I have been eating so much seaweed lately. The other day Liina and I got together and made spring rolls stuffed with sea palm and arugula from my garden, and wakame salad. Liina has recently begun a food blog, and I have been preparing for a demo at a local grocery. So it was perfect timing for us to get together in her cozy little apartment in the sunset (San Francisco neighborhood) to work out some recipes. It’s true cooking with seaweed is not a normal and everyday practice in our American kitchens. People hear that seaweed is good for you but are unsure how to cook with it and some even think it’s, yup, gross. So Lately I have been feeling inspired to teach people how to cook with seaweed and prove that seaweed is in fact pretty gourmet yet easy to prepare.

For my cooking demo at Monterey Market I sampled a Wakame salad and a Sea Palm and wild mushroom sauté. I believe that all nearly 100 customers that sampled were pleased with what they tasted. The customers really enjoyed the texture of the sea palm, it is firm and noodle like and I sautéd it in butter, white wine and light miso. The ginger tamari dressing on the wakame salad was a hit. People were surprised that both seaweeds had a mild taste. Monterey market is selling 1 oz. bags of my five pacific seaweeds.

Figuring out truly yummy seaweed recipes takes time. The old macrobiotic seaweed eaters and vegetarian recipes do not always excite me. It may take me time build up my recipe page. As I cook and enjoy the weeds I will add recipes. In the past month my friend Paba and I have been cooking together with my seaweeds we made egg rolls, and phyllo dough stuffed with sea palm and carrot sauté and another with dulse, apples and cheese. These recipes will be up on the website soon. In the meantime it’s winter and the best time to pull the kombu out from the back of the cupboard, dust it off and add it to soup stock and a hearty pot of beans. Let’s get inspired, let’s not let our seaweeds sit on the pantry shelve, but come to life in our most creative and nutritious recipes. Remember and honor how alive the seaweed once was twisting, bending and dancing with the ocean currents.

While jogging today this phrase came to mind “we don’t pray in small numbers” in thinking about the occupy movement. I grew up going to church where people pray “our father” behind four walls. I am inspired by occupy because there are no walls. We, out in the plaza, look into each other’s eyes not wondering “who is your god?” We look into each others eyes with compassion and determination because we know that being on planet earth is not about some being thirsty while others are full. We are here to eat together and to work together in order to realize our abundance. My friends in Maine call their home Zocalo, the plaza, where people gather together, not behind four walls praying to an ancient god to help us survive a harsh reality. The plaza is where we play and celebrate after working hard because that’s what our bodies and minds can do! We are many in this movement, ready to clear away the distractions and the apathy, ready to break down walls and remember what it means to be a human being on earth. Let’s keep asking ourselves if we are doing our part to create a healthy planet. We are here to take care of each other and share in the joys and sorrows of living on a dynamic planet. We have enough and it is the time to work together to make sure that our bellies are full and our voices are heard. There is nothing but the different shapes beauty can take that separate us from one another. Look into each others eyes!

Friday afternoon I am going to the ocean for the New Moon tide when the seaweeds are exposed. I want to express gratitude for the work I do, and for the vast ocean that reminds my heart to expand and stay open to all the gifts.

Join me if you desire to occupy the ocean on Friday afternoon between 3 pm and sunset/moon rise. I believe I will go to Bolinas. I will bring gratitude and the wish that every being can access the resources they need to enjoy a brief time on this living, breathing earth.

It’s the time of transitioning into fall, into winter. I sit by the window with the strong afternoon sun illuminating the autumn hues of my brunette head. I gather the warmth. The sun sets brilliantly these afternoons over the Pacific Ocean just a few miles from my door. I always feel this time of year in every cell of my body. Each afternoon I go to the park by the marina, ride my bike or truck over, and I visit the seaweeds that skirt the point. Kites fly and dance around with the cotton candy clouds, and I would think I was home on the east coast in Maine, Rhode Island or Cape Cod, if it weren’t for the lack of a frozen nose.  It is cool here this time of year, bundling up is necessary. Scarves and soups.

