Turkish Kabak Tatlısı Pumpkin in Syrup with Walnuts
We’re mid-way into January, and so far New England has seen a smattering of flurries. I’m not sure if we should all be concerned, but I’m enjoying the temperate enough weather and trying to get out as much as possible. I have an amaryllis that’s blooming which is a joy to watch, and a fresh bouquet of Irises.
I’ve been doing morning yoga every morning to start my day, and pairing with a liquid vitamin (MaryRuth’s Organic Liquid Morning vitamin.) I’m historically intermittent with vitamins, and not really sure they do much, but even the placebo in the winter is a nice ritual.
My stairwell and living room bathroom painting is done! The stairwell looks SO FRESH! (This unintentionally set off a saga with fire alarms, and another with a pup with an itchy eye; but we’re rolling with it!)
I went to the gym to participate in an off-session Barbell Betties, and lifted a back squat PR for myself unintentionally. It’s so nice to lift with barbells.
Acquisitions of note:
I “stocked up” on fresh undergarments. Friends with tatas, I’ve switched over almost exclusively to the True + Co Body Boost V Neck. (One of my yearly intentions was to continue with the undergarment refresh.)
I got myself a season pass to the Weston Ski Track, which is conveniently less than 11 minutes from my house, and offers night skiing! My first go was a little bit harrowing, as it’s been about 20 years since I last skied, and somehow I found myself in the MIDDLE OF A SKI RACE! I’m going to be taking a few lessons and looking forward to it.
I went to my friend Nat’s small business and friends mixer down the street. It included ice breakers (the best being – what piece of media have your recently enjoyed!) and a harmonica!
I went to a Female Founders and Funders event downtown at SVB. (Thank you Kristen and Meeta!) I also made it a point to connect with another founder in the same general space, and was kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
Good Reads: finished Ann Patchett’s lovely book The Dutch House. Took me about three years of audiobook to finish it, and still thinking about it. Picked up Danny Licht’s Cooking as Though You Might Cook Again, on Bettina’s recommendation list, which is a small and mighty little book to inspire you to cook and eat. Finally, a RomCom a month late – The Matzah Ballby Jean Meltzer – was delightful (and being turned into a film!)
Watched: Fire of Love– a National Geographic documentary on Disney+ about a pair of famous vulcanologists, Katia and Maurice Krafft. While I loved my geoscience and volcano research in college, I’m… also glad that I didn’t opt for a life of chasing live volcanos. (Their death is not a spoiler – you learn about it in the first 20 seconds of the film.) The footage is really quite remarkable.
Watching Fire of Love (and little Cone Boy)
{Good Eats}
Another great week in food! I’m still reading the 60-minute Gourmet Cookbook (Pierre Franey), Smitten Kitchen Keepers, and The Woks of Life. One of the fun things I did was crowdsource some favorite recipes from my Wellesley food people, so I’m compiling that into a list now. My Turkish recipe of the week was Kabak Tatlısı – a kind of candied pumpkin dessert. I also made myself a quality avocado toast.
Some highlights:
Kabak Tatlısı: the recipe is very simple, you cut approximately 2 lbs. of pumpkin (or squash! I used a Japanese squash this time) into squares in a wide shallow pan. You cover with 8 ounces of sugar, about 1/4 pint of water, and the juice of half a lemon (I use a whole lemon because I like it lemony). Cover and poach gently for an hour, basting every ten minutes or so. I usually turn the pumpkin over mid way to make sure it’s all cooked. You then leave it to cool in the pan, and sprinkle with walnuts.
Sardines Rice Bowl with Tomatoes, Cucumber, Pickled Ginger, and Furikake I each a version of this regularly – it’s one of my most satisfying meals. Sometimes I use tuna, or salmon, but I truly adore sardines.
Broccoli with Blue Cheese and Balsamic, tossed in some leftover Chicken + Kebabs: I get addicted to a combination, and then can’t stop eating it. Broccoli, blue cheese, balsamic, and toasted walnuts (if you remember) is really a perfect combination. I find myself eating the entire bag of broccoli this way.
101 Cookbooks: Christmas Lima Stew– this is a truly stellar recipe, and I cook up Rancho Gordo Christmas limas. This time around, I was planning on cooking the soup the day of, but I ended up taking myself skiing at the last minute, so when I came home, I simply made all the ingredients into a bean salad! Celery, Caraway, Olives, Lemon, Parsley. All delish.
