Weekend Reading
December 22, 2024

Last weekend, I reflected gratefully on an overdue visit with friends upstate. Sometimes we don’t realize how much we miss a person until there’s a reunion.

This past week, I had another encounter that made me give thanks for adult friendship.

I’d been telling a close friend about something difficult that I was going through. She listened supportively, and then she noted that she may have to navigate something similar at some point in the nearish future.

I told her that I’d be here to listen, just as she’s listened to me, and to remind her that she’ll get through it.

“Literally what friends are for,” she said. It wasn’t meant as a grand proclamation, but in the moment it felt like an important insight.

I told a therapist years ago that the bright side of getting through a period of depression is that you discover than you can. You can survive it; you can ultimately feel like yourself again.

If depression returns, which we all hope it won’t, we at least have the perspective of having pulled through it once before. We can tell ourselves that it gets better, sooner or later, somehow.

This kind of assurance and invitation to stay hopeful doesn’t have to come from us. If we trust a friend enough, then we can believe them when they offer us the same kind of encouragement. We can take faith in their perspective and the fact that they made it through the thing we’re going through now.

It’s a holiday week, and many of us have been thinking about gifts: making them, shipping them, running around in search of them at the very last minute (it me).

Sometimes the most profound gift of all is hearing something along the lines of, “I know it doesn’t feel this way now, but it’s going to be OK,” from someone who’s been there and knows. And loves us enough to say so.

I’m wishing you the presence of such a someone the next time you navigate something hard. And if that someone is you, then that’s good reassurance, too.

Happy Sunday, friends. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

1. The ultimate festive, savory vegan bread.

2. I’ve been on a smashed and baked vegetable kick this year (see: broccoli and potatoes), so I’m curious about Francesca’s smashed and breaded Brussels sprouts.

3. I love a warm mushroom salad.

4. I could probably eat this simple fennel salad with lemon every day in the wintertime.

5. This past week, I wrote about the fun and reward of a vegan holiday recipe that’s truly a worthy centerpiece. My homemade centerpiece this year is vegan Wellington with roasted carrots. But this vegan pithivier could give it a run for its money.

Reads

1. I loved longterm care during my dietetic internship, and older adult nutrition remains one of the main focuses of my private practice. For those who are curious about how nutrition needs shift in older adulthood, this article gives a good overview.

2. The New Yorker‘s analysis of Carrie Lane’s book, More Than Pretty Boxes, gave me a lot to think about.

3. A reminder that extreme diets—those that are difficult-to-maintain, very low-calorie, or which demand the drastic reduction of a macronutrient group—are associated with risks and dangers.

4. There’s understandable allure in taking supplements that promise better skin and hair—and plenty of people trying to profit from them. But the actual evidence in favor of most of these products is slim.

5. This excerpt from Nigel Slater’s The Christmas Chronicles makes me want to read the book in its entirety. I also love “the crackle of winter” and agree that “winter food is about both celebration and survival.” It’s my favorite thing about cooking at this time of year.

Lentil and Sweet Potato Loaf | The Full Helping

The past week was nonstop, and I had a head cold that I couldn’t slow down to take care of, so I feel as though I’m careening into Christmas Eve.

Even so, I’m excited for the holiday and glad that I’ll be seeing some friends and spending time offline this week.

I’m planning to make my lentil sweet potato loaf, cozy vegan cauliflower gratin, and no-cook silken tofu chocolate pudding.

And believe it or not, I’m still working on my “shop the pantry” project. Recently I found a box of wheat berries in there. The discovery resulted in a festive and delicious winter wheat berry salad, plus a versatile apple cider vinaigrette to go with it, and they’ll be the next recipes coming down the blog pipeline.

Till then, wishing you warmth, coziness, and tidings of good cheer.

xo

 

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