Local foods/Japanese Foods = confusion!!!

[vesta]

Hey there!
I made it through my first desludging day pretty well!

But there is something that has been bothering me throughout my studies (mind you, I've only read MAcrobiotic Way and Hip Chick, as well as some Christina cooks stuff):
I totally get that local food is good for you food. My confusion is because I live in south central Texas- on the same latitude as Cairo. While it's technically temperate, we don't get those lovely little fruits and vegetables they get up in Massachussetts. Indigenous foods include cacti, chilies, grapes, beans: pinto, anasazi; corn meal, corn and more corn... 1500 varieties, we grow a lot of rice here, though it isn't indigenous... so what does it mean: local food? Does it mean "grown with love by a local farmer/me" or "native to the area"? Our heat doesn't break until late October, and it's still warm at Thanksgiving. How does that affect eating patterns?

If Japanese food (and I do love japanese food!) is an entirely different climate, how is ume paste going to heal me? Why wouldn't I use a prickly pear chutney or pear and chile paste in stead? I don't mean to be splitting hairs, but it will help me make better choices! Until I figure it out I'm sticking to what is known, but I would like to know if someone has already worked through this so I don't have to reinvent the wheel! I would love to find a macro counsellor in my area, but I just can't afford the ones here.

[fulenn]

I am curious about this as well, especially as I also live in Central Texas (Austin area).

Anyone?

[Bruce Paine]

Howdy!

Have either of you been to:

Casa de Luz :: Vegan :: Macrobiotic :: Organic

or

Natural Epicurean ?

That's CAIRO SPRINGS, TX , not Cairo, Oklahoma or Cairo Egypt, right?

From Buna to Austin, it's about 5 hours by highway according to Google Maps and about 10 minutes further (in a different direction) to Dallas if you want to visit Margaret Lawson of the Macrobiotic Centre Of Dallas .

Is this information helpful and if so, will you report back to us what your experiences of these places and the foods, classes and services they provide are like?

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[fulenn]

Bruce,

Thanks for the reply! No, I have not been to Casa de Luz, at least not for macrobiotics. I used to attend meetings for the straw bale house that we built and they were held there. I had forgotten about the restaurant and classes. I will look into that, though it will probably be this summer that I will be able to get there.

Thanks for the reminder! This is indeed helpful and I am just sorry I didn't find it myself....

[WonderlandAlli]

*deleting because I was sleep and misread a question lol*

[Bruce Paine]

Allison,

I read at your art blog that you were doing a lot of deleting, lately!

Hopefully, you are going to keep posting here!

Have you been down to the States, yet, especially after becoming macrobiotic?

What stores do you shop for food in Edmonton, and do you have any favorite places to go out to eat, there?

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[WonderlandAlli]

You know, I went down to Houston for Christmas and failed miserably. Everything that my family made for dinner that had vegetables had a cream sauce, there was chocolate everywhere, and I gave in. Plus I was out and about in town so much with friends I ate out a lot, though we stuck to sushi joints it was still a lot of white rice. It took me a month to try and get back on track, and I still haven't completely shaken off the sugar cravings sadly.

At least I'm able to cook my meals without input from the family here, it was hard to do in my mom's house. My dad's a brat. (He thinks my vegetarianism is some kind of attack on Texas or something. >.>')

I'm on the low-income side of things over here, so I shop at the big Asian imports grocery market. The produce is in my price range. And I need lots of produce. When I can't find something (like wheat gluten for making seitan) I go to Planet Organic.

The market isn't listed on the site you gave (thanks for that btw!) but the chain has a website, tnt-supermarket.com

[Bruce Paine]

Allison,

While vegetarianism may not exactly be an attack on Texas, it is an attitude of change, from grazing land to gardening and farming!

If you are not financially dependent on your folks, maybe you shouldn't go down to see them until they are ready to accommodate you a little, like learn how to make miso soup, brown rice, beans (macrobiotic stle with kombu) and temperate climate vegetables.

What does the macrobiotic dietary lifestyle do for you?

Communicate that to your folks.

And when you go down, again:

Make some rice balls with umeboshi plum centers to eat, every day and make some brown rice norimaki to eat and also show sushi chefs in Texas (what town [s] are those?).

Get some good quality natural leavened loaves of bread, and make some Sesamiso spread using miso, tahini, onions, sprouts, dried grated citrus peels, and purified water to eat and share with your friends and relatives.


At home you can get wheat gluten preprocessed and easy to whip up like Vital Wheat Gluten and buy here, as well!!

Is this the Planet Organic Market you are talking about?

T & T Supermarket!

For your pleasure, here is an article on Tarot by my hitchhiking guru, Ed Buryn, author of Vagabonding in the U.S.A.: A Guide to Independent Travel.

