In The Kitchen: Adding New Purpose To Your Cooking Routine

I have always known that I have an affection for healthy food, a fascination for the origin of where organic produce is grown and harvested, and a love for experimenting with new recipes and flavors, but I have come to notice that time and lack of energy from a full schedule eliminated space to explore and grow in these passions. Cooking became more of a chore, gardening was a no-go since we weren't at home long enough to sustain it, and sometimes just picking up dinner from the Erewhon food bar was way easier than thinking about what to whip up. Not to mention, the task of cutting veggies and doing dishes just seemed daunting and anything but enjoyable.It's like a new world has opened up during this quarantine time. Cooking has become what I look forward to every day, our garden is thriving, the local farm we discovered is my happy place to buy organic and biodynamic produce + support a small business, and dishes seem like a breeze. I have been cooking almost every night with the windows open and the Florida Georgia Line radio playing, and Jase sometimes is creating the most beautiful cocktails next to me with freshly squeezed watermelon and orange. I am more intentional about using the produce we have because not many other options like we had before are available, and I have such a strong desire to feed our bodies with nutrition to keep our immune systems strong!I started a Master Class and Alice Waters is inspiring me to plan meals based on the ingredients I get from the farm, and it has brought about this whole new light and intention to cooking and meals! This time is truly bringing new purpose to what used to be a mundane activity. Now I cook out of necessity for health, conserving the produce we have, and it has allowed so much space for creativity. Who knew that I would develop a new excitement for making homemade salsas from the pretty tomatoes or roasted carrots from the cookbook I never had a chance to look through? There are truly so many silver linings in this time of unknowns, sadness, loss, and confusion. Embracing them makes every day a little brighter!How has this time added to your cooking routine?I'm excited to share with you over the next few weeks a few of the things I'm doing in my kitchen right now as a part of my In The Kitchen series – things like how to maximize your produce, what to grab when shopping, growing your own greens, and more.Follow along with me here, or at my Instagram where I often post a meal I'm cooking or kitchen must-have I'm loving. xShop My Look Here: Top, skirt, sunnies

While We Wait

“Everything will work out in the end”: a phrase we all have heard muttered to us at one point in our lives. I am the first to say that patience is not an attribute that I have been blessed with. When I want something, I want it immediately. When I want something to happen, I do everything in my power to make it happen as soon as possible. But even still, I have always trusted the quiet work of time. I believe that with time, we gain the healing that we need, we acquire understanding that may not have been known otherwise, we learn infinitely more about ourselves, and we grow undoubtedly more compassionate about the world around us. But as I wait for the nature of time to allow things fall into place, I often find myself wondering, “What do I do in the meantime?” It is completely against my nature to sit back and allow things to happen. I want to do something, I want to work at something, and I want to know that with whatever I am working for, there is an end goal in sight. So, what do we do in the meantime? What do we do when we cannot do anything at all? Throughout this past year, I have learned to let time run its course. It has been both necessarily humbling and completely frustrating. But, in my moments of restlessness, I have learned that letting go has freed me to gain far more than I could have ever dreamed of. A year ago, I found myself in an LSAT prep course. I spent my summer days taking practice tests, attending online classroom tutorials, watching videos, learning skill sets, researching top law schools, and crunching numbers that would ultimately determine where I would lie on a spectrum of students all hoping to achieve the same thing. About halfway through the course, and few months before the test date, I decided that I did not want to attend law school after all. While I felt convicted that pursuing a law degree was not what I wanted to do, I forced myself to keep trying it. Though I wish I could say it was the drive of perseverance that kept me to my studies longer than I wished to be, it was actually the fear of not knowing what I would be doing otherwise. My fear, instead of my passion, was driving my decision to stay in that LSAT prep course. For me, this path held a somewhat known four years ahead of me. I would study for the test, take the test, work in the meantime, apply to schools. Then, I would choose, from a hopeful competitive batch of schools, the perfect school for me. After that, I would spend three years in school, learning, working, experience the legal world. I knew what was ahead of me. But, if I followed my heart, if I listened to my instinct that was steering me away from those known four years, consequently leaping into the unknown, I would land in exactly that: pure, raw, dark unknown. “What would I do?”, “Who would I be?”, “Who would I become?” were some of the questions that plagued me during this inner battle with myself in trusting and following my heart or living in security. What I was not aware of, though, was the outflowing amount of opportunity that lay ahead of me in my decision to follow my heart and leave my fear behind. Today, I am preparing to move to London, to attend graduate school at London School of Economics, and to begin my journey towards a career in journalism. In hindsight, I can confidently say that with time, everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Before graduating college, I would have never pictured myself living in London, pursuing journalism, or even writing for a blog in the year after graduation. And although everything worked out better than I could have ever imagined it to be, I still had moments of doubt, times of restlessness, and instinctively found myself wondering, “Well, what do I do now?” But, those quiet moments taught me that what I found my security in was not sufficient for the longing in my heart. I had to learn to allow my sense of security heed to the will of my heart. You see, we often idolize our sense of security. We find ourselves worthwhile when we have a security in our futures. We attribute value to ourselves when we are actively pursuing our futures. On the contrary, we wallow when we cannot actively do anything, when we lose control, when things are out of our hands. But, the truth is, our best prediction of what our future holds does not nearly reflect any amount of our worth. You are worthy whether or not you are pursuing your dreams. You are worthy even in the midst of the chaos and calamity of the unknown. You are worthy while you wait to figure it out- whatever that “it” may be. You are worthy even when you do not have anything figured out at all. You are worthy. So, as you wait, as you ponder, as you rest, as you feel helpless, and as you begin to dream again, let your worth be found in the strength of who you are. As you wait, let your spirit be free in the person you know yourself to be, instead of the future you think you ought to achieve. Believe in your worth- not because you have carefully mapped out the next five years of your life, but because your life, thus far, has created a uniquely beautiful, strong, and worthy person. Believe in yourself today- because you stand confidently and wholly loved in who you are today more than any other future “you” that you could possibly dream up. While you wait, believe that you are the truest “you” that you could be and that you stand distinguished exactly where you are, not wherever you think you ought to be.

