There’s a particular, specific delight in finding pleasure in unexpected places. When I was 13, I spent a month in Europe with my grandparents and my little sister, who was 11 and wretchedly homesick at the time. The evenings were the hardest for her, as they tend to be (isn’t it always when dusk falls when we feel the most woebegone when we’re sick or sad or down?).

Okay, it is Friday, so we might as well take a moment to be moved by something, don’t you think? Here, then. Read this poem by Barbara Ras. It’s long but…soldier on, I believe in you.

This week has been pretty excellent in the “spontaneous cooking” realm. I’ve gotten into a good groove these past months of balancing planning and impulse—I plan ahead just enough to have rough outlines of what to cook and eat, and then I fill in the rest in the moment.

For example, I’ve been making lots of big lunch salads with cooked black lentils, but every day it’s a little different. Maybe I’ll have cold lentils over arugula with minty yogurt and warm sautéed zucchini, or I’ll have warm lentils stirred into carrot ginger soup. Yesterday I piled lots of greens into a bowl, then warmed cooked lentils in a skillet with cubes of roasted sweet potato, some olive oil, and a dollop of miso paste. I spooned that over the greens, then in the still-hot pan, I poured more olive oil and added a few handfuls of breadcrumbs, toasting them for a minute while shaking the pan. I poured that over the salad and voila. Lunch.