Well hello there! A fond dispatch from my couch, where I’m snuggling with my pup, avoiding both shoveling and the outdoor mile that’s going to happen as soon as it stops sleeting. So here I am, taking a moment to pause and reflect on the first few weeks of the year.
2019, so far: there has been hard work, discomfort, challenges, and growth, but also, January has been full of running, reading, writing, watching new films and taking myself on creative dates. I’ve been reading new cookbooks, and cooking with intention. I’ve been actually cooking from my cookbooks, which I must admit is a bit of a new revelation. Normally I read them, absorb, and create something from the ether – admittedly, having someone tell me what to do in the kitchen via their “rules” a.k.a. a recipe – is a lovely change of pace.
My resolutions this year are not grand or particularly audacious – they are simply to continue to do more of the things that I love to do, do more work to discover those things, to continue the habits that give me energy, and reduce the activities that drain me. (I’m looking at you, endless scrolling through my phone.)
Life is complicated, at times challenging. My year so far hasn’t been without these things. But, it’s easy to dwell in negativity, unless you cultivate the habit of focusing on the good things – and that’s just what I do.
To that end, one of my daily activities is practicing gratitude – taking snapshots of my everyday life on my phone, writing out the things that I’m thankful for. Noticing more. Trying, as best as possible to fill my life with little things (and big things) to be thankful for.
That said, it’s no surprise that 60% of the photos of my phone are of my dog.
But the first few weeks of the year I’ve been good to myself, and my hours have been filled with many good things, big and small. Here are some of them.
{Week 1}
I started the year with a 5k race. I’ve run the same race several years in a row, and I love the ritual of lining up at the same starting line, with my new intentions, and a year’s worth of improvement. Last year it was about 13 degrees, this year, closer to 60. I beat the past several years of times, my reward for a year of running a daily mile in 2018.
Inspired by my friend Christina, I started a yearly film project – a spreadsheet where I track the movies I watch, with a goal of 52 (new to me) movies this year. Do you have any suggestions for me? So far, some of the better ones have been Quartet, A Man Called Ove, and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.
Yes, I’ve been watching Marie Kondo. I came across an interesting conversation questioning the choice of translation of “tokimeku” literally (flutter), which is somewhat passive, to it’s permutation for the US audience as “spark joy” (active).
My co-founder Chris gave me an ivy plant of significant provenance. It’s living in our new office space in Springfield at the home of Valley Venture Mentors.
My weekly creative date: I took myself to the Museum of Fine Arts for the final weekend of the Winnie the Pooh exhibit. It was so utterly charming.
Delicious meals:
Duck breast, over frisée and parsley salad with baby potatoes roasted in the duck fat. (Picture up top.)
Delivery: Shan-a-punjab. Butter chicken, garlic naan, masala chai. All of the condiments.
This Instant Potspaghetti and meat sauce recipe. I used Rao’s and it was startlingly delicious.
Alison Roman’s Slow Salmon with Citrus and Herb Salad from Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes. Copious amounts of olive oil, and a winner.
Leftovers: a bowl of quinoa with leftover Slow Salmon, feta, and Trader Joe’s fresh green goddess dressing.
{Week 2}
A dentist appointment. Overcoming fear and dread to take care of those teeth.
Our first week in the new office space!
My creative date: I took myself out to see Spider-Man, Into the Spider-verse. It was excellent, I highly recommend it. My planned dinner at Cava didn’t pan out (the movie got out too late), so I came home and toasted myself a St. Viateur bagel with cheddar on one half, and Soom chocolate tahini on the other.
Reading: “How to break up with your phone” by Catherine Price. I’m not looking to dump the phone all together, but shift to much more mindful usage. This had some pretty good specific tactics.
Delicious meals:
Leftovers: Instant Pot Spaghetti, my favorite Epicurious kale and date salad, and roasted brussels sprouts with lemon tahini dressing.
A food court gyro with rice pilaf and greek salad in Springfield. Surprisingly delicious!
Alison Roman’s Paprika-Rubbed Sheet Pan Chicken with Lemon from Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes. Repurposed for several meals: as is, the next day with autumn harvest sauce. After that with eggs, and olive labne. And then after making a few different meals, I made stock with the carcass, and am still enjoying it.
