3 Funniest and Most Sustainable Best Christmas Gifts of 2010

We are very blessed to receive gifts from family and friends. Even more blessed to be able to give some gifts, as simple as they may be,

to family and friends and staff of Studio mugen and Seed restaurant.

We are a small company. Most of our staff are part timers, but 16 people in all!!!
We are blessed to have them, and happy that they are healthy.

In Japan, we have a tradition of giving "oseibo," a gift to say "thank you" at the end of year.

I did not grow up exchanging Christmas gifts much, but I like this Japanese tradition of “oseibo” a lot.
Eric, of course, having grown up as a Catholic, loves to exchange gifts, so this year we did something different: we picked funny and sustainable gifts and ranked them!

* These are the gifts of 2010:

* Our cat, Mai, want to observe by the fire place:

* All the dogs are getting excited to receive their gifts:

Eric’s best 3 gifts:

1. Pen – from our assistant Kumi

This simple pen was the funniest story maker. Eric was opening this pen while he was talking to his mom in Québec on Skype.

When he opened it he found three batteries so she asked him what are they could be for?

He could not come up with an answer and suddenly said “a vibrator???” and she said “what?" silent... "A pen vibrator???” We all could not stop laughing. Well, we found out that it was a pen with a light, but to us it was a pen that brought us so much laughter. Thanks to Kumi!

2. Roast Beef Knit Hat – from Eric’s mom

We haven't eaten meat for 18 years, but Eric’s mom decided that a knit that said, of all things, “Roast Beef,” would bring us more laughter and jokes, and she was right. Aha, ha, ha...

3. Double Vintage Army Watches – from Sanae

I saw double rainbows a few days before Christmas, so it occurred to me to give Eric two watches (since he likes watches), but he thought he needed two because one was not enough to keep him from not being late.

* Eric and his best 3 gifts:

Sanae’s best 3 gifts:

1. Solar powered plant and bee – from Vladka, friend

When I saw it in the box they were all separated, but once it was put together, how cute it was! And it moves by sunlight!!! I love it.

2. Flying pigs - another gift from Vladka, friend I was telling some people that I am an "ochoushimono," a Japanese word that means someone who gloats maybe a bit too much at the risk of backfiring at her own expense, so when I receive compliments I am like a pig who climbs a tree. The flying pig gifts are (hopefully) a manifestation of my ability to stay a float! What an insightful gift from dear Vladka.

3. Mini-flower base – from Eric I love arranging small wild flowers and herbs so Eric made a wonderful choice. Thanks to Eric!
   

After laughing endlessly and enjoying our holiday meal (Ummm, so good!)

we headed for the couch....zzzzzzzzzz... guess who was snoring???

ahahaha.. LOL!

Love,

Sanae

FOUR YEARS. GO.

I saw this powerful three-minute video on William Spear's blog recently.
http://williamspear.com/

It moved into my heart so vividly. I really want to do more for us, our planet and universe.
I want to share it as many as people I know.
If you want o do something, please join us "Community Clean up" Venice beach area with us on Jan. 2, 2011 at 10am.
http://www.meetup.com/Vegan-Macrobiotic-Community-Meetup-Group/calendar/15738073/

William said on his blog: It is a powerful allying cry to inspire an awareness of the urgency to shift our consciousness before it’s too late. We join with thousands of other individuals and organizations to set and reach goals that will cause a positive global tipping point by 2014, resetting humanity on a new path toward a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling future for everyone.

Let's go, let's do it!!!

Love,
Sanae

While feeling the golden light

Hello!
I am Sanae Suzuki, director of macrobiotic studio mugen in Santa Monica, California.
Thank you for visiting our blog.

This blog was started in May 2008 by some of our staff members in macrobiotics studio mugen.
It occurred to me to conduct a comprehensive review of what has been written since that time. First I categorized them under different labels, and proceeded to read them one at a time. I feel so much gratitude to the people who have managed and contributed to this blog, even if it existed on a relatively small, quiet scale.

Due to our hectic schedule of counseling. teaching, planning and hosting events, publishing cookbooks, managing our office and restaurant Seed, and offering retreats in North Fork, I am just now catching up.


December 21, 2010 was a wonderful day of winter solstice/full moon/lunar eclipse. As we transition toward longer days, this concurrence of events provides a renewed energy powered by the warmth and brightness of, for lack of a better term, a “golden light,” inspiring me to reinvigorate this blog by sharing the good tidings in macrobiotics and other pursuits of health and happiness.


This photo that I took perhaps illustrates the feeling I have of this transitional time.

Through this blog I hope to share with all of you how we live the macrobiotic natural life, as well as to be inspired by your thoughts and experiences. Stay connected!
Thank you!

Love,
Sanae

Welcome Food - Mabo Tofu

Sanae taught us how to make the vegetable rolls and Mabo tofu. The vegetable rolls are simple yet, beautiful summery dish. It has 3 layers of carrots, napa cabbage and collard green.