Sparing Change

I will be the first to admit that I hate change. Personally, I believe that most of us, to some degree, hate change. While some of us cope with it better than others, I err on the side of trying to ignore change into nonexistence. Needless to say, it does not work for me. But, in this whirlwind year of post-grad, I have been learning not only to cope with change, but to look forward to all that it may bring. Almost two weeks ago, my oldest sister got married. She married the man of her dreams, her boyfriend of nearly ten years and, in what seemed to be only a few weeks, she bought a new place, set up her new home, and moved in with her new husband. This short period of time before her wedding day was filled with beautiful and treasurable new additions- a new brother, a new home to visit, a new life to admire, and a new union to wholeheartedly celebrate. But, it was also a time that I mourned because my oldest sister, my role model, my roommate of twenty-three years, and my best friend was moving out of our home. It was a lot of change to handle, especially for someone who unashamedly and admittedly hates change. But, as I learned to accept the inevitable, the unchangeable, I learned to be okay with change. Then, the unexpected happened: I learned to grow comfortable with change. So, why does change scare us so much? We hate change because it is unfamiliar- we have nothing to compare it to, nothing to judge it by, and we are uncertain of its outcomes. We also are uncomfortable with change because we grow comfortable and secure, instead, in our own perception of “normal”, in what we have created our own normal to be. But, when we begin to accept the inevitability of change, we also begin to open ourselves to all the opportunity that change will bring into our lives. As we grow more comfortable with change, as we begin to hate change less and less, we may begin to notice positive outcomes of change in our lives. You see, change is scary, but wholly necessary, because it shifts and sometimes altogether redefines our normal. But, in altering our sense of security, change causes us to accept and create new normals for ourselves. It allows us to adapt to different circumstances. Without change, we would never be challenged to thrive in newness, we may never grow to trust uncertainty, and we may never realize our potential beyond our own understanding. Change is good because it unlocks a growth we would never choose for ourselves- a growth that is uncomfortable, new, and incomparable, but a growth that is wholly necessary in order for us to experience new depths in all relationships and experiences in our lives.This change is good because it opens our eyes to an otherwise unseen world around us, a new order, an alternate way of life, or otherwise hidden opportunities. Change is good for us because it forces us to accept new normalcies for our lives, normalcies that take us in new directions and help us to uncover new meanings. If it were not for forceful and inevitable change in our lives, we would grow so accustomed to the normalcy of our lives that we would not look for or be interested in anything else. But, inevitable change shifts our focus and realigns our gaze to things, people, and experiences that we may not have looked to otherwise. Change causes us to adapt to creating new normalcies and to relying on the process of normalizing new things, new places, and new people. Change opens our eyes and our hearts to a world that encompasses vastly more than the parameters that hold our individually crafted sense of normalcy.Leo Tolstoy once said, “The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.” In wrapping my mind around this concept of change, I have thought of someone asking you, “Can you spare me some change?” When someone asks us this, we willingly, and usually unquestioningly, offer them the change they need- a few dimes, a nickel, a quarter. But what if we learned to spare change in our own lives? What if we learned to preserve it, to accept it, and to allow it to offer us all of the experiences, places, people, and things that we would not have been open to otherwise? What, then, would sparing change, embracing change, look like for each of us? Might we begin to make room in our lives to spare some change? And, might we allow that change to recreate new normalcies? I believe that we can. I believe that we can begin to grow comfortable and accepting of all the vastly different forms of change in our lives- the good, the bad, the enjoyable, the necessary. And, as we begin to accept change, I believe that we will grow to allow ourselves to adapt to new normalcies and to accept all the outcomes, good and bad, unexpected and expected, wholly beautiful and incomparable, that this change will bring us.

