Here we are, the last week of January, and I’m here to document some of the good things this week that happened in my life. I’ve taken back to writing out the good parts of my week as part of my regular gratitude practice – so here we go with a second blog post in 2019! On a roll!
{Week 4} Good Things
My kitchen project:working to organize my spices this week. I went to the Container Store for an expandable spice rack, and did some well-needed culling. I still need to figure out how best to store my assorted bags and vacuum packs of spices from the spice bazaar in Turkey. Right now they are just hanging in a variety of places. (Pictures below are the “after”. I’m not a minimalist)
A facebook thread about [the oldest thing in your refrigerator]. While I didn’t win any awards (I think that went to a can of paté from the 60’s, my own contribution to the thread was a dried mushroom packet from around 2007. This may have been the catalyst to do a little bit of cleaning. (Oddly enough that isn’t getting tossed.) Fess up, what’s the oldest thing in your fridge? (Drop it in the comments.)
My creative date: I ended up punting on my planned creative date on Friday (the creative time I take to myself every week out of the house) but I ended up watching a movie and ordering some Indian takeaway, which was pretty spectacular. So I ended up squeezing in a last minute creative date on Sunday: a.k.a. a trip to the library where I acquire as many books as I want. (Bonus: free.) I ended up with a new to me Korean cookbook, some YA fiction, the new Reid Hoffman book about scaling your startup, and Mimi Sheraton’s 1000 things to Eat Before You Die – which I plan on making my own list for.
Lunch with a friend at Rox. 10 years of catching up! My regular meal: classic breakfast with two eggs, ham, and a side of hollandaise.
I went out to an event at MassChallenge. Looking forward to more events, conferences, and panels this year as I take put on the “start-up founder” hat (cape? spandex) for my online yoga and meditation company and spread the word of what we’re doing to take make yoga and meditation accessible to every body, not just the 1%.
On that note, TWO yoga classes this week. I took Yoga for Office Workers with Charina on both Tuesday and Thursday this week on Ompractice. You can take the class right from your desk – in my case, my couch. She was kind to deal with my creaky-ness and tight hips! Want to join me this week? One of the best ways to stay accountable to fitness is to do it with friends!
My new sketchbook and pen. Inspired by so many of my favorite creatives, I realized I was long overdue for a sketchbook. (See my first doodle this week.)
I got a new plaid shirt from StitchFix. Usually I just get my box and return everything (I don’t pay a styling fee, so I just keep them coming.) This week I found something I loved! (My affiliate link if you are interested in signing up, and you get $25 off your box.)
{Delicious Meals:}
The last of my hot paprika chicken broth with tortellini. While watching the second of the Fyre festival documentaries. (Watch Netflix first, then Hulu.)
Scallops, mushrooms, and cauliflower gnocchi. I had to call Trader Joe’s to put aside three cauliflower gnocchi for me, because they keep on selling out in a flash. Could be the woman who bought *12* last week. But who am I kidding, I’ve been that person.
Trader Joes Vegetable Biryani with yogurt. These are very good. (I also really like their fish korma curry and the lamb vindaloo. I try to keep them stocked in my freezer!)
A stir fry with ground turkey and escarole, topped with Odd Flavor Sauce from Lucky Peach: 101 Easy Asian Recipes. (I make this sauce every few weeks. It’s *very good*.
An avocado with fig balsamic vinegar.
Trader Joe’s Mash Up: Cauliflower Gnocchi + Gnocchi alla Sorrentina. Sometimes you really want gnocchi, but you also really want vegetables.
Delivery (twice this week… yeesh):
Pho Viet: the Allston one has a new outpost in Newton Centre. I went for Bun with a spring roll and a jasmine bubble tea. (Oh bubble tea, it’s been a while.)
Shan-a-punjab. Butter chicken, garlic naan, aloo naan, raita, masala chai. All of the condiments. I also ordered an extra masala sauce to re-purpose for a meal in the coming week.
Lobster Cobb-ish. (The first photo in this post.) This got some major love on Instagram this week, and frankly it was as good as it looks. Fresh lobster meat from Whole Foods, arugula, mint, basil, and a lot of lemon. Tomatoes, avocado, and a little bit of stilton. Pretty much the *perfect* dinner.
Omelette with Peas and Cheese, shallots and peas cooked in butter, with a couple of eggs, some leftover Mexican blend cheese, served with some tomatoes and a bunch of sauerkraut.
And because in flipping through the week, at least 60% of my photos are photos of my dog, I leave you with this image from the week of Bertram, the couch seal.
Oh, and this link, just because I had to explain it to someone this week, and you might enjoy it as well: Dishwasher salmon. Did you know this was a thing?
Have 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 in a week or so. If you want to subscribe, just sign up below!
