Category: Vegetable Adventures

The Beans Hummus is Made of: Chickpeas

Looking for something nice to eat yesterday, I looked at the zuccini drawer, disappointed to see that there were not as many left as I thought. It’s funny to think that we were concerned whether we’d be able to finish off our Chubeza vegetable box every week. Then, my gaze fell on a jar of chickpeas, just standing there on the shelf and asking to be used. The word “hummus” came to mind, immediately, but then I started to think.

Hummus is a staple in Middle Eastern cuisine, and has many local and excellent variations. Several regions in the country are well known for the quality of their hummus; those “in the know” can argue the merits and shortcomings of hummus for hours. Some of the best places to eat hummus in Israel are the village of Abu Ghosh, which also holds beautiful music festivals (one of them coming up soon); the city of Jaffa, sporting Ali Karavan’s legendary hummus eatery; and several places in the Gallillee, including the old city of Akko (Acre). One of Israel’s online portals, Ynet, even polled its readers to find out where the best ten places for hummus were located. Yes, Israelis are obsessed with hummus; the city of Tel Aviv even holds an annual Hummus Festival, featuring the best places from all over the country. This year, the city has announced the festival will take place on the 23rd and 24th of August (and will receive live coverage from yours truly).

Which is why, attempting to make hummus at home is no easy feat, competing with all those culinary giants making it at their restaurants. I tried once; the result was grainy, and decent enough to be called “chickpea dip”, but certainly not hummus. In fact, what I’d made reminded me of the stuff they sell in the US, which is nothing like really good hummus at all, and includes such yuppified transgressions as ‘roasted pepper hummus’, and garlic-overdosed varieties. Hebrew readers, read all about hummus abroad, and try to maintain your calm. All ye American folks eating what you think passes as hummus, you’ve been wronged, and I suggest you come visit the Middle East and taste what hummus should really be like. My friend Holi, who lives in Leeds, in his anguish and despair, learned to make magnificent Hummus, so I know it can be produced outside the Middle East; but until I can get him to divulge the secret, my hummus remains an incomplete feat. If your curiosity can’t be appeased, and you can read Hebrew, here’s a recipe that looks promising, paying appropriate attention to the alchemy of hummus, too.

So, for now, what I made with my hummus was a nice little chickpea think with tomatoes, onions, chilis, and Biriyani Masala. I shudder to call it “chana Masala”, particularly following my recent complaints about the transgressions of hummus’ cultural transplants; nevertheless, it was good and nourishing. Chickpeas contain a generous amount of both starch and protein, and when cooked right, are extremely tasty.

Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Onions

5 cups of cooked chickpeas (to cook’em: place chickpeas in a large bowl and cover with water; discard after an hour. Add new water and let soak overnight. Then, discard water again, place in pot, add fresh water to cover, and cook for about an hour or so, occasionally lifting the strange white foam that keeps rising to the surface. Drain and keep the cooking liquid).
3 fresh, ripe tomatoes
1 medium-sized onion
1 tbsp ground chili pepper
1/4 cup Biriyani Masala spice mix
1 generous tablespoon organic tomato paste

Cover bottom of large wok with olive oil. When oil is hot, add chopped onion, chili, and Biriyani Masala. Cook until onions are golden and kitchen is fragrant and happy. Then, add the tomatoes and drained chickpeas. Mix up and cook for a while; then, add tomato paste and some water from the chickpeas. Let simmer about twenty minutes, then eat with great joy.

legumes

Hot and Cold Foods

It appears that Chad is not well yet, though he certainly feels much better; he’ll try and go to the university today, and see how he feels. But he’s still coughing and sneezing like there’s no tomorrow. As is always the case, when Chad gets sick, we both take precautions – otherwise, I get sick, then he gets sick again, etcetera. My folks keep asking what pills Chad is taking for his illness; and are always surprised when we reply “ginger”, or “curry”, or “carrot soup”. In fact, what you see above is the lunchbox Chad’s taking to school today, with his vegetable curry and red rice.

