Hello! Hello!Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.
Set out for some change of scenery in Texas (Houston, at the Land Bridge)
Last week I found myself getting a last minute change of scenery in Houston, Texas. I made a snap decision to get a ticket to see 3 month old Michael-Poundcake, and help my bff Caroline get a little extra sleep during the night while I fed some bottles and got in some late night snuggles with the sweetest baby.
I’ve never actually been to Houston in January, and very much enjoyed blue skies and mid-50s/low 60s for most of my time there. In addition to lots of happy baby time, I also managed to get my requisite fresh tortilla eating, and consume two breakfast kolaches.
February Intentions
Each month I sit down and write out a list of intentions for the month ahead. It’s not exactly a to-do list, more like an “options” list. Place-holders also help me make space for more exciting adventures! How do I want to feel this month? January felt like a bit of a wallop, but I still managed to make time for myself. Many of my intentions remain the same month to month, but I try to pick out a few new things regularly!
Out and About
Photography Walk with my nice camera • Movie Theater on $7 Tuesday • Dog Walks with friends (already squeezed one in this morning!) • Movie Night at Home with Popcorn • Monthly Boston dinner with my friend Kathy • Monthly family dinner out with my mom and brother (Capital Grille?) • Disney in Anaheim!
Good Eats
Formaggio Kitchen Cheese Tasting • Still working off my Food in January List • Clementines, Grapefruit, Cara Caras, all the citrus! • Lunar New Year Treats: (Longevity Noodles, Eight Treasures Rice) • Food in California (I’ll be at a conference, and then a day at Disney)
Self Care
Yearly Dermatologist Appointment • Wax some things off • Self-Care List • Massage • Eye Masks in the fridge in the morning • Stick on Nails until you can get a manicure again • Float Spa (want to test Float and The Indoor Oasis) • Sauna at Kelo
Move!
Lift (Weekly Lifting 3x at home with lifting schedule printed out, 1 at gym) • CRAW
Update Lists
Inputs List (Podcasts, Reading, Watching) • Recipes to Cook • Cooking Projects 2024 • Bean of the Month • Hobonichi Monthly Review 2024 • Placeholders for “Once in a Lifetime monthly activities”
List 5 things to giveaway on Buy Nothing • Order lid screws for toilet • Get knives sharpened • Break down the massive cardboard box in the back • Finish TAXES • Quarterly Kitchen Purge
Inputs
📺 Watch: Polite Society • Délicieux • Spirited Away • Reservoir Dogs • The Lost Boys • Anatomy of a Fall • True Detective (TV) • The Brothers Sun (TV) • Fargo (TV) • The Bear (TV) • New Season of Queer Eye (TV) • Jury Duty (TV) • Dr. Who (TV)
This Week in Good Things:
🔎 Taste Test: Girl Scout Cookie Throwdown: Caramel DeLites vs Samoas, for #science — some noticeable differences out the gate: bag and box. I grew up selling Samoas as a Brownie, personally. Samoas are generally a little smaller, darker and slightly toastier coconut. Caramel DeLites a tiny bit sweeter. Honestly I’m surprised at how similar they still ended up tasting! (Nominally prefer Samoas, but it’s hard to tell them apart much more than the color!)
💪 Let’s MOVE! I think the most wild thing – a few weeks ago, I decided to try out some Barbell Hip Thrusts. I had only tried them at home with a heavy dumbbell, and because it wasn’t ever very comfortable, assumed that I’d not be able to do well with the barbell. In week one, I started out getting to 315 pounds, and by adjusting the setup, got up to 495 pounds last week, which honestly is *wild* to me.
✍️ Writing: been enjoying writing in my Hobonichi, and also writing for guidance, where you write questions and then listen for the answers – with the new Julia Cameron book, Living the Artists Way.
🐾 Pup Walks with Friends: we had a very fun romp with Gus and Hazel, our pug friends in the little pen.
🌸 Flowers of the Week: Purple mums (two colors) from Trader Joe’s. Looking forward to my spring flower share starting!
Good Ideas
This wisdom from Marie Poulin. (I’ll note that for me, personally, chill nervous system usually is a result of a good dose of adventuring!)
Other Good Things
📖 Reading: I’ll be updating my reading list (here is last quarter). I’ve been reading Mistborn (Wax and Wayne) before diving into the new Sarah J. Maas Crescent City Book this week.
