[rachel]

Hello!

Wow, it's been 3.5 years since I've posted here! Quick background: I've never been sick a day in my life, and hoped to preserve my excellent health via diet and philosophy. And it worked! I started eating macrobiotically about 5 years ago, LOVED it, but then one day ate some not-so-macro food (cheese and sugar in the ingredients) and got the sickest I have ever been in my life-- throwing up, getting sick from the other end, etc. My body had become so used to high quality macro food that it literally could not handle "normal people" food anymore, and that really upset me, as I had never been sick in my life, and I hated that a little slice of cake would make me so ill after "purifying" my body so much. So I eased up on the diet, still eating 100% vegetarian, but eating a little dairy and sugar here and there. Since then, I have remained in perfect health (yay!) and with a very positive mood and thinking.

I lived in Massachusetts and Maine my whole life, but just moved to Austin, Texas to start a PhD program! This is a VERY different climate, and I'm not sure how to adapt. All of my cookbooks are for temperate climates, but here in Austin it is literally over 95 degrees for about 9 or 10 months of the year (as hot as 110 the other day!), with a brief cooling off, but it never really goes below 60 or so even then. The farmers markets here are all peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants!

I have been craving lots of yin foods-- macro sweets and lots of cool liquids (decaf herbal iced tea!). Should I go with the flow and cook what I crave, lots of sweets and liquids and short cooking times and salads and whole wheat cous cous including using some of those lovely nightshades that are so prevalent here?

Can anyone recommend cookbooks for hotter climates? Most of the meals I loved eating back in the northeast in my cookbooks seem so unappetizing now.

Any advice is much appreciated! I feel much out of my cooking element here and would love help getting back in the swing of things.