How to deal with stress with Macrobiotic food, Aromatherapy, and Bach Flower Remedy

We had very stressful time in November. 2015 starting pee-thanksgiving.
These are few things happened:

1.     Car broke down on the way back from North Fork on the highway with our six dogs (golden retrievers) and two cats (one cat has issue of car sickness) – the car took two weeks to get fixed. One week later, as of today, it broke down again.

2.  

Healing Azuki dish

After car broken down Healthy Happy Pooch came back with a small rental car!


  The hood at our restaurant, Seed Kitchen, broke and was replaced by a professional person and we paid $800 – it broke a few days later and found out that the motor was the wrong motor. Contacted them many times the guy who put the wrong motor, but he never called back. In the mean time we found new people set new motor, but they said they can only come on Thanksgiving day so we had to work and after they set the new motor it was still making a loud noise so Eric went to the roof to check and found out that it replaced in wrong direction. We are so astonished by all these business people who charge us a lot of money to fix, but their work is careless and not responsible.

3.     Our plumbing backed up the day after Thanksgiving day – we thought it was a minor clog, but found out it was major work and the plumber was going to charge so much money so Eric dug up the old pipe for 5 hours and changed to new pipe. Eric mentioned to the plumber it better to clean out before put new pipe, but the plumber said it should be ok since we change to new pipe, but next day it backed up again and Eric went down the house and dug an additional 4 hours and found out there were roots from the tree that were causing the blockage. 

Chef Eric transformed to a plumber


Eric was very exhausted physically digging under the house for so long and his body was in so much pain. We were disappointed that we could not do anything fun and also frustrated with all these business people, but we did our best and made a great thanksgiving dinner for us.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner

Also made healing Auzki beans (helps the kidneys which will improve courage) dish with Sweet Brown Rice, Kabocha and Almond for Eric.

Prepared an ache and pain hot bath with Orange essential oil which helps to reduce pain and uplift and support immune for Eric and gave therapeutic massage with organic Lavender, Annica, St. John's and Calendula oil,  which is excellent muscle to heal strains, general aches and after strenuous movement. 

 

We also took Bach Flower Rescue Remedy 4 drops for general stress, Gentian 2 drops for disappointment. Willow 2 drops for frustration, Impatient 2 drops to be more patient for four times a day in my lavender kukicha Tea.

What else did we do?…meditation, yoga and watched good movies!

We can deal any stress without junk-food, caffeine, alcohol, smoking, drugs and sugar and feel good that this too shall pass!!! 

Love, Sanae

Persimmon Leaves Tea: How to make and benefits

I enjoy many different kinds of teas, especially that ones I can produce from my garden or a wild filed. I harvest leaves and make them as fresh or dried them.

Persimmon leaves tea is one of my favorite teas that I make in autumn through winter. 
The tea can be made with fresh leaves or dried ones. When I make the tea with fresh leaves I 
harvest the leaves, clean or wash them and use 5~6 fresh leaves with 4 cups of purified boiling water simmer or brew for 10~15 minutes.  When I use dried leaves then I use 4 teaspoon of the dried leaves for each 4 cups of boiling water and simmer or brew for 10~15 minutes. Drink a cup or more of the tea daily. 

Persimmon tea contains a high quantity of Vitamin C, tannins, flavonoids, rutin, choline carotenoids, amino acids. In addition, the tea were found to contain 10 elements: Magnesium (Mg), Manganese (Mn), titanium (Ti), calcium (Ca), phosphorous (P), and more. These elements are found to aid to healthy bodily functions. 
I also heard that compared to other teas, persimmon leaf tea contains a higher level of health and nutritional benefits. Analysis has shown persimmon leaf tea contains up to 10 times the amount of Vitamin C, tannins, flavonoids, rutin, choline and essential amino acid. Compared to other fruits and vegetables, persimmon leaf tea contains up to several times more vitamins.

