Weekly Good Things 2024 - Week 36

Good Things, and the Weekly Meal Plan.

Sep 11, 2024

Hello! Hello! Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.

Hello, Hello!

When we last left off, our protagonist was about to take her annual end of summer trip to Texas. Texas? At the end of August? Reader, I can report back that it was just as fabulous as always, and very restorative!

Every year, my best friends converge in Houston for an end of summer hurrah.

There’s always good food, and this year I deeply enjoyed: a boat on Galveston bay, Denise Fennell’s very funny ‘Sisters Irish Catechism’ at Stages (a venue I’d strongly recommend!), enrichment (the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Natural History Museum, and the Houston Zoo – although the Dole Whip wasn’t open and I was sad about that), great food (the Kolache Shoppe for my breakfast and poppy kolaches, Pondicheri, a very good ribeye at Henderson and Kane, and several home cooked feasts including Shakshuka brunch, and a Shrimp Bake!)

If my calculations are correct, I think I’ve been to Texas for something like 19 end of summers in a row. The end cap to my travels was an end of August family dinner in Maine, with about 17 of us!

I’m still squarely in Summer Mode™️, and haven’t eaten nearly enough lobster rolls, but I’m feeling generally fulfilled with Summer 2024 at this point knowing that I’ve gotten to several bodies of water, and spent good time with friends and family.

👋 If you are new here, welcome! I try to fill these newsletters with a little something for everyone. (If you are just here for the food, it’s at the end! Feel free to scroll, I won’t judge!)

Good Things This Week:

I love experiencing cultural frenzy events. I was up late at night ordering my Hobonichi planners when they launched on September 1st (Japan time), through our local paper shop, the Paper Mouse. Hobonichi are absolutely fantastic cult-following paper planners from Japan. I’ve used one every day this year as a commonplace book, so decided to treat myself to a few different sizes for different purposes for 2025! There’s something delightful about the ritual of waiting for a global drop: Except unlike the frenzy for Taylor Swift tickets, the only stakes here are getting one of *many* delightful designs.
Fall Novelty Food Season. It’s still summer, but I unabashedly love pumpkin and maple season at Trader Joes. The maple butter launched again after a year without! I’m still annoyed that they no longer carry my favorite check out indulgence, maple sugar candy.
Distances getting noticeably shorter over time. I was heading for a run while in Maine, and opted to head into town, and then up the Marginal Way, estimating the distance at about 5 miles there and back, based on my childhood memories of walking into town (always a major production!), and walking the Marginal Way (which felt like a JOURNEY). I was surprised to find the trip to be a *much* shorter down and back than estimated, and have been marveling about how different our perspectives can change over time. It got me thinking:

What are other things in my life that would benefit from a re-assessment and re-think? What truths am I holding on to that aren’t accurate?

*There’s a great Adam Grant book on this topic that I’d recommend: Think Again.

Slow Drip Gardening

One of my lazy over-wintered in the pot dahlias has bloomed! I had every intention to clean and save tubers, but instead I pulled the pots into my entryway and hoped for the best!
Shout out to my neighbor who pro-actively offered to water my plants while I was away in Texas. (While bringing what appeared to be a five pound bag of Five Guys to his pregnant wife. Good man.)
I’m looking forward to this week’s upcoming Dahlia Share from Five Fork Farms! (Because I wasn’t going to leave my floral enjoyment up to my own gardening skills.)

More Good Things:

📖 Reading: In my “Year of Sanderson” I just finished Tress of the Emerald Sea, which I’d recommend as a witty standalone novel as a good taste of Sanderson! I finished Dr. Casey Mean’s Good Energy, which I’d recommend to someone who nerds out about optimizing, but I found to have some out there ideas. (I couldn’t get over the offhanded comment about rehoming your animal if they aren’t letting you sleep.) Working my way slowly through: William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, and David Burns’ ‘The Feeling Good Handbook’. ‘This is your Brain On Music’ by Daniel Levitin. Dan Carlin’s ‘The End is Always Near’ from my neighbor. (The opening few chapters are WILD having been released a few months pre-pandemic.)
🎧 Listen: I’ve been slowly working my way through Tim Ferriss’ episode with Noah Kagan (would recommend!) And I’ve been enjoying RadioLab the past few weeks, and particularly found the episode Uneasy as ABC, about the creation of the ABC method for medical triage to be fascinating!
🩺 Health: With a family history of cancer and unfortunate early death, I take my preventative healthcare seriously! In August I did my full blood workup, including some fascinating panels from Boston Heart Diagnostics through my PCP. Mostly good results, but always find some things I can optimize with good food! (And a little more sunshine. Low on Vitamin D even at the end of the summer, yeesh!) // Flu and Covid Vaxx // I also did a manicure and pedicure over the weekend, as part of my efforts to reduce picking at my hands, and as a reward for a summer of good running!