Two bolo cheese sandwiches with açili I picked up these Portuguese sweet breads, and ended up making myself a late night cheese sandwich. My neighbor had given me a jar of her tomato and pepper condiment from her garden in Turkey, and I’ve been hoovering it this week.
Baked Fish with Crunchy Miso Mayo + Green Salad with Honey Goat Cheese. I usually eat fish on Wednesdays when I get it fresh from my farm share. This time though was Red’s Best Skate wings from my freezer. (The goat cheese was from the event I went to.)
Chicken thighs with tomato and bulgur (riff on the chicken and rice dish in Smitten Kitchen Keepers) – I always love homey dishes like this that are sort of stove top casserole and low effort. I ended up cooking some leeks and garlic with smokey Rancho Gordo paprika, cumin, chicken thighs, and then tomato, little honey vinegar, and Turkish bulgur with vermicelli.
Epicurious Kale Salad with Dates, Parmesan, and Almonds + Pork Chop. This is a PHENOMENAL salad. Honestly, might be up there in my top 3 salads of all time. MAKE THIS SALAD. It’s easy to make, and truly exceptional. I add a whole lemon instead of half.
May we all barrel roll with the JOY that Bertram brings to flinging himself and rolling in the grass.
Another year, another excuse to go back to “Week One” – which is a satisfying way to start again and renew for the year. One things I try to do at the end of every week is a pause for gratitude – taking a moment to do a little review of the week, how I felt, and what I experienced. Every time I do this activity (*every* *single* *time*) I’m reminded just how many really lovely moments I’ve had.
I spent a little bit of time on “systems upgrades” – reviewing my “Let’s Eat” spreadsheet, adding new recipes to my list to try, reviewing my “list of lists“, my January Intentions
I’ve kept a movie watching spreadsheet since 2019 (and an unorganized Letterboxd of most everything I’ve watched) – but this week as a gift to myself, I made a to-watch movie list with options for my favorite genres – primarily classics that I’ve missed.
I ran my first 5k of the year – I’ve run the Needham New Year’s 5k maybe for the past decade? (This year I had to tie both shoelaces..)
My stairwell and living room bathroom are being freshly painted
I’ve gone to bed by 11:30, and woken each morning to do some yoga or lift (I’m not usually a morning movement person, but I realized that I could get in 20 minutes without disrupting my morning coffee and reading.
My ProHort gardening and horticulture class kicked off! Looking forward to getting my gardening to the next level. (I also “accidentally” acquired some dahlia tubers from Five Forks)
Acquisitions of note: I sprung for a month of Youtube premium to see if it makes a massive experience difference.
Good Reads: we kicked off the year with The Bodyguard – Katherine Center (very fun romcom), 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (2021, 129 pages) – strongly recommend!
Watched: The Menu (HBO) if you like watching Chef’s Table and dark comedic violence, you’ll likely be mostly satisfied. Wasn’t perfect, but enjoyed.
Chopped off about 5 inches of hair! And now it’s swishy!
{Good Eats}
It was a great week in food! I’ve been reading the 60-minute Gourmet Cookbook (Pierre Franey), Smitten Kitchen Keepers, and The Woks of Life – and been inspired to cook each evening (a working dishwasher, turns out, is the secret to my happiness cooking. Some highlights:
Ottolenghi Chicken Thighs with Fennel and Arak I’ve made this recipe maybe a dozen times over the past few years, and it’s always good. It’s also forgiving – you can swap different citrus out easily, and it’s a very simple recipe to make – you can marinate all the ingredients in a ziplock or even in the baking dish and just pop in the oven.
Cauliflower Gnocchi Deconstructed “Manti” (Turkish seasoned ground beef, yogurt sauce) I’m a fan of Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi, and this makes me feel virtuous. You really simply season the ground beef (usually cumin, oregano, chile, or köfte seasoning). I air fried the gnocchi, and then tossed it in when the beef was done. You make a little yogurt sauce with some garlic to top it, and some more pepper on top.
Pierre Franey Mustard Mayo Flounder; leeks with red wine vinaigrette + tomato. Super simple mix of mustard, mayo, and parsley. You coat the fish and broil or bake. I had flounder from Red’s Best in my farm share. (The leeks were leftover from boiling a chicken over the weekend, and I made a red wine mustard vinaigrette to douse over everything.)
Pork Chops + Salad with Burrata, Tomato, Avocado, Dill Dressing. The air fryer makes perfect pork chops every time. (8 minutes or so at 390 and I let rest.) Big salad of everything in the fridge. Trader Joe’s vegan dill dressing.