The Beauty in the Process of Becoming

Maya Angelou said, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” In the early days of elementary school, I was taught of the metamorphosis of a butterfly. I distinctly remember growing caterpillars and harvesting their cocoons in a tree nearby my childhood classroom. The week that we learned about the process in which a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly is still so evident in my mind. Every day, I would await the next school day, looking forward and counting down the days until the cocoons hatched and the butterflies emerged. Still, in literature and film, the metamorphosis of a butterfly is used to symbolize a spiritual or physical period of growth in which we expect a certain personal transformation. But, in these periods of growth, in our own personal metamorphosis, we often focus on the result of becoming a radiant butterfly, tending to overlook the changes we undergo that shape the intrinsic beauty of our wings. In making our new year’s resolutions, by which we may or may not have stuck to, we looked forward to the possibility of a new year. We thought of everything we wanted to achieve and of all the possibilities we thought we could be. We thought of all we had yet to do, those items on our bucket list left unchecked, all the places we have yet to see, and all our dreams we have yet to reach. We formed resolutions and goals, in part, based off what we have not yet accomplished. Alternatively, we formed resolutions based off all that we dreamt of achieving. As the excitement of a new year swiftly approached us, we were thinking of the result even long before the beginning of the year was upon us. We were thinking of the beautiful butterflies we would become before even making our cocoons. We were waiting to show off our beautiful wings and to explore the height that those wings would take us even while we were still caterpillars. While we have such adventure to look forward to in this next year, we must remember the inspiration in the every day. It is more than okay to be excited about the result, about the possibilities, and about the promise held within a new year, but it is important not to let our excitement about the result hamper our acceptance of present circumstances. We must be mindful in our present happenings so that we are able to be joyful in all circumstances. At times, we may find it difficult to be joyful in the midst of the calamity and the change. No doubt, we will face challenges, disappointment, discouragement, and failure, but we must acknowledge that those moments, even in their ugliness, play an important role in shaping our beauty. It is through those ugly, unpredictable moments, those times we wish not to remember and try vigorously to erase, that our beauty is more distinguished. It is for the beauty of becoming, that we must rejoice in the present. We must then find inspiration in the process of developing our wings. We must discover those sources of inspiration, seek out the people that encourage us and lift us up, visit those places that enlighten the truth and peace in our hearts, and invest in those moments that invigorate and revive us. For, it is in the midst of those moments that inspire us that those moments that have discouraged, disheartened, or challenged us become all the more worthwhile. When we focus on the present moments and how they are shaping and developing the wings by which we will soar, we will learn to value and rejoice in any moment, good or bad, invigorating or heartbreaking. We will come to value all these moments as the result of the intricacies that make our wings so distinct and unique for the purpose of our flight. We will come to love each moment and experience as they, without a doubt, aid our flight and amount to the joy in reaching our destination. But even more than that, we will come to love each moment and experience as they add inherent worth to our journey of becoming the people we are meant to be. Throughout the course of this month, we have discovered how reflection, rest, rediscovery, and revival will influence all the promise of this year. By remembering how years past have shaped us, by resting in what the present has to offer us, by learning to dream again, and by inspiring ourselves to courageously go forth in the direction of our dreams, we will learn to love not only the people we are becoming, but the process that we use in order to get there. We will then find beauty not only in the result of becoming all we have imagined to be and achieving that which is beyond our wildest dreams, but also in the process of becoming and achieving everything of our hearts desire. Let us now allow 2016 to become a collectivity of the moments in which we find inherent worth and dignity, that allow the beauty and intricacy of our wings to shine brighter than they ever could. With those wings, which we have grown and developed, let us soar to new heights and uncover unmapped destinations, so that we may be able to offer every unique part of ourselves in order to make our mark on this vastly beautiful world. As we continue into 2016, let us bravely spread our wings and soar. 

