Weekly Good Things 2024 - Week 39 + 40
Good Things, and the Weekly Meal Plan.
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.
Happy Fall!
The weather is gorgeous this weekend in New England, and looking out my window I’m now seeing foliage turning colors, which seems to have all happened within a very short span this year!
And yet somehow my garden still thinks it’s summer, so I haven’t swapped over to mums and pumpkins just yet!
Walktober has started, which is a fun gamified effort for Wellesley alums to get in more steps during the season, and I love any excuse to get extra credit for the outdoor activity I already do! (You get colored leaves in an app for each day of steps over 6k.)
I finished a paper notebook this week, which always feels like a marvel for someone who has about fifty notebooks with random things scribbled across a handful of pages.
👋 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:
AARP Founders Summit: A few times a year I get to travel to Washington DC to see my friends and fellow founders at AARP (and stay with Heather and Tim!) I headed down the week of the 23rd, and made the most of it. Conference highlights for me personally included the panel on therapeutic cancer vaccines (and the cancer vaccine coalition), meeting Christie Pitts officially in person!, and the design thinking working session with DJ from AARP (not in small part because of the very large notepads we got to write on. I didn’t know that I needed a massive notepad.. And kind words from Rick that made my week. (Hi, Rick!)
In non-summit adventuring through DC, I also had a grand time taking walk breaks on the National Mall, taking a quick detour into the Smithsonian to say hello to the taxidermy and wander the geology gift shop, and the conversation with a random stranger about Reach the Beach and running in Boston.
In food, I managed to sneak in several very good meals, including Ethiopian dinner at Chercher, two stops for Gelato (blowing minds with my typical order of gelato with chocolate sprinkles on both the top AND bottom of the container), and two home cooked dinners from Tim (including a perfectly cooked Picanha with corn and salad at Doom), and breakfasts with homemade yogurt, granola and peaches from Heather.
And I managed to get pigeon poop on my leg as I headed to the airport, which I’ll note feels auspicious.
Random Things:
— I’m always tempted to do
, a 31 drawings in 31 days challenge #Inktober2024. I gave up on a streak after my first day drawing Moo Deng, but I’m going to be mindfully doodling all month.— I always loved this activity in art classes. (But we’d do it in a museum for an hour!) Test your focus: Can you look at this work of art for 10 minutes? (Gifted article)
— A shout out to my friend Elyse who launched her design company Mercurie this week, and is soft launching her future forest luxury wilderness rental in the White Mountains, Wild Pine. (I love her drone footage!)
— Do you need SNAIL KNOBS for your cabinets?
Best internet thread of the week:
One of the groups I mod had a thread on the oldest kitchen appliance in your kitchen, which had me hunting for appliances with woven cords (we did do a safety purge from my Grandmother’s functioning appliances) and admiring the still in use box of my Braun immersion blender from the early 2000’s for kicks!
Many folks had Cuisinart Food Processors from the 80s, and a special shout out to my non-vintage, but food-blogging-comped Breville Tea Maker which I’ve been using multiple times a day since 2012 to boil water and make tea.
What’s the oldest functioning small appliance in YOUR kitchen? (And why don’t they make them like that anymore?)
Slow Drip Gardening
Dahlias are now in full force, and we’re getting multiple blooms on multiple plants! Several of the flowering plants are making another come back after a month of no rain was remedied by a few good showers.
My mini-watermelons (2) were harvested, and I brought one to share with my friends in DC.
I’m attempting to save the seeds of my friend Somchay’s cucumbers (which were wildly better than mine. I fermented the seeds in water for a few days, and will try to dry them.)
My favorite resource for monthly garden chores is from A Way to Garden. Here’s October.
More Good Things:
📖 Reading: After a brief pause in my “Year of Sanderson” after finishing the Stormlight Archive, I picked up his Skyward, his epic series about a girl pilot saving her world. It felt like a much more optimistic Ender’s Game, and is quite a pleasant detour from the Cosmere books I’ve read about 30,000 pages of this year! In anticipation for travel I also downloaded several books that I haven’t read yet, including Dr. Becky’s Good Inside, and Shannon Chakraborty’s ‘The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi.’
