Eating and Reading
Hello there! This week I have two delicious meals and one amazing book to share. Let’s start with the food! Last week Birchwood Pie shared this recipe for Sweet and Spicy Gochujang Bowls. The recipe calls for chicken- Birchwood used soy curls- and I used tofu (my daughter doesn’tlike soy curls.) I cut the amount of sugar in half, and it was so, so good. I’m putting this on the list of things to make when my son comes home. Next up, I made these Sweet Potato Black Bean Burgers from Nora Cooks. These are delicious- if you like your veggie burgers to taste like beans and vegetables, and be slightly mushy. Luckily, this is the kind of veggie burger I like. My husband likes a meat-ier texture, like Beyond or Impossible burgers, but I knew he would like just about anything served on a ciabatta roll, and I was right. We both liked this meal. AND, the recipe made five burgers (it was supposed to make six, oops) so we had them again a few nights later, and there’s one more in the freezer. Yay. Moving on to books. I finally read this… I’ve heard people talk about this book for a long time, and even heard Steven Pressfield interviewed on a podcast, but never felt like reading it, even though it’s been sitting on the bookshelf in our bedroom for, oh, about twenty years. I guess I never read it because I thought it was for… artists? But it’s actually for anyone who is trying to move from a lower sphere to a higher in any way- whether you’re writing a novel, starting a business, going back to school, starting a meditation practice… Pressfield says that everyone encounters Resistance. Resistance is the negative force trying to prevent you from moving forward. I was about halfway through this book before something clicked in my brain. Like many (most?) people, I have a voice in my head saying “You can’t do that. You’re not good enough. Other people can do that, but it’s not for you.” The thing is, I’ve always had the nagging feeling that that voice is the Truth, and everything I’m telling myself to combat it is actually sugar-coated BS. While I was reading I had this epiphany- that voice is NOT the truth. It’s Resistance, and it’s false. There’s no reason to argue with it; just label it as Resistance and move on. I actually think reading this book will be life-changing for me. Glad I took it off the bookshelf and read it, finally! One more book-ish topic. On Monday’s CBBC discussion of My Brilliant Friend, there was talk about the “title drop,” where the title appeared in the text in an unexpected way. It reminded me of Anna Quindlen’s book, Every Last One. Not only was that one of the best books I’ve read in the past- oh, ten years or so- but the title drop gave me chills. Seriously- if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend. Have you read War of Art? Have you read Every Last One? Do you remember the title drop? Header photo by Asal Lotfi on Unsplash