A Community of Lighthouses

A lighthouse has often been represented in literature, film, history, and culture as a guiding light, a safe harbor, a beacon of hope. Joseph Panek has described a lighthouse’s proximity to sea as an intentionality that warns sailors of potential dangers. A lighthouse “notifies sailors that land is near and warns them that they are approaching rocks, reefs and shallow waters which must be navigated with caution. [It] is also a comforting sign that the calm waters of a welcoming harbor are close at hand.” Lighthouses have been central figures in literature, in novels like To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf and The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, often symbolizing a guiding presence to all those voyaging or lost. This image of a lighthouse as a beacon of hope, a welcoming light, is a promise that solace and restoration are awaiting us when we reach dry land. Panek describes this comforting image of a lighthouse in its metaphorical sense, as “the element of Water represents the emotions, the Lighthouse is a Symbol for the Spiritual Strength and Emotional Guidance which is available to us during the times we feel we are being helplessly tossed around in a sea of inner turmoil.” In our lives, as we have sought these living images of lighthouses during our times of strife and trial, we have also become figures of hope and beacons of light for those in our lives undergoing trying circumstances. More often than not, we give of our energy and efforts in order to guide those we love to safe harbors. We expend our time, advice, thoughts, and feelings in order to guide our dear ones home, to safety and refuge. However, when we have spent our own emotions, when we have extended our own strength past what it is able to bear, the light in our lighthouse begins to dim, and we find that our guiding light may not be able to transcend beyond the shores of our own harbor. For this reason, it is essential that we take time to rest emotionally, that we actively seek out the people, places, circumstances, and practices that will refuel us and that will reignite our light so that we can continue to give off our luminescent energy and guiding light to all those around us. There are many ways that we can seek emotional rest in order to regain strength for ourselves and for those leaning on our strength. First, we should realize and accept that we will not always be a guiding light or a safe harbor for someone else. It is okay that we are not always the source of strength for someone else. It is okay if we are not the single lighthouse that guides everyone to a safe harbor. Once we relieve ourselves of the pressure to be the constant source of light, energy, and strength for every person in our lives, we may find that our light will not become dim, or its influence weak, but, rather, we may find that our light will beam brighter and that its scope will stretch farther than we could ever imagine. When we begin to rest, when we step down from being the emotional bearer, the allegiant advice-giver, or steadfast navigator, we will find time where we will be able to fan our own flame. In the difficulty of taking a step back, we will find beauty in realizing the force of our own light and the potential of our own strength. When we take instances and moments to rest in not being the lighthouse, we may find serenity in igniting our own flames and allowing our own lights to burn ever brighter. Once we take moments to step back, once we find time to rest and refuel, we will begin to seek out moments, places, and people that refuel us. When we take a step back from being the lighthouse, we may grow more comfortable in finding a lighthouse in someone else who will guide us to our safe harbor; we may be able to navigate beyond the walls and reserves that we have built up for ourselves, and we may see troubled waters grow calm. In seeking out a safe harbor in someone else we may ask ourselves: What fills us up? What reignites our fire? What keeps our flame alive? For some of us, we may be refueled by spending time with our closest friends, those who know us best and who are able to speak convictingly and intently into our lives. We may find a source of inspiration and strength in a long hike with a dear friend, a dinner date with close friends, or cherished time with family. For others of us, a period of rest and recharging our spirits entails a time of solitude, a long walk encountering nature, or some downtime with a good book. In any of these instances, though, we must become okay with abdicating our position as the lighthouse and the constant source of light for others in order that we may be able to find that light for ourselves in other people, places, instances, or things. When we revere this time of emotional rest for ourselves, we allow ourselves to refuel our passions, to regain our strength, and to reignite our light. Once we find strength in letting go, once we see newfound desires, inspiration, and hope in the midst of allowing others to shed their light on us, we will see our light spread further. Even still, in receiving the guiding light of others, we will begin to build and better maintain a collective light, a community of lighthouses whose luminosity casts its ever-flowing light to the ends of the earth. 

