Hi! Welcome to “good mood food” from Kale Me Maybe’s Carina Wolff. If you’ve made it here and aren’t yet a subscriber, come join! You can expect recipes, musings, and faves in your inbox every Wednesday! Paid subscribers get even more on Fridays — right now I’m doing a 30-minute budget meal series! Learn more about the paid tier of my newsletter here. You can also try a week for free!
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This week, I’ve received an ad for a Motorola Razr, spotted a girl in bejeweled Playboy, low-rise sweats, and saw a promotion for a 2003 throwback movie. The 2000s aesthetic is back and trending, but I can’t say I’m very into it.
This is because, in that same week, I saw a video on TikTok about "how to eat at restaurants and stay skinny,” which involved eating almost nothing the restaurant served except for a plain slab of fish. I saw a girl touting her clean “Ayurvedic” diet on Instagram, but the list of foods she wouldn’t touch reeked of orthorexia. Young girls and women are in these comment sections asking questions about how they can emulate this lifestyle. I wish I was kidding.
These trends are not mutually exclusive. To start, you definitely won’t find me wearing low-rise jeans and camisole crop tops, not because I think they’re ugly, but simply because they remind me of my time in middle school. As someone who was a teenager in the 2000s, I have no desire to return to the fashion of that time.
But secondly, and more importantly, much of Y2K fashion was centered around women being stick thin. Because of this, so many of the fashion icons at that time, including well-known celebrities, had eating disorders. The rise of promoting thinness on social media is no doubt influenced by these fashion trends, and it’s disheartening to see.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with dressing in outfits inspired by different decades — it’s something I do myself! I remember when I came home from the flea market with a pair of vintage Ditto flared pants from the 70s, and my mom laughed at me and asked why I would want to wear something she wore when she was a child. Each generation will go through this, and that’s totally fine.
Although going back to old fashion styles is mostly harmless, it’s the unintentionally regressing back to those beauty standards that poses an issue. I’m not sure I have the solution to this — despite all my lamenting — but I suppose I wish people took more responsibility with what kind of content they post online, especially knowing that there are young, impressional girls and women on these apps. How fun would it be to dress in retro fashion with a new, more progressive and body-inclusive outlook?
THINGS I’M LOVING!
I recognize the irony in me bemoaning the return of the early aughts while promoting a pair of jeans from Abercrombie & Fitch, but I actually never shopped there in the 2000s, which is shocking, but I much prefer their recent rebrand. Anyway, I’ve been on the hunt for jeans with a leg that are not too wide and not too skinny, and I think I found the sweet spot with these 90’s Relaxed Jeans. These run a little small, so I sized up one size and got the short length.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Fishwife, but I’ve really been rocking with their Albacore Tuna lately. I made a tuna salad with apples and red onions over some pimento cheese yesterday, and I was reminded how good their tuna is. It’s light and buttery and not fishy at all. I’m not sponsored by them, but I do have a discount code: KALEMEMAYBE for 10% off.
I found this cotton top from Madewell, and I thought it was so cute. The model is a more burgundy color, but I actually got mine in brown. I love the sleeves, and it’s super stretchy and comfortable. I find that Madewell sizes already run big, so definitely stick to your true size on this one, especially with the stretch.
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RECIPE!
We’re back with another cottage cheese pancake recipe, and this time we are getting cozy for fall with a spiced apple topping! I love adding cottage cheese to pancakes because they add protein, and I also like the fluffy texture.
Small curd cottage cheese is the best type to use here if you care about consistency, as it helps the batter stay smooth and uniform. But if you don’t have that, no big deal. I personally like the texture, but you can also whip the batter in a blender or food processor to smooth it out.
Because I sweetened the apples with maple syrup — and because I like to drizzle more maple syrup on my pancakes when eating — I don’t sweeten the pancakes themselves. If you want to make the pancakes separately or would like them to be sweeter, you can add 1 tbsp maple syrup to the batter!
Cottage Cheese Pancakes with Spiced Apples
Ingredients (serves 2)
Cottage Cheese Pancakes
1 cup cottage cheese
2 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
½ cup flour
Olive oil
Optional: powdered sugar
Apple Topping
2 apples, chopped
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1. Start by preparing your apple topping. Heat up coconut oil in a skillet on medium-low heat. Add the apples, maple syrup, cinnamon, and ginger, and cook for 7-10 minutes until apples are nice and soft, stirring frequently.
2. While apples are cooking, prepare the pancake batter. Add the cottage cheese, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, cinnamon and flour to a large bowl. Mix together until evenly combined.
2. Heat up a small drizzle of olive oil in a nonstick skillet on medium-low heat. Add a dollop of the batter (about 1/4 cup per pancake), and cook for 4-5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Work in batches and add oil as needed. Keep pancakes warm in the oven/toaster oven at 200º F while you do the other batches.
3. When everything is ready, top your pancakes with the sautéed apples, and finish off with some maple syrup and powdered sugar, if desired.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!
Last week, paid subscribers received a recipe for Roasted Chickpeas, Peppers, and Tomatoes over Dill Yogurt, another recipe in my 30-minute budget meal series!
Just a reminder that anytime you become a paid subscriber, you get access to ALL of the past recipes in the archive. You can always do a free 7-day trial as well!
We also returned with another podcast episode about our infertility journey! This time, we recapped everything that happened with our first transfer and answered everyone’s questions, including what we are going to do moving forward!