June Exceptions

A new month!, and already so far into it. I guess I am starting to behave like some others on this challenge. I am not eating or craving the exceptions as much. As the summer garden produce upticks, I find that I am going for plates of fresh-picked stuff instead of the usual staples. This month I will continue with rice and sesame, but add wheat and nix the fish. In the summer, I minimize cooking in the kitchen, so quick-cooking pasta dinners work. I probably won't fire up the oven until some of the winter squash comes in.

May Exceptions

I've had a hankering for my soul food, macrobiotic food. I chose fish as my animal protein selection for the month, along with rice. I didn't use my third selection until yesterday, because I couldn't decide whether to select soy or sesame. After cooking a pot of rice, I decided that sesame would win for the month. (OK, and I also couldn't find the wheat-free tamari on a back shelf somewhere.) Now I have a stylish glass container of gomasio on my kitchen counter, along with the beet chips, which substitute for nori seaweed, and the rice seems more down-home now.
I make my gomasio with a real mortar and pestle after toasting the seeds on an electric stove. Of course, if I were a true macrobiotic locavore I would toast the seeds on a shovel stuck into my hearth. Oh, well, too much of a fire hazard lately, and my shovel is still sitting in the back of the turnip truck, covered with chicken manure.
A gardener friend grew sesame, but decided it wasn't worth it due to the long season and low yield for the amount of space it took. It sure did like our hot hot summers. I might try it next year, but this year I am gardening as if it really matters and I have less space for experimentation.