Bento for a Macrame Owl

Hemp and Kelp | Macrobiotics has become synonymous with macramé owls, under-seasoned food, weed and nudists. Unfortunately this may or may not be an unfair characterization (I recently ate at a macrobiotic restaurant in Soho with k.d. lang, a small shirtless breast feeding Asian, and two women doing ‘hand’ yoga). Nevertheless, I feel bright and shiney after a correctly balanced and executed Macrobiotic meal. As someone with a consistently persnickety gut, I just can’t ignore that (like topless breast-feeding in a restaurant, its harder than you would think). (clicka below for mora)

Currently, putting in a concerted effort to keep track of what goes in our bodies is very posh. Excuse my generalization, but food science has spent the last 70 or so years engineering, preserving, modifying, and even genetically mapping food inconspicuously, and to such a vast extent, that suddenly in the 21st century, it is somehow a new idea to eat fresh, local, and sustainable foods. Rewind 200 years, before tomatoes that ripened in the dark or methylchloroisothiazolinone when nearly all food that should be eaten was local or naturally preserved. Rewind again to the 1950’s, post WWII American families were getting more streamlined while housewives reveled in the quickness and availability of ‘easy’ foods for their 2.5 children. On the other hand the 50′s spurned a response to these preserved space-agey foods. Macrobiotics (a western name for some very old eastern ideas) began pushing for smart nutrition in an increasingly modern, urban, and industrialized world. Today, I do not consider myself a strong adherent to a Macrobiotic lifestyle, but I do find (in spite of all the new-age mumbojumbo) that paying attention to what it instructs has helped me with my digestive health troubles.

For followers, Macrobiotics is considered an approach to life rather than just a fad diet. It’s true that through the years it has been wrong on a handful of things (ie: smoking… idots).  An approximate Macrobiotic outline for a well balanced diet: Whole cereal grains (spelt, barley, oats, brown rice): 30%, Vegetables: 40%, Beans and legumes: 10 % and Miso soup: 5%. The rest of your diet can be composed of seaweed, fish and seafood, seeds, nuts, & fruits. If you’re really driven to compose gastronomical Macrobiotic masterpieces, food choice should be adjusted according to season, gender, age, lifestyle, activity, as well. I think that we all naturally do these things, but those focused on a Macrobiotic lifestyle are just more intentional. So since it is spring eating food with a lighter quality such as wild plants, lightly fermented food, grain species, fresh greens are apropos. These should be prepared with a light cooking style such as steaming, soaking and poaching.

Tyler and I have been feeling a little bogged down with all the contaminants and rottens of this city and it is expensive and challenging to eat healthy on a shoe string. So tonight we created these beautiful bento. Stacking them up and placing them in the freezer for easy grabbing.

Nearly Prefect | Macro Bento

• 1 ½ cups of brown rice or barley
• 1 ½ cups of steamed carrots, greens and broccoli
• ½ cups of Cooked beans or legumes (cooked to ‘well done’, or in a pressure cooker to help with digestion)

Assemble them in some organic 1970′s way, preferably on a dark orange plate.  Serve with a vegan dressing.  I like the Sesame Vinaigrette at Souen in Soho.  But, tonight I made this Carrot Ginger dressing.

Carrot Ginger Dressing

• 1 medium carrot
• 2 tablespoons grated ginger
• ½ cup apple cider
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• water

Steam or boil the hell outa your carrots until extra tender. Put everything in a blender or bowl of emersion blender. Pulse until very creamy. Add water until dressing reaches desired consistency. Salt if you must, but macrobiotic people will skowl at you.

tuck in,

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