook something beautiful and nutritious, so I'll put all my intention and care for them into the food.