The art of healing through food has been practiced for many ages in China, and it relies on a holistic type of diagnosis. Good Chinese medicine doctors do not just pay attention to the specific new symptoms the person tells them about – they “read the map” of the person’s body to tell them about the overall situation, which is related to – but not encapsulated in – the present ailment. When you go to a Chinese medicine clinic, the doctor will usually look for a while at your face, finding your shen – the spark in your eyes – and letting her or him know how you are. He or she will then look at your tongue, which is a wonderful instrument for assessment, then take your pulses. That’s right – in Chinese medicine, three pulses are measured on each hand, in different location; both shallow (on the skin) and deep (pressing in the hand) pulses are taken. Altogether, this produces twelve different bits of information, which help the doctor relate your ailment to the patterns of qi, blood and moisture in your body.

Your symptoms, general constitution and feelings, usually add up to a more general picture, telling the doctor whether your condition indicates deficiency or excess, yin or yang, cold or heat, moisture or dryness. There are many intricacies in these categories, some of which neatly map on Western medicine conditions and some don’t. What we call a cold, or a flu, can be “cold” – making us feel cold, moist, inactive and weak – or “hot” – accompanied by fever, flush and unrest. The illness is traced to a certain energy path in the body, which indicates which points should be gently pressed, heated or punctured with a needle, and which plants and foods should be consumed to correct the imbalance.

One of the basic distinctions is between cold and heat. The logic of Chinese medicine requires that you consume cold, or cooling, foods when you are hot, and hot, or warming, foods when you are cold. The definition of “hot” and “cold” food does not refer merely to the food temperature, but to its energetic properties. It’s important to look at the food and tell whether it is cooked or raw; what its color is; whether it’s spicy or bland. In his wonderfully informative book, Healing with Whole Foods, Paul Pitchford lists several cooling and heating foods; here are a few examples from the list with some modifications from my studies at the Berkeley Acupressure Institute. You can look at the list and see if you get a feel for the foods’ different energies:

Cooling Foods

apples
bananas
tomatoes
citrus fruits
watermelon
all leafy greens
broccoli and cauliflower
zuccini
soy milk, tofu and other soy products
mung beans
amaranth
wheat
seaweed
yogurt
peppermint
cilantro
lemon balm

Neutral Foods

rice
rye
corn
peas
lentils
large beans

Warming Foods

ginger root
oats
spelt
quinoa
sesame
nuts
fennel
anise
carob
cumin
all root vegetables
onions
garlic
spicy leafy greens, like jale and mustard greens
eggs
meats

We try to eat a diet that balances between warming and cooling foods, though we lean more toward the warming list, since we’re both vegetarians and relateively thin. Folks who are larger, or eat a lot of meat, need more cooling, raw vegetables in their diet, though this is just a rule-of-thumb and can be modified to fit your own condition. So, these days, when we both feel a tad cold and weak, our diet includes more warming foods. Hence our carrot-ginger soup, and the following beautiful curry made by Chad yesterday.

Actually, the curry is a good example for how “cooling” vegetables can be matched with “warming” spices to get a generally balanced (a tad towards the warm) and satisfying meal. The types of vegetables and other ingredients can vary; you can add any root vegetables, eggplant, or tofu cubes if you so desire.

Vegetable Curry with Coconut Milk

4 garlic cloves
2 stalks of green onions
1/2 white onion
10 large forest mushrooms
vegetable oil (we’re in the Middle East, so we use olive oil)
black pepper, powdered
red pepper, powdered
1 inch of ginger root
1 inch of galanga root
1 can coconut milk
5-10 inch long stalks of lemongrass
3-4 lemon leaves (we have a little lemon tree on our balcony)
4 tomatoes
5-6 large leaves of manguld, kale, collards, bok-choi, or any other leafy green vegetables

Start with a wok with some oil. In the oil, heat the ginger, garlic, and pepper. Be quite generous with the pepper. If you have a jar of curry paste, you can add a spoonful to the oil; if not, nevermind. When the spices are sizzling and aromatic, add the mushrooms and sautee a bit. Then, add about a teaspoon of coconut milk, and mix a bit so everything becomes nice and yellow. Then, add the rest of the coconut milk, and chop in the vegetables, the lemongrass, the galanga, and the lemon leaves. If curry seems too thick, add a bit of vegetable stock. Curry’s ready when the vegetables are ready. Serve with brown or red rice.

health advice

Some Angry Words about Basic Behavioral Rules

I was planning to post something today about zuccini. But this morning I encountered something that enraged me to no end, and just had to say something about it.

