RPL at Home: February 2025

Welcome to the February 2025 edition of RPL at Home, where I share what I’m up to when I’m not in the kitchen or in front of the camera. 

Everyone seems to be on Substack these days, and I’ve briefly considered it, but between the blog, our current newsletter, YouTube channel, meal plan subscription, and more, I am not sure there’s room for one more ball (platform) to juggle.

Anywho, let me know your thoughts in the comments if you have any suggestions!  

🧘🏽‍♂️📱What I’m working on in life 

Distancing myself from social media. In particular, Instagram, as I don’t use TikTok or X, or Facebook (an assistant manages my Facebook business account). 

Back story: Back in fall 2023 / winter 2024, I took a hiatus from Instagram, where not only did I not post, I didn’t even open the app for four months. 

I eventually returned to the app (it’s sort of part of the job), and as I geared up for my cookbook launch in September 2024, I found myself using Instagram much more than I would have liked. 

By last fall, the state of zen I had enjoyed during that four-month reprieve had largely disappeared, despite me having better social media boundaries and a more sophisticated understanding of how the app affected my mood, energy, and productivity. 

That realization, plus the nonstop election cycle and the ensuing results, made me reevaluate my relationship to Instagram yet again. 

I find myself often wondering whether it’s possible to be a “content creator” who creates content but doesn’t participate in all facets of its dissemination.

God, just reading that sentence, you can tell I used to be a nerdy lawyer who’s probably not cut out for the world of content creation in the first place 😅

But in all seriousness, I do think about my role and responsibility as a content creator. As much as I love sharing recipes and food content, I don’t want to be part of a system that has created an actual addiction for millions of people, an app that generally leaves people less happy and more anxious than they were before they picked up their phones. 

There are certainly bright spots to social media and I am so grateful that I’ve been able to build a positive community there over the last eight(!) years, but the way the apps are designed—to make endless scrolling and sensory overload inevitable—makes those bright spots increasingly hard to find. 

Anywho, I’ve been trying to get to a place where, if it’s a day where I’m not posting a video to my Instagram feed (which is most days), I simply don’t open the app. If I want to post a story or respond to a few messages, I give myself 10 minutes a day (or fewer) to spend on the app. 

And I’ve been relying on one of my assistants to help with social media management so I can spend less time working on the actual creation of the content. 

I’m not fully there yet, but the days where I don’t open Instagram, I feel much better: more energetic, more excited about work, more focused, and well, just happier. Which, in turn, gives me more time and energy to (a) work on the things I do love and (b) to hang out with the people I cherish (like my silly mom). 

What I’m watching, listening to, and reading

📺 Watching

My favorite TV show from 2022 was the Netflix comedy-drama series Mo, so I was beyond thrilled when season 2 finally dropped last month. 

The show is loosely based on comedian Mo Amer’s life as a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Texas, and it was co-created by Ramy Youssef, star of one of my other favorite TV shows (also titularly named, Ramy). 

What drew me to the show is that it’s unlike anything on American TV. Yes, Mo and his family are refugees who have been seeking asylum for 20+ years, but they’re also laugh-out-loud funny and entrepreneurial (Mo hustles between selling merch from his car, working as a strip club security guard, running a falafel taco food truck, and whatever job is open to him as a refugee without papers). Mo’s love interest is Mexican-American, and Mo effortlessly lays down jokes in Spanish, English, and Arabic.  

The show touches on deep topics and it’s often heartfelt, but the humor is always present. And Mo’s indomitable spirit—always hustling, always resilient—is a beautiful testament to the better side of humanity. 

Watch the season 2 trailer here. 

📚 Reading

When the New York Times issued its 100 Best Books of the 21st century last year, I spent an obscene amount of time reading that list, marking the books I had read (not nearly enough to my chagrin), and researching the books that sounded interesting to me. 

Here are three books from the list I’ve recently read (and loved). 

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I’ve mentioned this in a past edition of RPL at Home, but Jesmyn Ward is my favorite contemporary writer. And for good reason. She’s just 47 years old and is the only author on the above-mentioned NYT list with three books on the list (and was the the first woman and Black American to have won two National Book Awards). 