📺 Watching: Party-watched ‘Echo’ with my friend Caroline, and finished watching BEEF. I can best describe BEEF as a show where each successive episode you say to yourself “well.. that escalated quickly”.. until you get to the very end. The Last Repair Shop on Disney+ if you need a heart warming 40 minute documentary about music in LA schools. Got started on the newest season of Queer Eye.
🛍 Good Acquisitions: the Aquanotes Big Shower Edition (these are incredible). I use this the pad every time I take a shower. Still wildly enjoying my Duraflame Electric Fireplace, including our new morning routine where I read next to the fire, and Bertram sleeps in his dog bed in front of the fire.
🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: This insane speedskating race at the youth olympics // I’m obsessed with this woman’s father who goes to the bar every week with a list of topics for his friends to discuss.
Bacon, egg, and cheese kolache at the Kolache Shoppe
The Weekly Meal Plan:
Still working through my long list of foods I’d like to eat in January. I’ve been eating my meals with some of the fruits of my labor (a Pondicheri cooking class where I made minced garlic, ginger, a green masala, and a coconut masala)
Sunday: Saucy scallops with mushrooms and rice
Monday: Tandoori chicken and naan, leftover vegetables in fridge
Tuesday: Steamed fish with rice, baby bok choy, braised mushrooms
Wednesday: Rice bowl with salmon, tomato, avocado, cucumber, pickled onions
Thursday: Yuba (tofu skin) peanut noodles
Friday: Out! to my neighbor’s for dinner
Saturday: Beef Nachos
Sunday: Formaggio Cheese Tasting (yes…. on Superbowl Sunday)
Snacks: Yogurt and berries (I’m on a berry kick, even though they aren’t in season), soft boiled eggs, cottage cheese, cheese sticks.
Treat options: Burdicks chocolate winter box (working my way through one bite at a time). TJ’s Pretzel Breadpudding. TJ’s Iced Gingerbread in the freezer. Peppermint Hold the Cones. Fried bananas. TJ’s Chocolate Cheesecake Freezer Bites
🥑 Good Eats from this past week: Trader Joe’s Peanut satay sauce with chicken, rice, and cabbage. Bacon Egg and Cheese Kolache from the Kolache Shoppe. Sonny + Joe’s Sauteed Eggplant. Copper Cow Churro Coffee Pourovers. Layla Peach Drinkable Yogurt.
What are you eating this week?
Previous Years:
Something I really enjoy doing is flipping back in my journal or my blog to the week of the year over the past several years. When I write it out in a list like this, it feels like a nice accomplishment!
Hello! Hello!Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.
Got a fresh cut from Lucy Danger (can’t look straight into the camera though…)
Some moments for rest, and thoughts on doing less.
This week I stumbled through the week feeling like I was trying to ward off an illness that was threatening to appear.
Having experienced a bout of brain fog last year that I definitely do not wish to repeat, I’m trying to be more mindful of not just “pushing through” when I’m feeling under the weather.
Rest though, for me, is perpetually challenging. There’s a weird tension between having a lot of physical energy (which I do, most of the time!) and feeling limited by mental fatigue and tanked executive function.
Aside from rest, it’s also a challenge to know what to dial down and pull back from. As someone who enjoys self-imposed structure and strong commitments, I’ve learned to start checking in with myself more regularly: is this goal/commitment/idea actually supporting me right now? Do I have the energy to pursue it? Is it feeding me? Do I need to stop doing something else to make it happen? Do I need to do less of it?
💛 For those of us who chronically add more to our plate, this is your reminder that it is OKAY to stop doing something if it’s not working for you right now.
If you’ve reached the point in January where maybe you were hoping for a little bit more energy and get-go – and are feeling existentially tired, please give yourself a little bit of grace!
This Week in Good Things:
🖼 This week I went on one lovely excursion: to an evening event at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum! I had a good time with my friend Amanda. The museum is absolutely magical at night. If you haven’t seen “This Is A Robbery”, the Netflix special about the heist at the ISG, you might enjoy it!
💪 Let’s MOVE! Starting the year off strong, I’ve eased into my new fitness cycle. I’m committed to weekly strength training over the next 16 weeks that is my favorite: boring and effective lifts with progressive overload. I had a pretty fun milestone in the gym this week, too – I had never done Barbell Hip Thrusts, and worked my way up to a couple of reps at #315 pounds on the bar! (Not too shabby for a first time PR!)
