Volume 1, Issue 7
January 19, 2021
Growth, Love, and Reflections of the Moment
Everyone Should Play Video Games
Dating Jake has brought many new joys into my life. Superhero movies. Fluency in left-wing politics. Putting buffalo sauce on everything.
Jake is also the reason there is now a Playstation 5 and a Nintendo Switch lying around the house.
I don’t know why games are seen as such a demarcated thing. I think it’s a case of PR gone wrong. Pre-Jake, I certainly never wasted much time thinking about video games. I didn’t think they were made for me. I thought they all involved stealing cars or shooting people. I thought they were only for one gender (stupid).
But let me tell you why video games are so great for anxiety-prone women!
The secret about video games is that it is just like watching TV but better. At this point, I’ve watched a lot of TV. Some of it still entertains me. But a lot of it has started to feel really predictable. And because I’m so used to it, it doesn’t really capture my attention like it used to. I kind of can’t watch TV anymore unless I’m doing something else at the same time.
The video games I slowly started to play with Jake, and then by myself (a big step at the time) have this beautiful effect on my mind that I’ve mentioned somewhere in these newsletters before. The official term is work/play flow. It’s when you’re so completely absorbed in a project or activity, you forget the time and place — you also lose your running list of mental ruminations. Work/play flow is one of my favorite feelings in the world. It’s also a key component of happiness.
I absolutely love having the choice to play a game when I’m looking for some downtime. Especially in an era of our lives where there really is so much downtime. For my fairly active mind, games provide the perfect balance of engaging yet non-tiring — somewhere between lying on the couch like a potato and baking for fun.
This is coming from someone who never considered playing a video game in her life. And oddly, it took more than you would think to adjust out of that. Maybe you feel similar stigmas — age, gender, etc.
But you're an adult, you have a brain, and you deserve to be engaged.
So far I’ve most enjoyed games I can play on the Switch, which I think is a good starter device — I really liked River City Girls (the girls are adorable and they fight their way through town to rescue their kidnapped boyfriends, especially fun to play with a partner), Spelunky 2 (available soon on the switch, reminds me of a Super Mario Bros game), and Dicey Dungeons (this random ten dollar game Jake bought that’s kind of like Yahtzee and is SO. FUN.)
We all deserve more things in our lives, our REAL lives — the minutes and hours only we can fill — that make us happy. And if any lady needs to hear this: You’re allowed to play a video game. You’ll probably really enjoy it.
Simple Pleasures
Nutpods
Every morning I have been waking up so excited for my cup of coffee, simply because of dairy-free coffee creamers Nutpods. I ordered these to help kickstart my January Whole30, and there now lives a small stockpile in my garage. These are much more akin to half-and-half than plain almond milk (which I’ve been suffering with for about a year now) and have made my morning coffee so creamy and indulgent. Plus they come in flavors, which I’ve never really been a fan of in the past...flavored creamers always remind me of fake sweeteners and junk that I just don’t want added to my food. But I love the Nutpods flavors. My favorite is the french vanilla because it smells like heaven. I take a whiff before I add it to my coffee cup every time.
Beeswax Food Wraps
I recently broke out a pack of beeswax food wraps, which I’ve been a theoretical supporter of for some time, yet have been oddly wary/averse of actually using. How do they work? Are they sticky? Are they a pain to clean? I’m here to say that I absolutely LOVE beeswax food wraps for reasons I can barely explain. It’s definitely nice to cut down on my plastic use, not to mention the micro-tinge of guilt that came every time I reached for the saran wrap (regardless of who the biggest culprits of global warming are, it just feels icky to use plastic so frequently). But I enjoy using them. They’re not overly sticky and they’re really easy to use. You use the warmth of your hands to shape them around whatever your wrapping, and it covers it like magic. It’s FUN (in the same way organizing your spice rack is fun). The ones in our household are these Hunnybees. My system to clean them is this: I keep them for the very end of whatever load of dishes I’m hand-washing that day, switch the water to cold, and use a small pump of hand soap to gently wash them with my rubber gloves. They dry pretty quick, but I hang them until then wherever I’d usually hang up a dishtowel.
The Best Ever Paleo
Chicken Nuggets
I’ve been cooking a lot out of The Defined Dish cookbook (gifted to me by a reader and friend!) I can’t recommend Alex Snodgrass’s blog/her cookbook highly enough. One of my favorite recipes comes from her section “Cleaned Up Kid Food” for paleo chicken nuggets. I made these for two adults, thank you, but they still blew us away.
I almost want to hoard this recipe so no one will know how I make homemade grain and gluten-free nuggets taste so delicious. But it’s the wintertime in quarantine, so if these would bring anyone else a sliver of comfort, then I’m happy to share...I guess…
Jake and I made these with sweet potato fries and had a bit of a dipping sauce party. His ideal nugget-sauce combo is barbecue, while mine is tried and true ketchup (linking those simply because the clean versions I buy are seriously just as good as the junky versions).
*FYI, these have a 2-hour marinating step.*
The Best Grain-Free Chicken Nuggets
From The Defined Dish cookbook by Alex Snodgrass
1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless breasts
½ cup dill pickle juice
2 large eggs
½ cup tapioca starch
½ cup almond flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
½ cup avocado oil
Lay the chicken breasts in a single layer across a cutting board and cover with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Using a meat mallet or the bottom of a skillet, pound the breasts until they are an even ¼-inch thickness. Remove and discard the plastic wrap, then cut the chicken into 2-inch pieces.
Place the chicken in a bowl with the pickle juice, and toss to coat evenly. Cover and refrigerate to allow the chicken to brine in the pickle juice for at least 2 hours (and up to all day).
When chicken has finished brining, strain off the excess pickle juice.
Set up an assembly line for dredging your chicken: In a shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs and 1 tablespoon water until frothy. In a separate bowl, combine the tapioca starch, almond flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, and black pepper. Using a fork, stir to combine and break up any clumps.
Individually dip each chicken piece in the egg, letting excess drip off, then roll in the flour mixture to coat. Set aside on a clean plate and continue until all the chicken is coated. To make your dredging process cleaner, I like to designate one hand to dip the chicken in the egg mixture, then the other for the rolling in the flour mixture.
In a Dutch oven, heat the avocado oil over medium heat. When hot, working in batches, fry the chicken until the crust is golden brown and the meat is cooked through, about 3 minutes on the first side, and 1 to 2 minutes on the second. Once cooked, transfer chicken to a paper-towel lined plate and continue until all the chicken is cooked through and crispy.
Serve with your favorite dipping sauce.
Jake's New Project
I think Jake and I’s poop-positive discourse was catching…because there now lives Potty Break With Jake! Enjoy a new musing/review from Jake every single day, each only a few minutes long, perfect for your bathroom break. See his episodes so far here. An insider tip is that his episodes will keep playing even as you scroll Instagram or Twitter, perfect for multitasking millennials like myself.