In Salvage the Bones, Ward, who grew up in rural Mississippi and survived Hurricane Katrina with her family by sheltering in a truck, tells the story of the bond between three motherless children in the days leading up to the hurricane in a poor bayou town. As with all of her books, her prose is intoxicatingly beautiful and the storyline will instantly hook you. 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. This novel, which had been on my list for years, combines many different themes and styles: it’s a coming-of-age love story, there are science fiction references peppered in with magical realism, and there’s a generous amount of Spanish slang plus Dominican history (the latter felt like a free education in a topic most of us will never learn in school). 

The combination works brilliantly, as it weaves through the life of Oscar Wao, a nerdy, overweight hopeless romantic who navigates unrequited love and third culture kid experiences in New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. The narrator’s voice—uniquely funny and biting yet eloquent—makes this an easy and highly enjoyable read. 

Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. While I lean towards fiction (the real world is a hot mess, I need an escape!), I occasionally dabble in nonfiction, particularly books that can teach me about worlds I’ll never know much about. And Random Family is the perfect example. 

Using more than 10 years of immersive reporting and research, LeBlanc introduces us to an extended Puerto Rican-American family living in the Bronx between the 1980s and 1990s as they navigate the complicated worlds of love, family, drugs, and incarceration. This book features equal amounts of empathetic storytelling, rigorous reporting, and shocking revelations that make you want to keep reading. 

PS: If you’re the kind of person who likes to read at night and/or in bed, I can’t recommend this book lamp enough. It attaches to your book and casts a warm orange glow on your book—bright enough to allow you to read but not so bright that it will disturb your bedmate or keep you up at night. 

🎧 Listening

The best podcast series I listened to recently is The Good Whale, and I’m confident that whether you’re an animal lover like me or not, you will find it fascinating. 

It tells the story of Keiko, the orca who inspired the hit 1993 film, Free Willy. It’s poignant, sad, beautiful, and hopeful all at the same time. 

And it’s part of Serial Productions so you know it’s well executed (yes, the original Serial podcast that took narrative podcast storytelling to the next level). 

✈️ Fun Things

 As I type, we’re flying back from Australia! This is my fourth visit in the last few years, as Max’s grandparents live there and we love spending time with them.

Though it’s harder for them to get around physically these days (grandpa is 92, grandma is 89), they remain upbeat, funny, curious, kind, and thoughtful. They’ve been married for over 65 years and continue to hold hands and make each other laugh. They’re the model couple, and really just model human beings. 

This time, we spent most of our time in the area they live, the Adelaide Hills (the beautiful mountainous areas surrounding the city of Adelaide and populated with charming little towns).

Highlights included spending time with the grandparents, Max’s cousin Sophie and her husband Josh and their new baby (named in honor of grandpa’s initials!), as well as my own first cousin Isha (she grew up in India but coincidentally moved to Adelaide several years ago).

And the food! Even in small towns in the Adelaide Hills, you will find at least a few good vegan options. And I mean good. 

For instance, at this casual coffee shop and cafe, I was treated to a delicious stack of fried salt-and-pepper tofu, well-seasoned veggies, roasted pumpkin, local sourdough, sweet potato crisps, all drizzled with chili oil. At the local hotel, I dined on (actually good) vegan pizza one night; the next night, watermelon salad with peanut-ginger-sesame dressing and a vegan poke tofu bowl.

And at the warmest, sunniest restaurant, Marshi’s Kitchen, where we met the lovely Marshi—a talented chef who grew up in Sri Lanka—and her equally lovely husband, I dined on a red lentil curry bowl complete with kale sambol, braised cashews, spiced beetroot, and papadum. 

After the Adelaide Hills, we spent a few days in possibly my favorite city, Melbourne. Sure, it doesn’t have the romantic charm of Paris or the wild affordability of Bangkok (two of my other favorite cities), but it does have possibly the best vegan food scene in the world. 

I’m working on a guide to Melbourne (what to eat, where to stay, what to do), so stay tuned for all my recommendations!

Okay, that’s it for this month! Drop me a line below and let me know what you’d like to see in the next edition :)