It is also time to dream. I am learning how to dream my passions into daily life. After seaweed harvesting season, it takes so long for me to exchange my sea legs for the legs of one who abides by the ways of the land. In a book I am reading the idea is that we first find a dance (job) of survival. Is this seaweed for me? Seaweed harvesting season is a dream time that is very hard for me to wake out of. I enjoy being one on one with nature so much. Now it’s time to work on selling the plants and this is the dance of survival, along with whatever other part time work I get. This is very hard for us whose souls are of the very wild variety. Like a chameleon I thrive in the presence of that which gives me life- nature walks, music session, dancing and other activities that connect me to the source. Not so much one on one with computers and dish sanitizers. So it is very important that in the survival work of marketing and pouring coffee I can somehow connect to my wild core. Is there a workshop in how to do this?!? The bromeliads (air plants- epiphytes) that float around the café help so much! And I am learning some new songs, Irish in origin, a Gaelic song about seaweed harvesting, that I can hum while on the job. Eventually the survival work ends up being like a skin that is shed, or a chrysalis that falls away. We learn how to share our highest gifts with our communities and survive on what gives us joy. This all takes time. and vision quests haha.

So in moving to a more urban place I expect that I might be able to tap into some resources to help me with the work that I am doing. Seaweed related and all that work we do in life in order to feel more connected. I am feeling ready to pick up where I left off in college with medicinal plants. I am going to look into herbal apprenticeships for next summer. When you purchase your own bit of the seaweed I harvested you’ll be surely supporting me on my journey deeper into the healing arts. I always want to be able to provide people with what nourishes and heals weather it is seaweed, other plants or a way of slowing the pace and listening. This is the perfect time of year to order seaweed for a simple nourishing broth or a hearty stock to warm the soul!

I’m so happy to have landed in what seems like the land of plenty Oakland, CA. Plenty of fresh food from farmer’s markets. Plenty of familiar faces. Plenty of events and workshops connected to food! Plenty of restaurants, markets and shops. Plenty of gardens and urban green projects. Plenty of opportunity to balance the urban feel with escape to the hills, the woods and the ocean. OH! Plenty of great music.

This weekend I will be checking out the EatReal festival in Jack London Square. I can’t wait to finger through recipes at food lit displays and talk to fermenting folks about krauting my weeds. I am in the process of sprucing up my business and am so happy to have lots of other food happy and creative spirits around me. New friends at work have been buying and trading for little bags of Sea Whip, Sea Palm, Nori, Wakame and Kombu. Mixing them into raw coconut soups and pairing them with local brews.

Need a little inspiration? If you are getting into the canning spirit try rinsing some seaweeds well and adding them to your jars or buy up a few bags to keep stored away for the winter months. Still got some fresh farmer’s market cukes around? Marinate wakame and toss with whatever’s crisp at the market. Growing some heirloom popping corn? Grind up sea whip (bull kelp) and toasted nori, mix with nutritional yeast and cayenne and store in a shaker for an easy and highly nutritious seasoning. Try sea palm as a gluten free noodle substitute. And you can never go wrong with a kombu dashi broth for a simple miso soup, or sautee fresh corn, potatoes, wakame and leeks from the market and stir into your kombu broth for a little more hearty soup.

Experiment! DIY with seaweeds.

“KRUU-LP 100.1 FM is a solar-powered, open source, independent, non commercial, listener-supported, grassroots community low power radio station, broadcasting 24 hours/day and 7 days/week since September 30th, 2006 from Fairfield, Iowa. 99.7% of the programs at KRUU are produced by some 100 volunteer hosts who create 80 shows a week. Only one program is not produced by KRUU hosts.”

Is there a place for the tastes of the sea on the pallet of these daring foodies in the Midwest??? Traditionally people living centrally, away from the coast, suffered from goiter and other sluggish thyroid conditions. On the coast we absorb iodine into our pores as the oceans mists bathe our lucky skin! Seaweed is an excellent way to get more iodine into our bodies. Eating iodized salt is boring. Complete sea salts provide our bodies with much more than sodium. Seaweed is strengthening to the body and softening to our tissues and arteries unlike plain old table salt. Learn more tonight on KRUU 100.1 FM