Lemony Shrimp + Bean stew with Christmas limas and Argentinian red shrimp from TJs, lemon parsley + sour cream. This is a great stew base recipe! You really want to add extra lemon and parsley at the end.
Also this week? I remembered how easy it is to make good popcorn in the microwave?
It’s a little astounding to me that we’ve reached March already. Spring was peeking out, and then we got a snow storm – there was almost a foot last night here, and I’ve finally dug myself out and acquired pet friendlier ice melt, so my day is a success.
A part of my regular routine this year has been sticking to a “weekend template”. At some point, I realized that 90% of what I do each weekend is the same – home chores, errands, business work, and if I add in dedicated time for weekly creativity, I get to enjoy more of the things that I love to do on weekends: creative dates with myself, sketching, reading, etc.
I also set aside some time this weekend to do a little recap on my month before writing out my March Intentions – and then proceeded to get very little actually done because I was under the weather. That’s how it goes sometimes.
{Good Things}
This was the first week in a while that I found myself scratching my head at what I actually did this week when I sat down to write. (One of the reasons I do this exercise: we tend to forget things that we’ve completed and keep hold of things that were unfinished. This is good for keeping track of things in progress, not great for gratitude and appreciating the good stuff.) But despite feeling that I did nothing, I actually got quite a lot in.
Gave Blood – the last few attempts at doing this were a resounding failure (due largely to dehydration), so I was thrilled that hydrating well this time around gave me a quick 7 minute bag fill. If you have the capacity and ability to do so, this is a quick and easy way to help save lives. Also: my favorite part about giving blood is that somehow, the conversations always turn to food? (I have no idea..) But while I was there, several of us had a long conversation about using dried fruit in home made meatballs. While I’m a raisin hater, I can concede that a golden raisin in a meatball is probably a good idea. (Also, I ended up eating oreos and two bags of cheez-its’ because my decision making capacity was strengthened by blood loss.)
Fitness, this week:
Monday: a mile outside, Ompractice Yoga Nidra with Amy.
Tuesday: OrangeTheory
Wednesday: Foundations with Traci at 7:30 on Ompractice (60 minutes)
Thursday: Yoga for Tight Shoulders and Neck at 12:30 ET with Niki on Ompractice (amazing!) and another OrangeTheory!
Friday: a “rest day mile”
Saturday: was feeling a little run down, so ended up doing another rest day mile and a 20 minute Peloton ride.
Sunday: “recovery mile” outdoors.
Do yoga with me! A quick note because I’m so proud of this work we are doing and would love to see more of you on the mat with me: annual memberships on Ompractice are only $149.99 right now – unlimited live yoga and meditation classes with teachers who see you. (That’s less than two months cost of a regular studio membership!)
This was a StitchFix reject – didn’t love the shape, and it was a little too short for my long torso – but loved the color of this vest! If you want to try out StitchFix, here’s my affiliate code and we both get a $25 credit.
Creative Date: because of my schedule and generally being under the weather, I took myself to see Free Solo on the big screen. The film documents Alex Honnold’s (successful) attempt at Free Solo’ing El Capitan (ie: rock climbing up thousands of feet with no rope). We all know he made it, but I had to practice ALL of my meditative skills to keep from losing it during this film. If you can watch it on the big screen, do!
Food Shopping Special: I took myself to Russo’s in Watertown for some extra fresh vegetables and little treats. They always have a delightful assortment of hard to find vegetables, fruits, and goodies. And beautiful flowers! I get most of my plants there in the summer.
{Good Eating}
For the past week, I’ve been ravenous. It’s taken me 20+ years to realize that yes, this is a cyclical hormonal shift that happens pretty much the same week every month. Funny how that works. Fortunately, there were plenty of good meals coming out of my kitchen. Here’s some of them:
A cafe au lait at George Howell. Somehow the perfect beverage before the snow storm.
Tikka Masala Chicken and Tofu with arugula and lime salad. I keep a jar of Patak’s Concentrated Tikka Masala Curry Paste in my fridge to make quick flavorful meals out of leftovers. I had some tofu and some leftover roasted chicken that needed eating, so I heated them up with some curry paste and a little bit of yogurt.
Hodo Soy Moroccan Tofu Cubes over rice with arugula salad. I’m not a frequent soy eater, but last week I went to the grocery store hungry, and told myself I could purchase anything as long as it was protein rich. So I came home with a lot of tofu. These were a little bit on the bland side, which was disappointing!
