Thanks for the Formspring questions! Keep them coming – Ask me anything. I recently answered another disordered eating question and a question about work.

This morning after meeting (3rd week in a row!) Bobby and I went to Souen, a macrobiotic restaurant, for brunch. It was absolute heaven. You might remember that I experimented with macrobiotics last year (actually it was just over a year ago this month) and I really enjoyed it. I cultivated my love of kabocha and I learned a lot about how the food we eat impacts the way we feel (duh). Here are some resources:

• Becoming Whole, by Meg Wolff (book review)
• 2-week wrap-up
• 1-week thoughts
• Lessons learned

So today I wanted to try going back to macrobiotics again. I opted for “Brunch A” ($8.50 – well worth it!! Huge portions for me):

• Kenchin-Tofu Drop Soup: tofu, shiitake, burdock, carrot and watercress in kombu kuzu broth.
• Corn Bread or Spelt Bread (I got corn bread, duh – with miso tahini dressing)
• Steamed Vegetables (carrot, daikon, squash and greens)

Bobby got “Brunch B” ($11 – oddly enough this was less food than Brunch A):

• Yuba: steamed tofu “skin” marinated in kombu-shiitake broth.
• Mixed Grain of the Day (basmati wild rice)
• Goma-Ae: steamed special greens with black sesame sauce.
• Goma Tofu: soy free, creamy and nutty sesame “tofu”.
• Stewed Vegetables: cooked carrot, gobo, yam cake and lotus root in tamari broth.

I thought this was possibly the best lunch/brunch I have ever had. And there were flowers, soy sauce, and sesame seeds:

My soup came first. Bobby and I actually swapped soups because we each liked the other’s better.

The cornbread was really interesting (in a good way) – it was not very sweet at all and tasted healthy (again, in a good way). It came with miso tahini dressing (I finished this dressing and got more – so good). Two related recipes that I made before:

• Corn bitelettes (a BSI entry)
• Cornbread pudding/casserole

My veggies came last. The kabocha was ripe and perfectly steamed. The carrots and daikon were also perfectly steamed. Even the kale was delicious! (Sometimes I think it’s boring.)

Here was Bobby’s spread (clockwise from top left: spinach, rice, tofu skin thing, sesame tofu thing, and soup):

I thought that Bobby’s gomae (steamed spinach with sesame sauce – I have a recipe here) was really yummy. He thought it tasted a little bit like dirt, but I honestly thought it was awesome. I also thought his goma tofu (tofu made with sesame) was awesome, but he didn’t like the texture much. Next time he is getting fish. We’re going to bring his mom here when his family visits in March (!). I think she would appreciate it.

Brunch dessert was a piece of Macasure chocolate. I saw it at Whole Foods yesterday and picked it up. Really good! Bobby liked it too.

I’m gonna end with a mantra that I was contemplating this morning during my hour of silence:

May everyone be happy, well, and peaceful.

How was your weekend?

Ahhh, today has been the longest day. The internet was down at work all day (and I had to be the one on the phone trying to get it back on again) and now I think my crackberry is dead! I’ll soothe my soul with some of this… (I Love You Cake)

I bought this chocolate piece of heaven on Saturday during my Whole Foods trip with Marina; Bobby and I broke into it last night (it was one of my Valentine’s day presents to him). Then I broke into it again tonight. So good. It is a chocolate cake with rich fudgey topping.

I wanted to share one of my presents from Bobby:

Sabon soap! This one is a coconut and olive oil base, and it’s vanilla and coconut scented. It’s great for the skin. I adore Sabon and it’s right nearby.

After dessert (pictured above) I had dinner (times 2):

• goodies: bacon and coconut oil and whipped cream cheese
• healthies: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, peas, and corn
• spicies: cinnamon, chili powder, garlic powder, and Kikkoman ponzu sauce from Foodbuzz (love this stuff!)

And then I ate a can of black beans. My acupuncturist told me to eat black beans so I obliged. I topped them with some maple syrup, salt, and more whipped cream cheese (why oh why is this so good?? Heather, I blame you for this addiction!).

Moving on… I wanted to do an exercise update (click for daily records of what I do each day). Remember how I lost 2-3 of those intenSati pounds? Well, it certainly wasn’t through exercise – I am back to my gentle routine of walking, and I couldn’t be happier. I walk to work in the morning (2 miles) and I try to get in another half mile or so throughout the rest of the day (running an errand for example). I haven’t even done yoga! I did do my DVF exercises (Diane von Furstenburg exercises) 3 times this past week though. They are basically relaxing stretching moves. Maybe I will even do them tonight.

Just goes to show, you don’t have to exercise a lot to stay thin! Moderation is the KEY. (I love how I say this but moderation is the thing I struggle with.)

Another cool thing I’m doing right now is soaking my feet in hot water with epsom salts and lavender (it’s a lavender oil that the sweet Clare sent me for Christmas). Both Coco and my acupuncturist recommended this, so I figured I’d give it a shot. It’s relaxing! I hate how the water cools down so fast though. I have to keep reheating it.

