An easy summer salad, a great gift for teens, and the perfect blue shirt

Plus, a cloud appreciation club

An old friend visited this week with her new boyfriend - we had a languid lunch, chatting and catching up. One of midlife’s great joys has been watching friends thrive after every sort of shit sandwich that life inevitably throws at us. My younger sister always reminds me that “you don’t get any more old friends,” and she’s right. Another pal called me up this week - we hadn’t talked in over a year. We talked for an hour, diving deep on parenting and life. It was as if no time had passed - our friendship is just one long conversation, and the ease with which we pick the thread back up never ceases to buoy me. The friendships that can hold their shape, even after years apart, make the grind a little lighter.

I’ve been making this quinoa salad on repeat - it gets better each day, until suddenly, it’s gone!

Adapted from LA Times

1 ¼ cups quinoa, well rinsed under running water
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 can of drained canned garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon ground cumin
Kosher salt
1 cup kale (preferably dinosaur or lacinato), stemmed and cut in ribbons
⅓ cup apricots, chopped
2-4 tablespoons chopped parsley/basil/cilantro (our cilantro was bolted, but I used the seeds!)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the quinoa until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain well, fluff on a rimmed baking sheet, and set aside to cool (this is a critical step!)

2. In a saute pan heated over medium-high heat until hot, add 2 tablespoons olive oil and the garbanzo beans, sprinkling over the ground cumin and a pinch of kosher salt. Sauté until the beans are lightly colored and aromatic. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

3. In a large bowl, toss the quinoa with the garbanzos, kale, apricots, parsley, and lemon zest.

4. To make the dressing, whisk together the remaining one-half cup olive oil, red wine vinegar, and the juice from the zested lemon, three-fourths teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste, and black pepper.

5. Add the dressing to the salad, a few tablespoons at a time, tossing to coat. You may not use all of the dressing (LOL, we used it all and added more salt).

6. This makes about 5 1/2 cups salad (we had days of leftovers - it’s better the next day!)

A. The clouds here have been epic recently; a great cloud wallpaper and a cloud party collection.

B. Ben and I saw and loved these neon color pencils at our local bookstore.

C. Spotted this on a friend; the perfect blue.

D. If your teen has some wanderlust, a great gift. My 80-year-old father enjoyed it as well.

E. My 7-year-old is in day camp, and the trading of Pokémon cards is epic and also, so sweet. Having the cards is entirely secondary to the *trading* of the cards. We discovered this little wooden dog robot today at a tiny kids' shop in Litchfield, CT. Investigators is a huge hit with my new reader!

F. Tim bought this gadget for me - it enables wireless Apple CarPlay. Bliss, bliss, bliss after years of cords breaking randomly in the middle of long, stressful drives.

G. These are an oldie but a rediscovered goodie. Thin almond cookies that melt in your mouth.

H. Quinoa for the win! The trick is truly to let the quinoa dry out on a sheet pan.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, consider clicking the ❤️ button — it really does help other like-minded readers discover my writing (oh, algorithms!).

---

I include a few bonus finds here each week for paid subscribers as a small token of appreciation for making this newsletter possible.

1. Zara Home - gah! Always a nice selection.

2. This incense holder caught my eye.

3. Magnifique!