Shan-a-Punjab takeout. On Thursday, my parents came to spend time with their granddog, and we ordered Indian takeout and I introduced them to their first episode of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. (How often is too often with Shan-a-Punjab deliver? Asking for a friend.)
Trader Joe’s Chicken Piccata over herb and cucumber salad. This is one of my favorites from the fresh case – not too lemony, not too salty. While it’s technically convenience food, I really enjoy these for lunches.
Snack: Black Forest Ham on Lucky 7 Bread – I ran out of the St. Mang Rubius cheese I was spreading on the bread in the earlier part of the week, but ended up just going french and making myself a beurre jambon with my salted sweet cream butter from my Walden share.
Vietnamese Noodle Bowl with Lobster. I picked up Andrea Nguyen’s Vietnamese Food Any Day cookbook, and before getting to cook a recipe, found myself craving my favorite Bun. I grabbed her Nuoc Cham recipe, and made these PERFECT rice noodles. (This was my FAVORITE DISH ALL WEEK.)
Mediterranean Chicken Bowl with Baba Gannoush and Labne. Trader Joe’s has Shawarma marinated chicken thighs that are delicious. I cooked some up and made a salad bowl with eggplant, a cucumber and herb salad with tomatoes, and a bit of Samira’s olive labne. Also wildly delicious.
Fish Curry with Cabbage and Herb Salad. When I order from Shan-a-punjab, I usually order the side of masala sauce to make a new meal later in the week and extend my gustatory joy. I opted for a fish curry, which I served with a lime punched cabbage salad that I adapted from Niloufer King’s My Bombay Kitchen.
And for your weekly Bertram (part deux) – here’s the little buddy with a sleepy lip, not interested in getting up in the morning.
This weekend I found myself slightly under the weather – likely a factor of working out in a group fitness environment several days a week… and having a co-founder who has a toddler! On the plus side though, my immune system is as fortified as ever, and illnesses these days are really only days of feeling a little under the weather, rather than anything more sinister. After a generally chronically ill childhood and teenage years, I don’t take this for granted!
{Good Things}
I found myself resting more this week – after a couple of full months, this week had packed days of hard work on Ompractice, coupled with more intentional downtime. More reading, a little bit more time in front of the television, and delivery instead of a night out. As I get older, I continue to double down on my self care practices to make sure that I have the energy to do the work I want to do in the world. It’s *so important*.
While keeping the relaxation intentional, I still fit in daily workouts, a combination of some higher impact fitness classes, relaxing yoga classes, and my daily mile streak.
Fitness, this week:
Monday: a mile outside.
Tuesday: OrangeTheory
Wednesday: OrangeTheory and Foundations with Traci at 7:30 on Ompractice (60 minutes)
Thursday: Yoga for Tight Shoulders and Neck at 12:30 ET with Niki on Ompractice (amazing!) and another OrangeTheory!
Friday: a “rest day mile”
Saturday: OrangeTheory – I’ve been going to the 9:15 am class, and it feels good to get it done!
Sunday: “recovery mile” outdoors.
Out of the house
A quick trip to Boston Landing – for a pit stop at the new location of Cambridge Naturals, and a cup of coffee at Kohi. In addition to a FULL STOCK of pretty much every natural food product I’m ever on the hunt for, I was delighted to see the wildly overpriced but delicious Coconut Cult yogurts at Cambridge Naturals. I resisted ($27.99 will do that to you – hello two dollar coastal mark-up), and instead filed away the note to self, and grabbed myself a Topo Chico for the road. At Kohi I picked up a Cortado (They have Tandem Coffee!) About two dozen banana breads were coming out of the oven just as I arrived, and the place smelled like heaven.
A Target trip – notable because I had a definitive shopping list and left without making ANY extraneous purchases. Can you believe it? (I could barely believe it myself.)
This post on building Willpower: we’ve been blogging some longform articles on Ompractice this month! Chris did the heavy lifting on this one, but it was a collaborative effort! 10 concrete tips on how to build and strengthen your willpower.
A manicure – after months going without, I finally have been working on making my hands presentable again. I took myself to a Miniluxe treat on Friday night, getting my favorite “Rodeo” color. (Side note: I always thought it was Rodeo – like the cowboys… until I realized one day that it’s supposed to be the classy Ro-de-o drive. I choose to be cowboy classy.) My first trip back since having to pause my $65/month unlimited mani membership because I couldn’t make the time for trips. Locals, this is a *steal*.
