Happy Friday!!! Hope you all had a good week. I’m looking forward to the warm weather that’s coming my way in NYC tomorrow. I plan to spend all of tomorrow after I teach outside soaking up the sunshine.
This week’s favorites are short and sweet. Here’s what I’ve been loving this week:
new restaurant: Lucky Lee’s
To say I’m excited about this restaurant opening up in my ‘hood is a wild understatement. Holy moly am I SO excited Lucky Lee’s is finally open. Lucky Lee’s is new, clean eating restaurant created by a nutritionist. The entire menu is gluten-free, dairy-free and corn-free. Think cauliflower fried rice (yup!), grass-fed beef and baked sesame chicken goodness.
I’ve only been able to go once since they opened earlier this week (but I’m planning on going later today for lunch 😂) and I’m already obsessed. I got the baked sesame chicken with green beans and the high veggie lo mein. Everything was excellent, but I have to say the green beans really stole the show.
[Update]: It has been brought to my intention that there is a major discussion around Lucky Lee’s and how this healthy take on Chinese food by a white restauranteur is cultural appropriation.
I will completely honest when I say I don’t think I am the person to make a comment on this as someone that is white and Jewish-American. But I do think it’s important to mention and I apologize if my inclusion of this restaurant as one of my favorite things this week is offensive to anyone. For me I’m just excited to share a restaurant that many of my friends with dietary restrictions or allergies can dine at and excited to have another lunch option in my neighborhood.
I am sorry if my inclusion of this restaurant is seen as anything but that.
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my first ice cream of the season at Van Leeuwen
The weather Monday was SPECTACULAR. I was a happy camper wearing my Birkenstocks. After teaching three classes Monday evening I got me some Van Leeuwen ice cream on the walk home from the yoga studio. The vegan chocolate chip cookie dough is my personal favorite 🙂
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The Bold Type is BACK!
I don’t watch a lot of new TV shows these days besides Rupaul’s Drag Race and Project Runway. But one show I do watch? The Bold Type on Freeform. Last summer I binge watched the first two seasons and became a somewhat mega fan of the show. It follows a fictional version of the magazine Cosmopolitan and three best friends navigating work-life balance in the years after graduating college.
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puffer jacket from Lululemon
I’m heading to the UK with my parents in a little over a week. AHHH! I have a feeling the weather is going to be on the damp + chilly side (when is it not in London?). This week I ordered a new puffer jacket from Lululemon. It’s got a hood, you can stuff it into a tiny little carry pouch, and it’s deceptively warm. Get ready to see me rocking this jacket on social media all vacation long.
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Around the Web:
• this guide to photography and editing photos for instagram is SO thorough and helpful
• have you heard about the controversy with photos taken at the new Hudson Yards “Vessel?”
• I’m so so proud of my friend Jordan for launching her business. She talks 3 things she’s learned in 3 months as an entrepreneur
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And you? What are you loving this week?
Hi Kayla – I have been reading your blog for a while and never commented. However your comment about Lucky Lee’s is culturally insensitive to your Chinese American readers like myself. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/nyregion/lucky-lees-nyc-chinese-food.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
The founder of Lucky Lee’s has been called out for her cultural appropriation and inappropriate comments such as your own about it being a healthy Chinese restaurant. Maybe you haven’t had the opportunity to eat real Chinese food but it’s not up to white people like yourself to comment on other cultures food. Fried cauliflower rice isn’t Chinese food.
Hi there — so sorry you didn’t include your name and I can’t address you personally.
Thanks so much for the comment. I am truly so sorry to offend, it certainly was not my intention when talking about Lucky Lee’s. I was not aware of the issue and was simply excited to have another option in my neighborhood for health, fast, casual dining. It was certainly not my intention to offend in anyway rather just to share food that my readers would be interested in since many of them do have food allergies or dietary restriction (myself included) and are excited to be able to eat Lucky Lee’s version of a dish that they might not otherwise be able to order for that reason.
I will be updating right now to mention this and once again my intentions were certainly not to be offensive in any way and I’m sorry to piss you off.
I don’t think you get it.
White privilege is not having to think about these things, and brushing it off as “sorry you’re offended” when someone calls you out on it.
By simply including it without thinking critically about it, as, as you say “simply excited to have another option” means you aren’t thinking about cultural appropriation or critical engagement AT ALL while moving through the world. Plus being sorry you offended someone means you aren’t sorry for your actions, which makes me think you haven’t learned anything from the original comment or really understand why the restaurant is problematic in the first place.
Hi Emily, thanks so much for the comment! I will be honest when I say this is my first time having a discussion of this nature, which in itself is definitely problematic and opens my eyes to a problem I am now aware that I am blind to. I really appreciate you calling me out on this.
I can only come from it from my own experience and I’m sure that there are many, many times in my life (and potentially even on this blog) that I am blind by my own privilege — be it white privilege, thin privilege, and even just literally growing up knowing I’m from a privileged family, period. The only way to learn and to be more aware of this and the implications behind statements and how they can be interpreted is through discussions of this nature, so I do appreciate it.
Hi I love you SO, so much and I think you’ve handled this whole lucky lee situation with grace <3 thank you for linking my blog!!!
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