✍️ Writing: I’ve focused my daily writing this week on short and sweet Daily Good Things – to continue in the groove of writing and releasing something daily.
🐾 Pup Walks with Friends: we ran into Josie the Pug and her human Jess this week; and several longer walks in better weather while it hit 60 this week after the storms. (In not-so-good things, we had an off-leash Belgian Shepherd come over to try to rough Bertram up yesterday while we were walking by right around the corner from our house – he’s okay! – but I’m still feeling rattled!)
Other Good Things
📖 Reading: I’ll be updating my reading list (here is last quarter). Still reading Jessica McCabe’s new release How to ADHD, finished Richard Kadrey’s fun noir novella ‘The Pale House Devil’ and I’ve started Viveca Sten’s ‘Hidden in Shadows’ – The Åre Murders book 2, a crime drama based in a small ski town. I’m a fan of reading season-matching books, so Scandinavian winter mysteries are some of my favorite to read in January.
📺 Watching: almost done with season 2 of Reacher, who solves problems with low emotional output and his large size. I’m about to kick off party-watching ‘Echo’ with my friend Caroline.
🛍 Good Acquisitions: influenced by BookTok, I finally got myself a Kindle page turner and I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it’s a *game changer*. I also got a gooseneck clamp to put it up so I don’t have to hold my device, but I think you can go without that one. Also? LED candles. The ones I got I don’t know if I’d recommend specifically, but I really enjoy the flexibility.
🚘 Tackled a nagging task: after realizing that my registration doesn’t expire for another year and I’m not going to have to go to the DMV this month, I set out to first get myself to Valvoline for an oil change. (For those of you in the Boston area, the Valvoline on Main Street in Waltham is consistently great.) Next up? Inspection sticker.
👁🗨 Spa Activity: I’m a fan of eye masks, and keep some in the fridge to put on while I sit and read. I’m still hoping to book some time at Kelo Spa in the next few weeks, but it’s always nice to do a little something for yourself at home.
🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: experiments with malort and industrial food thickener // Lizzo birds (or when you ask a bird photographer what their favorite bird is // for those of you who remember Jessica Simpson’s chicken of the sea, a redux (also, I really do love her sense of humor) // if you’ve watched Saltburn, Edinburgh Rugby // Fendi partnered with Pokémon.
Treat options: Burdicks chocolate winter box. TJ’s Pretzel Breadpudding. TJ’s Iced Gingerbread in the freezer. Peppermint Hold the Cones. Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Pudding. Fried bananas.
🥑 Good Eats from this past week: Spinach and tofu with rice and yogurt. Bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon from Zabar’s. Noodles, crispy pork, mushrooms, bok choy and tahini vinaigrette. I love the combo of tahini and black or rice vinegar and a splash of soy sauce. It was so good I made it twice this week. Also, having the Thai wheat noodles from Trader Joe’s on hand made a few last minute meals easy. Rice bowl with grey sole, bok choy, pickled chanterelles. After my trip to New York, I’ve found myself craving Korean food. On the coldest day, I ordered myself seafood pancake, kalbi, and tofu soup from Kaju. Perfect Shinko asian pears.
What are you eating this week?
Previous Years:
Something I really enjoy doing is flipping back in my journal or my blog to the week of the year over the past several years. When I write it out in a list like this, it feels like a nice accomplishment!
Good Things, First Snow of the Year, and the Weekly Meal Plan.
Hello! Hello!Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.
I’m wearing my fleece onesie after a full day on the first snowstorm of the year! I had plenty of time in the great outdoors, including running my daily mile in the snow, and then taking Bertram on a walk with his best bud, Sawyer.
This Week in Good Things:
Let’s MOVE!
🏃🏻♀️Running! The first week of the year is always a great week for me to get moving. A few things of note: I ran my first race of the year, the Needham 5k. I’ve run this for maybe a decade now? It’s a great way to start the year!
🏋️♀️ Weight Lifting. I’m kicking off a 16 week training cycle with a group of folks. “Boring” progressive overload, how I like it! I did my three workouts at home, and hit my weekly session with my trainer Ryan at AnkFit.
