One of my ongoing projects is an effort to slowly, but steadily, ensure that older recipes on this blog are kept healthy.

This means that I periodically revisit old posts, re-test the recipes, and make sure that they work as intended. I double check measurements, read over my instructions to see if they make sense, and spruce up the recipe card so that everything is clear.

Some people have old journals or diaries that serve as records of their personal histories. I have recipes. Revisiting them is a sweet and surprisingly apt metaphor for growth.

I’ve found recipes that don’t work, plain and simple. Maybe I transcribed them incorrectly at the time, or maybe they happened to work for me once, but the success was a fluke.

I always update and correct these recipes, so that my readers won’t have to deal with recipe malfunctions.

The lesson: embrace any clear-cut opportunity to right a wrong, or to fix a past mistake. Those chances don’t come around all the time.

Some recipes still work from a technical perspective, but I just don’t like them anymore.

There are lots of these. I’ve become a stronger recipe developer with time, and also, I had a ton of internalized orthorexia when I started writing this blog. Many of my early recipes excluded ingredients that are integral to my cooking now. I liked—or I allowed myself to like—fewer things.

When I come across old recipes that still work, but which reflect dietary rigidity that I’ve outgrown, I don’t hesitate to update them.

The lesson: it’s OK to course correct, or to take a different direction entirely. We’re allowed to change.

Occasionally, there’s a recipe that I’d approach differently if I were to create it all over again. Yet when I look back on reader comments, it’s clear that many others love the recipe exactly the way it is.

In those cases, I leave the recipe alone. The lesson: let it go.

There are many decisions, big and small, that I’d change if given the chance. But I can’t always change them, at least not without dismantling the present.

I tend to forget that who I am today is the direct result of my perceived mistakes, along with the choices I approve of.

Sometimes the best way forward isn’t to revise or correct, but rather, to accept and move on. There may even be silver linings or hidden blessings in making peace with the past, rather than trying to alter it.

Learning that somebody out there still loves and benefits from a recipe that I’ve become critical of is a good reminder of this.

Finally, there are recipes that I stumble upon in my archives, sometimes more than a decade after I originally made them. I give them a try, curious to see if they still work, and fall in love with them all over again.

This has happened just recently with my cream of celeriac and fennel soup and gingery roasted butternut squash rice. How nice to rediscover both dishes years later, and to still enjoy them so much.

The lesson: most everything changes in life, including us. But there are some things, happily, which stay the same.

Wishing you a week of revision and letting things be, change and constancy.

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

Recipes

1. I recently got to the end of Sunday meal prep, only to realize that I had a bag of new potatoes that I’d forgotten to add to a sheet pan recipe. I ended up steaming them and adding vegan butter and salt; they were fine, but they were nothing special. Next time I’ll make Provençal new potatoes.

2. I love celery root, and I love Dan Kluger’s recipes. I can’t wait to make this celery root salad with my homemade vegan mayo.

3. Sneh’s recipe for corn chaat looks so flavorful and delicious.

4. I agree with Suzy that freekeh doesn’t get enough love! It’s one of my favorite grains, and I have some at home right now. I’ll have to try her fresh, easy freekeh salad.

5. 100% making this grilled vegetable platter with chimichurri sauce the next time I have friends over.

Reads

1. There are so many people living with invisible and chronic illnesses who fear workplace disclosure. I was glad to read the testimony of one person whose openness paid off.

2. Very cool to read about bioengineered blood vessels, which could soon be used to treat vascular trauma.

3. Along similar lines, the long quest to create artificial blood.

4. Continuing within the theme, Ben Daitz offers a fascinating window into interdisciplinary work being done to study the the Tsimane, an Indigenous tribe in Bolivia. There is almost no cardiovascular disease among Tsimane people, which seems to reflect a combination of activity, lifestyle, diet, and (surprisingly) adaptation to inflammation from parasitic infections. More than anything, I appreciate Daitz’ interest in community and its intersection with health.

5. My former book editor/current dietitian self was totally engrossed by a literary history of indigestion.

In meal prep news, I’m about to make a batch of my baked pumpkin seed crusted tofu triangles, which definitely fall into the category of old recipes that I’ve recently rediscovered and now can’t stop making. Such a great, basic protein to have around for the week ahead.

I also made a new pasta sauce yesterday that I not only plan to enjoy in the coming week, but also to share with you soon. It’s a keeper.

Finally, I wanted to tell you that, no less than twenty-four hours after writing about the freedom of disavowing perfectionism at work, I found myself crying at my desk on Monday afternoon. There were imminent deadlines and EMS malfunctions, and I felt certain in the moment that I was failing in my new role.

It passed, of course. But it’s worth sharing as funny little testament to how human we all are: wise one day, less wise the next, never not figuring it out as we go.

xo