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.
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
Welcome back from the holiday weekend, friends! If you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope it was a great one, and if you didn’t, I hope that you’ve had a restful and restorative few days. Here are the weekend reading links I’ve been collecting. You’ll notice that a bunch of them still seem Thanksgiving themed–and why not? No reason to stop feasting. I’ve heard it said that there’s no suitable vegan equivalent for traditional green bean casserole, but that’s absurd–and Cara’s awesome healthy green bean…
I’m sending this weekend reading out into the world from a hectic Sunday, which also happens to be an underslept Sunday. The combination of those two things means that I’m short on words, but last weekend’s post—which wasn’t short on words—did leave me with some follow up thoughts. Two of them aren’t my thoughts. They’re impressions and observations that readers were kind and good enough to share with me. Libby wrote, I don’t know that we are ever finished with anything. We have…
Now that my post-bacc is years behind me (I’m realizing as I write this that I began it in 2010, which is nuts), it’s very easy to tell an elegant story of adversity being channeled into growth, or about the benefits of experiencing rejection. I’ve been aware for a long time that I was probably spared a life that wouldn’t have been right for me when I didn’t get into medical school, but the passage of time has made it easy to forget…
It’s been an unusually hectic week around here, the first in a long time that had me running around without a pause. That kind of pace was much more of a norm for me a few years ago, right before and during my post-bacc, and it’s something I took conscious steps to disentangle myself from when my anxiety got really bad. I’m glad I’ve distanced myself from that particular craziness, but life is life, and chaotic spells are inevitable. I do my best…
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Hi Gena,
I just wanted to tell you that your book is absolutely incredible. I bought it a month ago when I was visiting my boyfriend in the US, and I have been reading and rereading it so many times. & the recipes are so good! I have tried many of them already but I still have so many left to try. Also your blog is such a grat blog. I am in recovery from an ed, and reading your blog helps me. By reading your blog I realize I am not alone, and there is a way out. & I also love your honesty. That is probably what I like the most about you blog.
Heidi, what a phenomenally kind note. Thanks for letting me know you love the book! I am so grateful.
Yours,
Gena <3
Great recipes and thought-provoking articles as usual! I had that NYT article on milk in the pipeline for my weekly roundup and still may post it next week. I thought it was fairly balanced, which was nice because after that meta analysis published in the BMJ I’ve seen a lot of extremism on both sides of the argument. I read the meta analysis and was disappointed by it (especially since it came from my alma mater at the Karolinska Institute). Having worked for the last year on a similar study I know the rigours that should go into it, and I’m astounded that they extrapolated 20 years of data from a single FFQ. Anyways, I don’t think that dairy should be pushed as something that desperately is needed for good health, and nor do I think it should be demonized. Every thing in moderation!
Those excerpts were lovely. The apology to the body is very touching and worth a good thinking. Thanks for sharing. AND that raw cheese cake looks absolutely unfathomably amazing
Thanks Gena–loved the “Dear Body’ excerpt. Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for all the good work you do.
Maria
I am totally digging McKel’s recipe as I am planning a one stop dish, that looks amazing. Thanks for sharing the lovely dear body letter, I know I can relate and it’s a good reminder to be kind to ourselves. Happy Holidays:)
Thanks for sharing Gena! Hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving 🙂
xx McKel
As always, you’re an inspiration, McKel! Happy Thanksgiving 🙂
Great recipes. I’ve got my eye on that apple pie!
I also saw the milk study/research outcome the other day. I’m glad it got some good cover. Now here’s hoping more people give plant-milk a try instead.