If You've Got the Poison...

re • me • dy
(noun)  Middle English remedie.  The process by which a concoction of grated daikon radish becomes a bout of self-induced diarrhea.

When I began this lifestyle, I thought there was no WAY vegetables could have as powerful an effect on the body as prescription medication.

I had time to think about the potential holes in my logic after one too many Carrot-Daikon remedies.  There is remarkable clarity to be found in the bathroom at four in the morning.

My face is wrapped in a washcloth soaked in hot ginger water.
Beneath the cloth is a thick paste of grated fresh lotus root.
This is the scariest image you'll ever see on my blog.

There are several traditional Japanese and Chinese remedies regularly used in the macrobiotic diet and practice.  Some of them are external, like the Lotus Root Plaster (see haunting image to your right).

Others, like Carrot-Daikon Drink and Ume Sho Kuzu, are taken internally at specific times of day.  I do not recommend taking these remedies without the guidance of someone who knows what they're talking about, like a macrobiotic counselor, acupuncturist, or herbalist.  They can have a profound impact on the body, especially when taken over the course of a few weeks.

That being said, here is my quick and dirty guide to remedies.  If you have been told that you need them, this is how I'd do it...

Lotus Root Plaster

- 1 fresh lotus root, cleaned and dried
- 1 tbsp flour (whole wheat pastry or rice flour)
- 1 tsp grated fresh ginger root (if your condition is sensitive, omit)
- Washcloth

Grate lotus root with fine metal or ceramic circle grater until it forms a smooth paste.
Add flour and juice from fresh ginger and mix with hands.
Put on ugly jammies.  This will jack up your good jammies.
Before bed, apply 1/2 inch-thick layer of paste on sinuses, chest, and swollen glands.  Wrap face in gauze or washcloth with air holes, and prepare to lay very, very still.


In the morning, remove what's left of the paste from your skin with a good, hot shower, and prepare for your eyes, nose, and lungs to start discharging infection.  This means that you need to start carrying tissue.


Follow up with another night of lotus root plaster or at the very least, body scrubs.


In the morning I'd recommend changing your sheets.  When this stuff falls off your face, it doesn't look good.


Carrot Daikon Drink
- 1 cup grated fresh carrot (fine grater)
- 1 cup grated fresh daikon (fresh grater)
- 1 1/2 cup water
- Dash shoyu/tamari
-1" square nori seaweed


I like to make this in the morning before breakfast.  Do not eat 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after Carrot Daikon Drink unless instructed to do so by your counselor.


Grate your carrots and daikon on your fine grater.  If using a ceramic circle grater, rotate your arm in the same direction.  This is a helpful meditation and keeps consistent energy in your dish.


Combine all ingredients in a small pot, bring to a boil, and simmer for ten minutes.  Drink while hot, and eat all the solid ingredients.  This makes a good amount of remedy, so don't try to finish it yourself if it doesn't feel natural.


The one thing I miss the most about the Kushi Institute is making remedies at night with my fellow cooks.  I can't tell you guys how cool it is to simmer black soybeans at midnight with a bunch of close friends.

It's the little things in life...

Squash Pudding : Lovely Glasses

squash pudding

I've got leftover brown rice amazake, a massive amount of squash, and a willing accomplice.  What do I make?

Squash pudding.  I'm modifying Aveline Kushi's "Squash Pie" recipe to make it slightly sweeter and more spiced, featuring my best friends cinnamon and nutmeg.  To top it all off, an icy white, thin layer of amazake and a thin dusting of crushed green pumpkin seeds.

As soon as I make it, I'll put it up here on the blog.  This is the recipe I'm using, modified from Aveline's "Complete Guide to Macrobiotic Cooking" is now gluten-free and slightly sweeter because I'm using Lundberg's brown rice syrup, and I need to conceal the flavor with some maple syrup (I'm now firmly Team Suzanne's).
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1 butternut squash
1 cup of water
pinch sea salt
1/2 c. brown rice syrup
1 tbsp. maple syrup
1 tbsp. kuzu, dissolved in cold water
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I'll put technique up when I make it.

We've been making a lot of puddings and parfaits lately.  But what to serve them in?  We can't just put them in cereal bowls!  How gauche!  They simply MUST go in dessert glasses.  Anything else would be barbarism.