Watching: On the plus side, more downtime means more progress towards my 52 new to me movies this year. (Preferably without a cell phone in hand.) In preparation for the newest theater release, I caught up with How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2. Both very cute!
On television: I finally succumbed to Russian Doll on Netflix. (I’ll join the chorus: it’s SO GOOD!) And a few minute into the Oscars, I decided to actually turn it on and watch – despite having avoided it for many years. Aside from the rotten best picture vote, I was happy to see some of my favorites win awards – including Olivia Colman for her role as queen Anne in The Favourite, Into the Spider-verse, and Ruth Carter for the costumes in Black Panther, and Hannah Beachler for the Production Design in Black Panther. I’m so excited for Bao – I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s at the top of my queue!
Creative Date:
On Saturday, I went for a museum tour at the Davis Museum at Wellesley – actually the home of my first museum internship (I worked in Development), and where I spent four years on the Davis Museum Student Advisory Committee. I hadn’t been back for years, and was thoroughly thrilled at the updates. For anyone local to the Boston area, the museum is truly a gem. One of the missions of the director of the Davis is to update the museum to better represent the diversity of the student body – and this is clearly seen in both acquisitions and the exhibitions on view. We went on a tour of women artists, and I spent another hour wandering through the galleries.
There’s a phenomenal new exhibit – Art_Latin_America, including a wide selection of protest and propaganda art, that I highly recommend visiting! Here’s a peek at some of the art:
Next museums on my list? Thanks to some great Twitter suggestions this week, here are some next ones for my list. I’ve been to many of these, but most it’s been over a decade! Who wants to join me?
A few suggestions that I’ve been to recently: the Whaling Museum in New Bedford (I went this summer!), and the Seacoast Science Center in Rye., NH. I’m also trying to work my way through some of the Historic Houses and Trustees Properties. And many thanks to all of you who chimed in. You know who you are!
Three other smart suggestions I’m bookmarking: getting a museum membership high enough to provide reciprocal membership at other museums (it’s.. possible I have that already.) This resource to look up participating museums: NARM – the North American Reciprocal Museum Association. And the Highland Street Foundation which sponsors free museum Fridays in the summer.
{Good Eating} I found myself eating a lot of leftovers this week.
Algerian Jewish Beef, Onion, and Coriander Stew. From Clifford Wright’s Real Stew – a cookbook I’d highly recommend. This was INCREDIBLE. Here’s the recipe: I used ground beef instead of stew meat, and canned diced tomatoes, but everything else stayed the same!
Chocolate “Dessert” Hummus. Okay… don’t hate me. I bought two different kinds – Joseph’s and Boar’s Head, and they are both great, and I’ve been eating them after dinner, with a bunch of collagen hydrolysate stirred in as a end of the day protein boost.
Chicken Lady Chicken from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen. I marinated this gorgeous bird for three days in the wildly flavorful marinade, and then roasted it in the oven. The recipe calls for spatchcocking, but I wanted to cook it in my Breville toaster, so upright she went. Recipe here. Giving into a meme, I served it with generously buttered noodles with parsley. Meme – worth reading the tweets: https://www.eater.com/2019/2/11/18220148/generously-buttered-parsleyed-noodles-meme
Hodo Sesame Yuba Strips and a soft cooked egg. I was surprised to see West Coast tofu maker Hodo in my local Whole Foods, and couldn’t resist. These were nutty and good.
Barbecue pulled chicken and Turkish beans over a bed of kale. A bit of a cultural mashup, this made for a satisfying dinner.
Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi deconstructed Turkish Mantı with ground beef, yogurt garlic sauce, and urfa pepper chile butter drizzle. This was a genius move on my part – hitting all my favorite flavors of one of my favorite dishes, but with my favorite TJ’s vegetal freezer item: the cauliflower gnocchi. 12/10 will make again.
Shan-a-Punjab Takeout butter chicken, raita, garlic naan, and potato naan. A masala chai, and kheer for dessert. (I have to restrain myself from ordering this three times a week.)
A somewhat disappointing stir fry with soba, tofu, and tahini. (What I should have done was made the Otsu recipe from 101 cookbooks…alas.
Brunch: lucky 7 grain toast with Bavarian Rubius cheese, applegate maple chicken sausage, and some soft eggs. (At the top of the post.)