{Week 3}
I realized that I could set my computer up with Zoom open to watch my dog sit in the window when I’m at the gym.
I let my curls stay curled.
Another great day at the office. A bonus? Huey sitting behind me. Have I mentioned how much I love my Push Journal? I’ve been using these for much of the past year, and am loving my Turquoise (Ompractice colors!) with rose gold spiral binding.
Creative date: I took myself to the MFA to see the Ansel Adams exhibit (do go!) – fully enjoying an hour an a half of trees, the West, up close, and far off. A few things to note: I was completely captivated by some of the other artists’ works they chose to complement the work of Adams. I’ve been entranced by the work of Laura McPhee for over a decade. Her pieces in here were stunning. Also captivating: the works of Abelardo Morell, making captivating art with overlaying these iconic views with images of the ground. And then finally, this bright pink chromeograph by David Benjamin Sherry of dunes. So good. I’ll note, finally, that the instance of the gift shop at the end of this exhibit was possibly one of the most overtly thematic experiences I’ve seen the MFA attempt.. for better or for worse. I restrained myself from purchasing the faux fur fashion vest or sitting in the Adirondack chairs huffing pine candles. (Topped off the evening with a parking space directly in front of Cava for pickup.)
Delicious Meals:
Turkish green beans and zucchini, a love letter to myself from my summer freezer. With feta, yogurt, and soft boiled eggs.
Ribollita from Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Pictured above, in the pot. What a beautiful soup with so many layers of flavor. (I’ve been eating it now for days.)
Jossy’s Chicken Liver Curry from the Leon cookbook. (Pictured below.) I didn’t have enough chicken liver, so I added a can of chickpeas. Shout out to Patak’s tikka masala paste, which I ordered from the internet. It’s a pretty glorious base paste.
A new season is here, and it’s another good reason to download your copy of my seasonal self care bingo, print it out, and play along! Each square has a small activity to add goodness to your life and spend more time on yourself.
✔️Pro-tip: print it out!
I’m reward motivated, but I’ve moved on from giving myself gold stickers to crossing off my boxes with a big fat Sharpie. Something about physically putting a big ‘ole X across each opportunity to do something good for myself is very satisfying. I recommend it.
Snap a shot on IG or Twitter with the hashtag #selfcarebingo, and play along as you cross off those boxes. Bonus points if you cross out every single box – I’d love to see your completed boards! If you finish your board and send me a message, I’ll send you a little gift to further your self care.
I’m back from a week in California, and food is lingering on my mind. This was a quick, intense work trip for my client in San Mateo, sneaking in under the radar (sorry, friends!!) While the focus of my time was very much on the job at hand, I was thankful that many client meals ended up being over good food, and I was able to sneak in a few meals across different parts of the bay.
Beyond the food, the weather was absolutely beautiful, and San Mateo had some great short trails for me to get in both my daily mile and some restorative long walks.
:: Meal Notes ::
My first meal off the plane was brunch at Plow (although depressing, as I went exclusively for the biscuit, which they ran out of while I was waiting in line.) I ordered “the Plow”, and a side of hollandaise. Scrambled eggs, crispy potatoes, a few rashers of Neuske’s bacon, and lemon ricotta pancakes. Next time, there’d better be a biscuit, and I’ll try their BLT if it’s still on the menu.
With the office in San Mateo, I ate several meals in the South Bay, including In Burlingame, where I imbibed an excellent virgin Paloma at Barrelhouse – grapefruit, lime, syrup, salt and seltzer. I’ve been craving citrus and it didn’t disappoint. Dinner at Limon Rotisserie: rotisserie chicken, Lomo Saltado, a ceviche trio – pulpo camaron, pescado, and camarones, yuca fries and tacu tacu (rice and beans).
There was a disappointing visit to Draeger’s (I remember it being more exciting?) where we stocked up on salad material, in contrast to a fulfilling one at Rainbow later in the week,where picked up some date balls, black tahini, a cashew chocolate caramel, and a glorious grapefruit. Meals at home included summer salads with chicken sausage on the grill, fresh parsley, mint, avocado and blue cheese. In California fashion, we also stocked up on good coffee, goat yogurt, raw sauerkraut, and a box of Its’-Its. One of my compatriots acquired a $25 bottle of mango cream coconut yogurt from the coconut cult – I won’t lie, it was delicious and I’d probably get another.