Check out the blurb

Soon I will be offering Sea Whip, Sea Palm, Pacific nori, kombu and wakame along with my Atlantic kelp, kombu, wakame (alaria), dulse and nori. I am currently harvesting seaweed off the coast of Mendocino California after dreaming up the opportunity for over a year. After harvesting seaweed in Maine for chunks of the past three summers I am happy to have the chilly experience of harvesting seaweed from the Pacific. When I got to California in late May I bought my own wet suit, gloves and booties- unfortunately I took advice from surfer dudes in Santa Cruz and they assured me that a 4/3 thickness would do for the waters off the coast of Mendocino. A warmer wetsuit with a hood was quickly slapped back onto the wish list. The sun doesn’t seem to hit the rocks until we are about finished harvesting seaweed for the morning in sunny California. One moment I am freezing and the next I am baking in the sun out in the meadow where we sort and hang the seaweeds to dry. I am intensely experiencing the elements. Before harvesting in California I had never even paddled a sea kayak. Today I noticed that my arms are getting stronger and I credit that to dragging the kayak across the beach and into the ocean to paddle out to each bountiful harvest location. A little sea kayaking and hauling bags of seaweed make a girl a little bit stronger each day. Now I’m wondering what sorting through wet nori for hours each day does for a girl.

Each time I move to a new place it is song and work that make me feel at home. There are a few women that help us dry our seaweed who also love to sing. You’ll be happy to know that your seaweed is serenaded as it is thoroughly inspected and hung to dry. I am relieved that I can pass the hours by sharing songs and stories with two of my new favorite ladies and with Andrew. Andrew has a seaweed business out here and he is the one who is teaching me the ways of the waters and seaweeds here on the west coast. Many people ask me why I want to learn from other people or work with other people who have seaweed companies. Rather than feeling that I want more independence I have a lot of gratitude for the people that I’ve found, who so generously share what they’ve learned in many years of exploring the waters and protecting the great resource that we gather. Some seaweed harvesters gather all their seaweeds from spots that are accessible from the shore at low tide or by hiring others to venture offshore. I have the experience of getting into the boat and exploring a bit further out. I am definitely experiencing my edge and I also enjoying watching other people doing the same. I watched Andrew and Tom land their kayaks on a rock that Andrew’s been eyeing for the whole season.

For those of you closer to the Atlantic please order my Atlantic seaweeds. My mom is ready to ship out from Rhode Island anytime an order comes in. For anyone who wants to wait for my Pacific seaweeds they should be available late August. I still have plenty of Atlantic seaweeds available and since I am not in New England to do farmer’s markets I ask that you support me by ordering my seaweed off the internet.

My dad's garden on Cape Cod last summer

I am in Maine getting ready to seaweed harvest. I am gearing up to harvest both in Maine and in Mendocino California this season. Lately, I’ve got greens on the mind. Food is such a significant part of my lifestyle. I know I have written about our green houses and garden here in Maine before but I must emphasize how amazing it is to have a constant source of greens out your back door. Tonight we are making Saag, an Indian dish with about a half pound of mustard greens simmered and blended with spices. A few weeks ago I made a chickweed pesto. Best of all it’s nice to take a break from tedious tasks such as scrubbing out 120 bushel baskets to munch on fresh kale. People who already eat lots of greens like kale, mustard greens, chard, collards and spinach to name a few, easily incorporate seaweed into their diets. Our bodies know that these are some of the best foods for us and then we crave them when we go without. When I moved out to California I had lot’s of seaweed with me. I was eating and sharing the seaweed that I got in Washington with Mr. Ryan drum, and once I had my own kitchen I began cooking more with my Maine harvested seaweed- it felt like home to do so.

In a month I will be back at making California home and I will be living among people that are sure to have gardens and enjoy cooking and eating meals together. Ginger, the other apprentice here in Maine, is an amazing cook. She makes Korean style spicy soups and she is always fermenting one vegetable, wild thing or another. It’s inspiring to live with her! We have batches of Sauer kraut and Kim chi nettles going. I made yogurt last night. Last week we made a batch of horseradish by pureeing the chopped root from the garden with salt and homemade pineapple vinegar. Ginger made the vinegar with the skins that we were about to toss into the compost. The book Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz is getting good use here these days. Soon we will have kelp stipes (stems) to pickle. For lunch today Nina made a vegetable barley soup with a seaweed base, we ate it with dandelion buds sautéed with garlic- they were amazing! We collected the buds just as the sky opened up watering all of the little seeds we planted yesterday.

