It’s pretty obvious that I really love Souen – I have been there 3 times in the last week (brunch, dinner). Practicing a macrobiotic lifestyle can be difficult at times, but it pays off (I’m not macrobiotic but I strive to incorporate it in my daily life). I know I’ve linked to these things before, but here we go again (just cuz I think they are good resources for macrobiotics)…

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

Here are some more tips for a DIY Macrobiotic Lifestyle…

Tip #1: Don’t stress. Chill out. Do the things that make you happy, not the things that make you sad/angry/depressed/anxious/etc… So many people forget that stress is probably the number one cause of disease. So don’t stress!

Tip #2: Don’t exercise too much. Incorporate movement into your daily routine, but don’t overdo it. I like to get my movement through walking – I aim for about 2 miles a day. Last week I walked to work every day (I think), so that was 2 miles a day. Then yesterday I didn’t really walk at all, and Today I ended up walking about 4 miles because Bobby and I went out to enjoy the lovely weather we’ve been having in New York. Central Park was beautiful today. Anyway, it all balances out.

Tip #3: Keep your meals simple. Souen has very balanced dishes – the Macro Plate, the Planet Platter (different names for the same dish at different locations) – that incorporate squash (kabocha), veggies (broccoli or kale, carrots, diakon, and hijiki seaweed), beans (pinto I think), and rice (brown). The dishes come with a great dressing (lots of healthy fats) – miso tahini. I cannot get enough! So I had to make something similar for myself.

This was my attempt at recreating last week’s brunch for lunch: kabocha, broccoli, and carrots, topped with a black sesame seed sauce. After this shot I packed it into a tupperware to eat at the office.

The sauce is so simple, and so good. I have been having it on everything this week.

Black Sesame Seed Paste/Sauce – Ingredients

• 3-4 tablespoons black sesame seed powder (probably just ground toasted black sesame seeds)
• 2 teaspoons agave nectar or other sweetener (maple syrup or brown rice syrup would also be good)
• splash of soy sauce (<1 teaspoon)
• water, as needed (for thinning)

Black Sesame Seed Paste/Sauce – Method

Mix the powder, sweetener, and soy sauce. Add water to thin, if needed. Add more powder to thicken, if needed. Adding more agave will make it creamier, which is how I like it.

Hope you enjoyed these macro tips… I’m off to watch more of the Oscars. Go Sandra Bullock! (I loved The Blind Side.)

Who are you rooting for?

Remember Sunday’s best lunch ever? I went to Souen with Bobby and I loved the food. Well, now I’ve had the Best Dinner Ever. We went to Souen last night (the Union Square location) and it was really awesome (again).

Last time Bobby didn’t like his meal much (I think he ordered the wrong thing), but last night was so different. He started out with a natto roll (fermented soy beans, brown rice, seaweed, and wasabi and ginger) ($4.00).

Then our main dishes came out. I got the Planet Platter ($8.50! great deal), which is very similar to my brunch last week. It’s a huge plate of brown rice, beans, steamed kabocha squash (!), steamed kale, hijiki seaweed, steamed daikon, and steamed carrots.

Ahh, it was heavenly. I got the miso tahini dressing (again). I am a creature of habit, yes. I finished almost all of this at the restaurant; brought home some of the rice for later but caved and had it as a midnight snack.

Bobby got the Chick Pea Croquette (3 pieces of deep-fried chick pea croquette with curry carrot sauce; served with yam and mesclun salad) ($13). It came with veggies and brown rice.

I tried a piece of a croquette at dinner and we took the 3rd croquette home (he was full from the sushi)… which I had with my midnight rice snack. Yum! These were really good but really garlicky – my mouth was so gross this morning, even though I brushed my teeth really well.

I am actually off to Souen again (Soho location this time) to meet a blogger – I have not decided what to get yet. I think the menus are different at each location. I also want to get my nails done today! I haven’t gotten a mani or pedi in ages.

What are you doing this weekend?

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?

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?