Admittedly while I love my morning Nespresso these days, the thing I was looking most forward to was my coffee routine at Philz. Usually an iced Tesora, either black or with a splash of cream before heading back to the office. They have a new mobile ordering system through their app which makes ordering reasonable. (Otherwise you don’t go to Philz in the morning if you don’t have time to kill…)
Mid-week office lunches included:
The Egg and Okra curry and tea leaf salad at Best of Burma. We don’t really have great Burmese food in the Boston area. (Nor Nepalese, or Filipino, a few more of my favorite cuisines living in SF.)
At one point, I rolled into the office with $200 dollars worth of tacos from Los Primos – barbacoa, al pastor, camarones, veggie, pescado, chicken, a few stuffed quesadillas, and a large container of refried beans. I ended up eating leftovers for a few days.
For an office happy hour we headed at Attic, with perfect crispy and salty sweet potato fries, lumpia cigarillos (double the length of normal lumpia), brussels sprouts with bonito flakes, oysters, and deviled eggs. I ordered a virgin “Calamansake” with soda water, muddled ginger, calamansi syrup and lime juice which hit the spot.
I organized an outing to Takahashi Market, an asian and Hawaiian market that has been open since 1906 (four generations!) where I picked up kalua pork with cabbage, spicy spam musubi, haupia, and a lilikoi cheesecake. (The cheesecake was saved for the following evening after a late night out.) I was given a large cardboard box to tote back my haul.
Most mornings I woke early, made a cup of coffee, pulled out my notebook, wrote and planned the day hours before going for a run and then heading into the office. This was the view. That astroturf was actually soft and stayed clean – by the end of the week I was praising them for their brilliance.
My walks were equally as beautiful in the morning and the evening, and my running route had me going past a dog park every day.
On Tuesday I made it into the city for a dinner at Hawker Fare which exceed expectations given the mixed reviews of friends. I had Thai iced tea, blistered green beans, crispy rice ball salad, pork laab, sticky rice, barbecue chicken (gai yang). Kat ordered a cocktail in a cat cup, and it came with an umbrella. Behold the fabulousness.
Before the evening was over, we hopped in a Lyft to head for dessert: a scoop of olive oil rhubarb ice cream at Humphrey Slocombe, including a nostalgic celebrity sighting (BD Wong). While I was looking forward to a scoop of Secret Breakfast, I have to admit I found most of the flavors much sweeter than I remembered after so many years.
On Thursday, we had an excellent dinner at Foreign Cinema – starting with my first cocktail of my week – the Felicity – Hennessey VSOP, passionfruit liqueur, dry amaretto, fleur de sea, lemon and lime juice. I couldn’t resist. Kat, one of my dining partners who is also a stylist, gave me a side part, and a dark lip, which managed to stay perfectly through an entire evening of food and drink. I think I’ll keep it up.
For dinner: the lavender baked goat cheese; the plancha with calamari, clams, and mole rojo; Ceviche; pasta with corn; the sesame fried chicken; and a steak with corn and peppers. Dessert was similarly blissful – a chocolate pot with a thumbprint cookie; and the standout – rose meringue with cherries, sorbet, vanilla almond cream. The film was Splash, but regretfully I was sitting right under the big screen, and my only comfortable view was that of the rest of the diners.
To extend the evening – we headed to the Make Out Room, where the DJ was playing a mix of Cumbia and early 00’s favorites – enjoyable until someone came up to us to ask if we were having “mom’s night out” (Who says that as a pick up line?? Also, so what if we were??), at which point he was escorted out of our eye-roll zone, and a round of tequila was ordered for the group. Our evening progressed – five minutes in a completely empty Double Dutch, and then wrapping up the night over quiet conversation at Casanova.
