Last weekend, inspired by Julia Turshen’s wonderful cookbook, I spent some time meditating on the idea of small victories. The theme has stayed on my mind this week, as I reflect on how much my approach to cooking seems to have changed in the last six months or so. “Adventurous” has never been a word that I’d use to describe my own cooking. Indeed, the word that I’d use to define my very early cooking efforts–which are chronicled in the archives of this…

Happy Sunday. After a week of weird, warm, soupy weather in New York, it has been a perfect fall weekend. Even the rain yesterday was perfect in its own way: a perfect excuse, anyway, for making hot chocolate, reading, and turning inward. My reading material has been Julia Turshen’s new book, Small Victories, which is as warm and personable and practical as everyone says it is. It is far from vegan, which in my opinion is OK because the book is far more focused…

Happy Sunday, and thanks for welcoming Elizabeth’s brave and open Green Recovery Story to the blog this past week. I so appreciate the comments and supportive words, and I’m sure that Elizabeth does as well. It’s been an interesting week. It began with an unexpected obstacle–something I didn’t see coming, or didn’t quite accept as it came. It has been a long time since I handled curveballs with grace. For me, struggling with anxiety means having to work very hard in order to access feelings…

“When you don’t know what to do or how to move forward, stand still.” This is a piece of advice that my mother gave me during my post-bacc years. That time in my life was marked by a lot of indecision and agonized choices–most often, the choice of whether or not to keep going with my program for another semester or not. I’d receive yet another poor score or a discouraging comment or simply be hit with a spell of burnout, and I’d doubt what…

“When you don’t know what to do or how to move forward, stand still.” This is a piece of advice that my mother gave me during my post-bacc years. That time in my life was marked by a lot of indecision and agonized choices–most often, the choice of whether or not to keep going with my program for another semester or not. I’d receive yet another poor score or a discouraging comment or simply be hit with a spell of burnout, and I’d doubt what…

For a long time, I thought of myself as someone who thrived off of being busy, very busy. At the least, I knew that I tended toward being hyper-productive, which felt sort of like the same thing. When I look back now on my post-bacc years, or my last two years at FSG, when I was working full days, taking pre-req classes at night, and blogging into the wee hours, I’m not sure how I got it all done. Surely being busy must have come…