I’m not one for new years resolutions (except for kitchen resolutions!) but I do like setting a word of the year when I get around to remembering to do so. I like having a single word to focus on – a word of intention, or mantra to help me focus on the things that matter.
For 2018, after quite honestly a limited amount of thought on my part, my word for the year is: FINISH.
It’s a nice reminder to finish what I’ve started – spend more time getting to check things off as DONE. As someone who is a serial starter, I’d like to spend a little bit more time working on completing projects, tying loose ends, editing those half written blog posts, the 7/8 completed projects, and sharing the work that I’ve put time and effort into but haven’t finished the final step of pushing out into the world.
Canva is an easy to use (free) graphic design software program with drag and drop features, plenty of fonts, and sizable graphics. The relevant news is that it now is available in as a free iPhone app for your design needs on the go. I used it to make the header graphic of this post.
The second app I’m loving is Prisma: which applies artistic filters to your photos. (The picture in the header was original one that I took of the ocean at home in Rye). It’s free, and it’s a lot of fun. At some point I’ll probably move on from playing with it; but right now, I’m having a great time making art.
Have you downloaded any great apps lately? What should I play with next?
Every year around the middle of December I make a nice ritual of looking back at my accomplishments – the highs and the lows of the past year. This year was certainly a full one – I made leaps personally and professionally, traveled internationally, cooked and ate a lot of delicious food, took some risks, made better friends with my fear, and feel pretty thankful for where I’ve ended up today. Plus, I get to spend my time with this wonderful puppy of mine!
I’m going to be doing an offsite in the next week for my health coaching and wellness business, and working on goal setting for my digital strategy business. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery to think about your goals and dreams.
Speaking about a change of scenery, you may notice that this site got a little bit of a facelift this week. While prioritizing my dreams for next year, I realized that I want to spend some of my time building affordable starter websites for small businesses and entrepreneurs. I was feeling a little ashamed at how long it’s been since I gave either The Second Lunch or samtackeff.com a facelift – sometimes when you put others first, you forget to take care of yourself!
No longer! Both sites now have a cleaner, streamlined look, and I’ll continue tweaking over the next couple of weeks until I feel like I’m in a good place. In the mean time, if you know anyone who would like a basic website, feel free to give me a shout! sam at thesecondlunch dot com.
November. Yes, it’s here! And so begins my usual foolhardy pursuit during the month of November – known as NaBloPoMo, a terrible acronym that announces my intent to blog every day of the month. Some of these posts will be brief, others longer. We start, as I usually do, with food.
Specifically, my cart tonight at Trader Joe’s.
A few notes on this cart, which contains some of my favorites:
sardines in olive oil – I eat these at least once a week. Sometimes as sardine salad. Sometimes mashed with some avocado. Occasionally with some balsamic. They are also my dog’s favorite snack.
shredded brussels sprouts – these are my all purpose fall greens – I usually cook them with the pancetta cubes – and some chicken thighs.
flowers – I buy myself some every week. During the summer I got to pick some gorgeous bouquets as part of my farm share, but alas, winter is nearly here, and I must make due with store bought.
Belgian chocolate pudding – what can I say about this? It’s thick, rich, and you are satisfied with a small amount. I don’t do dessert every day, but this is nice to have in the fridge in a pinch, if I need to satisfy my chocolate fix.
organic chicken thighs – this is one of my most consistent purchases from Trader Joe’s – one of the only meat purchases I make outside of my meat CSA. I don’t do breasts – thighs for life!
ezekiel bread – made from sprouted grains. We actually rarely have any bread products in our house, but I’ve been craving avocado toast.
I also have some almond milk for blended drinks, fennel, dill, and pork tenderloin to test a few recipes this week.
It seems that August got away from me. It was a whirlwind month, and now that we’re square in the last days of summer, I’m doing everything I can to savor the moments before winter is here in New England. (I kid… although… if we get snow next month, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.)
Last night, I did one of my favorite rituals: heading to the Wellesley Booksmith to pick up a new August to August day planner, which spans, as the title suggests, from August to August, following roughly the academic year, rather than the calendar year. No matter that it’s been close to a decade since I graduated college, the August to August is a favorite tradition, even though I’ve switched to digital for the actual planning and calendar. Instead, I use the notebook for two things – a one sentence kitchen diary, and a few bullets every night as my gratitude journal. It’s a nice way to reflect on the day and good things in my life.
Last night, I was thankful for:
some new book purchases (Brené Brown‘s Rising Strong, David Lagergrantz‘s Lisbeth Salander The Girl in the Spider’s Web – not sure if that counts as fan fic even though it’s technically authorized, and Laila Lalami‘s The Moor’s Account – I’m working through the Man Booker list again this year.)
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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