The next day: a plate of pasta with spring vegetables and tomato cream sauce at Merchant Roots (very good!), as well as a slice of warm carrot sandwich. I headed over to the Rothy’s show room to try on a multitude of sizes, but alas, determined that none were a perfect fit.
For my parting dinner, I had a reservation at Boulevard. I’d never been, despite long admiring Nancy Oakes, and so many of the accomplished chefs that have come up in this kitchen. We shared Spanish octopus; Sea Scallops, and a plate of salad with burrata. We shared the pork chop (the meat was perfect), and a steak; dessert was a peach tart and the summer berry buckle. My observation: classic, California, nothing flashy, just all executed well and the taste of the season.
For my final morning, work people all packed up and headed their separate ways to the airport, and I had the house and the trails to myself for a final few hours.
Before heading home, I made one completely out of the way trip I couldn’t miss: I packed my bags, and took a Lyft from San Mateo to Berkeley for one last perfect bite.
Finally, two slices of always delicious Cheeseboard pizza, and a salad with yogurt and mint dressing. A last iced mocha Tesora at Philz, and then despite giving myself well over an hour to commute back to the airport, I barely made the airplane, arriving nearly 25 minutes after the plane had started boarding. I made it on the flight, waved out the window, and spent the trip listening to my audiobook. So long, Bay Area, I’ll be back before you know it.
Huzzah! It’s that time of year again when my planning and organizing itch goes into hyperdrive. While I’m not really a “New Years Resolutions” devotee, I AM a goal oriented person all year long – I set a variety of long and short term goals in all parts of my life. No, I’m not some sort of goal-setting superhero, without them I’m an aimless, wandering, grump, prone to the gravity field of my couch. It’s for the best for all of us.
The only real resolutions I DO set are my kitchen resolutions – my re-commitments to spending more time doing the things I love:cooking, reading about food, talking about food, and eating…. all the food.
In 2017, my word for the year was “Share”. I had lofty goals for sharing my thoughts, dreams, and meals. But all in all, 2017 ended up being not much of a food year for me – I think it was a particularly difficult year for a lot of us. Surprisingly few kitchen projects, limited dinners out (probably for the best), and fewer cookbooks read than in probably any year of the past decade.
So, in 2018 the word for the year is “Finish” which is a good reminder to finish some of last year’s kitchen resolutions that I didn’t quite end up following through with… see what I did there? I also have a renewed sense of optimism about the future. I’m working on some amazing projects, with excellent people, traveling more, and being more organized with my culinary pursuits.
my weekly meal planning process – I did generally well with this, but this year I have a spiffy updated spreadsheet and process to keep me planning and updating on a regular basis.
bucket list restaurants – in the short term, I’d like to eat my way through Boston’s Eater 38. Still quite a few amazing restaurants in my backyard that I haven’t made the effort to try. I actually ended up going to a few bucket list restaurants in San Francisco that I tragically had missed out on while living there: finally made it to Zuni Cafe!
100(0) fruits, nuts, and seed to try – here’s my list; quite a few of these I’ve definitely eaten (but can’t actually remember eating…. hello aging) so I’ve left them on my master list to actually re-try for the record.
I didn’t end up doing much in terms of “challenging cooking” this year, but I’d like to spend some more time doing projects in my kitchen.
While I didn’t hit my goal, I do like the idea of following through with cooking from one of my already owned cookbooks a month. I’m joining a little in-person cookbook club to help do that!
What other kitchen resolutions are on the docket for 2018?
I’d like to cook a weekly Turkish dinner – I’ve been thinking about writing a Turkish cookbook for well over a decade, so this is some measured effort to that end. But the more important impetus is to eat more of the food I grew up with, the stuff that brings me comfort and joy. Also, Turkish home cooking is pretty much all the food I WANT to be eating most of the time: healthy, loads of vegetables, lots of lamb, and all the spices. Also, pudding.
I try meal kits so you don’t have to – although I cook 90+ percent of my meals at home, I’m still smitten with the idea of an occasional meal kit to outsource all of the planning and shopping. I’ve tried Blue Apron, Purple Carrot, Home Chef, Sakara, and Hello Fresh, and I’m looking for any and all good recommendations (and free weeks if you have ’em!)
