Three Things

So many easy dinner ideas, plus a power breakfast, and some thoughts on the exclamation point!

Greetings eaters and readers! I’d like to start our weekly missive by asking: How much do I love dinner leftovers for lunch? Especially when it’s a lemony-bean-shrimp situation (loosely based on this recipe) that hits all the right notes for a gray January day. On dinner deck this week: Crispy Tofu and Ginger with Chard, Three-Bean Chili, and Veggie Burgers, because I made a big freezer batch over the weekend that are loyally awaiting deployment. In other news: New Yorkers! What are you doing on February 6? Want to join me for a volunteer shift at God’s Love We Deliver? It’s the most wonderful organization, dedicated to preparing and delivering nutritious meals to people who are sick or unable to do it themselves. I’ve done two shifts there since moving to New York, and both times I was so inspired by how cheerful and well-run it is — plus there’s something deeply therapeutic about scooping the same pile of pasta into the same container for three hours straight. It’s also really fun to do with a group, which is why I’m asking the Dinner: A Love Story community to join me. Here are the details:

DATE: Tuesday February 6, 2024
TIME: 1:00 pm-4:00 pm
WHERE: 166 Sixth Ave. (Spring Street) New York, NY

You can sign up here.

Please come! Right now there are enough slots for a few dozen people, so we’ll see how many of those we can fill. Thank you in advance — and thanks to Natasha Pickowicz who introduced me to GLWD back in November.

And now, your Three Things…

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1. How to feel like you have your life in order in under 5 minutes

If you ever want to feel centered, like you have your life in order, forget meditation, forget life coaches and gratitude lists: Just take a few minutes on Sunday to throw together a jar of homemade dressing. We eat a salad for dinner almost every night (though this time of year, they are more of the leafless variety) and having a versatile dressing at the ready on, say, a Tuesday makes that piece of the dinner puzzle so much easier. And when one big piece of the dinner puzzle is easier, dinner is easier, then everything flows from there. I’m guessing you have a favorite go-to — mine is a classic Lemon Dijon — but for a Christmas gift this year, my nephew gave me some fancy Fat Gold olive oil and a bottle of good balsamic vinegar. And you know the rule about fancy olive oil: DO NOT WAIT TO USE IT, no matter how much you feel the need to savor every drop. Olives are alive and get rancid, especially if not stored correctly! So into my Sunday vinaigrette went my beautiful oil. I decided on an old-school shallot-balsamic (tempered with a little red wine vinegar because balsamic can be overpowering), and enjoyed it all week long.

Balsamic-Shallot Vinaigrette

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons finely minced shallot
1 teaspoon sugar (to taste)
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup good olive oil

Add all the ingredients to a jar and shake until emulsified. Taste and adjust for salt and sweetness. Add a scoop of mayonnaise if you want it a little creamier.

Toss that dressing with greens and serve alongside: Cabbage & Onion Galette (above, left), Bean Burritos, Harissa Roast Chicken, or Potato-Leek Soup (above, right).

2. Power Breakfasts & Lunches

My niece, Alison, is taking the MCAT later this month, and for those of you who have never had the pleasure of experiencing the medical school admission exam (or knowing someone who did) let’s just say it’s not the most fun thing in the world. We can ignore the actual contents of it for a moment and just focus on the fact that it is a seven-and-a-half-hour exam. Seven-and-a-half hours! I don’t know if I could do anything for that long, let alone concentrate on the finer points of organic chemistry and the “biochemical foundations of living systems.” Because of this, part of her test prep involves experimenting with lunches and breakfasts that optimize focus and energy for long stretches. She’s tried a few things like chickpea oatmeal and apple cider vinegar tonics that I might slide into the Woo-Woo category (it’s a legit category, look it up, no further questions) but mostly, the philosophy boils down to eating more protein-and-vegetable heavy meals. When I walked in on Alison eating breakfast the other day (I was staying at my sister’s house), she was rolling up a ramen egg with mashed avocado in a sheet of nori. It looked so good and nourishing that I asked her to make one for me, too. Since then I’ve had it a few times, mostly with regular 7-minute eggs…

…And using nori as a wrapping vehicle reminded me of an Aresh Hashemi reel on instagram that’s been saved in my instagram “lunch inspo” file forever. He folds the nori into quadrants like that viral tortilla video from way back when. (Watch his video if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) So later in the week, for lunch, I made this salmon salad wrap…

… this is what it ends up looking like once you fold it all up. I used a small filet of store-bought grilled salmon to make my salad (following Hashemi’s basic recipe — Sriracha, mayo, sesame oil, soy sauce, etc), plus avocados, greens from the market, and toasted sesame seeds. You can also use canned tuna in place of the salmon. Do I feel ready to take on a marathon brain-melting exam after eating one? Uh not exactly, but I do appreciate that the sandwich fills me up without weighing me down. And tastes pretty damn good, too. Good luck, Alison!

3. Anne Helen Petersen and the Exclamation Point!

The breadth of Petersen’s Culture Study newsletter always amazes me — in any given dispatch, she’ll cover topics as wide-reaching as the loneliness epidemic, over-meeting culture, tracking your kids, friendships as you age, and maybe most memorably for me, #RushTok — the self-made TikTok videos that chronicle every detail of the rush process at sorority-and-fraternity-driven American colleges. But her latest, A Theory of the Modern Exclamation Point!, exemplifies what she does best, namely taking something seemingly small that you do/see/hear all the time (exclamation points!) then diving deep on the topic, rearranging a small part of your everyday worldview. (I know…it’s called reporting, Jenny.) If you’ve read Dinner: A Love Story long enough, you know I have an enthusiastic relationship with the exclamation point, but I wasn’t always like that. I’ll never forget that time I was in my 20s and just starting out at a magazine job, when a well-respected colleague told me to cool it with the exclamation points. (“Only Tom Wolfe can get away with using that many.”) I don’t think I used one for a decade after that, but it never occurred to me that my colleague’s advice was rooted in regressive, sexist practices. As Petersen points out: “Exclamation and enthusiasm are feminized — and also ‘unprofessional’ (out of place) in your industry,” therefore “If you want to fit into this industry, you should use punctuation like your coworkers do — which is to say, ‘like a man.’” You should read the entire essay (and subscribe to her newsletter if you are one of the eight people in the world who don’t already), but if you don’t, here is where she ended up:

To think that an exclamation point could be imbued with such power: to make a person feel hopeful instead of hopeless. In other contexts: welcomed instead of excluded, safe instead of afraid. To diffuse tension, to ease power imbalances. If those things are “feminine,” we should be teaching all people to use them more, not less.

Have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Made anything good from The Weekday Vegetarians lately? Please share…