Scientific research has shown that drinking persimmon leaf tea promotes a healthy metabolism. Rutin aids in softening the blood choline tube, which prevents arteriosclerosis. Flavonoids aid in lowering blood pressure and increase blood flow. According to Japan’s “Longevity” magazine, drinking persimmon leaf tea and prevent melanoma. These health benefits generate anti-cancer and anti-influenza virus interferons.

All the benefits are helpful, but I make persimmon tea because I love the taste also. You can purchase it natural food store or internet shop so I hope you enjoy them like I do. 

Love,

Sanae

Vegan Macrobiotic Cooking Class: Healing Your Body and Mind

Healing body and mind macrobiotic whole plant-based vegan cooking class #3 was help on September 24, 2015. 

It has been a very hot and humid summer in Southern California. Many people eat spicy, salty food and drink cold icy drinks too much. I eat very carefully to not loose balance of principle of macrobiotic eating, but I even seek out to eat a little more herbal and spicy food, more raw salad, and raw seasonal fruits and drinks with more purified water cooler barley tea.  My focus is not too eating too extreme so I loose the balance. It is easy to just eat spicy food and icy drink to drop your body temperature, but in order to balance our body temperature comes up again to stabilized to our normal body temperature. Our body is very complex and well made if it is too hot and our body is healthy we seat and lower the body temperature. When you go out the most places have air conditioning systems and it is a way too cold for most of people who eat healthy, but outside is so hot so in and out of this extreme temperature difference whack our balance and our bodies are not able to use our natural thermostat in our systems.  It is the end of September, but it is still hot but then once a while temperature drops suddenly and we loose our health balance.

We focused on:

How to cook for hot summer to hot late summer transitioning in LA area:

How does this hot humid weather effect our mind?

How do we take care of our health differently?

Even it is hot weather and we feel we are drawn to eat extreme food and drink for temporary relief, but we keep our principle and eat some whole grains or noodles/pasta once a day with leafy green vegetables and sea vegetables also and soup also.

Our menu was

White Navy Beans with Corn Soup: Corn wasn’t originally in this recipe, but we chose to use it when we saw it was near the end of the season at the farmers market which we highlighted in this soup and it also gives nourishment

Millet and Kabocha Squash with Roasted Pumpkin Seeds: Millet is high plant based protein whole grain and we added sweet vegetables to relax our pancreas and spleen/late summer organs

Miso-Glazed Grilled Cauliflower: Using a BBQ grill to cook something yummy and easy. Everyone loved this dish so much.

Pressed Raw Kale Salad with Red Radish: This surprised most macrobiotic people how raw kale can be tender and so tasty – the key was massaging kale gently, but well.

Quick Cucumber Ginger Pickles with Arame: Eating sea vegetables is important in a plant-based diet. Learn to eat variety way of eating.

Raspberry Mousse: Fresh raspberries are in season.  It is not too sweet, but it gave us a good satisfaction to complete the meal.  

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Seed of Happiness

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Life is a journey that you plant a seed and sometimes you never know when and which seed grown into and what will happen to your seed in your journey. You plant a seed and the seed may not sprout till much much later, but "never say never", this is one of my favorite English sayings.

Seed of Pomegranate in North Fork, Califronia

I always enjoyed yoga when I started it back in college in the 80’s. There was one point that I thought about wanting to be a yoga teacher. However in '93, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and my focus changed to learning macrobiotics, to save my life.

Santa Monica Yoga studio the front side

After I healed myself and started teaching macrobiotic cooking classes and nutrition counseling I was enjoying practicing yoga. In 2001 when I had the serious car accident it took the mobility of my physical ability away. When that happened, I never thought I would be able to practice yoga like I used to. I’m not the type of person who discontinues doing what I enjoy. As soon as I started using a wheelchair, I began to go restorative yoga classes and last year I started practicing walking with my six Healthy Happy Pooches. I still have pain and walking stimulates so it brings me more pain physically, but I feel happy.