A bowl of mac and cheese. I don’t think I actually managed to take a picture of it, because I was hungry, tired, and under the weather. I stirred in a spoonful of Trader Joe’s Garlic Spread-Dip (which is basically Aioli), because, why the heck not?
One of the best parts of the weekend so far has been knocking out a million nagging tasks, cleaning out my inbox, and re-reading this article on configuring your phone to be less distracting.
And here I am, writing to you! I do hope it’s been a good week where you are. If not – tomorrow is a new day, fresh with new opportunity to do good things, see good people, and eat some great meals. Hopefully you find some inspiration in here to do just that.
{Good Things}
Hopefully I won’t lose you with this first one, but the Patriots won the SuperbOwl 🦉 Hear me out: over a decade ago, we really needed that win. I remember the first parade – I bundled up in cold weather gear and cheered and screamed. This year was different. We’ve been winning. The sport is problematic to say the least. But regardless about how you feel about the NFL or the Patriots – it’s been really nice to walk around a city that feels uplifted and a new sense of optimism. I’ve been thankful for that feeling during these otherwise depressing times. Sports can do that.
Plopping. In addition to my quest for curly girl hair care that had me acquiring a bunch of new conditioner last week, I’ve been back to “plopping” – a curl protective hair drying technique that involves me wrapping a shirt around my head and waiting for the curls to dry. (Unfortunately, I also managed to get hives from one of my new conditioners… except I’m not actually sure which one. Wish me luck.)
This week in nagging tasks. This week I knocked off a bunch of them, including a long overdue 401k rollover, fixing my driver’s side rear view mirror, and an oil change. The Universe also reminded me that it’s good to fix things you’ve been stalling on. I managed to get pulled over the day AFTER I fixed the mirror… with a newly broken tail light. No ticket, and I’m so glad that I had made the previous repair. I fixed the light this weekend as well!
Heather came to Cambridge. The best part about having friends become super fancy experts in their field is that they come to Boston to speak at conferences and workshops, and then go out to dinner with you! I met Heather at Legal on Tuesday night for some chowder and a seared tuna bowl. Here we are not looking at the camera quite at the same time.
Amanda’s Birthday Party at Naco Taco. It’s crazy to think that I’ve known Amanda for 25 years! To celebrate, I made the trek out to Elmendorf for a gift certificate, some candied orange peel, and chocolate dragées. (I’m a little ashamed to say that I managed to leave Naco Taco… without eating a taco. I will go back!)
Talking about baked goodness: my brother was in LA this week. In addition to his dream trip to The Price is Right (yes, I was jealous) he brought me back some treats. A Kouign-Amann from Dominique Ansel bakery. I was hoping for a cronut, but they wouldn’t sell it to him because it would get stale. He also brought me two pounds of Philz Tesora, one of my favorite coffees.
This week in Movement + Meditation: Another good week of fitness! The key to success this week was that my workouts were scheduled mostly in advance. A year and a few months, my run streak continues!
On Ompractice – my online yoga and meditation company – I took a Yoga Nidra session with Amy, and Foundations of Yoga with Traci (Wednesday 7:30 pm) this week. If you are interested in taking yoga classes at home where your teacher can see you – our unlimited membership is only $5 for your first month right now! I’d love for you to try it out.
There were also walks around the neighborhood, and THREE Orange Theory classes: got my splat on – on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Except, I don’t have the OT watch, I just wear my Apple Watch and it’s good enough for me.
Because I was out several nights in a row, I skipped my usual combo of a creative date with myself and dinner, in favor of an early movie on Friday night and a meal at home. I chose The Favourite – which I greatly enjoyed. Notably, my fellow theater goers did NOT. So many people around me hated it. It was deliciously quirky. Emma Stone, Olivia Coleman, and Rachel Weisz are all *fantastic*.
{Delicious Meals}
This week brought me several trips out of the house, punctuated by quick meals, and leftovers. I cooked a few different things from Anita Lo’s award winning cookbook “Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One” this week.
Dr. Bouley made me dinner! My friend Jacqueline is a chiropractor, health coach, and loves cooking as much as I do. She’s also the mom to two spunky french bulldogs, Frank and Momo (above). Dinner at her house is always a treat. She made me chicken thighs, roasted potatoes and broccoli, a salad, and baked me an amazing cookie for dessert.
Her spice cabinet inspired my project last week:
The chicken has Northwoods Seasoning (so good!) and got crispy in the cast iron.
