Good afternoon, all! New York has been graced with the most remarkable weather in the last few days–a spell of dry, cool, blue-skied and sunny days that almost carries the scent of September. I’ve been savoring every second of it, along with a chance to spend some time with Steven and catch up on cooking, recipe testing, and the usual weekend chores. Now I’m perusing some of my favorite blogs for weekend recipe inspiration, and as you’ll see, I’m finding plenty! To begin…

Happy Sunday, everyone. I’ve had a good weekend so far, a combination of rest and work. I purposefully took Friday off from my nutrition clients so that I could spend the weekend catching up on my inbox, decluttering my apartment, downloading syllabi and picking up school books, and doing all of the other things I wanted to do before my new semester began. The decluttering bit ended up being incredibly cathartic–a massive purge of no-longer-useful papers, files, garments, kitchen odds and ends, and even books….

I brought a lot of food writing with me to Prague, including Julia Child’s My Life in France, Molly Wizenburg’s A Homemade Life, and Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking, which I’ve read plenty of times, but could probably revisit indefinitely. I also read Jenni Ferrari-Adler’s essay collection Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, which is a compilation of reflections on cooking for oneself. I’d read excerpts from the book a long time ago, and I was excited to revisit it in the context…

A little while ago, a friend asked for help in a way that really impressed me. She reached out to me and another friend, explaining a difficult situation she was dealing with and simply asking whether we wouldn’t mind checking in on her from time to time in the coming weeks. It was proactive, straightforward, and it put me and our mutual friend in the happy position of being able to do something small and supportive. It’s been my overall experience that people…