The Only Newsletter I Care About This Week
She doesn't always start things, but when she does, she starts 700 things at once.
The Only Link I Care About This Week
Calling all Thigh Chafe KWEENS!
These are the ones. And I’ve tried them all.
Price/length/fabric/stretch/etc. Chef’s kiss.
Related: You have this, right? Because I don’t leave the house without it in the summer.
Also, please count this as your friendly yearly reminder that the distance (or lack-thereof) between your upper thighs is NOT an indicator of health/beauty/worthiness.
A little louder for the girls in the back, may I gently remind you: The Three Graces
The Only Recipe I Care About This Week
To say this salad requires zero effort is a lie. There’s a little bit of of chopping, some boiling, some draining, etc. But it really is *easy*, you know? Little brain power is required and most ingredients/measurements are merely suggestions.
POV: It’s a Saturday. You weren’t hungry for lunch until all of a sudden, it’s 4pm and you are starving. You now realize how hangry you are. Your brain is telling you that the only food that exists on the face of this earth is Chikfila, but the idea of driving an automobile sounds like a lot of work; plus, your fridge is full of food that you bought earlier this week when you were excited about the idea of summer produce.
If you can get yourself to weakly pull a bunch of ingredients out of the fridge and onto the counter with a cutting board and a chef’s knife, you can make this salad. Bonus! You will also now have all of the leftovers available to you the next time you find yourself in such a predicament (likely within the next 72 hours).
Julia’s Famous Summer Salad (that I made for the very first time last week) This is the same one I made on TikTok last week. Watch it here.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup Israeli couscous, cooked (swap for quinoa to make it GF)
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1/3 cup of crumbled feta (or crumbled goat cheese or buffalo mozzarella)
1/3 cup of pine nuts, toasted
1/2 red onion, diced
1/3 cup of Basil, cut in ribbons
1 lemon
1 garlic clove
White wine vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
Turn on the broiler for the pine nuts.
Cook a batch of Isreali couscous, per the instructions on the package. Be sure to salt the boiling water to really make those pearls sing. When they’re ready, drain the couscous and leave it in the colander. Let it cool for a minute or two and then dump the can of chickpeas right on top. Rinse it all with some cold water. Once all of the water has fully drained off, transfer everything to a large mixing bowl and toss with a drizzle of olive oil so it doesn’t stick together while you make the rest of the salad. Salt and pepper. Mix. Set aside. (Or take a big spoonful to the dome. Honestly, this could be the end of the recipe and I’d be happy.)
It is now time to toast your pine nuts. Put them on a sheet pan and slide them into the now very hot broiler. Set a timer for 2 minutes. Do not walk away. Do not move to the next step. Grab your phone and answer a text or scroll on instagram or something until that timer goes off. Multi-tasking here will end in heartache. Pine nuts are delicious little devils and, much like me, burn shockingly easily. When the timer goes off, take a look. If they’re nice and golden brown, take them out of the broiler and set them aside to cool. If they need a bit more time, put them back in the oven, but watch them like a hawk!
Now it’s time to chop. The tomatoes, the onion, the basil, the garlic clove. Chop chop chop. Transfer all of that to the bowl of chickpeas and couscous. Salt and Pepper.
Add the feta and the pine nuts. Stir it all together.
In a small bowl (or honestly, right on top of everything else), zest half of a lemon. Add the juice of the whole lemon. Another glug of olive oil. A few tablespoons of white wine vinegar (or any vinegar you like the flavor of). Stir stir stir.
Eating the salad now is great. Eating the salad after it has chilled for a bit is also great. In the coming days, don’t be afraid to add more odds and ends to it. A little shredded chicken here. A little leftover salad dressing there. A spoonful of Trader Joe’s Kale Pesto. Like the best kind of summer days, this salad reveals its plans as they come.
Plus a little more…
If you’re picturing me write this newsletter, picture me writing it at Neat Coffee. It’s where I am typing these very letters and it’s where I’ve written at least 80% of the writing that I’ve done since 2015, sneaking out of my office job a little early, feeling free to exhale here. On top of their perfect avocado toast and tasty coffee, what Owner (and friend) Ally Garvin has done to support me personally/my ideas/my many attempted businesses ideas/and, potentially most transformatively, my journey from decaf vanilla latte drinker to black coffee devotee cannot be overstated. The same could be said by so many other small business owners in Costa Mesa. This is a very special place to me and to so many and frankly, that’s a whole ass newsletter for another day. But it feels important to set the scene here today.
Mentioning this today because there’s something about the comfort:anonymity ratios that breeds raging productivity for me here. Though I often find myself happily interrupted by run-ins with friends (three so far today), mornings at Neat that gives me a push to get shit done.
Today’s task: Sending out emails to friends/strangers to be on my podcast. What podcast, you ask? Oh, the one that I declared to the internet that I was making without really having a plan/concept/guests? Yeah. That podcast.
(Insert shameless ask for subscriptions here: spotify or on apple)
I posted about the podcast for the first time on Memorial Day and have exclusively been met with either complete indifference (fine with me!) or very kind and encouraging words.
I whipped up a logo in 20~ minutes.
The completely free account on the podcast hosting platform is active and totally dialed. (In case you’re curious, I’m using anchor.)
I literally own like 4 microphones and all the equipment to record a whole episode today — something you would think may be the main hurdle!
So, WHY is it that if friends ask me when the first episode is coming out I just blankly stare at them for like 10 seconds and then change the subject?
In a way, the answer is the question:
“Would you be interested in being a guest on my podcast?”
Guys, this is the question that has stopped me from starting a podcast for that last 3 friggin years. The Big Ask. When I think about this pragmatically, any possible answer to that question will cost me zero dollars and zero physical pain/discomfort. The only real costs: A little vulnerability, sure. A medium-high chance of rejection… I’m trying to think of anything else to add to this list, but, honestly, I think that may be it. Which, when I type it out, we can all agree, feels like a pretty low stakes list. Here, similar to most cases, the fear makes no logical sense.
Here is the thing about me. My initial answer to almost anything new is gonna be a no. But then! probably about 90% of the time, after a little bit of time to process, I end up swapping over to a considered yes. Yeses that I rarely regret.
So, back to the podcast: here we see a no that has now turned into a yes. Something I did not think I should/could/would do, but am now excited by the idea of. Yet, we find ourselves at the final hurdle, as the concept of asking people to be on the podcast remains a no that must come around to a yes. And sooner rather than later, please.
Which brings us to the emails. The texts. The phone calls. The Big Ask. Still lingering. This No (fear) has taken a little longer to turn to a Yes (bravery, confidence, comfortability with the possibility of rejection), but I think it is, in fact, time to get past that very short list of perceived risk, to put on my vulnerability hat and reach out to the names on the note in my phone that I have been accumulating for 3 years. Because why wait another 3 years when all I’ve got to do is ask people to have a conversation with me for an hour? Come to think of it, this is literally online dating but the chances of it actually being fun being like way, way higher.
Anyway, I’ve been at Neat for a few hours now. And I’ve run out of time to actually send those emails today. But, I do feel much closer now than I did when I sat down. And now you all know. Which is always a fear killer. So the Big Ask feels much smaller. The whale is now a goldfish.
Podcast, forthcoming.
Hi Julia! I love your writing. Great infusion of humor with good info. Keep it up! 😍Pam