Well, I went on my morning walk by the Tel Aviv beach, and could not believe my eyes. The entire beach – all the way from Tel Aviv to Jaffa – was full of unbelievable amounts of trash. Food, disposable plates and cups, utensils, bags and wrappers. You could barely see the grass. Of course, this must be the aftermath of Lag Ba’Omer, the bonfire holiday. Folks went to the beach, had their bonfires, roasted meat and potatoes and onions, and simply went home, leaving all their crap behind and not even thinking of picking it up.

This kind of behavior drives me nuts.

You know, when we came back to Tel Aviv from Berkeley, it took us a while to realize there was no infrastructure for recycling, save for a few areas for plastic bottles. No easy way to compost in the city, either. We don’t live well with that, and when we complain, we’re seen as a couple of whinebags. But throwing away your trash, rather than putting it in a plastic bag and disposing of it using the garbage cans is a violation of the most basic rules of behavior each and every one of the beach partyers was taught in kindergarten. It’s amazing to think of all these folks who bothered to shower, shave and put on some fragrant skin lotion before going to the party, then ate and drank and littered around like total pigs and couldn’t even see the irony of what they were doing.

Some folks might make an argument along the multicultural lines; this is, after all, the Middle East. But I would think that not littering, and using a garbage can, is such a basic norm. I mean, if those folks were presented with an array of the stuff they threw around, they’d be disgusted. I know, because I spent half of my morning walk picking after them. Bottles and bottles of corporate soft drinks. Half eaten nasty looking sausages. Packets of cigarrettes (do smokers realize how vile these things look and smell? surely they don’t, otherwise why would they do it?). And pools of vomit everywhere. Overdrinking and vomiting has to be one of the least classy forms of human self-expression. Nevertheless, folks overdrink and vomit. Everyone would agree that the aftermath of the bonfire craziness is hideous and gross. Nevertheless, it is us, humans, Tel Aviv residents, who created it. It is our waste that we now deem gross. Am I the only person who’s reflecting on that this morning?

I expect that, if folks gave any thought at all to what they were doing, they thought that the city somehow “owes” them something, and that the garbage workers will zealously pick after them in the morning, whistling a cheerful tune. Well, newsflash, littering filthy people: I talked to the garbage people this morning, and they were not amused by all the crap you left around. Nor were they paid extra this morning for clearing your hideous mess. How nice that we can dehumanize folks working to keep our city clean and just assume that, like androids, they will shovel away, without feeling, all the disgusting crap we leave behind. Yes, the city employs people to clean it. It’s great. It does not absolve any of us from the personal responsibilities of cleaning up after ourselves, same as we do in our homes.

The amazing thing was that the usual morning crowd – the folks walking and jogging on the beach – just went on as normal. Our city is defiled, our sea is filthy, but let that not stop our smug yuppie selves from working on our physique this morning. Does no one understand that, on a filthy planet, a neat trim body is completely meaningless?

Because, and here’s where this is somehow related to food, everything is connected, folks. Not in the New Agey, cosmic sense of the word. In the most daily and obvious way. The gross plastic plates and bags you leave behind find their way to the shore, where they are eaten by fish, who get sick, and then you eat them, and get sick too. They are eaten by birds who fly above the shore. They emit a smell of decay which influences the animal population on the beach, as well as the air we breathe. You are directly influenced by everything you did last night to rape Mother Earth, and the small strip of Her flesh which we call our city’s beach. Funny, tonight the city is planning to hold a giant fireworks event on the beach. We’ll all be sitting there, soaking in yesterday’s filth, and enjoying the lights on the giant skies, which will numb our brains and hearts and help us forget our disregard for the small piece of Earth we live on. Dammit, shame on us. Shame on us.

What should you do then?

1) If you walk on the Tel Aviv beach this morning, or anywhere, actually, any morning – for heaven’s sake, pick up a plastic bag (the littering people left plenty of those lying around) and clean some. You don’t have to leave the place sparkling clean. But help a bit. If everyone did that this morning, the beach would be clean in no time.

