Five Flavors Kitchen

The NYC Cupcake Taste Test - New York (National Cupcake Day)

                                                Aunt Virginia's Birthday (Cup)Cake

Ok, so the Huffington Post published a piece on LA cupcakes in honor of National Cupcake day (or at least one of them) today December 15th. For those of you in NYC there still time to check out some of these locations reviewed in this Yelp review.

Cupcakes can be considered tonifying - but be careful to get the smaller varieties. Too much of a good thing can cause things to get mucked up - we don't want to go into evil dampness here, but know it's a real possibility if you have too much of the sweet stuff. That's why cupcakes are so great. They come in mini's - perfect for a taste test!

National Lager Week - Top Five Beer Cocktails at Epicurious.com

via www.epicurious.com

Happy December! According to all the listings, the second week of December is "National Lager Week".

For most of us in the continental US this timing of this is a little misplaced. This is because it's cold outside and generally we want to consume warming foods and beverages to balance this environmental stress. Beer, even though it has alcohol - usually considered warming, is mostly consumed icy cold. Additionally, the hops are bitter which has a draining action. In the winter we generally  want to build not drain. 

Does this mean we have to forgo this holiday altogether? Of course not - we just have to make sure we balance things. Try drinking your beverage closer to room temperature and have it with food. The nature of beer with it's fermentation by-products can actually create a condition of "Damp Heat" if consumed in excess. So moderation is the key here. 

Mixing your beer with other items can also change the effects of your beverage. Epicurious has an interesting mix of beer cocktails. The most warming of these would be the "Shandy" made with ginger ale - the ginger would also active as a digestive as well along with the hops. 10001 Cocktails also has a beer cocktail with cinnamon schnapps and sambuca called an "Aftershock Surprise." I have no idea how this would taste, but the cinnamon and sambuca would make the drink much more warming and would benefit digestion - good to have before or with a meal! (Perhaps some reader would make the sacrifice and test this recipe!)

Sam Adams has a winter lager and a bunch of other interesting info at http://www.samueladams.com/index.aspx

 

 

Things in General

Party Tray NYC -  May 2010

Once again I find myself stuck in that Peanuts cartoon where Sally Brown is asked to explain World War II using "both sides of the paper if necessary." I have had many requests to explain Chinese dietary therapy in general and I haven't known exactly where to start. So finally I figured that I could back into it with a brief discussion of Chinese dietary therapy as it relates to spell checking. 

You may have noticed that I'll frequently capitalize certain nouns like "Lung", "Blood" or "Phlegm" and may have thought that my spell checker wasn't working or that I was adopting the style of the scam emails asking for check Cashing and Investments endorsed by Important persons. Neither. The caps are to distinguish the Chinese medicine concepts of certain words vs the commonly used versions. So Lung would be the Chinese medicine concept of lung and Spleen the Chinese medicine concept of spleen.

There are similarities and overlaps with these words, but with the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) version you get  lots of extras. The Spleen is  the spleen, but the spleen with so much more. In TCM the Spleen has a major role in digestion, incorporates pancreatic functions and even relates to mitochondrial activity. The Spleen in TCM is important for immune function which western bio-medicine is just beginning to consider. Perhaps we can think of the TCM capped terms as the extended dance mix version of their western counterparts.

 It's these expanded functions that make the dietary specifics a little unclear.  For example, I may tell a patient that it's not good to read while eating. This may seem a bit arbitrary until you know that the Spleen in TCM governs the intellect as well as the transforming function of digestion. The idea is that we want to save the Spleen from having to multi-task which can be taxing.

Each organ has it's own set of things that benefit or inhibit optimum function. The Lungs govern the skin and the opening and closing of the body's pores. Acrid and spicy herbs frequently promote sweating so can be seen as having an affinity for the Lung. We often take ginger tea for a cold.

All branches of Chinese medicine seek to benefit patients physically, mentally and spiritually individually and in relationship to society and nature. Food and how one eats is an essential element in the therapeutic process.

When designing a diet for general good health or therapeutic purposes  we look at the characteristics of the food - taste, temperature, method of preparation and seasonal as well as environmental factors. Western dietary concepts like vitamins and minerals are not considered on their own, but are incorporated into the specific functions of the various food items. Fiber is discussed in terms of "rough vs smooth".  Meals are balanced when they contain the "five flavors" - sweet, sour, spicy/acrid, bitter and salty. Temperature should be in balance with the season and environment. We generally don't have ice-cream in the winter even with the hot fudge.

I will try to go into more details about each of these areas in subsequent posts along with some tasty examples. This may take a while, but so does an Italian holiday meal - and I will figure out how to incorporate my mom's lasagna recipe :)

Ciao for now.