Out in California I will get a chance to harvest seaweed on a new terrain, with different style boats and on a different scale. I will be working with two different companies and I hope to do some foraging of other wild foods during my off weeks. It is great to have people in my life that are just as passionate about wild and garden grown foods. I am looking forward to branching out across the country and within the seaweed harvesting community. Some of us just have a real relationship with our food and where it comes from no matter what landscape we find ourselves- city included! I can’t leave all of this said without thinking about all of the people out there that cannot eat from their gardens or other local green places because they’re toxic. I have so much gratitude every day for what is still edible. I have to hope that people begin to realize how important it is to protect their local green spaces and the oceans because these places keep us alive!

Before I left California I sold a bunch of seaweed at a music event hosted by a friend of mine. I am happy to know that these new friends of mine can munch on a three inch strip of kombu each day and their bodies will be less likely to take in the radioactive iodine that is now traveling through the environment. Iodine- 131 has a half life of 100 days in your thyroid, I read on epa website, so it will hang out there and it will damage your thyroid at varying degrees during it’s life cycle. Thankfully by the time the radiation reaches California it is giving off much less radiation (halved every 8 days) than when it was first released in Japan.   The grass drinks the rain water, cows eat the grass and you drink their milk. All things connected.

On the milk topic, over the past week I have had a good welcome back to New England. I visited a friend on a farm in Maine for a few days where I harvested sap, drank raw milk and ate fresh eggs and we got snowed in! I didn’t miss the winter completely! I think I was the only one that was thrilled to see snow. Now I am at my home base in Maine where I am happy to find that there is another woman here that is also interested in fermenting foods and getting work done here at the homestead. So some of our plans over the next few months besides harvesting seaweed include- boat building, finishing my Windsor chairs to then sell, collecting kelp stipes to pickle, yogurt making and fermenting rice to make Indian dosas, wild crafting spring edibles, and visiting friends and attending community dinners.

If you enjoy seaweed please share my website with friends and family. There are many seaweed companies that are selling out of seaweed at the moment. Some are putting a limit on how much seaweed each family can order.

I will be shipping everyday and I have plenty of seaweed especially kombu and soup mix. Don’t wait to educate your friends about how great seaweed is! Order today.

I will be starting my season in Maine and then maybe I will try to slip into the harvest scene on the West Coast in June if i still have the itch. I’ve also been wondering what kinds of skills I could develop to tap into during the months after harvest season. I went to school to be a teacher but realized I don’t want to be a full time teacher- plus the school year bleeds into seaweeding. If i continue to seaweed harvest it would be good to figure out some kind of work I could do in the winter, that is mobile, that I could put to rest during the spring and summer. Any ideas?

This morning I read my friend’s blog entry about using seaweed as a fertilizer for his city farm. Take a look! Backyard Farms CSA. We use seaweed in Maine to fertilize our garden beds and last year there were delicata squash bigger than footballs. My friends soil samples came back with “nutrients off the scale!”

The Season is coming! Time to get your seaweed.

Email from one friend to another!…  thanks Dori!

Hi everyone,
I just sent this email out to people on the west coast- feel free to
pass it along if it’s of use to you or loved ones.  I am praying for
the safety, health, and resiliency of all beings everywhere and that
we all grow infinitely more wise from this devastating moment (as in
Shut those toxic beasts Down!)
Take care,
Dori
Hi West coast friends,
We are living in some intense times- the earthquake and nuclear
failings in Japan is just part of it. This is not my usual full moon
letter (it’s not the full moon!), but a just little peep about things
you can do to help support your body (and spirits) right now. As
you’ve probably heard, there may be some radiation moving across the
pacific in the next weeks heading towards the west coast from Japan.
To keep going, be alive, and not shut down, we need courage,
nourishment, and support- make a pot of soup! (and can I be a grandma
for a minute and say if you haven’t made an emergency kit, please do?)
I will be posting more recipes and some herbal first aid/community
healing and resiliency basics on my blog this week.  If you have
friends or family in Japan or Hawaii, you can pass this along to them
too.

YOUR FRIENDS in TIMES OF NEED:

1. SEAWEED: eat nori, put wakame, kombu, and hijiki in your soups and
stews, make crunchy kelp brittle with it. The iodine in kelp helps
protect your thyroid and other glands from radioactive uptake and in
general is one of the most magical, medicinal foods on earth, grown by
the O.F. (that’s the Original Farmer also known as the Sea!)

