Maybe you’ve posted a picture of your sardine avocado toast on social media and gotten no traction with likes or hearts. . .or even disdainful comments from your so-called inclusive friends.  

This little place on the web is a safe space for sardine-lovers and other tinned fish aficionados.

I love sardines because they are a healthy, convenient, and economical way to get omega-3s.  

They are also a connection to my late grandfather who lived until age 106.  Sardines were his 2-pack a week habit.

Here is my latest sardine-spiration is Pasta Con Le Sarde.  You can find many recipes and variations of this Sicilian dish.  Here are two.    

This recipe for Pasta Con Le Sarde featured on Pasta Grannies uses fresh sardines, but of course you can use canned.  Antonia, the cook, mentions the option to use tomato sauce.

The entire Pasta Grannies YouTube channel checks the box for “heart-warming” and therefore is recommended viewing for late pregnancy when you would like to be encouraging high oxytocin levels.   This whole channel makes you want to cook.  

Another version of Pasta Con Le Sarde is on the Food 52 website.  One reader recommends using bucatini.  Another says that it’s traditionally made for St. Joseph’s Day (March 19) and with breadcrumbs to represent the sawdust in St. Joseph’s workshop (Antonia of Pasta Grannies does just that).  According to Pasta Grannies, fennel and sardines are at their peak at this time in the spring.  

I hope you enjoy this delicious pasta dish rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids!

One day I was at a birth and the family played Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors.  There is nothing like Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar in Never Going Back to add energy, calm, and inspiration all at once.  

Sometimes though on an ordinary Thursday, you need a song with enough buoyancy to keep you afloat.  (in my case, a day with a teenager pushing up against college application deadlines).  

I stood in the pre-dawn silence, pre-coffee, craving the drive and conversation in the bassline in Over my Head. . .in its full album context, without ads.

I waited for the water to boil, knowing that though I owned several Fleetwood Mac albums.  But an ap interface redesign stood between music that I purchased in the 90s and my speakers.  

One day I had started to let the phone do the thinking for me—so that I could slice melon and get six people fed.  I started hearing ads.  I lost access to information about the music.  An algorithm, instead of an artist, decided what song should come next.  I nearly forgot that I owned hundreds of albums that I loved and can rely on for inspiration.

But today, I took the time to click around and find an album that I owned since the 90s.  Before the coffee was brewed, Christine McVie’s voice, and the brain-tingling guitar harmonics were giving me motivation to start another day.

I have more to share about how to get in touch with assets and strengths that we already possess.

This is an invitation to take a step toward being more intentional, during pregnancy, as you’re raising or growing your family, or as you’re becoming a grandparent.  

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