Twenty-plus years ago when I lived in Southern California, I signed up for a macrobiotic cooking course. It was a one-day course held at the Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel. The woman teaching it was Mina Dobic, author of “My Beautiful Life, How I Conquered Cancer Naturally.” She was diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer that had metastasized to her liver, bones, and lymph system. Given two months to live by her physicians, Mina rejected conventional treatments and decided to adopt macrobiotics. Six months later, Mina Dobic said, she was cancer free.
A skeptic, I thought, I wouldn’t go to the cooking class to find out how to beat cancer, I just wanted to learn another way of cooking.
I arrived at the hotel to find a group of 10 women sitting elegantly around a private dining room table, sipping tea. Having overslept, I’d skipped my triple-shot, non-fat, four Equals cappuccino in order to be punctual. Tea just wasn’t going to work. Hoping that no one would hear, I whispered to the waiter, “Regular coffee, please.” He nodded and turned to get it. I thought, good, no one heard me – until I remembered my synthetic sweetener. “Two Equals, please.”
All eyes turned my way, eyebrows raised.
“I’m cutting back,” I said.
Everyone laughed and introduced themselves. Most of the women knew each other from attending Dobic’s previous classes. Three of us however, were new. We listened intently while several women told how changing their eating habits had helped them recover from medical problems and how eating macrobiotic foods also made their pounds melt off.
I perked up when I heard that.
Mina made her entrance and the room seemed brighter. She was about the size of an acorn (organic, of course). Her tennis shoes seemed bigger than she – and full of energy. The former professor of linguistics and world literature had immigrated to the U.S. from her Yugoslavian homeland in 1987. Having recovered from ovarian cancer by changing her diet and lifestyle, her mission was to teach others to live healthy, energetic lives by eating macrobiotic foods, which means seasonal food, whole grains, vegetables, sea vegetables, seeds, nuts, some fish and fruit, no dairy, no meat.
Mina said, “Macrobiotics is not simply food, it’s a lifestyle.” Her brown eyes twinkled. “You are what you eat.”
Oh no, did that make me a hot fudge sundae? A bag of Skittles?
Mina ushered us into the spotless hotel kitchen, “The kitchen is the pharmacy of life,” said Mina as she ticked off some clean eating remedies: Shiitake mushroom tea helps clean fat from the liver, kombu (seaweed) is good for colds and sinuses, sugar causes depression and lotus root is good for bronchitis.
Barely tall enough to see over the countertop, the larger-than-life Dobic demonstrated her methods of preparation, using extremely sharp ceramic knives, stirring food in a north, south, east and westerly direction (for calming energy), chopping vegetables in chunks for producing body heat during winter months (for stews) and julienne style for cooling the body during the summer months (stir fry).
As the meal (barley vegetable soup, Kinpira-style vegetables, boiled salad with creamy tofu dressing and brown rice with black soybeans and chestnuts) began to take shape, we began to salivate.
I liked each dish except the chestnut one – keep those chestnuts roasting over an open fire and off my plate! It was no surprise that I especially liked the dessert – tiramisu made with tofu. Like it so much, I went in for seconds.
So, if what Mina said is true – that we are what we eat – I guess that tiramisu turned me into a creamy, no lumps, all-natural, simply sweetened, yummy Italian dish!
What’s a girl to do?…order Mina’s book “My Beautiful Life,” and see what I think about macrobiotic cooking all these years later.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard welcomes comments and shares. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