2) Write a letter to your city, or mine, about the salaries for garbage disposal folks. Their important services are not appreciated as much as they should be, and they don’t get extra bonuses for days when the city is filthy. This is no excuse for the citizens’ behavior, of course, but it’s annoying and should be rectified.

3) If you see folks littering around, don’t be afraid that someone will think you a sanctimonious fart if you say something. Speak up. It’s your city they’re raping and degrading. You have a right and an obligation to say something.

4) Organize some friends and go clean a trail, or a section of your city. You don’t have to be a bleeding heart left-wing yuppie to do this. You just need to have a bit of care about where you live.

Mostly, though, you should think. You should let those neurons work and give the minimum amount of thought to where your stuff ends up and what happens to it. Of course, if we all did this, we’d have the infrastructure for recycling, and many well-paid city workers to help us do it efficiently. But even if not, in the very least, our beach would not be a huge junkyard, and we wouldn’t put the beautiful words of Nathan Alterman, the “white city” poet, to shame.

social engineering ramblings

Carrot Season

Apparently, it’s carrot season at Chubeza. We get lots and lots of wonderful, intense orange carrots every week. They come with the leaves (and we already know what to do with those). I think all this carrot consumption may have actually affected my eyesight; my optometrist reports that my prescription has gone down. Whether it’s due to the carrot or not, I have no idea; but the fact is that carrots pack an enormous amount of vitamin A, in the form of beta-carotene, which is said to improve night vision. Carrots also contain a variety of anti-cancer agents, and are also useful for preventing and treating lung inflammation.

In Chinese medicine, carrots are associated with the earth element, and beneficial for the spleen – which means, in Western anatomy, that they assist digestion as well as muscular issues.

And what better way to cook lots of carrots than a day when one’s loved one falls sick? Chad’s immune system, alas, leaves much to be desired, and he really feels awful today. His throat hurts, his sinuses hurt, his nose is leaking – and he feels drowsy and says extremely funny things. I don’t think he means to say them. They come out funny because of the fever.

Warming food is good for situations such as this, and the carrot pairs well with ginger to create an old favorite – carrot ginger soup. This version doesn’t have any cream, which, in Chinese medicine, increases dampness in the body (and we have plenty of that here, thank you very much). It does, however, have browned onions and garlic, and some fun Middle Eastern spices. Naturally, it can be made with the addition of potatoes, yams, or squash, if you so desire; our decision to be carrot purists today stems from the dry fact that we already had potatoes today, and that yams were not in this week’s box. I hope you enjoy the soup, and post your own versions of this favorite, if you like.

Middle Eastern Carrot Ginger Soup

10 nice organic carrots
a 3” or 4” chunk of ginger
1 very large onion
half a garlic bulb
1 tsp of the following: curcum, cumin, nutmeg, cinnamon (yes, trust me on this).
2 quarts of water or vegetable broth (you could make the broth out of the carrot leaves, thus using the entire vegetable and not letting nice leaves go to waste).

We start the way my grandmother started many of her culinary marvels: we peel and slice each garlic clove (this can help with the peeling, and believe me, it really works), we slice the onion into rings, we splash the bottom of a large pot with good olive oil, and we fry the onions and garlic. No “sauteeing” here. The stuff needs to be brown and fragrant. When it is, and there’s a lovely smell in the kitchen, we pour some broth or water into the pan and start deglazing. This may seem silly or unnecessary, but it improves the taste of the soup to no end. Scrape the brown stuff in the bottom of the pot, using a wooden spoon. It’ll be very good with the broth.

When you’re done scraping, add the rest of the liquid, and the carrots, and the ginger, and the spices, and let cook for about 30 minutes. Then, we do the following nifty thing: using a straining spoon, we go fishing. That’s right. We fish out all the carrots and ginger, and stick them in the blender, with a bit of the broth. We puree the carrots and ginger, and return them to the pot, mixing the puree with the broth. Now, we just sprinkle a bit of parsley on top, and we’re done. I hope Chad enjoys it and feels well!

vegetables

University Food Court: A Microcosm of the Restaurant Industry?

Most of our days are spent at the Tel Aviv University campus. Which means we eat there. Often, we bring our own lunches – after having organic vegetables at home, nothing else tastes quite the same – but sometimes we don’t, and we’re presented with quite a dazzling array of choices.

