Ep. 18 Cabbage Chats & a bit about our 66-day adventure
We're back in San Diego & talking gardening, coleslaw + some reading recommends
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt”. - Margaret Atwood
Per the last episode I sent out right before the equinox, it felt imperative that I take my own advice. So on the vernal equinox I did indeed sage and clean my house, I did indeed plant in the garden. I also got pulled over by two motorcycle cops 2-stop-signs away from my house for ‘rolling through the sign’. As soon as I heard the ‘bllooop!’ & saw the lights, well, I just started crying. I couldn’t help it, it just came out. I was so rattled and felt so vulnerable. I could literally still see my house from where I was. I was hoping the officer would understand (I swear I had stopped…), but my tears definitely didn’t do anything other than prompt the officer tell me to, ‘take a minute and collect myself before driving again’ and that, ‘I wasn’t a bad person’. I’m sorry but... *expletive*.
I think I was so thrown, because I was jiving so well with the day, making + choosing consciously to be an active participant in my equinox journey. Being all ‘present & in the moment’. I was also on my way to the garden store. My happy place. Where I proceeded to stand in front of all the plants crying for about 20 minutes because I was so upset. Even the plants couldn’t cheer me up. It all felt so useless, menial. But after I managed to slow my breathing a bit, wiped my nose with my now snot-drenched sleeve, realized the sun was out and it was a beautiful day.
It wasn’t lost on me — the duality of it all. One moment I’m sage-ing my house and setting all kinds of mindful intentions, feelin’ great, like some ‘ideal version’ of myself and the next I’m replaying this ‘getting pulled over’ event over and over in my brain, feeling like an actual horrible person, reintroducing a new wave of convulsive tears down my face each time, snot running down my nose with no tissue in sight, standing in the middle of a garden store, hiding behind my sunglasses. Oh! And I got 2 wisdom teeth pulled 3 days ago so I’m in pain and on drugs. Super.
I swear, it felt like I couldn’t escape the loop, but I’ve/we’ve all been here enough times to know you just kinda have to. Come on, Justine. Muster up! What do you want? What’s your story here? What’s really important? What’s really your truth here in all this?
So, I did indeed grab some lettuces, few herbs, analyzed the tomato plants a bit, grabbed a variety of hot peppers (Jalapeño, Serrano & Habanero) & grabbed another tomatillo plant for this season, among a few other new friends. Oh! And I’m trying out a spaghetti squash this year. Never tried before so we’ll see. As I started to balanced back out, dare I say I’m grateful for the opportunity to practice choosing mindfulness? Flex my mindful muscle a bit? Use it or loose it, so they say.
Garden tip from the garden people:
For any of you fellow gardeners out there, I’m super guilty of being overly ambitious with my tomatoes and end up with a forest. I asked the garden store folks (they’re literally the best & most knowledgeable humans ever) about pruning & he had recommended: prune off the little offshoots and develop the shape of your plant. Pull the flowers and allow it to really fill out how you want. Once you’ve got a good size/shape, then let it go to flower and go wild. So, let’s see how that approach goes this year. After being away from home for so long and eating out so often, my heart is filled with so much joy and excitement about growing our own food. No stop sign ticket is gonna slow me down! Take away my joy. Nope. Not today.
About that road life…
As you know, we left San Diego on January 1, 2025 up the coast for Whistler, Canada. We got back exactly 2 weeks ago today.
We stayed in 8 hotels, 5 AirBnb’s and 5 inn’s - oh, and 5 ferries - total of 18 places over 66 days.
More on that to come. I’m looking forward to breaking it all down in a fun way. It’s one of those - feels like last year, but also yesterday? And once you get back into San Diego, everything feels far away…It’s good to be home and I’m so grateful for the adventure.
Cabbage!
A few episodes ago I shared this Asian style dressing, which is perfect for an Asian style coleslaw of any variety. In case you missed it, here ya go:
One of the last family visits, I chopped up a bunch of veg for an asian style slaw & made a large batch of dressing (both kept separate to allow for longevity & non-soggy-ness) for people to fridge-grab as they like, when they’re feelin’ snacky n’ such. It’s a good ‘kitchen sink’ salad kinda moment.
I left you a bit hanging last time and promised some cabbage chat. So cabbage chat we shall have. Few fun facts about cabbage.
A small head of it will literally most likely last you about two weeks and feed you perhaps 7.25 meals. It makes, a lot. I mean that’s not so much of a fact as in a ‘be aware when you buy cabbage it’s deceivingly abundant’.
