Massachusetts, USA

I (Sam) spent September-December in Becket, Massachusetts studying Macrobiotics and it was a great experience. Not only did I learn a great deal, but I also met some wonderful people and made some new friends. The course itself covered Macrobiotic Philosophy, Macrobiotic Healing, Macrobiotic Cooking, Oriental Diagnosis and basic Shiatsu. It was a grueling 12 week program, with classes from Monday-Friday, stating at 7 am and ending at 6 pm each day. Fortunately the weekends were free, but many of us used this free time to study. The great thing is that we got 3 freshly-cooked, organic, Macrobiotic meals a day, so we didn't have to worry about preparing our own meals.

At the start of the program, we were a big class of 28 people, but the class size didn't stay the same from week-to-week, because the modules are broken up into weeks and people can take as many modules at a time to suite their individual schedules. That said, there were 7 of us who stayed for the whole 3 months, including 82 year old Mary, who took the entire program with us (she was such an inspiration to the rest of us). We had people from all over the world in the classes, there was a lady from South Korea, two ladies from Brazil, two ladies from Italy, one from Australia, about 6 ladies from Japan and the rest from different parts of the US and Canada. It is great to know that Macrobiotics is being practiced all over the world, by people from many different backgrounds.

Cooking is a very important aspect of Macrobiotics and we had a hands-on cooking class almost every day. At the end of level 2, for our level 2 graduation dinner, we (the students) had to prepare our own dinner (and also cook for our teachers and some of the staff). We were all put in charge of doing something and I volunteered to make the dessert for the evening. After looking through a few Macrobiotic/Vegan recipes, I decided to make a Vanilla and Chocolate cake (my version of a Black Forest cake). I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, as I had never baked using wholewheat flour, no eggs, no butter and no sugar, so I was absolutely thrilled when it turned out great (I surprised myself!). It was delicious and everyone enjoyed it. The combination of the chocolate/vanilla cake, together with the cashew cream icing and the raspberry coulis was a hit. I had fun not only baking the cake, but also icing and decorating it.

Boston

David came for a visit in November and we drove to Boston for the weekend. Boston is about 2 1/2 hours by car from Becket. We had a great time shopping, relaxing and walking around the city. We also got to meet up for dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Angel, friends of David's parents who attended our wedding in 2005. It was good to catch-up with them and see them again. Boston is a really nice city with lots of history. We stayed at the Fairmont Battery Wharf, right on the water and we were treated to a lovely suite overlooking the harbour. It was a nice change of scenery for me (Sam) and I enjoyed the time spent with David and the break from studying.
It was great being in this part of the world during this time of year, as New Hampshire during autumn is just spectacular with the leaves changing colour.