Campus food has developed quite a bit since when I was a student. I remember the law school cafeteria had cheese, egg and tuna sandwiches; the central restaurant had cheap homelike food (meat, various carb options, and some cooked vegetables). In my later days there, there were coffee carts everywhere in addition to the restaurants, and one of the restaurants, in the education department building, served antipasti and couscous. In Berkeley, we were surrounded by a lot of inexpensive restaurants, some of which were very healthy and very tasty.

Tel Aviv University offers quite a lot of different food stalls. The central food court is a microcosm of the food industry, and, accordingly, it ; McDonalds have a restaurant there which, regrettably, has become quite a favorite with the students. It’s quick, and it offers something it calls “California salad” which is basically lifeless iceberg lettuce with some chicken on top. Next door to McDonalds is a local pseudo-Thai chain called Lemon Grass. Calling it Thai is almost a capital offense. It actually offers hideous sushi and other pan-Asian, fake, industrialized things.

Some chains are not that evil. The old Tel Aviv cafe, Alexander, started a new venture called Green Leaves, a salad bar on campus. Each person chooses which vegetables, whole grains, antipasti, cheeses and other fun ingredients go in the salad. Obviously, this option isn’t perfect, either; the vegetables are pre-cut, and the plastic containers can’t be recycled anywhere. But it’s a viable option.

The cafeteria also offers the usual fare of fish, carbs and cooked vegetables, as well as fresh pasta. The students’ metabolism never ceases to amaze me; having pasta with cream sauce day after day is something I can no longer deal with.

Coffee culture in Israel is pretty big, and each of the cafeterias will serve you a very decent cup of coffee, or a nice selection of herbal teas. Two places offer blended/squeezed juices, also a good breakfast option.

Finally, there is the price. A meal in the cafeteria costs an average of 20 to 30 NIS – between 5 and 7 dollars (equivalent to UC Berkeley prices, but with the salaries here so much lower, certainly something to consider). While we’re happy to visit the salad man once in a while, this is certainly not something that a student household can deal with on a daily basis. Nevertheless, I don’t see students with brown sandwich bags or containers from home; In a culture with such culinary savvy, it’s surprising that students don’t take time to relax from their books and cook for themselves.

social engineering ramblings

Azuki Bean Soup

Beans. Now that’s a touchy subject. Beans have been a bit maligned in the last decades’ diet fads, particularly low-carb regimes; they defy the neat and tidy categorization of food that’s “good for you” because it either has “just carbs” or, for folks who have more purist tendencies, “just protein”. They don’t allow you to neatly separate starch from protein; they deceive us. Why, cries the low-carb dieter, have we been told since childhood that beans are a good source of protein? They have so many carbs. More than protein. In fact, their composition is not all that different from whole grains. We can’t have them. Let’s bite into some more red meat.

No offense to the low-carb folks – and I know these regimes work really well for some folks – but beans are wonderful food. Yes, like many other foods, they contain a mixture of carbs and proteins. And also various vitamins, and minerals, and antioxidants. And they come in so many varieties, and are so versatile, and tasty.

The other common complaint against beans is their contribution to, well, the air quality in the room. Many folks suffer from flatulence after eating beans, particularly the larger varieties. Several pieces of advice have been offered for this solution; eating only fermented beans, soaking the beans well before cooking them (always a good idea as it shortens the cooking time), taking enzymes with the beans. I find that what works for me is, usually, eating beans on their own, or, if absolutely necessary, with just one type of whole grain. Combining beans with grains works better with the smaller types of beans, like lentils, mung beans and azuki beans; the larger ones I try to eat by themselves.

The following soup – all complete with this week’s selection of chubeza vegetables – is a great showcase for a tiny red bean – the azuki bean. Used extensively in Asian cooking as sweet red bean paste, azuki is rich in protein, as well as in iron, calcium and potassium (good for foot cramps). This nontraditional way of serving it has a soothing, earthy flavor, and works on its own as a soup or a hearty stew.

