Welcome to Recipes for Disaster, a blog about nurturing body and soul through troubled times

butterfly painted on white brick wall with broken window
Photo by Kristel Hayes on Unsplash

This blog was born when I went through a difficult time in my life. Here I share the lessons I learned, in the hope that they may help you navigate your own storms and remind you that you’re not alone. Recipes for Disaster features two types of posts:

Recipes for when we’re exhausted or brokenhearted and tempted to drown our sorrows in pints of ice cream or bottles of wine. Never are comforting, simple, nourishing meals more important than when we’re going through difficult times.

Disasters happen to us all throughout life. This section includes musings on how to tame fear, regret, self-criticism, vindictiveness and other demons. How to ask for help. How to grow (it’s never too late!). Simplicity and abundance. Self-compassion and forgiveness (of self and others).

So go make a cup of tea, put on your reading glasses and stay a while—you’re among friends.

12 reasons to eat chia puddingRecipes

I used to dismiss chia pudding as Instagram eye candy that nobody needs, but once I began to ponder its many advantages, I changed my mind. Now I eat it at least twice a week and recommend it to all my clients. Here’s why: It’s ridiculously quick and easy to prepare, no cooking required, just […]

Make breakfast count: Spinach & Parmesan scrambleRecipes

One of the things I love about intermittent fasting (i.e., not eating for 12+ hours overnight) is that when breakfast finally comes, I really appreciate my food! So much so that, after waiting to eat for many hours, I don’t want to just chug a boring old smoothie

Soothing semolinaRecipes

My daughter had all her wisdom teeth removed recently and wasn’t allowed solid food for days. After a few glorious hours guzzling ice cream, chocolate milk and Gatorade, she got fed up with the sweet stuff and craved something savory.

Bircher muesli (Overnight oats)Recipes

Even (or especially?) crazy-busy people need a decent meal to start their day. Bircher Muesli to the rescue! This breakfast dish is inspired by a preparation pioneered in 1900 by the Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner for

Pollo con arrozRecipes

I love one-pot meals. In part because there’s only one pot to wash. But mostly because there’s something very convivial and comforting about a meal that’s prepared in, and shared from, the same receptacle. Special Snowflakes be warned: here we all eat (from) the same dish. It’s the Mediterranean way. The Instantpot makes one-pot cooking […]

Middle age sucks — but there’s hopeMusings

Happy belated birthday to me! Yup, I celebrated the Big Five-Two yesterday. And with it, the realization that—statistically speaking—I’m the unhappiest now that I’ll ever be. Cheers to that! According to a recent Washington Post article, 52 (or thereabouts) is the age at which people in the industrialized west feel the most miserable. Illusions have been […]