5 Brain Healthy Things I’m Into This Winter
Plus, my recipe for Sicilian Broccoli, Kale, and Pistachio Pesto
Hi everyone. I am writing to you from Boulder, Colorado where I am staying with family and recovering from knee surgery. My brother- and sister-in-law are retired professors and their home is a book lover’s dream. In between icing my knee, doing PT, and working on my first semester-long college course (which starts next week!), I have been dipping into their collection to disappear into stories.
Knee surgery is no picnic but, rest assured—I am well taken care of with lots of brain-healthy food, my support dogs Orzo and Livvie by my side, and all these great books.
Thanks for sharing your reading, listening, and watching recommendations in the comment section last week. My Kindle is stacked and my Netflix watchlist is full. I’d love to hear any other recommendations you may have!
For today’s newsletter, I’m excited to share some of the things I’ve discovered while nesting in preparation for surgery. Without further ado, here are the 5 brain-healthy things I’m into this winter.
1. Savor the Season Cookbook Club
I am a huge fan of cookbook clubs. I miss the one I started in 2010, an in-person rotating potluck that thrived until the pandemic shut us down. So when I saw that my friend Dr. Michelle Seguin was launching a virtual cookbook club here on Substack, I was all in.
Michelle is a board-certified family and lifestyle medicine physician who writes about food as medicine, gardening, and seasonal cooking. We have been collaborating on projects and fangirling each other’s writing for years. I love that Michelle launched Savor the Season with an oldie but goodie cookbook: True Food by Andrew Weil. Each cookbook club includes a carefully curated menu from the book. There’s also an audio “Kitchen Conversations” where Michelle talks you through the recipes and shares her food as medicine POV.
My book The Brain Health Kitchen will be the cookbook club pick for June. I can’t wait! And I’ll be joining Michelle as part of Kitchen Conversation. To join the club, subscribe for free to .
2. Substacks: some new faves
Since surgery I’ve had some time to get caught up on what’s happening on Substack. I know Substack can be a bit overwhelming; there is so much great writing it can be hard to find time to digest it all. Here are the newsletters I tend to open and read as soon as they come out. They’re that good!
Second Brain by Dr. Emily Leeming. I first discovered Emily through her book Genius Gut. Emily does a great job explaining complex gut microbiome tenets and transforming them into real-life take-aways. I love her book so much that I added it to the list of recommended books for my Harvard class. The newsletter is in the midst of a series—8 Weeks to a Thriving Gut. She just covered probiotic supplements—what to look for and if you really need them.
Othertongue by Lindsay Maitland Hunt. I’ve worked with Lindsay for years—she’s the editor behind this newsletter and my book. I am a huge fan of her writing and her books (Healthyish and Help Yourself). I tend to devour her newsletter as soon as it drops. The reading list itself is worth the price of admission!
It brings me to tears to read Lindsay’s account of losing everything in the LA fires. Lindsay and her husband Kevin had just moved back to the US with their puppy Macaroni after living abroad, their most prized belongings stuffed into several suitcases. Thankfully, their little family is unharmed, and Lindsay has just written a raw account of what it’s like to lose “all that stuff.” If you are moved to help them out, their family has set up a gift registry to help them get back on their feet.
Nest Wellness by Beth Bollinger. If you are looking for recipes geared for metabolic health, Beth’s newsletter is a treasure trove. Like we went into in our mini-series last year, taking care of your brain health also relies on paying attention to blood glucose and other metabolic health biomarkers. Beth’s recipes are not only easy and delicious, she tests each one with her CGM. Although individual glucose responses will vary, this provides added confidence for fostering a stable blood sugar.
To see what else I am loving on Substack, check out the Recommendations list on the right column of my homepage.
3. Tackling plastic in my kitchen
Over the years I have been trying to rid my kitchen of plastic containers and utensils, while replacing cookware with toxin-free upgrades. You’ve probably read the alarming reports of microplastics that make their way into the body. This one published in the March 2024 New England Journal of Medicine describes a small series of patients with microplastics embedded in coronary arteries. They’ve been identified in the brain, too, according to this recent report from Brazil. While it’s not known if microplastics arrived there by crossing the blood brain barrier, researchers hypothesize they are getting to the brain through the nose since particles were detected in the olfactory bulb.
No matter how diligent I am, though, those plastic containers find their way back into my kitchen cupboards. After the holidays I went on a tear—tossing pretty much every plastic thing. Then I splurged on this glass food storage set from Caraway. Not only is the company committed to products free of common kitchen toxins—BPA, PTFE (Teflon), PFOA, and heavy metals—the glass containers look nice and can go from freezer to oven to table. The smaller ones can serve as a lunchbox. My set was on sale, which was great, but I wanted to make sure you got a good deal so I reached out to them for a discount code. Paying subscribers: find it at the bottom of this post.
Do you have questions about toxin-free cookware and kitchen utensils? Drop them here; I am doing research for an upcoming BHK post.
4. MELT travel pack
At the Brain Health Retreat in Costa Rica last month, we gave each guest a little gift: a MELT travel kit and travel foam roller. They were such a hit! I’ve been using MELT balls to give my hands and feet a restorative treatment for years (learn more here), and I love having everything packed into a compact, easy to pack bag.
The foam roller fits in my travel backpack and carryon, which means I can keep my routine up on the road. Add a travel yoga mat (my son Jack gave me this one for Christmas) and some resistance bands and you’ll be all set. There are lots more tips for keeping fit while traveling in this post.
5. My recipe for Sicilian Broccoli, Kale, and Pistachio Pesto
Before I went in for surgery, I made time to make and freeze a few nourishing, brain-healthy soups, like the Creamy Tomato Soup and the Cannellini Soup with Frizzled Sage in my book. I made a few batches of pesto, too, inspired by a cooking class I did with Founding Members last winter. This Sicilian Broccoli, Kale, and Pistachio Pesto is one of my faves.
RECIPE: SICILIAN BROCCOLI, KALE, AND PISTACHIO PESTO
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This pesto is based on a memorable dish we enjoyed during last fall’s Brain Health Retreat in Sicily. We had been wine tasting near Mt. Etna and our host, Ben Simpson, took us to lunch at a family owned trattoria in Randazzo. The meal started with a potato and olive salad with giant capers and braised local greens. Then this impossibly green pesto was served, as flavorful and bright-tasting as it was beautiful. I asked Ben to introduce me to the woman in the kitchen behind the pasta and its green sauce. Paola is an elegant ageless woman with impressively large hands who makes handmade pasta at the restaurant every day. Her sauce would be impossible to replicate as the variety of greens isn’t available where I live. My version is made with kale and broccoli and pistachios, a nut the Mt. Etna region is famous for. Please enjoy!