Nutrition wise - you’re getting a lot of vitamin c, vitamin k (that’s the bone health and blood clot one) and some fiber in there for sure and antioxidants.
Cooked cabbage is easier to digest, raw cabbage contains more vitamins. You can seam, bake, boil, ferment, sauté, etc.
The classic coleslaw
I don’t personally have a recipe for classic coleslaw anymore. I’ve made it so many times and it comes out different every time & I’m okay with that. Generally, it’s some cabbage (green +/or red), bit of onion (red +/or white), shredded carrots, vinegar (usually apple cider), pinch of sugar (even as a non-sugar person, it really does benefit), vegan mayo (I don’t really buy regular mayo anymore), tiny squirt of mustard, salt, pepper, celery salt or celery seed depending on what I have & more often than not some poppy seeds. I think that’s it?
If I had to pick a recipe I’d recommend to someone, I’d use this classic coleslaw recipe, from J. Kenji López-Alt (love you Kenji the most, please let me be on your podcast so we can chat all things food science). This recipe was just updated February of 2025 so that’s always a good sign.
Listening to:
[I digress but…] If your looking for a food podcast - I started listening the Kenji + Deb podcast, “The Recipe” & I have thoughts… We all have opinions & I think most of the time our opinions tell us more about ourselves than of the world around us we’re opinion-izing, so I’m going to remain a bit mute for now. That being said! If you wanna give it a listen & chat, or if like me, you’re never really sure if a podcast is even worth your time to try? Also, gimme a shout.
Back to cabbage —> No-mayo coleslaw
Not sure how I found this one, but I tried Camila Alves McConaughey’s No Mayo Coleslaw and it was pretty good. More of the health slaw vibe which I can be down with. It’s worth a try.
Most recently, I have this on my to-be-made list. Bryant Terry’s Memphis style coleslaw from his cookbook, “Vegetable Kingdom” (which is really great btw). Because well, I’ve never been to Memphis and I don’t believe I’ve ever tried their slaw.
Not-slaw but cabbage salad
I live for screenshots on my phone that I find years later. I swear, there will be a day (or a plane without wifi) when I can go through and properly organize. But for now- I found this one, which… I actually might make tonight? So simple. I almost always will have these ingredients on hand.
Kimchi + Cabbage Rolls
I’m dreaming of making homemade kimchi, but let’s just add that to the list a mile long of projects to take on. A sweet friend of mine in cookbook club recommended Allison Roman’s recipe as a good starting point and I’m here for it. Here’s another quick-ish, easy-ish gifted NYT recipe option for Kimchi. Vegetarian version, find a sub for fish sauce (there’s lots of options out there) and I need to get my act together & get my tuchus to the Asian grocery for a giant head of Napa cabbage, some gochugaru and some asian pears. Oh! and cabbage rolls! Never made those either and I love when other people do! So that’s a project too.
Recommended Reading:
I look forward to the NYT Book Review every Sunday as much as I used to look forward to Bill Cunningham’s street style section. I find it to be one of the most intelligent sections of the entire paper offering, given that it offers actual intelligence. Not to mention, a sensational art and illustration feast for the eyes. I love adding books to my list every week that convince me I need & want to read more.
Here’s some of my favorite reviews from last week 3.16.25.
“The Cannibal Owl,” by Aaron Gwyn
My favorite line of the review; “I wanted to find my people,” he moans in the brutal aftermath, then realizes, “he’d spoken in Comanche and they’d just killed everyone who. might have understood him”. Also, this is 80 pages so my gosh, in my mind? I’m in my kitchen with a great sandwich and some potato chips reading this, and chances I go for a 2nd bowl of chips hover around 83%.
Tori Amos via NYT Book Review Illustration
Every week within the review section there is “By The Book” which has a characterized illustration of an author with some new book coming out and a series of similar questions they answer. This week was Tori Amos who apparently has a children’s book out. I resonated with some of her responses to a few books which were:
“Landmarks,” by Robert Macfarlane (epic scenery I’m here for)
“Giving Up the Ghost,” by Hilary Mantel (apparently a tear jerker?)
“Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radial Right,” by Jane Mayer
If you’re looking for an AI read, this is the actual review for “The Moral Circle - Who Matters, What Matters, and Why”, by Jeff Sebo which seems interesting and poses questions about morality towards animals.
For me personally, this one went on my library hold list, “How the World Eats - A Global Food Philosophy”, by Julian Baggini
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. It means a lot. Stay tuned for trip breakdown. I’m looking forward to it :)
Cheers for now.
Justine xoxo