Sanae showed us how to roll them.

One pan cooking...

Eric made this fabulous tempeh dish, Tempeh with zucchini and kale. It's just great!

He made this dish and the sauce with using just one frying pan.

summer cooking

We have been enjoying the summer style cooking.
This is a delicious spring roll. It has red lentils inside and served with butternut squash sauce. Yum! Basmati rice with cilantro is a great idea for a summer cooking.
The nutty flavors meets a refreshing herb.

We had this great dessert dish called, "OHAGI".
It is a pound of sweet brown rice covered sweetened cooked azuki beans with the strawberry topping.
Ohagi is everybody's favorite in Japan and usually make one ball each, but this is cake style.

We also had a special guest from Japan, Naoko and her friend from LA.
She is a macrobiotic cooking instructor from Japan.
Through macrobiotic practice, I can connect to so many friends around the world.
Thank you.

Arame Roll Rocks!!!!

Have you ever had a macrobiotic dish, called Arame roll?
I love the way it looks with black and white contrast colors.
We also put corns so that it makes sweet, too.


Here is hot to make it step by step.
It rolled as we make a sushi roll.
We put arame dish rolled outside with tofu, then steamed.

In order to cut clean, it's best to wait until the rolls are cool down.
They look good and taste so good!!!

Macrobiotic Lasagna

One of my favorite dishes is Lasagna. Since I became macrobiotic, I rarely eat tomato dishes. So I miss having Lasagna. Actually we can make Lasagna in Macrobiotic way.
Today we made Lasagna with macrobiotic ingredients.



We substituted tofu for cheese, and we made the butternut squash sauce instead of tomato sauce, and we used dandelion leaves instead of spinach.



Finally we decorated the table with wild flowers. Sanae picked them from North Folk.
The dishes look great with flowers!

Grain Patties and Pasta with Tofu Cheese

It is always to fun to make patties. Today we made patties from brown rice, millet, and veggies.





As you can see, we made a lot of patties! For the sauce, we made from sweet white miso, water, apple juice and Kuzu to thicken it.



The pasta was absolutely fantastic! It was nice idea to use tofu flavored with miso.
It was almost like cheese texture.

Soba salad delight!

Today we had this delicious summery dishes! Especially Soba salad was divine! We learned several tips of making the soba salad; shocking water when we boil soba and we should wash soba well with cold water after the boiling.

We also learned how to cut Kabocha pumpkin which lot of us are scared to do. The easy and safe way is taking the top part first.

Thank you the great tips!

Sanae's friend, Sharon showed us her hand made beads jewelry. These are so beautiful. 100 hours of work on these jewelry is so special.

Tempura Udon and more...

Today we made delicious vegetable tempura udon, Indian curried red lentils, blanched kale salad with ume radishes and cucumber, purple cabbage, and dill pressed salad.

One of GREAT TIPs was that if you run out of ume vinegar, you can substitute with apple cider vinegar and ume paste. He used this to season the pressed salad and the ume radishes, and it was delicious!

Here is how to make a pressed salad - you must use your hands!!!!

Here is the finished meal, amazing!

Tempeh sweet dish...

Today's cooking class' dishes were Tempeh sweet dish, cabbage and turnip pressed salad, brown rice with wild rice, seasonal vegetable dish and corn chowder.
I especially enjoyed the corn chowder, such a seasonal delight!

We had even baby in the class and we all enjoyed.

Special Tempeh from Vermont!!

One of students, Minerva brought grate tempeh of Rhapsody natural foods from Vermont.
This Rhapsody is owned by people who study macrobiotics and we were all exciteed to cook this tempeh. Oh, wow, it was sooooo good and we enjoyed so much.
We wish you could taste it so please enjoy with your eyes!!!!!

Cooking with Eric!!!

It was great to see how Eric taught us how to cook today!
He moves so fast as you see the photo below.

Eric is going to make fried tempeh with veggee...

It looks like chinease food...!

We made fried greens with Amaranth leaves and swiss chard

This is Daikon salad with strawberry sauce

"Let me in!, I want to join you...! and I'm hungry..."Leo(the dog in front) says at the door between the kitchen and the office. He is so cute!!!!!

(We usually keep dogs away from the kitchen every time we have classes.)

Look at this Eric's food...
Cooking is ART!!!!!

Basics Cooking Class with Sanae & Eric

We had a macrobiotic basic class at the end of March that became second time.

I' ll show you one of examples which I'm sure will be good to know.

We made "Daily condiment" using carrot green tops and sesame seeds .

Carrots tops are one of the things that we usually throw away or don't know exactly

how to use, but this condiment adds a great touch to cooked whole grains!

I had never bought leeks before, and didn't know how to handle...

Eric is going to show how to wash and cut for today's soup.

This is "Lift up protein soup"~chickpea and spring vegetables with lotus root"

in which we put leeks .

This time, it was a small class , but everyone seemed to enjoy it.