Summer Yummies
June 25th, 2010
I had some friends over for dinner last night and served two of my favorite dishes–Mock Tuna and Quinoa Salad with Hazelnuts. They’re both from The Hip Chick’s Guide (although one I stole–with permission–from Christina!) so if you’ve made them ten thousands times, forgive me. If you have not, now’s the time to throw a dinner party and serves these summer lovelies:
Mock Tuna
No, you’re not making fun of a fish. This recipe is for those of us who had a very intimate relationship with little cans in our cupboards and who miss the idea of opening them regularly. Tuna is very yang and contracting–considered too strong an energy to take in regularly, especially for a woman. Ditto salmon. Macrobiotic recipes generally stick to white-fleshed fish, which are lower in fat and more easily digestible. Therefore, to imitate the sensual pleasure of tuna fish, we use tempeh.
1 8-ounce package tempeh
1 tablespoon umeboshi vinegar
1/3 cup Tofu Mayonnaise (see p.123 or store-bought)
Black pepper to taste
Any spices you desire–cumin, curry, paprika, saffron etc. (optional)
1 celery stalk, diced
1/4 red onion, finely diced
Steam or boil tempeh for 20 minutes to make it more digestible. Break apart with a fork until you get smaller-than-bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle the umeboshi vinegar onto the tempeh, mashing it in with a fork until you get a tuna-fishy saltiness. Mix “mayonnaise”, pepper and any other spices you enjoy. Mash into tempeh. Add vegetables. Serve or refrigerate–it tastes even better the next day.
Makes 4 servings.
Quinoa Salad with Hazelnuts
1/2 medium red onion, sliced fine into half moons
4 radishes, cut fine into half moons
2 Tablespoons each of ume vinegar and brown rice vinegar
1 1/2 cups quinoa
3 cups spring water with 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2/3 cups hazelnuts
1/4 cup chopped parsley or chopped mint
1/2 cup raisins, washed and drained
Mix the onions and radishes with both vinegars. Place a plate and weight on top and press for 1 hour to pickle. Wash quinoa thoroughly to remove the bitter saponin on the outside of the grain. Roast in a dry, heavy-bottom fry pan until dry, stirring constantly until grain begins to turn golden and puff up a little.
Bring water and salt to the boil in a saucepan, stir in quinoa, cover and bring back to the boil. Turn the flame down low and simmer until all the water is absorbed (about 20-25 minutes). Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, remove from heat and return into a mixing bowl to cool. Wash and roast hazelnuts at 325 degrees until nuts are golden and skins crack and loosen. Rub the nuts in a dry dishcloth to remove any loose skins. Chop roughly. Mix hazelnuts, quinoa, pickles, herbs and raisins together, including pickling liquid. Serve garnished with chopped nuts and sprigs of parsley or mint.
Makes 4 servings.
Variation:
Yummy if not yummier. Substitute pearled (polished) barley for quinoa (cooks 2-1 like quinoa in about 30 minutes). Replace hazelnuts with toasted pecans, use dried apricots that have been soaked and chopped instead of raisins, and add fresh chopped dill at the end to replace the parsley or mint. You still use the red onion and radish pressed with the vinegars.
P.S. In the photo, I’ve included an arame dish, a golden beet, and greens with cilantro/mustard/ginger/rice syrup dressing.
, surrounded by people learning macro, talking macro, eating macro and dreaming macro 24/7. There was never any denial among us that food was powerful, even magical 
. That was the glue that brought us together. In fact, we were so steeped in the food thing that I had a non-macro friend say to me once, as I gabbled on and on about gomasio and brown rice 
and how it was all going to save the world: "Jess, I think you are in denial of everyone else’s denial!" Ugh. It made me want to throw my kukicha tea at him!
. I’m going to movies, and worrying about the oil spill 
and generally being steeped in regular culture. So it’s always an amazing thing to hang out with other macros and remember the actual "cult" 
that I’m in. 
in Culver City. If you’re not from Southern California, M Cafe is a reason to visit. For the last five years, M Cafe 
has provided gourmet macrobiotic food to the hip and trendy masses of West Hollywood, Culver City and now Beverly Hills 
. Apparently Ellen and Portia 
have brunch at the Bev Hills M regularly. If they’re smart, they have the killer vegan benedict 
..jpg)
cured herself of ovarian cancer–which had spread to the bones–25 years ago, having been given two months to live by her doctors. The whole story is in her book, .jpg)
. Since then, she has been a macro counselor to thousands of individuals, helping to save countless lives in the process (by the way, if you’re recovering from a serious health condition, you need to skip the rich food at M cafe for a while and contact a counselor like Mina. See 
, who went from traditionally trained chef to Macro Masterpiece Maker. After cooking for Gwyneth Paltrow 
for a few years, he went on to develop the original menu at M Cafe (click .jpg)
. Big stars have blown the macro horn
. Medical doctors are taking up the plant-based diet charge with gusto 
. 
, don’t hold yourself back. This thing is huge. And I don’t just mean that the movement is getting bigger or that celebs are into it. That’s just window dressing… 
. In beautiful ways you never anticipated." And I looked into their faces, so relieved and happy to have someone wave their freak flag for them 
. And I looked inside the restaurant, which was full and BUMPIN’ 
with customers. 
and moved to Haiti. 
. I didn’t do it because the whole concept of Twitter annoys me (although it does). I didn’t do it because I was never really tweeting, having never gotten the knack of the pithy remark that is somehow worthy of transmission to strangers (but I wasn’t and I didn’t). 
is going to keep every tweet ever twitted, in perpetuity.
, as I stood in my kitchen, it just hit me. It was that little thing in my gut that probably should have been yelling at me for the last year or so. It was the "NO FREAKING WAY" response to basically handing my life over to Big Brother
. And I don’t mean the TV show, although I am totally addicted to the British version of it 
, and even auditioned for it once. 
. If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about (and most of the twenty-somethings on the reality show of the same name have no clue where the name, or concept of Big Brother come from… they just think it’s an sort of evil, invisible family member… their ignorance makes it doubly eerie) I say to you: 
. Most of us don’t. Most tweets are entirely and completely inane. So why get my panties in a twist? 
It’s the principle of it. When Uncle Sam 
just scoops up a segment of the culture’s speech and owns it… when my musings go straight into a federal vault… I dunno. There’s just something weird and wrong about that. 
and a resentment, the powers that be could probably get a cyber map or your or my movements that would be CHILLING. More detailed than anything Orwell ever fantasized. God forbid someone should get their hands on my laptop 
and see the sites I go to every day… what I bother to read about… who I email… that I’m obsessed with Sarah Ferguson and how she’s wrecking it for all us redheads 
. It would be better than a CAT scan 
. 
. Thousands of thoughts just floating around in the ole noggin 
. If you wanted someone else to know of these thoughts, you had to tell them or write them. And there were only about 30 people in your life who would give a rat’s ass about those thoughts anyway. Most of whom you’d see at church 
(or synagogue, or mosque), where you generally were discouraged from blurting out said thoughts. So we were limited. We lived in tighter circles.
. And our nervous systems were calmer 
. And no one had ever heard the word ‘blog’. Of course, there were different problems–very real problems
–but one of them wasn’t that the federal government was collecting all your thoughts forever and for all time.