Hello and welcome to another weekend. It’s Thanksgiving here in Canada, so we have an extra day off on Monday and a whole bunch of feasting happening this weekend. I hosted my family last night and we have some get togethers on Mark’s side today and tomorrow. This will be me on the holiday Monday lol. I’m also switching out my summer clothes and cutting back all the hydrangeas (not the Panicle or climbing varieties) and some other shrubs/perennials this weekend.

Sending my gratitude out to everyone reading this and wishing a happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian folks. Hope you all have some leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast this weekend (my fave thing about this holiday haha). Or maybe some leftover mashed potato waffles? Or a spiced orange cranberry smoothie with leftover cranberry sauce? The sky’s the limit. Be well and take care out there ♥️

5 Things I’m Reading:

1. The “Whimsigoth” Aesthetic Isn’t Just for Witches via Architectural Digest
2. 4 Ways to Turn Around a Bad Day via The New York Times (gift link)
3. The Type of Love That Makes People Happiest via The Atlantic
4. Can we eat our way out of the climate crisis? via Grist
5. Where to Find True Refuge in an Uncertain World via Lion’s Roar

5 Things I’m Enjoying:

1. Gorgeous hibiscus
2. Watching: Starting 5 on Netflix
3. I was gifted a copy of Ottolenghi Comfort by the publisher recently and it’s such a beautiful cookbook. It is a little more meat and dairy-heavy than other recent Ottolenghi books, but still plenty of inspiration for flavour combinations, cooking techniques, and overall dinner planning. The Guardian has a nice preview of some of the recipes here.
4. A gingerbread scene inspired by It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
5. I admittedly don’t listen to a lot of food podcasts, but loved this episode of Gastropod: Meet the Queen of Kiwi: The 96-Year-Old Woman Who Transformed America’s Produce Aisle

5 Questions:

1. If you had to pick one meal to prepare for non-vegan fancy food snobs, what’s your pick?
   It’s my Hearty Mushroom & Beet Bolognese or just the bourguignon portion of my Mushroom Bourguignon Pot Pie served with loads of crusty sourdough and a fresh green salad. Fancy food snobs like comfort food too 😉
2. Do you ever feel (significantly) burnt out, and how do you get back on track?
   Not as much with work these days! There was a period of time where I was getting burnt out on content creation though. I love working on recipes, photography, and posting to the blog. I find this process rewarding. The social media promotion side of it though (making Reels, sharing more of myself/my life on Instagram stories etc)… that aspect of the job led to burnout. I would just be on my phone all the time and it did not feel productive or creative. I also became overly concerned with how folks may be seeing/possibly judging me on there. In 2019 I started focusing on the blog with the hope that I could be less reliant on social media. I started working with Foodie Digital to improve the blog’s overall performance, and I still work with them today. Without their guidance, this blog would not exist and I’d be doing something else. I don’t really get into phases of burnout anymore. I take long breaks from social media and don’t feel pressure to post there anymore because my site performs the way I need it to.
   
   For getting back on track, I recommend making a version of a “frustration list,” which I learned about from Ben Meer. It’s an inventory of all the things about your current burnout situation that are frustrating you, for example: a certain aspect of the work is tedious/outside my expertise, I don’t feel creative enough to come up with new ideas all the time, there’s too much going on at home etc. From there, start thinking of strategies to counteract the frustrations. Can I eliminate some of these tasks? (this was me with Pinterest scheduling–I just stopped doing it and traffic to my site stayed the same) Is there an opportunity to “batch” creative work when I’m feeling inspired so that I’m not in an awkward spot later? Is it worth it to outsource a non-intuitive aspect of this work? (I do this with the video content on here) Can I ask for help at home? Once you get honest about your work situation, arrive at solutions, and then start crossing the frustrations off of your list (this has taken a few years for me), hopefully you can begin to keep burnout at bay.
3. What advice would you give someone just starting out as a food content creator?
   I get this question all the time! I started doing this over 13 years ago, so times and strategies have changed significantly. I would pick one format that you can be consistent with (Insta, TikTok, Substack newsletter etc) and try it out for 6 months. If you’re still enjoying it and gaining some traction in terms of engagement, keep going. Maybe if you start on a social media platform, you could add a paid subscription Substack for folks to access your recipes. If you want to start a website of your own, I’d recommend learning as much as you can about food blog SEO so that you can show up in Google search results and get new eyes on your work that way (see my answer to question 2 above).
4. How can I replace cashews in recipes, like in your recent butternut squash pasta?
   I used to recommend using one of the following: raw sunflower seeds, raw macadamia nuts, or pine nuts. Both nut options are prohibitively expensive these days. And honestly? I don’t think that raw sunflower seeds truly get the job done in sauces calling for the richness of raw cashews. Even after two full minutes of blending in the Vitamix, there can be an edge of grit in the texture. I also find that a lot of raw sunflower seeds sold in stores are stale and have that unfortunate rancid oil taste. So! My recommendation is to find a rich, unsweetened non-dairy coffee creamer (like this one from Califia or similar) and use that to add creaminess to puréed soups/stews or sauces. You may have to cut back on vegetable stock in the recipe to achieve the same level of creaminess, but it gets the job done. If you have a nut allergy, I’d look to a rich, unsweetened oat creamer like this one from Elmhurst.
5. Do you have any favourite fiction recommendations?
   Recently read and loved: There There by Tommy Orange & Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
   Next on my list: The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai & Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

5 Seasonal Recipes:

1. Creamy White Bean Soup with Kale, Rosemary & Lemon
2. Vegan Squash Patties with Mixed Herb Salsa Verde
3. Creamy Vegan Orzo Risotto with Butternut Squash & Brussels Sprouts
4. Kale Sweet Potato Salad with Crispy Chickpeas, Pickled Red Onion & Spicy Tahini Ranch
5. Maple Mustard Tempeh