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.

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