One of my dogs, Happy is helping me to walk on the hill when we went to hike.

Now, I turned to 60 years old and walk to Santa Monica Yoga Studio which is 6 blocks away from my house and practice yoga three to four times a week. I can’t believe myself, but this past weekend at Santa Monica Yoga, I took my first Yoga Teacher Training course with my yoga teachers, Nancy Goodstein and Jamie Elmer (yoga anatomy).

Yoga teachers training teachers, Nancy Goodstein and Jamie Elmer (yoga anatomy) last weekend.

It was lots of work and I do not know how I could finish, but with the love and support of my husband, Eric Lechasseur to take care of our four-legged family (six dogs and two cats) at home and our restaurant business, Seed Kitchen in Venice, California.

I thank so much for Santa Monica Yoga people, Bruce, Daniel and Janet and all the other teachers, especially Allison, Nathalie, Laura, Cindy, and Carole.

My class' mates of yoga teacher training last week with Nancy and Jamie with Bob the skeleton!

I planted a "yoga seed" over 30 years ago and it just started sprouting as I keep taking care of my seed of happiness to grow, bloom and harvest.

Love, Sanae

Lotus Flowers at Echo Park & Lotus Pickle

I love flowers. 
One of my favorite flowers are lotus flowers.

It is season of lotus flowers in July, here in Los Angels. 
Recently, I went to visit LA’s famous lotus flowers at Echo Park.

Echo park have been offering the Lotus Festival which started in 1972 to promote awareness of the contributions by Asian Americans to our culture and communities. The festival focuses on a different Asian ethnicity each year, this year they will showcase the Chinese culture.

I went to visit Echo Park to see the Lotus flowers for the first time in 2004 while I was still using a wheelchair to move around. The breathtaking beautiful lotus flowers heal my soul and gave me hope to walk again. I went to visit there almost every year, but when I went to visit in 2007, the Lotus bed seemed to be dying off. I heard that it died completely and was gone in 2011. I think it was probably due to pollution and temperature changes. They did not have the lotus festival for a while, but I got a news of the lotus flower bed was rebuilt and completed and they had the lotus festival again on July 11 and 12 this year.

I did not go to the festival, but went to see the lotus flowers the other day and I was so happy to see that they were beautiful lotus flowers as I remembered.
I hope you enjoy visit someday or go to festival next year.

If you have never seen lotus flowers, take a visit there or if you have seen a lotus flower you know special they are so make sure you go visit to have a special moment!


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After I saw beautiful lotus flowers I felt like making my lotus root pickle for summer. I add orange and basil leaves from my garden for cooling opening effect. I hope you like them.

Ingredients

• 1 piece fresh lotus root (Do not use pre-sliced and/or packed in water)  
• purified water
• ¼ cup orange juice
• ½ cup or more ume vinegar (must cover the lotus root)
• a few basil leaves

Instructions

1. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the skin of the lotus and slice thin.
2. Put them in a pot with water that cover them.
3. Bring to a boil and cover and blanch for 2 minutes (This process is called, aku-nuki in Japanese, where any unwanted residue or bitter flavor from the lotus root).
4. In a small glass container, put lotus root with basil leaves and add orange juice and then ume vinegar to cove the lotus root.
5. Close the top of the container with cheese close or loose top and leave on the kitchen counter for a day to three days. When it is done keep it in the fridge until you eat.

with lotus gratitude,
Sanae

Making Summer Pickles

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Pickling is one of the healthy cooking methods.

In the summer I like to create not just healthy delicious pickles, but healthy delicious colorful pickles.

Sweet Red Pepper is one of my favorite pickles in the summer.

Sweet Red Peppers are rich in carotenoid phytonutrients and contain almost eleven times more beta-carotene than green bell peppers, as well as one and a half times more vitamin C. Red Bell Peppers have a sweet, almost fruity taste. Pimento and paprika are both made from red bell peppers. 

