Ladies, It’s A ‘Girl Dinner’ Summer
Being single and childless has really gotten a bad rap in the last few years via internet discourse. While one side of the web views it as a doomed position to be in life, I have to say, it has its perks. For me, when I think about my parental and relationship status, I can’t help but beam and have gratitude that with all the things that I have piled on my plate, at least I have only one mouth to feel.
This underrated freedom has a way of taking the pressure off my shoulder to not perform in the kitchen but instead create meals off of vibes and instincts.
Enter “girl dinner.”
@alanalavv Replying to @María GM thank you to everyone who commented ‘girl dinner’ on my snack plates and introduced me to the best concept / phrase ever 🫒🧡 #girldinner #snackplate #snackplates
The idea behind “girl dinner” first gained traction after creator Olivia Maher shared a TikTok video admiring the convenience and delight behind eating bread and cheese-centered meals as her “ideal meal,” similar to that of peasants during medieval times, and thus, the concept was born.
Now, if you’re finding it hard to imagine a meal that seems to lack nutritional value while being completely satisfying, allow me to walk you through it. Picture an elevated, grown-up take on the classic Lunchable, but instead of processed ham, you add Capocollo, swap the American cheese for brie or whipped ricotta, add olives, jam, sliced strawberries, a drizzle of olive oil, and voila, dinner is served.
It’s essentially a snack plate with more intuitive proportions and assorted by your cravings. Maybe you exerted a little too much of your brain power during the workday and have nothing left to conceptualize all the veggies and protein in your kitchen to put a meal together. Or maybe the heat from the summer days has you craving lighter bits as opposed to a full-course meal.
Girl dinner meets you where your day ends, and the chaos of cooking begins to say, “Hey girl, let’s take it easy tonight.”
@alanalavv If it’s not a snack plate, then I don’t want it 🫡 #snackplate #snacks #snackplates #summerrecipes #girldinner #snackideas
For food creator Alana Laverty, the spark to create easy, gratifying meals came during the heat of a Brooklyn summer that almost made her book a flight back home to Ireland. With her apartment already feeling like a sauna and a commute that left her overheated, she’d open her fridge for a cool breeze of relief, but what she found instead were the makings of her perfect meal.
“I started eating olives, pickles, a bite of cheese, and a piece of salami right out of the fridge,” she tells xoNecole. “We lived near a great cheese shop, so on nicer occasions, I’d grab some cheese and bread and throw it all on the counter for my husband and I to make plates out of. That was about four years ago, and since then, I’ve always called these ‘snack plates’ — but when I heard the term 'girl dinner' on TikTok recently, I resonated with it so much.”
Alana has been sharing her eye-catching and mouthwatering snack plates with her TikTok followers for over a year, but it wasn’t until June of this year that she gave the girl-dinner trend the visual aesthetics it needed to truly come to light. Her original girl-dinner video has since reached over 1.7M views.
@alanalavv Replying to @AshleeLatimer my fave snack plate yet 🍒 #snackplate #snackplates #burrataboard #summerfoods #summerrecipes #charcuterie #snackideas
If the weather can influence our mood, it can definitely affect our appetites. And as someone who enjoys a variety of foods, spreads, and platters while living in a city with temperatures on both ends of the spectrum, Alana says that eating intuitively to the seasons has served her and her cravings well.
“My diet is definitely controlled by temperatures. I live in London where we have very cold winters and increasingly warm summers. Therefore I want soups and heartier carb-heavy meals in winter, and lighter snack-style plates — like girl dinner — in summer so that I can avoid the stove at all costs,” she says, “I also love prioritizing eating seasonal produce because fruits and vegetables always taste 100% better when in season. I know this isn’t always possible, but when it is - it’s so worth it.”
Making a girl dinner of your own is completely dependent upon what you have in your kitchen, but Alana says that the perfect arrangement is all about the basics. “I always, always have olives in the fridge or pantry. I normally use crackers or bread, nuts, oils, honey, and other condiments that I already have at home too,” she shares. “I highly recommend the combination of cherries, nectarines, burrata topped with hot honey, prosciutto, olives, and tomatoes topped with olive oil, salt, and pepper” — i.e. her now-viral recipe.