Azuki Bean Soup

2 cups azuki beans, preferrably pre-soaked in water for about 2-3 hours
3 carrots
3 zuccinis
2 turnips
1 beet
2 quarts of water or vegetable broth
1 garlic bulb
2 bay leaves
optional: 2 tablespoons of miso soup

If beans have been soaked, discard the water. Slice all vegetables into large, rustic cubes. Place them in a big pot with the water or vegetable broth, garlic and bay leaves, and bring to a boil. Then, cover the pot and let simmer for about an hour. If you wish, mix in two heaping tablespoons of miso at the end of cooking. If not sensitive to food combinations or wheat, eat with thick slices of whole wheat bread, or on top of mashed potatoes.

legumes vegetables

Sweet and Savory Sesame

The other day, a few of us were having lunch at a Tel Aviv cafe. One of us was telling a story about her grandfather, originally from Russia, who can’t stand a few local foods, such as Tchina. A great wave of sadness washed over the table. “Life without tchina“, mumbled another friend. “Fancy that. How sad”.

Yes, we Israelis love our sesame. We like it on our bread crust, we like it as sweet halvaof various flavors, we use it to coat our schnitzels (breaded chicken meat) – but most of all, we love it as that fabulous paste, out of which we make a dip, a sauce or a spread, according to taste. Americans call this divine paste “tahini”, which has always made me giggle; the word tchina comes from the verb litchon, to grind. And, indeed, raw tchina is nothing more than ground sesame seeds.

I confess I’m not a big fan of halva, though Chad loves it very much and always keeps a box of a local, Jaffa-made variety, that looks like an old lady’s hair. I’ve given up sweets, and I don’t really miss them all that much. My fandom of sesame is almost entirely due to the fantastic tchina I eat everywhere.

There is, however, one exception; the wonderful and crumbly tchina cookies I tasted, for the first time, at YAFA – a little cafe/bookstore in central Jaffa, and our local peace oasis. YAFA is devoted to the understanding between Jews and Palestinians, offers a variety of interesting books about the Middle East, and hosts an impressive curriculum of classes in spoken and literary Arabic. They also serve fragrant herbal tea, accompanied by these little delicacies. After tasting them in the company of my dear pals Shachar and Amit, we all sought to recreate them; Amit, who is vegan, loves them and makes them often to our delight. The recipe I’m posting today, however, has a few small changes, which I think improve the cookie’s rich texture and allows vegans to skip the use of margarine (yuck).

The following two recipes – one for stir-fried vegetables with tchina, the other for the cookies – are my entries for a fun event, organized by Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries, called The Spice is Right: Sweet or Savory? I guess sesame, as well as sesame paste, are spices but also ingredients, and that’s how they’re used in these recipes. Enjoy.

Stir-Fried Vegetables and Tofu with Tchina Sauce

1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
1 package extra-firm tofu
4 garlic cloves
3 carrots
3 zuccini
1 package forest mushrooms, or fresh shiitake, or dried, pre-soaked shiitake
5-6 large leaves of kale or chard
1 inch piece of peeled and chopped or grated ginger
4-5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons raw tchina

black pepper or chilli flakes to taste

Mix soy sauce and tchina; cut tofu into 1/2 inch cubes and soak in the mix. Chop all vegetables into 1-inch cubes, and tea the kale or chard to large but edible pieces.
While tofu is happily soaking, heat up the oil in a large wok. When the wok is very hot, add garlic cloves and ginger, and stir a bit until fragrant. Then, add the vegetables: first the carrots, then the soy-tchina sauce from the tofu (keep the tofu aside for a while). Let the carrots sit in the wok a bit until they start to soften, then add the zuccini, mushrooms, tofu, and finally the kale. Add black pepper or chili flakes to taste and enjoy.

Tchina Cookies with COconut Milk and Spices

1/2 cup raw tchina
1 1/2 cups whole wheat or whole rice flour (I used the latter)
5 tablespoons coconut milk
4 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon of each: cinnamon, ground clove, nutmeg
3 heaped tablespoons brown sugar (optional)

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Knead to a dough. The dough comes out crumbly and a bit on the dry side, so do not be alarmed; if it’s very dry, add some more coconut milk or tchina. Now, make small (less than 1 inch) cookies; due to the dough consistency, you can’t exactly roll it, but rather squeeze it into a little ball. If you want to go fancy, one of these cookie presses might come in handy, will make your life easier, and your cookies prettier. Amit has one; yet another kitchen appliance which seems to be a refugee from the 1970s and works like a charm. Place on baking sheet and bake for about ten to fifteen minutes. Remove when cookies are slightly golden and no longer soft, but before they brown (they don’t taste as good when very brown). Consume with herbal tea or fragrant Turkish coffee.