2. MISO: good medicine full of live cultures, amino acids, minerals,
and protein. I’d recommend making a big pot this week, having a bowl
everyday and feeding it to all your friends and neighbors. recipe
follows below.

3. MUSHROOMS: strengthen your immune system with some shitake
mushrooms, sauteed or in soups. Mushrooms are the genius healers of
the forest- they know how to bring everything (on earth and in the
tiny microcosm of your body) back into balance.

4. Eat vegetables, especially DAIKON radishes and BURDOCK root- stick
them in your soup too or make a shredded salad (recipe below). Daikon
has been used for drawing out radiation, post nuclear fall out- it’s
cooling and detoxifying. These will make your liver fall madly in love
with you.

5. WATER: DRINK it. lots of it. take BATHS in epsom salt and baking
soda (1 lb of salt, with a bit of baking soda 2x week). Cry. (see #8)

6. IMMUNE support: do the things you know boost your immune system-
sleep well, eat garlic and Vitamin C rich foods, and go easy on the
sugar, please.

7. FERMENT: buy or make homemade sauerkrauts & kim chi or trade with
someone who does. This weekend some friends and I had a fermenting
party and made buckets of crunchy apple, juniper berry and cabbage
kraut, pickled ginger beets, and spicy kim chi. it’s fun to massage
vegetables in community. These lively foods have the probiotics your
gut needs and wants and are deeply nourishing and restorative. my
favorite cookbook on this subject: Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

8. LOVE: send prayers, love, healing thoughts for those who need it
most. Instead of freaking out or shutting down, let your anger, fear,
and grief flow- it’s what makes us human and feel connected to what’s
going on in the world right now. Crying is a potent way to detox,
friends.

9. HERBS: if you want to get herbal, some great allies are nettle tea,
cilantro (eat a lot of it or take a tincture- it helps draw heavy
metals out ), and milk thistle (helps your liver process toxins). Also
Yarrow Environmental Essence from FES is a beautiful formula to
support the body in environmental disasters.
Magical Medicinal Miso* Soup
Saute one onion, sliced thin til translucent. Add water, seaweed of
choice (I like Kombu and Wakame), shitake mushrooms (dried or fresh),
burdock root, carrots, and any other hearty roots you like. Simmer for
25 minutes.
I like to add shredded or sliced ginger near the end, so it’s strong,
and some garlic. You can also add greens, like kale or spinach.
Because you don’t want to boil your miso, I usually put a large dollop
of miso paste in my bowl and then pour the broth on top to dissolve
it.

Drink bowls and offer bowls to all your loved ones and neighbors,
kiddos and pets, family and friends.

*I live about 20 minutes from the best miso factory ever, South River
Miso, which is made in barrels with lots of love and magic.

Get your Daikon
Easy Shredded Salad
Shred 1 carrot and 1 daikon radish
Mix with sesame oil and a little umeboshi vinegar (also a great
medicine!), sesame seeds, whatever fresh herbs you’ve got on hand (I
love mint or cilantro), and a little tamari. Eat and feel alive and
well thanks to the plants, the sun, the water and the farmers.
Sesame Kelp Brittle
Another seaweed recipe courtesy of the folks at She Sells Seaweed,
passed along by Angie Gregory:
http://www.shesellsseaweed.com/

~1/2 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
~1/4 Cup Olive Oil
~Dash of shoyu soy sauce
~1 cup sesame seeds (also a great medicine)
~1/2 Cup crushed Almonds
~1/4-3/4 cup or to your liking of finely crushed kelp (set oven on low
heat and bake kelp for 10 min or until crisp and grind in food
processor)
~2-3 tsp of fresh finely chopped ginger root

Heat syrup, oil and soy sauce in small sauce pan. When mixture begins
to foam up add seeds, nuts, kelp, and ginger, and stir thoroughly.

Line a large cookie sheet w/parchment.

Spread mixture onto parchment and then cover with another piece of
parchment and roll out flat w/rolling pin (or glass or jar!). Remove
top parchment.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes– and then for the last few minutes
check every minute until golden. Remove from oven and rip away
parchment after 5-10 minutes. Break into pieces and enjoy!!

Take good care, everyone.

Love,
Dori

Dori Midnight
community folk healing + magic + apothecary
www.dorilandia.com
http://midnightapothecary.blogspot.com