The beauty in girl dinners is that it’s a meal made for one. It’s your time to indulge in your favorite bits and bites without the judgment of what lands on the plate. It can be pretty, a little messy, and only make sense to your palette, but what’s most important is that you take pleasure in how you choose to nourish yourself.
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Aley Arion is a writer and digital storyteller from the South, currently living in sunny Los Angeles. Her site, yagirlaley.com, serves as a digital diary to document personal essays, cultural commentary, and her insights into the Black Millennial experience. Follow her at @yagirlaley on all platforms!
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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Stress Awareness Month: Sneaky Workplace Triggers Affecting Black Women, And How To Cope
We all know about the major stress triggers of everyday life, from relationship woes to monthly bills to unexpected emergencies, but there are small, subtle triggers that impact Black women in a big way, especially when it comes to work. It’s good to be aware of these sneaky stressors in order to maximize your day and find ways to incorporate solutions into your self-care routines.
Since it’s Stress Awareness Month, we caught up with Keanne Owens, LCSW, founder of Journey To Harmony Therapy Center, to talk about these triggers and what Black women can do to manage and cope.
Owens is an experienced South Florida-based counselor and social worker who offers her services via Grow Therapy, a therapy and medication management platform. She has worked with Black women professionals to unpack issues related to workplace stressors. “One is the pressure to perform–having to meet deadlines and deliverables. And a lot of times, these subtle stressors from performance are put upon ourselves as Black women. We want to make sure we’re doing our best. We don’t want to be critiqued in certain ways.”
Excessive micromanagement leading to fear of overly critical bosses is another subtle trigger that can negatively impact Black women in the workplace.
“Whenever something is done wrong, or we experience some type of injustice and have to report it, it’s the fear of retaliation–[fear that] we won’t be taken seriously or [our words] will be taken out of context because of being deemed as the ‘angry Black woman,’” she said.
Black Women And Workplace Stress Triggers
Her sentiments are backed by research. A recent report by Coqual found that 28% of Black women (compared to 17% of White men) say their supervisor uses “excessive control or attention to detail” when managing them. There’s more: A survey by the National Employment Law Project found that Black workers were “more likely to have concerns (80 percent) and twice as likely as white workers (18 percent) to have unresolved concerns at work, with 39 percent reporting they were “not satisfied with the employer’s response or did not raise concerns for fear of retaliation.”
The survey also found that 14 percent of Black respondents said they “avoided raising concerns to their employer for fear of retaliation—more than twice the average rate of 6 percent for all survey respondents.”
Owens pointed to the fact that these subtle stress triggers can negatively impact our physical health and our career advancement. “A lot of time it’ll affect our productivity,” Owens added. “We start to have negative thoughts of ourselves. The stressors can also cause fatigue. We’re no longer meeting or working up to our desired potential.” Other challenges as a result include insomnia and increased insolation, withdrawal, and lack of motivation to apply for jobs or promotions even when qualified.
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How To Manage Subtle Stress Triggers
While there are systemic issues at play for Black women at work that has less to do with us and more to do with major overhauls that must be addressed by the powers that be, there are steps we can take for the betterment of ourselves and our mental health. Owens offered the following tips:
Tap into a support system, whether it’s a coworker you trust, a family member, an organization, or an outlet like a hobby.
Create a good work-life balance before burnout even starts. “Having certain boundaries [is the goal] such as, for example, if you get off at 5, you get off at 5. If your job description is this, you don’t go above and beyond because that brings you to a lot of burnout,” Owens said.
Prioritize self-care, whatever that means for you. “If you don’t have a routine, create one. Practice mindfulness and even some meditation,” she added.
Create structure in your life outside of work. “Even if you have a family, applying some structure in your routine helps relieve stress,” she said.
Get into grounding techniques. “Do a real quick square breathing exercise, that’s literally 30 seconds, or you can do a grounding technique that’s less than two minutes, right there where you are. You don’t need any other materials. That’s something you can do with just yourself and your body.”
Ask for help. “As Black women, we don’t ask for help enough,” she said. “Find where you need to ask for help. A lot of times, people think that’s indicative of weakness, but we need to rewrite that narrative. It’s okay to ask for help where you see fit. [If] you’re a mom, [it could be] every Wednesday from 5 to 6, your children are with the dad. You have to carve out that time.”
For more information on Grow Therapy, visit their website. You can also find out more about Keanne Owens, LCSW, via BeginYourJourneyToHarmony.com.
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