Yasai Soba

(pic on its way)

The noodle craving is still on, and I’m contemplating the possibility of reproducing a household favorite of us: Yasai Soba.

It appears that noodle soup is something everybody likes; every culture has some version of it. Soba, a noodle made out of buckwheat and wheat, is a particularly delightful and healthy way of consuming noodles. Slimmer and browner than its big sister, the Udon noodle, Soba pleasantly slips through your throat and makes you feel warm and happy.

In our favorite vegan Japanese restaurant in Berkeley, Cha Ya, you can get two types of fabulous Soba soup: sansai soba, comprised of wild mountain vegetables and seaweed, and yasai soba, based on cooked vegetables which seem to be a tad more mundane in the Western world. Both versions are comprised of hot vegetable broth with soy sauce; the nonvegan versions use fish broth. The noodles, and delicately sliced and steamed vegetables, are decoratively placed in the bowl, and the soup is eaten with both a spoon and chopsticks.

As you’ll see from this recipe, the wheat-free, vegan adjustments are not difficult. As to the noodles, I’ve had good experience with soba from Eden Foods, but apparently other brands, like Clearspring carry it as well. Buckwheat, it turns out, is not a grain; it’s a fruit seed and a distant relative of sorrel and rhubarb. It offers a wealth of benefits, including anticancerous nutrients and fiber.

As to the broth, as you’ll see, this version of the soup uses shiitake mushrooms (which are anti-inflammatory and very good for your immune system), and the soaking water makes wonderful broth, particularly when mixed with Tamari soy sauce.

The vegetables, naturally, can change, depending on what’s out there in the market. This version sports carrots, turnips, potatoes, wild beet leaves, shiitake mushrooms, and extra-firm tofu.

Ingredients:
A package of soba noodles
10-15 dried shiitake mushrooms
4 carrots
3 turnips
4 large manguld (wild beet) leaves (chards also ok).
A few pieces of wakame seaweed
2 small potatoes
1 package of extra-firm tofu
1 cup Tamari soy sauce
4 cups water

We start by boiling the water and soaking the shiitake mushrooms in it. This needs to stand for, say 15 minutes at least, and the more it stands, the fluffier and softer your mushrooms and the richer your broth.
While this is going on, two things need to happen: the tofu needs to spend some time in the soy sauce, and the vegetables need to be steamed. Slice the tofu and place it in the tamari sauce for a while (you can dilute it in water, or in some tablespoons of the mushroom liquid). Also, slice the carrots, turnips and potatoes, and tear large pieces out of the manguld leaves. Place all these folks (except the wakame) in a steaming basket, and steam for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are soft, but still have personality.
When the mushrooms have softened to your liking, strain, keep the liquid, and carefully slice them in pretty, thick slices. Save the mushrooms and steamed vegetables.
Pour the shiitake liquid into a large pot, and add the tamari sauce (without the tofu). Add soba noodles and cook for ten minutes or so, or until the soba is soft and slurpable. Then, using a straining spoon, place some noodles at the bottom of large, fun bowls. Arrange the vegetables and tofu prettily on top of the vegetables, then pour the hot soup to cover everything. Serve with chopsticks and a spoon. Enjoy!

grains vegetables

Book Review: You Are What You Eat, by Gillian McKeith

It’s interesting to see the extent to which the food celebrity industry has captivated our lives. I suppose the best examples for our fascination with the combination of food and celebrities is The Food Network, featuring such figures as Rachael Ray, Alton Brown and others. We like celebrities, and we like food; many of these folks have websites, and magazines, and sell products. I’ve often asked myself how their literature would fare had they not enjoyed celebrity status, and recently, I had a chance to find out.

A few months ago, as part of my project of getting back on the holistic nutrition wagon, I bought myself Gillian McKeith’s book You Are What You Eat. I had no idea she was a celebrity and had no interest in it. Only after reading a good part of the book did I find out that she’s quite a controversial celebrity in England, with her very own TV show by the same name. Her website offers additional information about her various enterprises.