Well, I am off to do some work that I did not get done today (no productivity since there was no internet). I’m glad I have blogging to de-stress

What’s your de-stressor?

I am not sure how the week flies by so quickly. It seems like yesterday that I was posting about the perfect cornbread casserole, but it turns out that that was on Sunday night (!), already three days ago.

Sunday night before I posted Bobby and I went out to a Vietnamese place with our friend down in Chinatown thanks to a blogger rec and it was delicious. That post will have to wait until I upload the pictures though.

Wednesday Thoughts.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some insights from a really interesting conversation I had last night. I was talking about some of my struggles (let’s just call them that, yes) and my friend gave me some really important advice. There is so much more that I want to say, but I will not go into it all at once. For now, here is what I have to say (and if none of this makes sense, I apologize – skip down to pictures of yummy food!).

• If you have a cup of tea, just enjoy your cup of tea. Savor it. Smell it. Feel its warmth. Focus on your breathing. How do you feel? What are you thinking? Are you enjoying the tea, or is it simply background noise to something else you are doing? Was that what you had intended?
• We base our anxieties and worries on our own histories. Just because something happened yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and … – does not mean that it has to happen today.
• When we are building new habits and destroying old (bad) ones, it can be problematic to create deadlines/timelines. Habits do not abide by time limits. Instead, try to focus on doing your new habit XX times in a week (day? month?). Then slowly increase the number of times you practice your new habit and decrease the number of times you practice the old one.
• Behavior is physical and chemical and it CAN BE CHANGED.

Next time I want to talk about starters/initiators vs. maintainers. More to come!

Onto food.

Heather posted today about her standard dinners. Mine are actually quite similar! Here is one:

I usually have a nice base of veggies and I top it with fatty things that are healthy. This was (as far as I can recall)…

• stirfry of leeks and broccoli (in butter)
• then I tossed in 2 chopped tomatoes
• the toppings were probably nutritional yeast, parmesan, and maple syrup

My favorite veggies that are almost in these big bowls are Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

Yum! Also yum:

This is roasted kabocha (possibly from the same night). It was an unripe kabocha, but I have discovered that the best way to salvage these (they just aren’t as sweet) is to roast them in the oven at about 375F for 30-40 minutes. There is something wonderful about my current oven (maybe because it’s gas?) and the kabocha comes out deliciously starchy and good.

I am off to eat some oatmeal for dessert. I am catching up on last night’s Biggest Loser as well (I was on the phone and missed most of it).

What behavior do you wish you could change?

Trying to get caught up on all my pictures… here is the Christmas spread from Miami (Bobby and I spent it with his family and family friends in Miami). On Christmas afternoon (around 1?) we headed over to their family friends’ house – it’s a gorgeous house in Coconut Grove. I think that if I could have any house in the world it would be that one!

This guy decided to watch us out the door (I still think lizards are cool – I did not grow up with them everywhere):

Bobby’s mom (she’s an amazing cook) made a “chirashi”. Chirashi literally means “scattering” or “leaflets”. It’s a Japanese dish consisting of a bowl of sushi rice with various toppings scattered on top. I think Mom uses a slightly sweet rice (I could be wrong!) with some vinegar and sugar (maybe? sorry for the ambiguity!).

In the US we usually think of chirashi as rice with raw fish on top, but there are actually many more types. The raw fish type is scattered with Edomae chirashizushi (the raw topping). Toppings are always left up to the chef. This time Mom put shrimp and some veggies on top (lotus root, scallions, carrots, seaweed, and sliced fried egg).

She also made handmade mochi filled with red bean paste. These are made with sweet rice flour… I didn’t get a chance to help out but I definitely want to learn how to make these. These were wrapped individually with saran wrap.

Once we got to the beautiful house, we helped set the table with all the goodies…

There were mashed potatoes, green beans, turkey, Caesar salad (I think Mom brought this too), stuffing with chestnuts, cranberry sauce, wrapped up olives (always forget what these are called), gravy, and probably a bunch of other things that I’m forgetting!

This was my first plate. I honestly don’t remember how many more I had… I definitely ate too much It had Caesar salad, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts (these were AWESOME – I will definitely try to recreate), beans, turkey, and gravy.

There was also a table of snacks (crackers, cookies, grapes, cheese, etc…) that I forgot to snap a picture of. And then there was dessert…

Handmade marshmallows (!). Topped with powdered sugar.

Cupcakes!

Panettone straight from Italy. A family member lives in Italy for work, and they were here for Christmas.

It reminded me of our trip to Italy (back in 2008 – exactly 2 years ago now).

• Cibo in Italia (food in Italy)
• Ratatouille in Italia
• Italia – giorno quattro
• Italia – giorno tre
• Italia – giorno due
• Tea alla pesca (peach tea)
• Italia – giorno uno

Back to now… it was a really wonderful day, and I’m so glad that Bobby and I were able to spend it with his family and the very accommodating and kind family friends.

One of my resolutions this year was to travel more – and I definitely want to fulfill it.

Where do you want to travel this year?

P.S. Coming up – IntenSati (Sati Life) review, eating out in New York yums, and more!