🎧 Listen: after finishing “Stolen” Season One: The Search for Jermain, with Connie Walker from Gimlet Media/Spotify podcasts, I’ve started on her second season (which won a Pulitzer and a Peabody): Surviving St. Michaels, focused on the horrors of the Residential Schools. It’s heavy but important listening.
📺 Watching: I finished Dark Winds, which I’d strongly recommend for the general mood of 1970s Native Western. // I went to the quick romp which was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. It was fine? // Chef’s Table: Noodles is here! // I wanted to enjoy Rebel Ridge on Netflix? It was also fine? // Great British Baking Show new season has also kicked off! // Agatha All Along as my current party watch, and all I want to listen to is versions of On the Witches Road // and I’d be remiss to not say that I’m enjoying Netflix’s ‘Nobody Wants This’ with Adam Brody in his hot rabbi phase, and Kristen Bell. // Finally, this week came with news of both a Devil Wears Prada 2 AND Princess Diaries 3 in the works, which should ignite the inner teen girl in all of us (regardless of your age or gender.)
🩺 Self Care: I’ve been nursing a cold this week, my first real cold since April 2023, so my self care activity has been: cancelling things, and taking it easy. (I missed my family’s Rosh Hashanah dinner, but was so thankful for the full bag of food (and honey cake from the neighbors!)
🛍️ Good Acquisitions: I got Bertram a little Snuffle Mat which you can hide treats for interactivity and enrichment after seeing Heather’s dog Roxy loving hers. So far he’s been engaged for at least a *few minutes* before getting a little frustrated, so a win is a win.
🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: it is me. I am the meme, as I’ve succumbed to these fleecy “winter Crocs”.
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:
Ethiopian Dinner at Chercher: Geba weta, tibs, and doro wat with a vegan platter.
A picanha cooked on the Big Green Egg for a dinner party at Doom (thank you Tim!)
Other goodness: Thonglor Pad See Ew (Thonglor is great!), Greek Yogurt and Pistachio Gelato at Dolci, an Anna’s Chile Verde Burrito.
Bean of the week: Rancho Gordo Caballero. A round, firm white bean. Quite good!
This week’s meal plan: NO PLAN! When I get a cold I go to “backup mode”, knowing that I’m significantly less likely to actually want to eat whatever is planned. (In my case, a protein shake and cream of wheat can be good enough.)
If you are looking for ideas though, here’s my backup to backup mode? Which.. looks curiously like a plan. 🤣
Monday: Pork chops with potatoes and marinated green beans
Tuesday: from the freezer - Artichoke Bread Pudding
Wednesday: Beef and broccoli
Thursday: Pasta with Carbone Spicy Vodka sauce and chicken sausage
Friday: Curry tomatoes and chickpeas with cucumber yogurt - Ali Slagle
Saturday: Break the fast for Yom Kippur
Lunch Options: Lamb vindaloo with yogurt. TJ’s Cod Provençale. TJ’s new Teriyaki Chicken Bowl (will report back). Tinned fish. Noodles with cabbage and onions and cottage cheese.
Snacks: Grapes. Yogurt and berries. Cheese sticks. Turkey Chomps. Good Culture Cottage Cheese. Olive crackers with the last of the red pepper and parmesan cream cheese.
Treat options: TJ’s maple streusel bread (which is good not great) Trader Joe’s Brownie Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches. Apple Tartines. Key Lime Pie. Trader Joe’s S’Mores. The last straggler pumpkin sticky toffee pudding. Stone and Skillet English Muffin.
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 miss the years of daily blogging challenges!
2014: Pretend that it is summer Corn Salad, Colors of Fall, Alternative Food Magazines of Note
2013: Ocean Views, Hey Hey It’s Meat Club Day, The Soup that Wasn’t Quite Right, The Pianos and Boozy Book Club, Quick Beef and Broccoli, Zaatar Goat Chops
2012: Fall is here!, New Foodie Spam, My first! 5k!, On not sulking, Thoughts on List Making, Living without, by choice or not, Hey Hey 10k!, Sending off a friend, A beef stew for a cold fall day, Dinosaur Wallpaper and Jackson Galaxy, After the Rain
2011: Killing the Reviewer
2010: Project Food Blog: Amy Besa’s Adobo
That’s all for now! Hope you have a great week!
xo, Sam
PS: Click the heart if you enjoyed this this week!