It’s been a lovely couple days of taking my own advice.

In Friday’s post—the responses to which I’m so grateful for—I mentioned the importance of learning how to relax, and then practicing relaxation whenever possible. Last weekend, I wrote about not trying too hard all the time. Or, in the words of one of my yoga teachers: when it can be easy, let it be easy.

So that’s what I’ve been up to since my birthday: doing a whole lot of nothing. No getting ahead on schoolwork, no batch cooking, and almost no screen time. It feels great. And, in order to preserve this feeling until tomorrow morning, when it needs to end, I’m going to keep today’s post short. I’ll only say that, in the week ahead, I wish each of you at least one or two moments of true stillness. It is priceless stuff, as I’ve just been softly and sleepily reminded.

Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

I absolutely love raw fennel, and I can’t wait to try Ali’s shaved fennel salad with avocado and lemon (adapted from Stacy Adimando’s Piatti).

It’s always nice to have a new recipe for oven fries. Traci’s look so crispy!

This chipotle kale salad is the perfect, hearty dinner salad for summer.

In honor of a birthday week, double dessert! First, I love Britt’s chocolatey, peanut buttery spin on banana soft serve.

And speaking of birthdays, this week I found out that my friend Brandi and I share birthday weeks. Somehow it feels like no surprise; we connected quickly and strongly as friends through our blogs, and our virtual friendship feels much more like an “IRL” one sometimes. I adore her, and I adore her food.

For her own birthday, Brandi made these scrumptious chocolate cupcakes. I was more in the mood to veg out than to bake this past weekend, but I’ll be making these for myself as a belated bday treat for sure.

Reads

1. First, a new study shows eating chicken may have a similar effect on LDL cholesterol as red meat. Notably, the study was conducted with white meat, not dark.

2. NBC reports on the harmful impact that diet supplements—namely, those marketed for weight loss or muscle building—can have on teenagers.

3. How cool! A bill passed on Monday by the New York state Senate and Assembly requires hospitals and nursing homes to give patients the option of vegan meals at no extra cost.

4. A really important clarification from RDN Tamara Duker Freuman on “anti-nutrients” (and why you shouldn’t avoid the many healthful, plant-based foods that contain them).

5. Finally, words from another RDN whom I admire greatly. Ellie Krieger weighs in on food language that makes dietitians cringe—specifically, loaded terminology that implies good/bad and clean/dirty dichotomies.

Speaking of awesome RDs, I was recently lucky enough to appear on Liz Weiss’ podcast, chatting about balanced vegan nutrition, my favorite weeknight meals, and cookbook writing. You can check out the interview here, and you can also enter to win a free copy of Power Plates in her accompanying blog post! It was a fun conversation.

On Friday, a reader left a lovely comment offering a supplementary option to practicing gratitude, which is to practice seeking out something beautiful every day. According to her,

…It can be beautiful visually (something in nature, something architectural, someone beautiful I see walking down the street, a gorgeous animal) or it can be beautiful to my other senses (something that smells nice, or tastes nice, or sounds or even feels nice). Or it can be beautiful in an emotional or a mental way (a wonderful book, a phrase or a saying that resonates with me, something someone says).

I find that no matter how I have struggled for the day (and I often do struggle), as long as I can hunt out that beautiful thing, it gives me a moment that is pivotal for the day; it gives me sustenance; it gives me something to look back on at the end of the day; it gives me, simply, the ability to go on.

For me, these words themselves were that beautiful thing my reader was speaking about. I have held on to them gratefully in the past few days.

Happy Sunday, all. See you soon.

xo