The cookie dough was gluten free from Twist Bakery in Millis. UNBELIEVABLY GOOD. With some nada moo ice cream and a drizzle of Soom chocolate tahini.
Other good meals:
Anita Lo’s Kale Salad with Tahini and Dates from Solo My absolute favorite kale salad is this one from Epicurious – but this one has come in a close second, and is significantly easier to make quickly. I ended up making it for two separate meals. (You put all the ingredients in a bowl, and stir.)
Later in the week I followed up with her Red Cooked Duck recipe from Solo with some jasmine rice and broccoli. The store was out of duck legs, so I ended up going a little fancy with some duck breast.
Lots of quick meals this week:
Leftovers of Chrissy Teigen’s Lemony Arugula Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe from Cravings. I had put a portion in my freezer last week for a future perfect night.. but hadn’t realized that night would be less than a week later. Oops?
Trader Joe’s Gnocchi alla Sorrentina. I keep bags of this in my freezer for days when hunger strikes and I’m seeking comfort food.
An omelette with leftover green vegetables and a side of sauerkraut. It turns out Eggs and Sauerkraut are a lot of people’s jam in my friend group.
A romaine salad with blue cheese, blue cheese dressing, and a whole bunch of marinated anchovies.
A bowl of rice with eggs, chicken sausage, sauerkraut, and green dressing.
Trader Joe’s Macaroni and Cheese in the red box mixed with some Green Vegetable Foursome. When I’m not feeling like cooking, at least I can microwave. (Below. See, that looks at least a bit virtuous.)
Batch Cooking this week: this week I got my cook up on, and made soft boiled eggs, a charmoula-ish green dressing with anchovy, garlic, and my leftover parsley and mint, baked chicken thighs with za’atar for my upcoming lunches, and made a batch of pepita chili in the instant pot.
I leave you with Bertram on the yoga mat, hoping you’ll try out his tongue to nose pose.
There’s something incredibly satisfying to recapping my week by looking through the photos on my phone these days. This is my blog version of a regular gratitude practice – something I’ve committed to over the past few years and can’t recommend enough in order to really appreciate the good things in life. (And for that matter, I appreciate each and ever one of you reading this. Hello!)
{Week 5} Good Things
a gorgeous floral delivery from Winston Flowers – my aunt and uncle are excellent at pick me up gifts. These purple flowers are stunning, and they’ll last for a while!
my curl quest – last week I ran out of conditioner, and decided to go wild testing out a bunch of new options. My typical go-to is Acure, which I pick up at Whole Foods. But to embrace my curls, I know that there are better options, so I polled some curly friend (and the cashier at Marty’s) and ended up getting a bunch of sample size – Shea Moisture, Carol’s Daughter, Kinky Curly, Cantu, and the Trader Joe’s Shea Butter and coconut oil hair mask. I’ll keep you posted.
Movement, amplified. In my quest to “spend out” – gift certificates, passes I haven’t used, memberships, I realized that I had a 10-pack to OrangeTheory that is going to expire this month. So I took my first class on Friday, another today, and I have my next two scheduled this week. Not sure how this is going to affect my year long run streak – so I’m going to be mindful of not overdoing it.
Yoga: four times! To ensure my mobility, stretching, and well, because I founded the company and get all the free yoga and meditation I want: I took FOUR! live classes onOmpractice this week. I’d love for you to join me! Unlimited membership is only $5 for your first month, and I’d be happy to meet up virtually for a class on me! Here was my lineup:
Yoga Nidra with Amya cross between yoga and meditation – all about conscious relaxation, a chance to renew, and recharge yourself. Mondays and Wednesdays at 1 pm ET, 10 am PT. (Amy was in the polar vortex of the midwest while I was complaining about our 10 degrees…)
Yoga for Office Workersis a 25-minute break from the world. Tuesdays at 3:30 pm ET, 12:30 pm PT with Charina. Harkening back to my Runkeeper stretch-o-clocks! (Charina was actually in her “outside office” for class because…. southern California..)
Chair Yoga with Marie. Chair yoga is great for anyone, but is especially recommended for those who want a gentle practice. One of the surprising things was how much I enjoyed seated sun salutations!
Yoga for Low Back Pain with Traci – a perfect low impact class. Thursdays at 7:30 pm ET, 4:30 pm PT. Also – Traci was a sport for not laughing at me as Bertram decided that instead of his usually nap, he was going to “assist” me by licking me, sitting on the mat, and generally speaking being adorable but in the way.
