Happy weekend, all. I want to thank you for taking time to read and consider Emilia’s awesome green recovery story. If you haven’t seen it yet, I do recommend checking it out; it’s incredibly powerful.

I’m still on a holiday recipe kick, so here are some of my additional Thanksgiving ideas: 3 entree ideas, two sumptuous desserts. For more inspiration, you can check out the Thanksgiving recipe roundup post that I compiled earlier this week!

Kristy has veganized a perennial Thanksgiving favorite, green bean casserole with onion ring topping, and the results are marvelous.

Another fabulous Thanksgiving centerpiece option: McKel’s butternut squash, fennel, and apple galette.

This savory mushroom, spinach, and chickpea scramble would be equally good for Thanksgiving dinner or breakfast the day after.

Amy has utterly outdone herself with this raw sweet potato caramel pecan cheesecake.

Finally, I am drooling over Rachel’s spiced apple tart.

Reads

1. Disturbing, but pretty groovy looking: NASA has created a visualization to show CO2 clouds swirling about earth.

2. A totally charming profile of Tofurky, in honor of its 20th anniversary. I honored the company myself a week ago!

3. A good article about milk, via The New York Times. In spite of the fact that I’m vegan, I don’t claim (as I once upon a time did) that moderate amounts of dairy are necessarily deleterious to health. But I do think that the health benefits of dairy, especially its role as a calcium source, have been vastly exaggerated in this country. This article breaks that phenomenon down nicely, citing incredibly comprehensive studies that suggest, for example, that milk consumption is not associated with decreased risk of hip fracture in women. Other studies have suggested that milk consumption is associated with no protective effect against fractures in men, and that it’s actually associated with an increased risk of fracture in women–not to mention higher mortality rates.

It’s good to see that more and more research is breaking down milk’s time honored reputation as a food that growing kids need desperately for bone health.

4. What does being “well fed” mean to you? In this lovely post, Rachel Cole compiles some womens’ responses to the question, “what is a well fed woman?” I liked all of the responses, but this one was my favorite:

“A well-fed woman is an empowered woman, immersed in self-care and receptive to nourishment from others and the world.”

5. Lovely post on Margarita Tartakovsky’s blog called “Dear Body: A Letter of Apology.” I’ll share a short excerpt:

“You know that I love a challenging workout. I love how empowered I feel after doing many push-ups. It is a reminder that I am strong. Every push-up shatters the stories my brain has spun for years of not being an athlete, of being awkward, of being weak.

You also know that I can get carried away. Feeling the dumbbells in my hands, the music pumping through my body, I start to feel invincible. Feeling the heaviness of my breath, my feet meeting the pavement, I feel energized, awake…

And so I push you. I push you hard. One more set. One more rep. One more step…

Body, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for ignoring your gentle whispers, for beating you up. I’m sorry for neglecting your needs, for pretending you didn’t even have any.

I’m sorry for getting frustrated with you and wishing you’d work harder. I’m sorry for comparing you to others, and measuring your worth by the actions you perform.”

So many of us can relate to this in some way or another. At so many moments during recovery I was struck with an overwhelming, poignant sense of sorriness for my body, a desire to apologize to it. Nice to see another blogger putting it into words so aptly.

On that note, I wish you a lovely Sunday, friends.

xo