ROSANNA'S NEWS AND VIEWS©
May, 2001
Three new contributors are gracing our pages with their contributions this month. First, we are happy to offer the first article from Norio Kushi, who is the new operator of Macrobiotic Company of America. We have been loyal customers for many years and we welcome the new ownership. Please click here to read the article, LIVING MACROBIOTICALLY.
Phyllis Parun has contributed her first article for us, Ever Wondered: What is Macrobiotics?.
Contributing editor Bill Neall has favored us with another insightful article this issue. Please click here to read Chi No Chi: Where Has All the Responsibility Gone?
This
month marks the awaited return of fresh produce from the garden. Rosanna
is holding a parsnip that thrived and matured over the winter. Each Spring
we look forward to these delicious survivors that add so much flavor
and content to soup. Their presence is also a welcome addition to
boiled salad, Nishime or you name it.
Of course, each spring marks the need for tilling the garden,
weed pulling and general preparations. While we were engaged in this work,
a regular contributor to our discussion list, D, began to point out the
advantages of stinging
nettles, those pesky weeds that give the reaction of
mini-beestings when we pull them from our flower and vegetable plots. We
had a nice little plot of wild greens in the corner of our garden, so we decided to
give them a try. In fact, these turned out to be a little different than
any nettles we found on the net, still, they were delicious.
As to Nettles, D has written an informative article on these little gifts from nature and please click here to read it.
The
discussion about nettles gave rise to information about the natural farming
methods of Masanobu Fukuoka, who received high yields from his method.
James had just finished tilling our little plot. Since we will be
traveling extensively this summer, we have decided to try his method (or a
variation on it to be accurate) and we shall see how we do by seeding our plot
with vegetables and allowing it to develop naturally. We will keep our
readers informed about this little project and report on the quality and yield
we get this way. We keep our floral garden in a pretty random pattern,
although Rosanna, being an artist, plants everything with artistic
inspiration. Here's a sample of what's going on
in the yard this spring. We have agreed to host the Pacific
Macrobiotic Conference at our home this fall, September 22 >25.
We recommend
Dell Home Systems.
Our travel schedule this summer includes: Memphis, TN, Scottsdale,
AZ, Italy and Pakistan. We have saved thousands using Priceline.com
and we recommend them.
AS GOOD AS IT LOOKS!
MISO SOUP
Ingredients
| 4 cups cooked Millet | |
| 1 small Onion, minced | |
| 1 medium Carrot, minced | |
| 1 stalk Celery with leaves | |
| Arrowroot as needed | |
| Spelt Flour as needed | |
| Spring Water as needed | |
| 1 cup or more unrefined
Corn Oil for frying |
Preparation
Mix Millet,
Onions, Carrots and Celery. Add a
couple handfuls of the Spelt Flour until the consistency is right so it will
hold together in a golf ball size lump. If
the ball does not hold together for frying, add a little water and mix again,
adding flour if too liquid and water if too dry.
This requires a touch and does not lend itself to exact measurements, so
experiment until you get it right for frying.
Preheat the Oil
to a very high temperature, but not quite smoking.
(If the temperature is too low, the Oil will foam when you put the
Croquettes into it.) Just before
you put them in the Oil, dip each croqu
ette
in the Arrowroot, then into the Oil. At
first, put only one to see how the Oil reacts and if it is hot enough.
Fry about two minutes per side and remove when they are golden.
Dry on a paper towel. Spoon
a little sauce over the Croquettes (see below) and serve.
Ingredients
| 1
tsp. Grated Ginger | |
| ¼
Cup Shoyu (Soy Sauce) | |
| ¼ Cup Spring Water (or more if too salty) |
Ingredients
| 12
ears fresh Corn, husked and cleaned | |
| Spring
Water | |
| Umeboshi
Plum Paste as needed |
Preparation
Bring Corn to boil in enough water to cover it.
Cook 20 minutes. Just before serving brush each piece with Umeboshi Plum
Paste. Serve.
Ingredients
| 2
cups Pinto Beans, Soaked overnight | |
| 2-inch
piece Kombu | |
| 1
medium onion, diced | |
| 3
stalks Celery with leaves, and add more leaves if available chopped fine | |
| Spring
Water, enough to cover in an earthenware pot | |
| 2
tbsp. White Miso |
Preparation
Put Kombu in pot first, then add Onions, Celery and
Beans. Cover with Spring Water and
bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat
and simmer for one hour. Dilute the
White Miso with some of the cooking Water and mix in. Simmer another five minutes and serve.
Ingredients
| 1-pound
String Beans | |
| 3
medium Carrots, diagonal cut | |
| Boiling
Water for blanching | |
| Juice
of ½ Lemon |
Preparation
Blanch String Beans until tender, but not mushy.
Remove from Water and let them cool.
Return Water to a boil and blanch the Carrots, keeping them crunchy.
Toss Carrots together with the Beans and add the Lemon juice when ready
to serve.
Ingredients
Preparation |
|||||||||||||||
Wash
and cut all the vegetables. Mix
very well with the Shoyu and Press. Rosanna
does this with a stainless steel mixing bowl into which she puts and
tosses the ingredients. Then
she puts a plate on top and weighs it down with a stone of a few pounds.
It can be done with a pot of water as the weight. Press for about one hour.
Then add Umeboshi Vinegar, toss and serve. If this is too salty for your taste, wash part of the salad
before you put in the Vinegar.
GREENSWe got these greens at a Chinese Market that we visit frequently, in Philadelphia. We don’t know their name, but they sure taste good. Rosanna frequently experiments with various vegetables and if she likes them, she works them into the food. Next time we see them we will add a picture here. She steams them for a minute or two and serves. Be adventurous and try something new! PEAR CRISPIngredients
Preparation Preheat oven to 325º F (162ºC).
In a saucepan, put Pears and Water and bring to a boil, reduce heat
and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Add
Vanilla Extract, dilute Kudzu with 2 Tbsp. Water and add, stirring
constantly. When Kudzu is
transparent and the mixture is creamy, remove from heat and pour in a
baking sheet. (Rosanna cooks
hers in a large stainless serving dish.) In a hot iron skillet, toast the Rolled Oats, stirring
constantly with a wooden spoon until they emit a fragrant, toasted aroma.
Turn Oats into mixing bowl with the Pecans and Barley Malt.
Mix well and spread onto the Pear mixture in such a way that the
Pears are all covered. Bake
for 20 minutes and serve hot or cold.
It should be served within a few hours of cooking or it will lose
crispness. Rosanna sometimes
adds a couple handfuls of Blueberries on top of the cooked Pears before
topping with the Rolled Oat mix. |
Buon Appetito!
Rosanna & James
JOKE when we say out of balance, we mean.......
 |
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here
involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the
wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of
others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected
with our own.
I
am often worried at the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on
the work of my fellow human beings and I am aware of my great indebtedness to
them. I do not believe in freedom of the will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man
can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills' accompany me in all
situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others even
if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of freedom of will
preserves me from taking too seriously myself and my fellow men as acting and
deciding individuals and from losing my temper. I never coveted affluence
and luxury and even despise them a good deal. My passion for social justice has
often brought me into conflict with people, as did my aversion to any obligation
and dependence I do not regard as absolutely necessary. I always have a high
regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and
clubmanship. All these motives made me into a passionate pacifist and
anti-militarist. I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere
patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed
to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult. I am an
adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I well know the weaknesses of the
democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the
individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state.
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to
the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has
preserved me from feeling isolated. The most beautiful and deepest experience a
man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of
religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had
this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that
behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind
cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a
feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it
suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind
a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.