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[WonderlandAlli]

If you are not financially dependent on your folks, maybe you shouldn't go down to see them until they are ready to accommodate you a little,

I don't expect my parents to change their eating habits to suit me. I really don't. It's so radically different from them. I also wouldn't skip visiting them just from something like that.

I did go by the store there and I got miso soup packets, Mom already had brown rice, and I got some canned beans. I was mainly referring to the Christmas dinner food for the most part, maybe I should have been more specific. Mom knows its important to me and its not like I was being forced, but I didn't expect my entire family to agree to change the traditional Christmas dinner on my behalf. That would be really extreme. I don't push vegetarianism on them either. My Dad just doesn't think I'm being smart not eating meat, and was constantly asking me why and when we were cooking lunch and stuff he kept asking me if meat grossed me out now, he just didn't want to accept a sudden change in his one daughter. Since then he's off my case about it, Mom told him how ridiculous he was being.

Make some rice balls with umeboshi plum centers to eat, every day and make some brown rice norimaki to eat and also show sushi chefs in Texas (what town [s] are those?).

T_T' Are you saying make food and bring it to chefs in Houston's fine sushi establishments and tell them to change their menu which is based on their cultural heritage????

As for wheat gluten, I have that here. I actually made a fresh batch of seitan last night. Also I prefer quinoa in my home made sushi

[Bruce Paine]

Allison,

Okay, so maybe you should not expect anything of your family but you sounded so distressed from the situation and I thought that if the experience upsets you, you could encourage them to be more sensitive to your needs.

Here are a number of vegetarian places in Houston to eat a few of them, vegan!

How about A Moveable Feast?

Have you been in touch with Marian Bell?

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine

[WonderlandAlli]

I guess I had some less than obvious sarcasm in there then, sorry for all the confusion.

[Klara]

I'm a bit frustrated here as once again I wrote out quite a bit and somehow it disappeared into cyberspace.

so in my second attempt: Allison, you bring up a crucial issue that I think most of us have faced in one way or another. I don't feel you need to apologize as the details aren't as important as the principle - we do eat differently than most of society and it is challenging when we are faced with a situation of sharing food. There are many way of responding, alot depending on your own condition - if you are seriously ill, I wouldn't even consider compromising. But I think alot of us have compromised, and in different ways - the bottom line is can we afford it, and if not, how to deal with it (by afford I mean, how ill do we get as a result of eating off).

With me, I eat best when I travel, as I make it a point to cook my own food - and I make it as simple as possible. I prepare different condiments to take with me to make the food more interesting (roasted seeds/nuts, gomashio, dried fruit), pre-measure the grains or beans and put them into sealable bags, and then get as good a quality organic vegetables as I can wherever I go to. I take with me as few equipment as I can, but I have learned not to rely on other's kitchens - I'm amazed constantly on how others manage and I've learned that I'd rather not be surprized. It might sound like a pain, but having done it a few times, I get better and better at it. I know someone who even has a well stocked suitcase with little bottles of everything that might be needed, with little pockets to store it all (kind of like an elaborate toiletry case).

That's not to say I don't compromise - I do - sometimes I pay the price, sometimes I'm lucky - but everytime I'd rather be eating my own food!!!!! But there are times when I just feel like being treated, keeping in mind I might regret it afterwards. But at least during the eating, I enjoy myself because I've accepted that this was my choice, not foisted on me.

I'm sure all of us have some kind of similar experiences with people who find mb either weird, or ridiculous or other non-supportive ways - yet these people are part of our lives and we choose not to have battles over food (or we do have battles and regret it and learn to get on other issues which create pleasanter conversations and not discuss (hotly) food).

I'm way past where I try to "hide" that I eat differently - and past where I insist only my way is healthy - I love talking about mb if asked, but I do try to gauge my audience and see if they're really interested. If I'm just being "tested" I minimize it, and just say I enjoy this food - that's enough, they don't really need to know more.

It's not been easy as I love mb so and of course want everyone else to be loving it - but we just can't make people come over by force, so why try?

But I'm posting here to get back on the original topic - I don't know if everyone on these forums looks at many of the other links for mb info, but one of the ones I love is The Macrobiotic Guide out of England. This just came in a few days ago. I highly encourage everyone to sign up there and also look over some of their many older articles:

About Local or Japanese imported macrobiotic products?
Read what David Kerr, Christina Cooks, Leila Bakkum,Craig Sams, Carl Ferre, Hiroshi Umemura
Phiya Kushi, Jane Steinberg, Joe Waxman, Angelo Macrocasa, Steven Acuff,
Paul Kern, Jean Richardson, Gero Plath, Michael Potter and Roberto Marrocchesi have to say at
Do we need to eat so many Japanese macrobiotic products?

[garymill]

Thanks for taking the time to repost that Klara, and that sounds very different using quinoa in your sushi Alli.

Gary