🐶 Connecting with Friends: I’m thrilled for my friend Lisa who started grad school last week after a long career so far in television production. I’m looking forward to nerding out over her syllabi, and maybe book clubbing some of her media studies reading! I did a walk and talk with two friends who live in Colorado (Alexann) and Seattle (JC) respectively. My weekly retro with Rebeqa after a month long hiatus!

✅ Tackle a Nagging Task: Just getting started researching pet insurance because Nationwide is closing their pet insurance business. (I wish this was *not* a task I had to do, and doubly thankful for pre-exsiting condition protection for human insurance!)
🛍️ Good Acquisitions: I ended up with two Summersalt bathing suits that are pretty darn perfect. // Tortillas at Central Market for the freezer // My first pair of Crocs (they are gold, ridiculous, and look like Birkenstocks) // Koy Pistachio Spread
📺 Watching: I finished watching Deadloch this weekend, and really loved the 8 episode show (Amazon Prime). Based in Tasmania, it’s a dark comedy with two polar opposite lady-cops solving a series of brutal murders in a small town.
🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: I’m going to go on a quest this afternoon to find myself an Oreo Coke Zero, based on this review. // I can’t stop watching videos of the Sexy Death Eaters at Universal? I feel like this is every theater kid’s dream role.

Grilling Hot Dogs in Maine (after the professional did the salmon)

The Weekly Meal Plan:

Why do I do this? I’ll note, my meal plans tend to be more of a directional support for me than what I actually end up eating in my week. (I think a lot of people who do meal planning feel obligated to actually eat the things they come with rather than just using as a placeholder/inspiration. I do not feel so constricted.)

🍒 Good Eats from this Past Week:

A chirashi bowl from Mariuchi
Pork tenderloin with smoked maple mustard from Au Pied Du Cochon
Chicken with artichoke, spinach, lemon, and yogurt
My aunt made Ina Garten’s sausage rolls in puff pastry (a hit)
One of my favorite combos: chicken, broccoli, blue cheese, and balsamic
Cottage cheese is back in the rotation? I’m not sure why it left! (I like Trader Joe’s pink container, or Good Culture)
A Starbucks cake pop.
Kazandibi, a Turkish milk pudding

✍️ Every week I spend some time working on my "Let’s Eat” kitchen organization spreadsheet. I’m getting ready for APPLE season and APPLE QUEST with my organized tab of apple varietals. (I’m tempted to put up an apple review site, but I’ll never top this slightly unhinged one.)

Weekend prep: I ended up at Sevan in Watertown this weekend and “accidentally” ended up with a full basket of goodies. It’s a family run market, and we’ve been going there since I was a kid, and it’s wild to think about. (I also picked up another jar of Koy pistachio paste at Sofra.)

Bean of the week: Rancho Gordo green lima!

Sunday: Smoked maple mustard bluefish, lentil soup
Monday: Mongolian beef, marinated cucumbers, rice
Tuesday: Lima beans with smoked eggplant, garlic, cheese, a chicken cutlet, and marinated cucumbers
Wednesday: Honey mustard chicken, potatoes, endive and baby gem salad
Thursday: Tofu, greens, yogurt, rice
Friday: Cape Cod Pizza Night
Saturday: Out!

Lunch Options: Lamb vindaloo with yogurt. Tinned fish, cucumber salad, lima beans. Miso marinated tofu and cauliflower.

Snacks: Watermelon, strawberries. Yogurt and berries. Cheese sticks. Turkey Chomps. Good Culture Cottage Cheese. Ricotta and fixins.

Treat options: Trader Joe’s Brownie Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches. Apple Tartines. Key Lime Pie. Trader Joe’s S’Mores. (Probably a Trader Joe’s Pumpkin mini sheet cake). BerryLine.

What are you eating this week?

Previous Years:

Something I really enjoy doing is flipping back in my journal or my blog to the week of the year over the past several years. When I write it out in a list like this, it feels like a nice accomplishment!

Observing the data this week: I went to Kusama 7 years ago and waited in line for 5 hours. (In Texas this week we waited about 5 minutes to get into the Infinity Room..)