Fixing a Routine that Demands our Rest

In our day in age, there seems to be not nearly enough hours in a day. Between working our way up the corporate ladder, caring for our families, spending time with friends, seeing to our extra responsibilities, running errands, maintaining a social life, and attempting to revive any creative outlets, our days are quite literally spent. It would come as no surprise, then, that any period of rest is overshadowed by our determination to juggle all our responsibilities and interests. But, as we step into everything that this new year has in store for us, finding this period of rest is absolutely essential in order to maintain the drive to achieve every goal and aspiration we have set before us.The Oxford English Dictionary defines rest as an action in which you “cease work or movement in order to relax or recover strength; allow [yourself] to be inactive in order to regain strength or health.” Finding a time of physical rest, then, is essential for our lives. If we do not find time to rest our bodies and to allow our minds to unwind, we will not be able to offer all of our energy to our efforts that demand our best performance. We all may be able to recall a time in our lives when found that in our pursuits, our energy had been spent and when our efforts had grown weary. These are the times when we have pushed our bodies and our minds to perform beyond what they were capable of. Despite the warning signs, the signals of exhaustion, weariness, and depletion that grew a certain inaptitude in our performance, we pushed our bodies and our minds to achieve more, to go further, and to surpass any limitation we saw set before us. There came a point in these instances, however, when our efforts could not measure up to the standards of our desires. There came a time when our bodies and our minds had had enough. So, we accepted defeat, we succumbed to disappointment, and, ultimately, we were left wondering why we could not measure up. Though there is raw beauty and true meaning that is revealed in the midst of defeat, and in carrying on in spite of defeat, there are prevention measures we can take to assure that we give of our best selves in order to pursue the most beautifully genuine and unique dreams that we have set before us. One of the most important ways that we can set prevention measures for ourselves is by first acknowledging when we need rest and by then assuring that we get that rest. According to a study by the University of Washington, rest “is an important part of a healthy lifestyle for all ages. It rejuvenates your body and mind, regulates your mood, and is linked to learning and memory function. On the other hand, not getting enough rest can negatively affect your mood, immune system, memory, and stress level.” In order to chase after our dreams, to pursue our ambitions to their fullest potential, we need to give our bodies and minds the opportunity to rest and prepare for all that we are asking of them. In order to continually set ambitious goals for this year ahead, we need to allow ourselves time to rest in order that we may be in the best posture of creating dreams for ourselves and of setting intentions of pursuing those dreams. After realizing the importance of allowing ourselves daily physical and mental rest, we must, then, create the space in which we find rest and solace. A couple months ago, in the weariness of the unpredictable time of emerging adulthood, I was advised to go to the beach every day. Here, I was told, I would find a time of clarity, simplicity, wonder, peace, and inspiration. Now, the beach is not a magical place that would captivate my thoughts and spirit into this sense of peace and tranquility, but it is the place where I, personally, would go to devote time to my own thoughts. It is the place where I would go to pause the business of life’s demands and, moreover, it is the place where I would free myself of every intention, pressure, and aspiration I was placing on my life. Immediately upon hearing this, my mind started to conjure the many reasons why I should not go to the beach every day-- the beach is too far to go just to sit and think for half an hour, people will think I am just wasting my time, I should be spending that time on countless other things. But, why not go somewhere out of my way, even just to think? What was holding me back from allowing myself to have this time of rest? Is it fear of changing my habit? Is it fear of what people would think of me? Is it fear of what that time of rest would bring, what change would come out of it, or what inspiration would be prompted from it? Why do we fear rest? Why do we think ourselves unworthy of rest? What is holding us back from going to the beach every day, taking a walk in the park, or driving somewhere, despite the inconvenience, so as to set intentional time that we would use just for ourselves?Creating the spaces and times of rest for ourselves may seem impossible amid the demand of our own thoughts and the intimidation of society’s standards, pressures, and constructs. However, assuring the existence of these spaces and periods of rest in our lives is absolutely essential for the growth of our dreams and the fruition of our ambitions. Knowing the importance of this rest and what it can do for our dreams, intentions, and aspirations, we must prepare these spaces, we must go out of our way to assure these times of rest, and we must shake up our habits in order to allow the freedom of our thoughts. So, go to the beach, take a walk through the park, go out for a jog, wake up ten, thirty, forty-five minutes earlier. Create and continually assure this time of rest for yourself, not only because your dreams and aspirations deserve the fullness of your intention, but because you deserve the fullness of your intention. Allow yourself to rest in the uncomfortable yet wholly beautiful silence and stillness of your thoughts, for in that time of rest, you may discover uncovered truth and revealed treasure for your spirit in the pursuit of every one of your dreams.