Sweet Bell Pepper Lemon Pickles 

Pickles help our digestive systems, and adding lemon provides more Vitamin C to help ward off the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays.

Ingredients:

1/2 sweet red pepper 
1/2 sweet yellow or orange pepper 
1/2 sweet  green pepper

*1 cup purified water

*1 teaspoon sea salt

*1 bay leaf

*3~5 black pepper

1/4 cup lemon juice
1~2 sliced lemon skin (julienne)

1. Slice lengthwise into half-inch wide strips

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2. mix all of the other ingredients (except the lemon juice and lemon peel) and bring to a boil, then let it cool.

3. Use a sealable glass container sterilized with boiling water to put in the peppers, the ingredients from step 2, and the lemon juice.

4. Leave the container on the kitchen counter and shake it every day. The pickles will be ready to eat in 2~3 days (if the kitchen is warm then it will be ready in one day).

5. If you are not eating right away, store in the refrigerator.

You can make carrot pickles the same way.

Summer Pickling Class will be held at Studio Mugen on July 25th, 2015.

Detail is click here:

http://www.meetup.com/Vegan-Macrobiotic-Community-Meetup-Group/events/223922688/

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パプリカのレモン漬け

ベータカロチンを多く含む夏野菜で作るピクルスは、酵素いっぱいで腸の掃除、そしてビタミンCで夏の紫外線をふせぐ。

　材料 （４人分）

パプリカ（赤）1/2コ

パプリカ（オレンジ）1/2コ

パプリカ（グリーン）1/2コ

★水１カップ

★塩小1

★ローリエ1枚

★黒こしょう3〜５粒

レモンの皮（レモンジュースを絞った後残ったもの）　少々

レモンジュース1/４カップ

1.パプリカは1cmほどに細長く切る。

2. ★の材料を小鍋に入れて一煮だちさせて冷ましておく。

3.煮沸消毒した瓶にパプリカとレモンの皮を入れ、2の液を流し入れ、レモンジュースを入れる。

4.キッチンのカウンターの上に瓶をおいて毎日少しシェイクする。自然に２〜３日発酵させて出来上がり！（キッチンの温度が高いと１日で出来上がる）。

出来上がり後は食べるまで冷蔵庫に入れておく。

ポイント：

パプリカは、赤、黄、オレンジと3種類あります。赤パプリカは一番甘味が強く、特にビタミンCの濃度は緑ピーマンの2倍もの量を含んでいます。さらにオレンジ色のパプリカならビタミンCは3倍、β-カロテンの量も緑ピーマンと比較して何と約20倍もの量が含まれています。人参のピクルスも同じようにできます。

Walk On The Beach

My husband, Eric and I love the ocean and going to beach. However we haven't visited the beach due to our hectic lives, however we are trying to change that by visiting more often.

The ocean is a beautiful, powerful, energetic and relaxing space which is why we're inviting you to join us for a Walk On The Beach. on Sunday, June 28th from 9-10:30am,


Enjoy a morning stroll on the beach while snapping photos, swimming, surfing, SUP, yoga, meditating, watching the waves and more.

RSVP HERE.

What to bring:
• Blanket or towel to sit.
• Beach chair (option)
• Water
• Warm clothes and hat
• Food (option) in case you get hungry
If you want to bring something to eat and drink. That's great!

This is the first Meet Up so it may be a smaller turnout, however we will be there.

How to find us:
The end of Ocean Park Blvd. from east side make a left on Barnard way and park in the city parking lot on the right side by by 2600 Barnard Way.
When you park you must pay, but if you are thinking to go to Farmers Market on Main St. (one block a way), then ask for validation at the Farmers Marke.

I suggest to park south side of parking lot near the public toilet - Ashland Ave and a shower area. When you go to the beach find the lifeguard station #28. We are going to be around there with our service dog, Kula.

Hope to see you!
Sanae