It was the summer of 1994. I had just graduated middle school, and used the money I had received for my birthday to buy The Downward Spiral on cassette from the music store at my suburban strip mall. These were the olden days. There were no music streaming services. The internet had barely begun and had not yet made its way into my family’s home. I had no idea what it would sound like. But the singles that had been released thus far resonated with me, and I felt confident taking the risk of investing in the album. I came home and slipped the cassette out of its stylish and arty slipcase - a design move I had never seen before that made me feel like I was about to experience something very special. I opened the hard plastic case, unfolded the booklet of lyrics, put the cassette into my Walkman, lay down on my bed, and listened for the first time to what would become my favorite album of all time. Middle school was a difficult time for me, your typical story of an ...
Naked Porridge with Dark Cherries and Fresh Ginger
Naked Porridges are a beautiful way to experience the unembellished perfection of seasonal fruit, especially during cherry season. This particular Naked Porridge is a blend of perfectly cooked steel cut oats topped with a luscious mountain of dark cherries, freshly grated ginger, and olive oil. It's incredibly easy to throw together, and a foolproof way to a transcendentally delicious summertime breakfast experience. When steel cut oats are perfectly cooked, cherries are at the peak of their season, and you’ve got some decent olive oil lying around, sometimes it’s best to leave things naked so that the simple beauty of the ingredients can shine through. If you missed my previous post on Naked Porridge, please give it a visit, but this is the concept in a nutshell: when steel cut oats are perfectly cooked, they need no flamboyant over-ornamentation. The fail-safe way to perfectly cooked steel cut oats is to salt them, soak them overnight, and then oven bake them the next morning ...
How To Stop Eating At Your Desk: The Porridge Ritual + Cardamom Rose Porridge with Matcha Dust and Sprouted Pumpkin Seed Butter
This is my porridge ritual. It’s a refuge in the form of a warm bowl of porridge eaten slowly before the day begins, and it warms my belly and heals my soul every morning. It’s a valentine for anyone whose heart has ever been broken from overwork, burnout, and too many meals spent eating at their desk. I was one of those sad office people with no boundaries who ate most of my meals at work and always at my desk. I knew that every time I stopped to take a bite, I was compromising my productivity, jeopardizing my ability to meet a deadline, or perhaps revealing myself as an undesirable hire who could be replaced with someone younger, hungrier and all too eager to sacrifice their health just to have my job. If anything, eating in this way is perversely celebrated as a badge of honor in the average American workplace. Years of this lifestyle took its toll. It seemed that I had been conditioned to believe that stopping to eat was a sign of weakness and that it should be hurried ...