Deal with the (expletive redacted) lids to all of my containers – let’s face it, I’ve never seen a perfect solution to the container lid situation. But chance are there are better solutions than my current on (shoved in the top of one of my Raskog kitchen wheelies.
Minimize the amount of stuff on the counter in my kitchen – I generally like access to “all the things” in my kitchen. That doesn’t mean that they have to all be on the counters everywhere.
Improve the light situation and the art in my kitchen – my last few kitchens have been a little bit sad in both lighting and cheer. (And frankly, warmth, but that’s another issue.) Until I have my dream kitchen, I can’t make sweeping changing, but I can do some incremental steps to making the kitchen a better place. New lightbulbs and art it is!
I am a voracious reader. One of my favorite ways to transition to a new season is to making myself a list of great books to read. I see it as a personal syllabus – you are what you read (and subsequently act upon). The syllabus in itself is a great art – What do I want to learn? Who is the best person to teach it to me? Whose words will inspire me to act? I usually sit down with a list of topics that I’d like to delve into, and take great pleasure in searching for the perfect book to add. I’ll take a second look over my list to make sure that I have representation by women and POC’s.
Here’s what is on my list in the coming months. A few are re-reads related to projects I’m working on, another note is that I don’t typically list out my cookbooks, and I read dozens of them a season. I typically use this as a starting point for requesting books from the library, and usually manage to squeeze in a handful of last minute un-planned reads as well. After each read, I spend just a little bit of time debriefing: writing out my takeaways, and acknowledging the things that resonated and piqued my curiosity.
Yes, it’s Wednesday afternoon. Yes, I try to make a meal plan over the weekend. Yes, I try to batch cook over the weekend. Sometimes… even with best intentions, my planning fails me. Sometimes, life happens, and you just can’t stomach sticking to what you’ve planned. Here’s what I remind myself every time my systems fail me and I feel a tinge of frustration – fail to plan, plan to fail. My personal goal is always to focus on creating sustainable systems and habits.
Sometimes those plans fail me, but the reality is that they fail far less often than when I don’t stick to any system at all.
This week I wrote my meals out on a scrap of paper, forgot to transfer them to my Evernote, and I’ve already opted for Trader Joe’s convenience food and a burrito. Last week at least I deviated from plan by doing a lot of spiralizing (like that zucchini with peas and pesto you see up top). So now it’s back to the grind to feed myself well.
We ended up having quite a long week with the pup under the weather, but he’s nearly 100% back to his own self after a nasty bout with Giardia. Yup, that’s the parasite that you filter and treat your water for when hiking. He’s feeling a lot better now and begging for treats again like a normal batpig. I on the other hand, am suffering from a bit of a summer cold. Wish me better!
One thing that I’m doing different for the second half of the week (to course correct) is spending an hour batch cooking on Wednesday evening to make our meals for the next few nights. Our CSA share starts on Friday, and so space in the fridge is at a premium, and I have a backlog of Blue Apron meals to cook.
:: The Weekly Meal Plan: Week of June 6th, 2016 ::
This week’s prep: cook chicken sausage, hardboil eggs, and defrost and cook another piece of meat from my meat CSA. We didn’t do any grilling this week because we were on nursing duty with the pup, but now that he’s feeling a lot better we’ll spend more time outside. I still need to head out and refill the propane tank for the grill.
Wednesday: steakhouse salmon with potatoes, green beans, and mushrooms. Every other Wednesday I have one of my business mastermind groups meet, so I try to make the meal healthy and efficient, and eat some sort of brain food to celebrate women getting things done. Salmon always fits the bill.
Thursday: seared pork chops and fig compote with sautéed kale and farro salad. I’m always a fan of a pork chop. Which reminds me that I’d like to re-season my cast iron this week.
Friday: miso-glazed chicken wings with purple rice and zucchini salad. I’m not the biggest fan of wings, but these came in the Blue Apron box and I do love miso on chicken. (Also, they are mini drumsticks which makes life better.)
Saturday: lobster rolls. I have a race on Saturday, and I’m going to want to reward myself. Given that I’m a New Englander, that means lobster rolls.
Sunday: beef arepas with pickled onion, avocado, and radishes.
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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