McKeith is Scottish in origin, lived in the States for a while, and is a holistic nutritionist. One of the more controversial features of her biography is her constant and irritating use of the title PhD, which she obtained from the unaccredited Clayton College. I must confess I’m bothered by this, but not for the same reasons that the medical orthodoxy is. Yes, I happen to know firsthand how much work goes into a PhD from an established academic institute, but the usage of the title in itself doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as what this says about a society which does not listen to anyone UNLESS they have a PhD next to their name. It is disappointing that McKeith feels the need to buy into this sad state of affairs by calling herself “Dr. Gillian” and “Dr. McKeith” almost every single page – and it’s particularly disappointing in light of the fact that she actually has many great things to say, and the book is really a very good and readable resource.

One of the book’s great strengths is the wealth of information it manages to convey in a cool, hip, magazine-like format. The colorful pages and beautiful vegetable and fruit photography makes one enthusiastic about healthy food and helps the readers get through quite a lot of details, advice, and regimes. This is important, because nutrition books are not often this fun. And, if you manage to ignore the personality cult and celebrity hype – and it’s possible – it makes for a very enjoyable read.

McKeith starts the book by providing several tools for self assessment. These are, to a great extent, based on tongue diagnosis principles from Traditional Chinese medicine. The book does not go into the difficult energetic terminology of Chinese medicine; none of the Zang Fu intricacies are mentioned, and the Five Elements are only hinted at. The book easily translates some of the diagnostics to Western anatomy, in an easy, down-to-earth manner. It’s not as precise, of course, as getting a diagnosis from a Chinese Medicine person, but it certainly provides layfolk with a wealth of tools to figure out why they feel the way they feel.

The book is also helpful in rejecting fad diets and in emphasizing the importance of variety and moderation. Extreme low-carb regimes are not encouraged, but whole grains and complex carbs are emphasized, and so are food combinations (particularly for folks suffering from digestive issues). Extreme low-fat regimes are also rejected, and McKeith recommends eating healthy fats, like avocados and nuts, as well as using Omega-3 supplements. In general, the plan is built on a wealth of natural foods: vegetables, fruit, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, seaweeds, goat dairy and yogurt (McKeith warns against too much consumption of cow dairy), occasional eggs, fish and chicken. She is an advocate of juices, but not at the expense of eating whole food with fiber. She also recommends a series of supplements: certain vitamins, good bacteria for colon health, green foods, and certain herbs for certain conditions. All this advice has to be balanced by mild exercise; she recommends picking something that would be fun, like walking, yoga, tai chi, pilates, trampoline hopping, or anything at all one would find enjoyable and not burdensome.

McKeith’s advice is geared towards overall health; she has recommendations for PMS, menopause symptoms, digestive issues, stress, hair, skin and nails, and – as one would expect – weight loss. The book also contains a very gentle and mild cleansing regime, which I tried a couple of months ago. It’s built on juices, salad and vegetable broth or miso soup, and truly works wonders. This cleanse is followed by an example of a seven-week plan. The recipes included in the book are, well, not fantastic; but with very little effort and some creativity, one can come up with delicious recipes containing the various natural foods featured in the book.

Some of the advice, I believe, is very specialized for a British readership. McKeith emphasizes the problems with overconsumption of alcohol and directs her criticism at pub culture. For an Israeli audience, I believe, that would be less of an issue (overeating would be a bigger problem). Also, she criticizes diets composed of mainly cooked foods and advocates a good balance between cooked and raw. In Israel, and in California, that would not be so much of a problem, though I imagine, in the British cold climate, folks tend to eat more warm and cooked foods.

The raw food recommendation, by the way, is a deviation from the traditional Chinese diet recommendations, which many holistic nutritionists like McKeith are modifying these days, arguing (quite plausibly) that the Chinese tendency to cook everything stemmed from the poor sanitation conditions in the times of the Yellow Emperor, when the seminal Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine was compiled.

All in all, the book makes a very good and lively read, and provides a lot of valuable advice both to beginners and to folks who want to refresh good nutrition principles. If you can get over the personality worship and the controversial PhD issue – and I’m sure you can – you’ll find this a helpful and entertaining companion on your journey towards good eating and good health.

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