Mid-June and Watermelon Season

Mid-June is here and the temperatures are climbing up in Georgia. But nothing compared by the brutal heat faced by so much of the world- my schoolfriend who now lives in Delhi texted me a pic of the thermometer on her balcony- it registered 50 Celsius at 10 AM- that is 122 Fahrenheit! Unimaginable, and yet a reality for millions.

I haven't had the bandwidth to try new recipes or the urge to make anything elaborate, but we are eating homemade meals with plenty of vegetables. Here's a sampler of what I ate this week:

Egg salad coleslaw- a mash-up of two summer favorite hearty salads. I started making a big box of cabbage mix (mandoline-sliced cabbage, red pepper, cucumber in this one) and eating it over the next 3 days. When it was time for lunch, I would take a bowlful of the veg mix, and add 2 sliced hard-boiled eggs (the egg slicer is one of my favorite kitchen unitaskers) and a "dressing"- teaspoon-sized gobs of mayo, mustard, plain homemade yogurt, a drizzle of pickle juice and some sweet and spicy jalapeños, salt and pepper. Mix it up and eat. 

Assembling the egg salad coleslaw

Cabbage salad mix

All mixed up

Misal-adjacent curry- Cook up a pot of lentils, and make it a meal with toppings of boiled potato, onion, cilantro, roasted peanuts, and other such assortments.

Dumpling salad- Much like the one I've posted before, only on a bed of roasted veg- broccoli, zucchini, green pepper, cabbage. 

The best thing I ate all week was something I actually drank- watermelon juice, made simply by blending fresh watermelon cubes in the blender for a few seconds, and topping it with a squeeze of lemon/lime juice and a sprinkle of salt. Serve in a chilled glass for maximum luxury.

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What I'm watching: This week, I watched three episodes of Black Mirror- Demon 79 (brilliant acting by Anjana Vasan), Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, and Playtest. Black Mirror is so, so brilliant. Even the less than stellar episodes stay on my mind for a few days, and this is not a series I can ever binge-watch. I can only handle a few episodes at a time. 

My son and I were home by ourselves this week (dad was on a work trip and big sis was at her first sleepaway camp) and so we had ourselves a couple of movie nights. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed/tolerated Pokémon Detective Pikachu on Netflix. I also took him to the theater (my first time in a movie theater since 2019, I think) to see Inside Out 2. We both enjoyed it, but with the theme of emotions in puberty, really it is big sis who is the target audience for this movie. 

Speaking of emotions and puberty, what I'm reading: Untangled: Guiding teenage girls through the seven transitions into adulthood by Lisa Damour. Damour is a clinical psychologist who specialized in adolescent girls, and says that the way people typically talk about teenage girls isn’t fair to girls or helpful to their parents (this part is very relatable.) But these years do not have to feel tangled and out of control because in fact there is a predictable pattern to teenage development. Damour describes seven developmental strands and how girls move along each of them at different rates and grow on several fronts at once. This is an extremely helpful book and while I did not agree with everything she said, I wrote down pages and pages of notes as reference. If you have a tween/teen girl in your life, I highly recommend reading this one. 

Occasionally, I stumble on one of my own posts from the endless blog archive and it is fun to read it again. This week, I re-read this book summary I wrote in the pandemic summer: The End of Overeating and chuckled to myself about how much I love writing book summaries and summarizing information in general. Note-taking is literally my biggest hobby, some would say a most useless trait in this age of Chat-GPT! 

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In my last post, I mentioned my newly acquired personal trainer certification. In the last dozen years, I've gone from being completely sedentary to a regular exerciser, and coupled with all the real-world experiences of these years, plus the textbook knowledge from the certification and a lot (lot!) of extra reading and experimentation (you'll see a few fitness-related posts sprinkled throughout the blog), I have plenty to share from what I've learned. 

I've put together a slide deck with the idea of conducting virtual and in-person fitness chats, or personalized consultations about understanding the world of fitness and how it relates to an individual's own exercise habits. This is designed to answer questions like- Working out is boring; how can I make it interesting?, or Where do I even begin?, or, I've heard of strength training but don't really understand what it means. You get the idea. 

I'm looking for a few testers, so if you have an active interest in fitness plus one or more fitness-related questions you'd like to brainstorm with me, and if you're willing to give up an hour of your time for a zoom call, email me at onehotstove AT gmail DOT com, and we'll try to schedule something. This is intended to be a win-win situation where you as the "test client" will get an hour of personalized advice and motivation and a boat-load of interesting information (with access to slides after) and in return, I would appreciate your honest feedback on whether this kind of thing is useful and how well you like the content.   I found all the testers I need for now- thank you! 

In the meantime, if you have fitness-related questions or if you want tips/resources on any specific topic, feel free to ask in the comments and I'll do my best to answer you. There are NO secrets in fitness, and yet it can feel very daunting and overwhelming. 

What was the highlight of your week?