Anthropologie ::  Helianthus Goblet  $8

Anthropologie ::  Sunk Shades Goblet  $12

Target ::  Tulip Glass Dessert Bowl Set of 12 - Green   $84

Etsy ::  Ruby Red Avon Cape Cod 1876 Dessert Bowl  $10

Crate + Barrel  ::  Tinge Turquoise/ Green Dessert Plate $4

Crate + Barrel ::  Delice Dessert Bowl $8

Pressure

These two have a lot in common.

In addition to being red, having layers, and needing a strong wash, they're both under pressure.

One because it's pushing down on me, pushing down on you.

The other because it's under a rock, about to become my salad.

Here at the Kushi Institute, we have pressed salad every day. Pressure "cooking" is very different than "pressure cooking."

The former involves pressing the liquids from thinly sliced vegetables mixed with salt so that it "cooks." The latter involves pouring some grains in a pot with some water, screwing on the lid, and ducking when it explodes.

I used to hate pressed salad. Growing up, I thought it tasted like cold, limp, salty cabbage. I used to gulp when I swallowed it. I didn't realize that there are as many kinds of pressed salads as there are "real" salads, and each one is a star in its own way. I'd love to share a couple of these with you now!

The thing you should remember is, pressed salad shouldn't taste bad. If it tastes bad, make it different next time. I learned this with the Worst Dish I Ever Made, Macrobiotic Yorkshire Pudding.

Überpressed Salad

Green Cabbage

Red Onions

Green Apples

Daikon Radish

Step 1: THINLY slice these ingredients. When I say thinly, I mean graze-your-knuckles thin. If it helps, bust out your handy mandolin and grate that way, avoiding your fingers. We have more injuries at KI from the mandolin than any other implement besides, perhaps, the Circle of Pain. I've lost years of youthful-looking knuckle skin to the Circle of Pain. I'm going to have hands like Jane Fonda before I hit 30 because of that thing.

I cut my ingredients to bite-sized widths before slicing. For onions, this means cut them in half once vertically (along the furry top, which has been removed first), cut it in half again long-ways (it should be in tall quarters now), and then sliced super-fine into what we call "Thin half-moons" at Kushi. I'm going to do a cutting demo any day now.

Step 2: After you've cut the apples, place the thin slices in a bowl of cold water. They're going to hang out here for the next two hours as your salad presses, so you can either forget about them or snack on them. It's really whatever you want. I live in your computer. I'm not actually judging you or anything.

Step 3: You hopefully have about 5-6 cups of shredded vegetal material. Add about a teaspoon of salt, and begin mixing and squeezing the vegetables in a LARGE bowl. Don't be shy. Squeeze them like you're wringing out a washcloth. Knead them like bread. Keep squeezing until a pool of water begins to form at the bottom of the bowl.

Step 4: Smush all your salad into a circle, and squish that under a small bowl with the U facing just like that... a U. Not a n. . The two bowls, the big one and small one, should kind of interlock. Now take something really heavy and stick it in the small bowl. Something REALLY heavy. Might I suggest:

-A rock

-A bag of rice

-Harry Potter 1-7 (Book, not DVD. Kids these days...)

-Guilt

Step 5: Wait two hours, remove heavy thing, and drain the liquid.

Sauce:

2 tsp. Mustard-Dill Dijon Mustard (We got it at whole foods)

3 tbsp. olive oil

3 tbsp. white wine vinegar

Squirt of lemon juice

Whisk until emulsified, then add to salad, add your green apple slices if you haven't eaten them all, and enjoy!

Healing Pressed Salad

Napa Cabbage

Green Cabbage

Radish Slices

Red Onion (If your system can handle it. If not, no worries.)

Follow all the steps listed above until Step 5. Here's the sauce I'd use:

1 c. umeboshi plum vinegar OR 1 c. brown rice vinegar.

Let the salad soak in the brine, taste, and give a quick rinse if it's too salty.

Party Pressed Salad

1 c. shredded green cabbage

1/2 c. shredded rutabaga

1 c. blanched crushed almonds

Follow Steps 1-5. Add almonds and ENJOY the sweet with the salty!

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.