🧘🏻♀️ Yoga. We kicked off a four week Vitality series for the New Year at Ompractice on Thursday night, with Tasha Edwards. I let people into class, and had a great time participating. In the mornings, I’ve been taking Yoga with Adriene’s 30-day flow series. (I adore Adriene, and while I love taking our own classes, I was finding that doing a morning class on our platform meant that I was kicking myself into “work mode” before I wanted to. (Adriene is one of my favorite alternatives!) I not so secretly wish she would teach with us!
🌱 Create: I kicked off a workshop this weekend with a group: “One Month, One Goal” where we create and tune our singular focus goals for the month and then check in weekly. I’m also bringing back my *Do The Thing hours, my weekly co-working sessions for folks who registered for the month!
✍️ Writing: I wrote up my Kitchen Resolutions, and Good Things to Eat in January, and my first Ship30 essay “structure will set you free”. Ship30 is a daily writing challenge that I’ve participated in several times over the years. Since I typically write and publish most days anyway, it’s just nice to participate with a group of people doing the thing you like to do.
💪 Saving the Day: I love when I can feel generally useful – and when people give me the opportunity to help! (Note to self: it’s okay to ask for help – people feel good when you give them the opportunity to help!) I got to rescue a dog who was inside for the day while her humans were stuck doing RMV related tasks. And then I got to help with a car situation, and then carry some doors.
🐾 Pup Walks with Friends: a SNOW walk with Sawyer (the Corgi) and her humans; a quick backyard party session with Sylvie the Frenchie.
📺 Watching: season 2 of Reacher, who solves problems with low emotional output and his large size. My first movie of the year was The Holdovers, which you’ll very much enjoy if you like slow burn and 1970s New England prep school winter vibes.
✏ Creative inspiration:From Marie of Llama Life’s newsletter: “Short Trip created by Alexander Perrin is an ‘interactive illustration created for web as a study into capturing the essence of graphite on paper within a digital context’. And it’s really lovely!”
Treat options: End of the See’s box. Tapioca Pudding. TJ’s Pretzel Breadpudding. TJ’s Iced Gingerbread in the freezer. Peppermint Hold the Cones. Walker’s Shortbread. Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Pudding. TJ’s Apple Tartin Tartelettes. (You’ll notice that this list keeps growing – I have a bad? habit of getting fancy desserts from Trader Joe’s from my freezer and taking forever to eat them.
🥑 Good Eats from this past week: Marcus Samuelsson’s Black Eyed Peas (seriously you need these in your life). Smoked Sable on a bagel. Chopped chicken liver on toast. Ottolenghi Chicken Thighs with Fennel and Arak. Salmon roe on toast. Alison Roman’s Slow Salmon with Citrus. Palak Paneer and tofu. Salmon and whitefish salad on toast. Fila Manila Kare Kare chicken and potatoes.
What are you eating this week?
Previous Years:
Something I really enjoy doing is flipping back in my journal or my blog to the week of the year over the past several years. When I write it out in a list like this, it feels like a nice accomplishment!
There’s something I find particularly comforting in eating food that is in season and following the natural rhythms and cycles to the year. That said, I live in New England, so I make exceptions for some things I can find in-season elsewhere.
I’m not a moral purist about this stuff: mostly I like the idea of seasonality helping me with decision fatigue!
I’ve been meaning to pick back up the habit of my monthly food list: a list of seasonal foods to eat, favorite recipes to cook (again and again), and new things to try! Given that I’m on a kick this week, and January is always a great place to start, here’s the first iteration!
I also gravitate towards cookbooks that capture the year: Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries (and his many repeat volumes) are some of my personal favorites.
Things in Season in January
Not all the things, just the things I might want to eat! I use cheat sheets from my Farmer’s to You order site, the Red’s Best fresh options, Foodwise (yes, it’s Calfornia!) and a few cookbooks (Stephane Reynaud’s 365) to make this list!
Vegetables and fruits: beets, leeks, rutabaga, parsnips, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, belgian endive, kale, kohlrabi, radicchio, variety greens, mushrooms, sunchokes, all the citrus! (Bag of clementines! Citron! Kumquats! A pomelo! A tangelo! Grapefuit!)
