Here’s the Meal Prepper Behind the Newsletter
For the love of God (and Kari Sonde), don’t take the joy out of your food
When Kari Sonde’s newsletter rolls into your inbox, expect to see enthusiastic life anecdotes, plenty of lowercase letters, and a detailed look at what she’s eating that week (and what you should be cooking up too!). As far as newsletters go, this one will hold your attention long enough to inspire you to make something substantial at home instead of reaching for the granola bar you call “dinner” or eating the same takeout for the millionth time that week.
‘here come the mealprepper’ is a wonderful combination of Sonde’s grocery list and journal, one that’s shared with her subscribers consisting of “some friends, no family, and hopefully never my family.” It began as a way for the 23-year-old to keep in touch with her friends — the Virginia native is currently living in California, where she works at Mother Jones as an editorial fellow — and record her meal prepped concoctions.
“Part of the reason I started this newsletter is because sometimes I’ve hit it out of the park with my lunches, and then I completely forget what I put in them,” said Sonde. The newsletter is still in its early stages, with the inaugural issue sent out in mid-July, but Sonde has already established a tone that feels familiar and convivial, like the friend who you have a weekly wine-and-gossip night with.
“I love ranting about my opinions,” said Sonde, and it’s clear from chatting with her that she has very passionate ones regarding food, among other things. We disagreed about the virtues of zucchini (“they’re a throwaway vegetable”), agreed that nectarines are absolutely superior to peaches, and considered the dismal state of grade school lunches (“I remember thinking ‘what the f*** am I eating’”). These come from a lifelong emphasis placed on food, from growing up watching her mother and grandmother roll out rotis in the kitchen to building a major focused on food culture and sustainable foodways at NYU. A food writing course her freshman year spurred Sonde’s transition from an English major to the niche field, and it was also during these college years that she began to dive into the world of meal prepping.
“The way I grew up, we didn’t exactly cook dinner every night,” said Sonde. Her family would prepare ingredients at the beginning of the week that could be used for several meals, instead of coming up with dishes every single night. “That was just how we ate,” she said, who recalls being surprised by her peers in college who were making meals every night. From there, she found herself refining and tweaking the cooking process to something that fit her lifestyle. Meal prepping was what came of it. Sonde recognizes that it’s very time-consuming and not always the easiest thing to do, so she considers herself lucky that she was able to create a system that worked for her. It also served as a form of self-care and a creative outlet.
“Around the time I started prepping, feeding myself and others felt like the only thing I could do to take care of myself, because other than that, I wasn’t,” said Sonde. During her sophomore year of college Sonde allowed herself to “go crazy” with meal prepping because her packed schedule did not give room for much creativity besides in her cooking.
“That was the only place I really got to do that, because you have to feed yourself,” said Sonde. “I was able to fold an element of creativity into something I had to do.”
Meal prepping is a way of organized eating that has become all the rage for busy individuals like Sonde who don’t always have the time to create every meal from scratch, but there is also a necessary balance to avoid the dreaded food rut. After all, it does center around consuming the same thing for at least a few days.
“There’s a way to skirt that because you’re obviously going to get sick of it. When you make a dish, there has to be enough variation in it,” said Sonde, who wrote about what she calls ‘flavor exhaustion’ in her latest newsletter. Switching up the texture (such as adding crunch to a stew), flavor (balancing out richness with a splash of acidity), and temperature (sour cream on your burrito bowl) are the best ways to work around this palate exhaustion.
Another important point that Sonde makes is not letting the “healthy” side of prepping overtake the enjoyable parts of eating. “Meal prepping is centered way too much around health, but don’t sacrifice taste,” she said. “I like healthy food but can’t stand food stripped of all the good stuff — that no butter, no oil, no spice, poached-chicken-steamed-veggie-brown-rice life.” Sonde adds that sometimes it’s unavoidable for people who have health or dietary restrictions and there should be no shame in that, but to those who are free to eat whatever they want — “don’t strip every bit of joy out of your meal.”
When it comes down to it, it’s all about striking that happy medium rather than looking toward the extreme ends of healthy versus unhealthy. So yes, include plenty of vegetables, but they don’t have to be devoid of seasonings or flavor.
“I’m lucky that I grew up in a family and a culture that really respects vegetables, so I can’t consider a meal complete without them — cooked or prepared in some delicious way,” said Sonde. Delicious is definitely the key word here, because nobody ever gets excited over bland spinach — or any other flavorless food for that matter.
So go and pickle some kale, braise some chicken with tomatoes and onions, and fry up some Ethiopian-style potatoes. Buy some fresh produce, portion out some ingredients, and make sure there’s some variety in there too. Prep your meals with Kari’s voice in the back of your head, reminding you to love the food you’re eating.
Below is Sonde’s beloved pancake recipe, adapted and tweaked to perfection from a recipe she found years ago on the Internet (that has been lost in the void). These are also from her college days, where Sonde said, “90% of what I ate was pancakes.” They are one of her absolute favorite things to cook.
BEST AND BASIC PANCAKES
this is heavily adapted from a recipe i found on allrecipes years ago. i can no longer find that recipe, but i remember it called for adding sugar, oil, and regular milk. i don’t like regular milk, so i don’t put that in. i also don’t want the extra sugar since i’m gonna douse the thing in maple syrup. i don’t put in the oil — why? i want to fry them IN the butter to get that ring around the outside, a crispy, brown-buttery ring that pancakes with oil in the batter do not have. i like it better. if you don’t like that shit, i don’t know what to tell you. on top of that, i add a squeeze of lemon juice to give the whole thing lift (literally). add some zest if you’re feeling feisty.1. pour 1 and a 1/4 cup of almond milk (or milk of your choice) into a bowl.
2. beat 1 egg into that.
3. if you want vanilla in your pancakes, this is where you’d add a drop. squeeze a bit of lemon in there, and add zest if you feel like it. mix thoroughly.
4. in a separate bowl, put in 1 and 1/2 cup of AP flour. if you want to use a different flour, do that i guess. add 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt. mix well with a fork.
5. pour the liquid into the flour. use a spatula or a large spoon to mix it GENTLY, until it’s just combined. it should be lumpy. you want lumps.
6. pop a bit of butter into the pan. you’ll have to tinker with the heat because all stoves are different, but i like a medium low heat to cook pancakes. pour about a 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and spread the batter out a little bit.
7. cook until bubbles start to pop on the surface and the holes stay open instead of filling with more batter. flip.
8. wait maybe 30–60 seconds and plop onto a plate. douse in syrup, slather with butter, jam, add fruit, whatever.
9. eat
