The countdown is on...
A quick trip to LA, meatballs, and an ebook bebe!
It’s a very exciting day! It’s ebook eve! Tomorrow, Meal Prep Made Simple will be out in the world and I can’t wait to see y’all cooking from it. Erica and I have been working on this project for months and we’ve got some fun events planned to celebrate this week, including a fall meal prep class on Sunday and an IRL celebration in Brooklyn.
I wanted to share a little bit from the introduction to Meal Prep Made Simple to give you a peek into how we meal prep—there is no bland chicken breast to be found but there are desserts, cocktails, lots of sauces, and more!
Our entire approach to meal prep is about making it more joyful and less stressful (life is hectic enough, so we’ve done all the planning for you). While we’ve emphasized meal prep in this book, the recipes here go far beyond weekday lunches—we both love to have people over and believe meal prep can help streamline that process. Cook in advance, light a few candles, and you’re in business.
When you preorder today, you’ll get two free playlists (one podcast, one music) to keep you company in the kitchen, and a discount code for Sunday’s class. Thursday’s newsletter will be a behind the scenes look at making the ebook plus a recipe, reads, and an advice column. It’s my first time publishing an ebook and I’ve learned a lot along the way.
I also got to write about something near and dear to my heart: dollar oysters for Hell Gate. I tried my first oyster at a dollar oyster happy hour in 2017 and they’re rapidly disappearing for a number of reasons!
Now, let’s dive in.
Something to cook:
We had Kol Nidre dinner with my parents and friends and they made our traditional Yom Kippur eve meal: spaghetti and meatballs. There were two versions, one with ground chicken and one with veggies and quinoa. The quinoa meatballs are based on this recipe—my mom doubles it and adds a sautéed onion, 4 Tbsp chopped scallion, 4 Tbsp chopped basil, and 4 Tbsp chopped parsley. The sauce was souped up Rao’s and we also had salad, garlic bread, and tahini brownies that Julia made with vanilla ice cream (Haagen Dazs vanilla bean ice cream is so good).
I can’t wait to cook more once I’m back in my kitchen! It’s been too long.
Something to order:
Our first night back in New York, we had to get pizza from Williamsburg Pizza. The taste of home.
I did a social media fast this year instead of a traditional fast but I still needed to have a bagel. I got the last everything bagel at Simply Nova and it was exactly what I was craving.
We headed to LA to squeeze family and go to a wedding (we fly back tonight). Our first night we got sushi from Hama Sushi with Leah and Erika, which is so good.
On Friday, we went down to Newport to see the grandparents and picked up lunch from Mendocino Farms. Leah and I split the caesar and the vegetable caprese salad and we got iced coffees at the Nordstrom Cafe in Fashion Island.
We met Anjali for dinner at Petty Cash, which was really good. They have a great cocktail menu (I tried the new chipotle mezcal drink with pomegranate that was a bit of fall flavor) and the tacos dorados with potato were so good, as was the zucchini quesadilla.
I love an ice cream date so we met Brooke and Willa at Sweet Rose Creamery. They have so many fun seasonal flavors right now (the banana pudding was so good) but I stuck to my favorites and got cookies and cream and coffee.
Molly picked me up on Sunday morning for doughnuts and coffee. We grabbed sugar and spice donuts at Blue Star on Abbot Kinney and coffee at Gnarwhal before walking along the beach. There are few things better than coffee, something sweet, and a catch up with an old friend.
The wedding was at MountainGate Country Club in the Brentwood Hills and it was stunning! The sun came out and the sunset was gorgeous. Ongell and Ramond had a beautiful wedding with such special touches—they had fresh coconuts when you arrived for some hydration and to go boxes of brownies for late night snacking.
Something to Read:
I share more reads in the Thursday newsletter for paid subscribers.
Andrea Nguyen’s Genius Soy-Seared Tofu Recipe Offers Big Flavor for Little Effort
The impact of climate change on migrant deaths at the southwestern border
Out of All Mexican Foods, Why Did the Taco Win America’s Love?
Store bought snacks can be the perfect dinner party appetizer
The disaster that was Mexican week on the Great British Bake Off
Sandwiches must be cut diagonally, and I’m not taking questions. My dad would be happy to tell you the story of the time I rejected a sandwich as a child because it was cut wrong.
Frida wrote about the city’s new compost program in Queens. I hope it keeps expanding. If you’re looking to start composting, here’s how I did it.
Yes, secular Jews can take time off for the high holidays. And let’s all try and do better at not scheduling important meetings, calls, and events on major holidays.
New York reservation culture has gotten so intense!
Are You the Same Person You Used to Be?
‘Romanticizing Your Life’ Can Be a Legit Form of Mindfulness.
Here’s my dollar oyster article one more time! I’ve been trying to bring this idea to life for months and am so happy it’s finally here.
I’ve shared this before but Indigenous Peoples day is a great day to learn more about the Indigenous communities whose land we’re living on. I’m writing this on Chumash and Tongva land.
I’m flying back to New York tonight and I really need to get to S&P
You all have brought back some pretty wonderful things from your travels.
Anna: The best thing I brought back from a trip (recently) was a love of babies! I visited a dear friend of mine in Ireland who just had her first kid, and I got to spend some quality time with this tiny mushroom of a human (he was about five months old when I met him.) I totally get it now – this kid doesn't know anything about anything. There's something so beautiful about that :) I also went home with like 6 bags of Maltesers, which are so good.
Mike: I brought this painting home from a work trip to South Africa. I got it at the Spier Winery in Stellenbosch. They have a program called Creative Block that provides artists with small, blank, square blocks to create work on. If selected, they're sold at the winery in a constantly-rotating selection. I did a terrible job converting rands to dollars and thought I was paying 10 times less than I actually was! Still, I love the work, so it was totally worth it. I also brought home far more fantastic South African wine than I declared.
I have to leave you with one LA travel tip that I saw on twitter. If you need to call a car from the airport, take the free LAX shuttle at the pink poles to either the bus station or the metro station and then call an uber from there (or take public transit if it’s convenient to your destination). We only had to wait two minutes for the shuttle. Ubers at the airport were almost $80, but after we took the shuttle, it was only $22. Do you have any travel tips you’d like to share with the group? I’ll include them in next week’s newsletter!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support of Meal Prep Made Simple! I’m so excited for tomorrow!
xo, Abigail
congrats SO BIG on the book launch!!
(and also, I am tickled that, of course, Blue Star opened up shoppes in LA after Portland...oh, west coast...and mmmm, donut)