Two large library hauls: one of my favorite “activities of abundance” (a.k.a. making your self feel better through shameless acquisition without affecting your wallet) is checking out a huge stack of library books. I had to go to two different libraries this week. (On the literary note, I had about 50 recommendations from friends that I was going to post here but the list was too long. I’ll make a separate post if you need ideas of good reading!)
Team Retrospective: each week, one of my favorite personal activities is to reflect over the week with three questions: what worked well, what didn’t work well, what do I want to stop doing? This is straight from the “agile” playbook that most tech companies use to keep their teams celebrating their wins (hello, gratitude practice), and learning from their misses. We had a *great* team Retro this week!
New folks on my weekly *Do The Thingvirtual co-working. Each week I gather together friends (from around the world!) for a weekly digital co-working session on Wednesdays at 1:30 – 3pm Eastern. We go around, each share what we want to get done, and then I mute everyone and we get to work. Want to participate?Sign up here.
On that note, I had an “in-person” friend come to participate in *Do the Thing hour this week. Amanda came with lunch she had prepared for us, and work to do! Salad (TJ’s cruciferous crunch), roasted delicata squash, warm farro, freshly made black beans, an herb-buttermilk vinaigrette, pickled shallots, an avocado, and tomatoes. I added a little bit of chicken and cilantro from my fridge. My friends are amazing.
{Delicious Meals:}
Got ahead of myself there with a delicious meal in good things! There were so many more!
This was another week absolutely smitten with Alison Roman. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve cooked this many recipes out of a cookbook in years. If you don’t have your own copy of Dining In, RUN!
On that note, I think I’ve cooked more from cookbooks in general this month than I have in the past five years.
Here’s some of the highlights this week:
Takeout From Kimchipapi. Kimchipapi is new to Allston on Harvard street. Korean fusion poke bowls and other good stuff. (#SendNoodz.) Recommend! I had the crab fries – thin fries topped w/ crab salad, spicy mayo, eel sauce, fish eggs, scallion, and black sesame. And then a make my own poke bowl with kale noodles (thin starchy noodles), spicy tuna tartar, salmon, crab salad. Pickled radish, pickled ginger, kimchi, fresh corn and carrot, spicy mayo, ponzu sauce, fish eggs and roasted seaweed. I regret nothing.
Black bean soup with chimichurri chicken. No shame, my secret recipe is that I use Goya black bean soup in the red can. It’s excellent.
Chicken Tikka Masala with chicken thighs arugula salad with mint, basil, and cilantro. There’s no recipe here. Truthfully, I ordered a container of sauce from Shan-a-punjab, and then cooked some chicken thighs in it. Paired with an arugula salad with mint, parsley, basil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. My salads are usually half greens half herbs these days.
Alison Roman’sturmeric roasted carrots with seeds and labne. This was *outrageously good*. I used Samira’s Homemade labne with black olives as the base for the recipe. If you are in New England, I highly recommend picking up some at Whole Foods!
Alison Roman’s scallops with corn, hazelnuts, and brown butter chermoula. Over another arugula salad with cilantro and some lime. Another complete stunner of a dish. Also: the key to golden scallops is to NOT TOUCH THEM when they are cooking in the pan. Look at these beauties.
Alison Roman’s fennel rubbed pork – so, technically I did a mashup of two of her recipes here because I had pork tenderloin and not chops, and wanted to roast everything while luxuriating in a long shower with one of my new conditioners. The pork marinates in advance in a seed bath of glory. I opted for the double fennel situation, because… why not?
Chrissy Teigen’s Lemony Arugula Spaghetti Cacio e Pepefrom Cravings. You guys. This dish. Here’s the goodness: lots of crispy pancetta, olive oil, garlic, black pepper, red pepper, lemon juice, cheese, more cheese. And then you add arugula for virtue and bite. The recipe is here, but I recommend the cookbook.
Arugula salad with avocado, green goddess, and marinated anchovies. Apparently I’ve just been craving arugula for weeks and am finally fulfilling my cravings.
Well, that’s about it for this week!
I’ll leave you with this week’s best dog portrait: Bertram, in his element.
Here’s to a great week! –– xo Sam
PS: every month or so I send out a newsletter of wellness wisdom, good things, reading, and more. I’m due for a new one imminently.
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.
Please do not steal! Email me at sam [at] thesecondlunch.com – if you’d like to use one of my photos, and I’d be happy to share my terms. Thanks!
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