Parings .02 🍷🧀

Exploring Exhaustion, Life Cost, and Trade-offs (plus an allergen-friendly salad that’s actually delicious)

(Photo Credit: Tim De Pauw on Unsplash)

(Welcome to this new [experimental] series, where I share things that go well together - not only the traditional wine and cheese, but things I’ve read or heard or seen.)

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1. “This Could Be Why You Feel Exhausted” - The Next Right Thing Podcast

In this episode of her hugely popular podcast about “making decisions, but also, making a life,” author Emily P. Freeman explores one spiritual reason why we might be tired. “We all know it's possible to feel physically exhausted and not have anything external to point to. That could be a sign that you're tired on the inside, and that's where the rules are different. One sneaky cause of burnout could be because you're still figuring out what it means that the soul and the schedule don't follow the same rules.”

When we try to force our souls to meet our schedule’s criteria or timeline, we’re in for disappointment and exhaustion. “Mostly, you can systemize your schedule, but you can't systemize your soul,” she explains. Instead, Freeman suggests that we take different mindsets and apply them to each. “When it comes to problems,” for example, “the rules of the schedule are to solve them, but the rules of the soul are to sit with them.” 

“To live in the world will always involve some degree of assessment, vision, planning, strategy, execution, completion, and evaluation. It's the way of our modern life. But if we approach ourselves this way, we'll end up feeling some degree of shame, fear, or anger, and yes, exhaustion. And so when we are faced with a decision or in a season of discernment, it's good to be aware that we need both of these mindsets.”

2. “Why Am I Always So Tired?: How Discerning the Cost of Anything is Essential to Living Well” - Clarity Life Consulting

In the first post of this blog mini-series, I¹ explore the idea that maybe we’re tired because we haven’t intentionally discerned our trade-offs in life.

“Why am I always so tired?” If you’ve asked yourself this question, you’re not alone…while sometimes we genuinely need to sleep more or explore a chronic health condition, very often what makes us tired is a lack of discernment about the cost of things in our lives.

If we want to truly live well, we have to pay attention to the expenses and income of our lives, not just our bank accounts. When we ask how much something costs, most of us are referring to a thing’s monetary value. How much money will we have to give up in order to own (or lease) the thing?

But most of us get money to buy things by giving up something of ourselves…

This quote from Henry David Thoreau really gets to the heart of the matter:

‘The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.’”

Are we happy with how much of life we’re exchanging for the things we get in return?

What’s more, we might not be aware of how much comparison is robbing us of the ability to spend well in the areas that matter to us.

“Everyone is different: price-tags with monetary cost can’t account for that diversity.

For the woman who loves hosting, a large house is not an extravagance: it’s serving her desire to host others. For the woman who loves art, a widely-varied closet is a palette for creativity and not the useless burden it is for the woman who’s happy wearing a simple daily uniform. If you loathe meal planning, a food prep subscription plan is a well-thought-out-choice to spend life on other things, rather than an unnecessary expense.”

The rest of the series asks if we’re happy with how we’re trading our time (part II), energy, (part III) and emotional expenditure (part IV).

3. Dairy-free, Nut-free Waldorf Salad

If you’re someone who’s happy to trade time in the kitchen in exchange for delicious salad, I think this one’s worth it!

It’s finally turning in to apple season, at least in many places. I love apple season! But I especially love recipes for food that I can actually eat, which for me usually means dairy and nut free. (This is difficult in a world that primarily pairs apples with cheese, butter, and nuts.)

This salad is what pushed me over the edge from “I’d maybe like to have a personal blog just for fun” to, “I need somewhere to write about my love for this dish because I’m pretty sure my husband doesn’t want to hear any more about the glories of roasted grapes.”

I’ve never been into Waldorf salad. Until recent years, I was never really into celery. Celery plus grapes…just seemed weird.

But oh my gosh, roasting grapes?

That caramelized sweetness adds a depth of flavor beyond the sharp, crisp, burst of a regular grape. It’s like… port. A nice port vs. a crisp pino grigio. They’re both lovely, but in this salad, you already have a bright crisp from the apples, the crunch of the celery – you don’t need another thing in the same family. You need the richness of a roasted grape.

And the juices that run off the roasted grapes… that basically is like port. You don’t want a goblet full of it, but a tiny bit of that syrup will go a long way towards making this salad a whole thing, and not just a salad.

I want to make this all the time. Each mouthful of salty-sweet, rich-fresh, crispy-creamy goodness is so very moreish.

[Oh, you’re American? You’ve never heard the word moreish? I hadn’t either – but my British husband has introduced me to many new useful words. You’ll probably find them sprinkled throughout my writing, as well as inconsistent spelling due to my now bifurcated brain and national spell checks of different computer programs.

But I digress. Moreish is actually more-ish. As in, I want to eat more of this thing. In context: That salad is really freaking moreish. I could have eaten the whole bowl but I had to save some for my husband’s lunch.]

To make Jamie Oliver’s Waldorf Salad dairy-free and nut-free, simply substitute mayo for the yogurt and pine nuts [technically, seeds] for the walnuts. 

(If you’re egg-free too, you could try coconut yogurt. The tarragon flavour is pretty strong so it might actually overpower the coconut.)

Serve with rotisserie chicken for a fantastic fall meal. 

1. Clarity Life Consulting = me. My job is to help people learn to discern well so they can live with purpose and peace (not in some influencer-on-Kilimanjaro way, but in the I’m-living-intentionally-and-generally-enjoy-my-ordinary-days kind of way.) I really love my work.