Every year I sit down and make some resolutions for the kitchen. Given that food is one of my favorite sources of joy, novelty, and connection, it’s a favorite practice of mine to spend a little bit of time making this space more useful, and my time spent in the kitchen more meaningful. Having people around my table (even figuratively) is how I show love, and bring people together – and although we can’t do much of that these days, I’m thankful to be able to take the time to feed myself well.
I’ve been writing these resolutions for more than a decade, and some of them pop up year after year – affirm doing good things that work – and a handful are new each year. You can take a peek through previous years here: (2012) (2016) (2017) (2018) (2019) (2020) (2022) (2023)
I try not to re-invent the wheel, so the categories are the same with some year in review updates!
Re-Commit to Consistent Kitchen Habits:
Particularly the habits that keep me consistent in other areas of my life. I find that most things in my life depend on me eating well.
Weekly Meal Planning: one of my home court habits in my “Let’s Eat” spreadsheet. I also make a weekly Evernote note with my shopping list on there as well. One thing that has made this easier in 2023 is that I now publish my meal plan each week in my newsletter! I plan on continuing this!
Update my “Anytime Shopping List” ie: regular groceries list (favorites, protein, don’t leave the store without this!)
Update my “New Recipes To Try” list (with at least 52 stellar recipes for the year and beyond); and a weekly Turkish recipe.
AND: Dishes cleaned before bed, coffee maker set. Coffee cup next to the coffee maker, ready to take on the day.
Remove Clutter:
While some people find a perfectly spotless and minimalist kitchen ideal; I actually need to be able to see appliances or pantry items in order to be inspired to use them.
Do a systems audit for blockages
Make what I want to use more obvious
Schedule a quarterly KITCHEN PURGE
Remove the storage pans from the oven so you can use it more easily this year
In 2023, I gave myself the gift of an organizer who came once a quarter. We worked on some big projects each time, and cleared out the vast majority of all tupperware from my kitchen. Life changing.
Quest for Best:
This is one of my personal values – I get a lot of satisfaction out of keeping track of the “best of”, like your own neighborhood consumer reports.
Do a pantry audit, and re-stock pantry with “best of” items, update my spreadsheet (did in 2023, do again in 2024)
Seek novelty: Bean of the Month Club, Spice Club, new item at Trader Joe’s or one new item at Formaggio each trip! (NEW: Noma R+D club shipments (re-upped for 2024 – the Dashi RDX and Corn Yuzu hot sauce were fab!)
• Get your knives sharpened. Just do it! (China Fair does it for a dollar) • Review storage containers for more sustainable options (updated with Anyday) • Re-Read a classic cookbook every month • Read more food writing (and memoirs) – added to reading list!
AND: Write a new travel (and local!) bucket list of restaurants. (Currently in my Ideas Doc)
Make Memories in the Kitchen
Update Friends + Family Favorite List so I can cook in honor of my people and think about them (or cook for them!) If I haven’t solicited some from you, drop your favorites in the comments for me!
Monthly: Update Seasonal Favorite Cooking List (in my Ideas Doc)
Monthly: Update my list of “Big Cooking Projects” (in my Ideas Doc)
Zoom Cooking classes with friends! (In 2021, I had a great time taking a truffle making course, and a Lamb Biryani from Pondicheri – looking forward to choosing a few great options to take with friends and family!)
Pick two signature cooking gifts (something to perfect and send to people)
“The Weekly Bean” – I have a subscription to the Rancho Gordo Bean Club that leaves me with a very large stash of beans to eat. I aim for a bag a week. I was very inspired by a picture in the Rancho Gordo Bean Club facebook group of a woman who had a nice running list in a bullet journal of her weekly beans.
Restaurants in Boston I’d Like to Visit
Yes it’s not *technically in my kitchen* (also generally working my way through Eater 38) – this actually got a kickstart in 2023 with a monthly dinner with my friend Kathy! We went to Pammy’s (stand out!), O Ya (truly delightful), Fox & The Knife, and Bar Vlaha.
Still want to try: Oleana • Kava Neo-Taverna • Contessa • Menton
New Cookbooks in 2024:
My bare minimum of reading/rereading starting point – I read a lot more cookbooks generally, but my specific resolution is to add recipes I want to try to my running doc! I also want to read a range for my creative input.
January: Jeremy Lee – Cooking Simply and Well, For One or Many
Do you have any kitchen resolutions this year? I’d love to hear about them!
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
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