The Deceptively Simple Guide to Pickling

It's been hard to keep this blog here at Kushi. When you're eating, sleeping, and breathing macrobiotics, at the end of the day, the hardest thing is to sit down and consider... "What's missing? It must be MORE MACROBIOTICS!"

One thing I set out to learn was how to pickle. May says I eat so many pickles, I'm going to pickle myself. She's probably right. I'm mummifying myself with every slice of briny daikon. Forever young, I want to be forever young...

When we pickle here, we don't use cucumbers. Here are some of the things we pickle:

broccoli stems ++ daikon radish ++ onion slivers ++ cabbage slices

To pickle, slice into matchsticks or THIN slivers (as thin as you can get them).

If you plan on making umeboshi vinegar pickles, do a salt rub... about 2-3 tsp for a 2-3 quart batch.

Submerge in a mixture of 3 parts water to 1 part fermented pickling mixture. These include:

shoyu ++ tamari ++ umeboshi plum vinegar

NOTE: if using tamari, I'd do maybe 3 parts water to 1/2 part tamari. For instance, 3 cups water, 1/2 cup tamari. It's much, much stronger than shoyu. If you pickles are still too salty, you can certainly do a rinse.

After thinly slicing your vegetables, submerge them completely in the liquid brining mixture. If in a hot climate, pickle 24-48 hours at room temperature. If a cold climate, 3-4 days should be good. It's very important that none of the vegetables are above the water level, as they can mold and rot in an aerobic environment. Translation: Keep them under.

After your time is up, you can store the pickles (preferably IN the brine) in the refrigerator for 7-10 days. Placing the pickles in the cold environment of the fridge slows the pickling process and keeps them from going bad.

Pickling encourages the growth of a kind of bacteria that the American diet is strongly deficient in. We eat pickles here at KI once a day, after dinner. It's the highlight of my culinary day. I hope you enjoy and have good pickling experiences!

Kushi: On Onions

Onions can be the main vegetable of a dish.

We had some sesame teriyaki onions this week, and it was literally, a giant bowl of onions. It looked like jellyfish and tasted like magic. The other veggies, which were I believe burdock and carrots, made up the minority of the dish. It was 2/3 marinated onions, 1/3 other assorted vegetables. When you boil the onions and cook them over a long period of time, they take on a sweet, mild flavor. The heat associated with the onion that gets locked in with the frying is vastly reduced, and a very pleasing, sweet dish is the result.

To get this flavor, boil your onions until they take on a milky, translucent quality. Then you can mix them with your other blanched, slivered veggies, combine with teriyaki or another sauce, then enjoy!

When you're slicing your onion, one thing I didn't know that's important is to think about the poles of the onion. When you slice an onion vertically, you can see the way it grows:

What we're NOT seeing here are "tree-rings." We're seeing the long growth of the onion. A chef here told me that in order to make for more balanced eating, we slice the onion long-ways to get both the feminine yin energy and the hot, grounding yang energy. If you think about it, even from a flavor perspective it makes sense. The root is more spicy and hot, while the layers nearer to the outside are sweeter and more mild. Each bite should be balanced.

So was it written, so shall it be.

Spa Day with Ginny!

I'm posting this to let you guys know about Ginny's spa package. If I were in Tennessee right now, I'd TOTALLY go for it. I did this program in December and it was a total lifesaver! I couldn't believe how well I slept afterward!

Sneaking Peanut Butter at Kushi

The eagle has landed! I've officially begun my kitchen residency here at KI, and it's been so much new information and food that I'm only just now catching up! I've inundated my family and friends with information about how I've been settling in and my duties in the kitchen, so I'm going to just try to post the practical stuff here.

Like sneaking peanut butter.

The word around these parts is "detox." Nearly everybody I've met (myself included) is unloading toxins and bad mojo, or is in a clean body/mind state and ate some chocolate over Christmas that made them vomit or lose sleep.

I hadn't thought about detox in a long time.

When I first detoxed, it was Spring of 2010, and the first thing I noticed was that I smelled awful. I showered two or three times a day. All of the sudden I, who had never before had problems smelling fresh as a rose, began to emit this really bizarre smell. It drove me nuts. I sweated profusely and felt like a pariah. This period lasted about two weeks, and I was very relieved when it was done.

The second major detox happened in late spring. After moving out of my parents' house and into a macrobiotic house, I ate totally clean macro food for the first time. I sat down one night for dinner, and I cried. I cried for about two hours, and I went through every possible feeling you could go through. Afterwards, I felt calm, serene, and in control of my body in a way I had never felt before. It was amazing to fully inhabit myself. This experience is very common for macrobiotic detox.

I am curious what detox here will feel like. It will probably happen a little later for me, because I rolled in here with a big jar of peanut butter that sat calmly in my dresser for four days until it got cracked open today and I indulged in several tablespoons. It was delicious, but now I feel like goop.

I don't have high hopes for the next few posts, because I feel muddled and am acclimating not only to a new setting, but radically different and cleansing foods and treatments. I'm quite tired, and I sleep a lot. Which I'm going to do now. See you soon!