Happy Sunday, all! I hope you had nice weekends. Mine has flown by with reading and writing for school, as well as client work.

I’m sure this sentiment will change a little as my semester continues, but I have to admit that no amount of school reading feels like too much right now. After so many years of problem sets and computations, it’s a joy to be dwelling in words again, and the fact that I’m interested in the material only enhances my enjoyment.

Speaking of reading, here are some noteworthy food and article links from the past week!

I bookmarked this Israeli couscous recipe because it’s such a cool marriage of flavors: sweet potato, burnt citrus, garlic, cumin, parsley, and mint. It wouldn’t occur to me to put them all together, but I have no doubt that the end result is bright and bold and really delicious.

I can always count or Robin Robertson for easy, fast, nutritious dinner recipes; Quick Fix Vegan and One Dish Vegan are both favorite cookbooks in my home, and I’m looking forward to the release (this October!) of Cook the Pantry. These ingenious artichoke artichoke muffaleta po’ boys hail from the new collection. All I can say is that if every recipe in the book is this enticing, it’ll be hard to choose among them!

A simple, nourishing, and beautiful brown rice salad with smoked tofu and peanut dressing from Harriet Emily.

I love the idea of turning tabouli into tacos. Tahini garlic dressing makes it all the more flavorful! This one is courtesy of my friends at Food52. Try using my herbed cashew cheese in place of the feta, or just omit the feta altogether.

Time for dessert. Sarah of Well & Full has created two gorgeous, raw vegan cheesecakes (one vanilla, one chocolate), and I am oh-so-inspired by both of them. But what I love most about the post, honestly, is her sweet birthday tribute to her boyfriend, and the feelings she expresses about him and how his presence enriches her life. It reminds me greatly of how I feel about Steven.

Reads

1. From Orion Magazine, an interesting examination of controversies surrounding the effectiveness of mammograms in breast cancer detection/prevention.

2. New research suggests that fat cells actually feel stress–which is to say that, in response to detection of stress hormones like cortisol, fat deposits are sometimes broken down. Circulation of free fatty acids can trigger more stress hormones, which can in turn encourage fat retention. In other words, a cycle. Read about the findings here.

3. An incredible portrait of Parkersburg, West Virginia, and the havoc that the DuPont corporation’s use of the toxic chemical C8 wreaked on its inhabitants.

4. In more uplifting news, I love this story from Melbourne: city officials assigned the trees ID numbers and email addresses in 2013 as part of a program that was designed to make it easier for citizens to report potential hazards, like dangerous branches. People did much more than use the email for reports: they also wrote personal messages to the trees. Here are just two examples:

To: Algerian Oak, Tree ID 1032705

2 February 2015

Dear Algerian oak,

Thank you for giving us oxygen.

Thank you for being so pretty.

I don’t know where I’d be without you to extract my carbon dioxide. (I would probably be in heaven) Stay strong, stand tall amongst the crowd.

You are the gift that keeps on giving.

We were going to speak about wildlife but don’t have enough time and have other priorities unfortunately.

Hopefully one day our environment will be our priority.

To: Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 1022165  

29 May 2015

Dear Green Leaf Elm,

I hope you like living at St. Mary’s. Most of the time I like it too. I have exams coming up and I should be busy studying. You do not have exams because you are a tree. I don’t think that there is much more to talk about as we don’t have a lot in common, you being a tree and such. But I’m glad we’re in this together.

Cheers,
F

Read the article if your spirits are in need of a lift (or even if they aren’t!).

5. Once when I was younger, a teacher and mentor predicted that my tendency to organize life into a narrative would be both a gift and an Achilles heel. I know what he meant, though I’d argue that almost everyone tends to organize life into a narrative arc. This article in The Atlantic agrees, and it’s a fascinating glimpse into how narrative building and story creation can both help us and hurt us.

And that’s the story for this Sunday! Enjoy the reads, and I look forward to checking in again tomorrow. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out Alison’s lovely green recovery story, which I posted on Friday in case you missed it. Also, a reminder that my Gunas vegan handbag giveaway ends in 4 days, so if you haven’t yet entered, now is the time.

xo