Chickpea Magazine

got to meet sooo many lovely people this weekend at 🥹

thank you for all the love and support (and so many incredible sweets, which fed us while we were stuck in the blizzard for an extra day or two after 😛)

now back to getting out the rest of our offline issues! 👏📦💌

while we wait for the new issue to finally get here, this is what my days look like 😌 mostly lots of computer work punctuated by good food 🥰☕️🍂

little things to find joy in this december 🍂🎄❄️☕️🎧🥞

vegan food we've been making for gatherings lately ☕️🍂 what are you cooking up this week/season?

the OFFLINE issue is, well, online ☺️

I feel like I've lived most of my life online, but in the past several years that's all it's been: doomscrolling and obsessing over what is essentially algorithmically-designed time filler. I said I was staying up-to-date and connecting with others, but ultimately it was just to feed my human desire for dopamine, but that's not how I want to live 5, 10, or 40 years from now. I want to know what's happening in the world and laugh at funny videos, but I also don't want Big Tech and corporate america to control my life.

So for this issue, I wanted to learn how to reconnect with myself and disconnect from this endless hole of whatever algorithm they want to feed me. In the last six months of research into this, I've snapped out of constantly feeling the urge to be on social media, online, or even in the mainstream view of what “success” is. I still keep up with my work and the news, but without the stress of having a 24 hour news and comparison machine in my pocket wherever I go.

If you’re feeling pulled in a thousand directions, feel like every day goes by too quickly, and just want a break so you can keep going, this sequel to our Mindfulness issue would be a great weekend read in the upcoming months.

Inside the OFFLINE issue 💛

🔍 the attention economy: strengthening your media literacy
🥞 unplugged breakfasts (getting your day started right)
💸 opting out: doing a low-spend month to end my relationship with consumerism
☕️ everyday cafe – making your home cozy enough to enjoy time offline
💾 living each day like y2k: how i channel my 15yo self to get offline
🥗 template cooking to never have to comment “RECIPE” again
😌 screen-free sundays
🍲 the joy of cooking slow
📺 designated tech spaces for more control over your screentime
💭 noticing: cultivating presence and moments of peace
⛅️ radically optimistic morning rituals
👯‍♀️ gatherings for feeling not so alone (and how to make and keep friends)
🌱 touching grass - a mindfulness meditation
and way more, including 16 articles, 29 recipes, and 9 printables

This is our 40th issue and I couldn't be more excited or proud to share this work for such a milestone. https://chickpeamagazine.com/products/issue-40-offline

our go-to way to make meals wayyyy easier each week 🥑

we like making some basic elements to mix and match throughout the week, and then just make things in big batches - like pizza dough, or curry, or pasta salad. makes for effortless vegan meals and prevents food waste, which saves money. a win-win! 😌🥬🫑🫛🥒

an early summer photo dump of mostly quick vegan meals, keeping our space clean, so many photoshoots and writing days, doing events nearly every weekend (including travel), and iced drinks galore 👽👌🏼🧋🪐🪴

in the joy issue, i talked a bit about having an “opening shift” and “closing shift” in your kitchen (or anywhere in your space really) to make it feel cleaner and easier to live in. we do it at work, so why not make a habit of it at home? 

it helps lead in and end our days so we know “I’m ready for my day now” or “I’m done now”. it can also split up tasks if you’re living with other people – if you take the morning “shift”, your partner can take the evening, or vice versa. especially if you work from home or need a better routine, this can help out!

these are just a few ideas that i do myself. i love putting on some music, a podcast, or a TV show while working on these – it just makes it more fun. ☺️

small changes we made to our kitchen to feel not as stressful 🤞

📋 put our most commonly used recipes and reference on our fridge, inside cabinets, and framed on the wall.

📥 put like items on trays while cooking – spices, produce, baking ingredients, anything that’ll help us get items together (and put them away) easier.

❄️ move the shelves regularly in our fridge when things aren’t fitting really well.

🍎 used other spaces in our house to store dishes, out-of-season cookware, cleaning supplies, or bowls of fresh fruit. (anything that doesn’t NEED to be in the kitchen proper can go.)

🍂 got a rolling kitchen cart where we store all our spices and do like 90% of our cooking.

📱 always having a charger for our phone/tablet so we can watch/listen to something while cooking.

🎃 “decorated” with produce, homemade ingredients, a few cookbooks at a time from our collection, meal planners, and pages cut out from the mag. it's inspiring AND functional.

🧺 used S-hooks, hanging baskets, and hanging shelves to add extra storage space.

🕯️ added a few low lamps so our only lighting at night wasn’t the bright overhead hospital lighting. 😖

🫙 fit storage into every tight space (including renter-friendly over-the-door hanging shelves) so that it can be shallow and easy to access, saving money and waste and making it look like a store pantry. 🥰

🍴 stored alike items together for easier cooking and baking. (baking tools together, baking pans together, etc.)

⏲️ utilize a “closing shift” (or opening shift, depending on the day) to clear the dishes and counters regularly. a clean kitchen makes it exciting to cook, not a burden.

𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 “𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘬𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘯” 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘌𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘦 ✌️😌☕️

what do you do to make your kitchen feel like home....but less stressful?

(just) 10 ways i stopped myself from doomscrolling this week 🤞🏼

it can be important to stay connected with the world, but it doesn’t need to (and shoudn’t) be all access all the time – it’s bad for your brain, which’ll just burn you out and have you in despair. (which, imo, is exactly what those in power want.) here’s how i recharge and stay off addictive scrolling apps most of the day:

🎧 heading out (for *fun,* not just a dmv visit) and going to the market, a greenhouse, a friend’s place, anywhere that’ll bring you back to the world around you a little.
🧩 solving puzzles! more effective than you’d think at consuming your whole brain
🍩 baking – especially something that takes a while, like cinnamon rolls
🌲 putting on twin peaks for our fourth (?) rewatch and tidying up the kitchen
✍🏼 late night movies with a sudoku book
☕️ working with friends (or, if you don’t work from home, calling friends while you make dinner)
🎞️ scanning & putting into albums all of my family’s photos
🐈 reading under blankets with our cats
🌤️ starting the day with morning yoga (can be quick, even 5 minutes! it’ll at least get you out of bed which is where i used to get stuck scrolling)
🛁 ending the day with a good shower/bath to unwind and separate the busy day from the chill night
📱 setting up my phone to not be distracting (minimizing apps, turning off notifications, and keeping it in one place in the house during the day – if you work out of the house, this could mean keeping it in your bag instead of right in your pocket)

what's your go-to way to unwind from the stress of everything around us? always looking for more ideas 🙏🏼

𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘑𝘰𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘪𝘰 ✌🏼🖤

interrupting your doomscroll with a tribute to my favorite creative force, david lynch ☕️

we love watching his work really late at night (and have been rewatching this week), and during twin peaks always get so hungry for donuts, but could never have them because donut shops don't stay open that late.

for our pause issue, we made some quick simple donuts to cook at home on nights like this. and at least for us, we could really use them right now 🤞

back in 2017 we went to squonalmie falls in washington and got a box of donuts to celebrate, and it was one of the highlights of that decade for me. channelling that feeling and frying up donuts today in his honor 🍩🍩🍩