Be Prepared: Training for End-of-Year Gluttony

I admit it, my views about health food might not be altogether sound. I've praised the freshness of deep fried dishes. On the night before the big 5 K race, I served huge patties of red meat to a certain runner in training. My solitary dinners look like a carbo-fetishist's dream fulfillment. I'm not trying to hide anything. Really. It's just that other people don't seem to salivate at the prospect of munching through a lap-sized bowl of popcorn for dinner.

But come this time of year, even I blanch a bit at the holiday eating habits on the horizon, the ones against which I'll brace myself, only to give in the moment I meet my first array of holiday spreads and dips (Oh...my granny's crab dip!). Then, there are the tins of homemade candies and cookies: seven layer bars, peanut butter fudge, peanut brittle, peanut butter cookies topped with Hershey's kisses...

Hmmm. I never realized how peanut-buttery the Christmas season is until now. I should have, though. During the months of December and January, a plastic gum ball dispenser filled with red and green peanut M&M's sits on my grandparents' kitchen counter. I don't know what it is about those little candies that I find so irresistible, but I can't pass by that damn dispenser without pushing the lever, holding out my hand for a few M&M's, and greedily popping them into my mouth. I just can't help it...those M&M's sit in that little plastic globe, just waiting to tempt someone to push the lever..."Sarah, push the lever... Push it!!!!" And I don't really even like candy.

To get to the point--and, yes, there is one: now is the time for prophylactic dining...healthy eating to counterbalance, in advance, the many peanut-laced delights I am soon to gobble up. Nothing says healthy to me like tofu, seaweed, and buckwheat.


No, these are not the components of some bitter-tasting health tonic to be downed with a grimace. They are the ingredients of my favorite mid-week dinners, and not just when I'm preparing for Christmas gluttony. Slurping up thick noodles from a bowl of broth that smells like the sea, alternating bites of tofu and chewy strands of wakame, tossing in a dash of chili oil and a pinch of sesame seeds when I can make myself set down my chopsticks, I congratulate myself on my salubrious diet. There is nothing like seaweed to make one feel all bright-eyed and pink-cheeked. With a few more rotations of this dish before the 23rd, I just know I'll be ready for hours of lever-pushing and M&M-chomping.

Buckwheat Noodle Soup with Tofu and a Taste of the Sea
Serves 4. In her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison gives a recipe for a similar soup. I think it was her version that got me started tinkering.


Sometimes I like a milder broth, sometimes a spicier one, or with a deeper miso flavor. I just keep layering soy sauce, miso, sesame oil, and mirin into the broth, tasting until it seems right. These measurements of ingredients are estimates.

Now, you may protest: my week-night pantry isn't stocked with bonito flakes; I don't even know what wakame looks like. But this stuff is increasingly stocked on mainstream grocery shelves, and once you've bought your little seaweed packets, shrimp flakes, and silken tofu, they'll sit in your pantry, never threatening to go bad, until you want your next bowl of healthy victuals. One kombu packet will see you through this dish time and time again.

For stock:
6 cups water
2 3-to 4-inch pieces of dried kombu seaweed
1/4 cup bonito flakes

For soup:
1/4 cup dried wakame seaweed, plus 1 cup warm water for soaking
1/2 pound firm silken tofu, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup mirin
1 teaspoon hot chili-infused sesame oil
1/2 pound buckwheat soba noodles
2 tablespoons miso, color of your choosing

necessary garnishes:
green onions sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
toasted sesame seeds
hot chili-infused sesame oil

non-necessary garnishes:
thinly sliced mushrooms
fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped


1. Make the stock. Wipe off any salt or grit on the kombu with a damp cloth. Place kombu into a good sized pot and add about 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then cover and simmer on lower heat for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle bonito flakes over water and remove from heat. Let sit for five minutes or so and then strain the liquid into a bowl through a fine mesh colander or cheesecloth-lined not-so-fine colander. At this point, you can let the stock cool and keep it refrigerated for a few days until you want it, or proceed with the soup making.

2. Proceed with the soup making. Cover dried wakame with warm water and let sit for 10 minutes until softened.

3. Set a large pot of water to boil for noodles. Bring stock to slow simmer in another pot over medium heat. Add soy sauce, sesame oil, and mirin to stock. Taste and adjust for saltiness and sweetness. Add more of anything you see fit. Reduce heat to low.

4. Boil soba noodles according to package directions (I usually dispense with the slow additions of cold water method, and boil them like flour pasta...but just don't overboil. They should still be firm to the bite when you take them off the heat.) Drain noodles and rinse them in colander with cold water to stop them cooking. Toss with a bit of sesame or peanut oil if it looks like they're sticking together.

5. Dissolve miso into soup. Add noodles and tofu and warm until heated through. Ladle into bowls. Garnish with necessary garnishes. Garnish with all, a few, or none of the non-necessary garnishes.