Sunday Paper Recommends—Week of October 13, 2024

This week at The Sunday Paper, we're sharing a new show, a sound meditation, a fun book, and a recipe that move the needle and spark inspiring change. We hope these suggestions open your heart and mind and encourage you to come together for meaningful conversations!

What We're Watching

At first glance, the new show "Brilliant Minds" might seem like another drama about a medical doctor. But watch one episode, and you'll see how this new series offers a nuanced, compassionate look at an unorthodox doctor seeking to break ground for his patients. Based on Dr. Oliver Sacks, a real-life neurologist, the show tells of a physician passionate to help solve mental health and neurological issues, even while pushing the limits of traditional Western protocols. The show goes deep into character backstories and neurological mysteries. We love how it even digs into healing modalities like music therapy for Alzheimer's Patients. This is a true advocacy show for the life of the brain and mind.

What We're Listening to

Scientists, doctors, and artists have long studied and proclaimed the healing benefits of sound and music on our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Jeralyn Glass is a profound pioneering artist who shows the world this truth through her sound healing therapy, which she writes about in her beautiful new book, Sacred Vibrations: The Transformative Power of Crystalline Sound and Music. An internationally acclaimed singer, musician, and leader in the field of sound healing, Jeralyn began her career on stage, performing on Broadway, in opera, and in concert. She's looked to high vibrational sounds, blended with meditation and music, to help her through grief. Today, she's a soulful guide and author who shows people how these sounds can help to open our hearts and awaken our consciousness. Her book is a profound healing tool that offers scientific insights and personal experience.

Jeralyn offers this song below to our Sunday Paper community. As she tells us, this song, which is in Grammy Consideration and The Harry Belafonte best song for social change award, "is based on Beethoven's melody from 200 years ago!"

Learn about Jeralyn's practice of healing sound in the video below.

What We're Reading

Diana Weymar sparked a new means of action in 2018 when she stitched “I am a very stable genius” into a piece of her grandmother’s abandoned needlework from the 60s and posted it on Instagram. "The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive," the crafter and activist writes on her website. From there, she decided to stitch one Trump quote a week—and thus, her Tiny Pricks Project took off. Now Weymar is a beacon of light, inspiring others to turn their anxiety into action through making things with our hands. Her new book, Crafting a Better World, is a guidebook and a call to action. The pages curate ideas and essays from Weymar and other well-known creatives and artists on creating meaningful things for ourselves and communities by channeling our angst into action and beauty.

Sunday Dinner Recipe

Shakshuka Breakfast Sandwich

Makes 4 sandwiches

Shakshuka (or one of its derivations) is a popular breakfast throughout northern Africa, southern Europe, and Turkey, which covers quite a lot of territory. It is quite simple, consisting of eggs poached in a spicy vegetable sauce. Served on a toasted roll, it becomes a more substantial meal. If you wish, add sliced avocado to your sandwich. Living in California, I put avocado on everything I can!

Spicy tomato sauce
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
½ large red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ½-inch/1.25 cm dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon sweet or smoked paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
One 14.5-ounce/411 g can diced tomatoes
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 large eggs
½ cup/50 g crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley or cilantro
4 crusty round sandwich rolls, such as kaiser rolls, split, brushed with olive oil, and toasted

1. Make the spicy tomato sauce: Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add the cumin, paprika, and cayenne and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes with their juices and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook at a brisk simmer, stirring often, until the juices thicken, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Using the back of a large spoon, make 4 evenly spaced wells in the sauce. Crack an egg into each well. Cover the skillet and simmer over medium-low heat until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny, 4 to 5 minutes. Season the eggs with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the cheese and parsley (feta cheese does not melt). Remove from the heat.

3. For each sandwich, place a roll on a dinner plate. Use a large spoon to transfer an egg and a serving of the sauce onto the roll bottom. Cap with the roll top, cut in half, and serve immediately with a fork and knife.

Tip: It's not in the book recipe, but I like to sneak in some chorizo. Saute it before adding in the tomatoes.

Trick: Watching the eggs cook is the easiest way to determine when the recipe is completed: you want the whites to set so you still have a runny yolk and then it's ready!

Reprinted from Stacked by arrangement with Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2024, Owen Han.