4 Tiny Ideas+Rituals

#5 A Softer Start to Your Week

Always on my dining table

This week, I’ve been thinking about the small things that make life feel a little easier—a meal that stretches into the next day, a cinnamon-scented cake that reminds me of Baba, my father (it’s his fave), and the feel of thumbing through a beautiful cookery book. Today, I’m sharing the idea of these tiny comforts—small rituals that bring a little ease to the week.

Before I get into this week’s Tiny 4, here’s something special to look forward to:

🌸 Edible Flower Food Styling Workshop In person, Sunday, April 27th, in my home in Toronto. A hands-on day of styling, creativity, and gathering around beautiful food. More details soon.

We will work with edible flowers, my favorite kind of workshop

Here are your 4 Tiny Ideas+Rituals💫

1) The Omelette That Just Keeps Giving

There’s a certain feeling when you wake up and see something homemade waiting in the fridge—something familiar + comforting. For me, it’s my spiced tomato omelette, the same one my mother used to make for me when I was a child.

My Spiced Tomato Omelette

That’s why I always make a bigger batch—so I can repurpose it the next day.

Enjoy it fresh and hot, then save the rest. The next morning, toast some Japanese shokupan, maybe crisp it up with a little butter and olive oil. Add Kewpie mayo, a squeeze of sriracha, tuck in that omelette—and just like that, breakfast (or lunch) is sorted. Make it for yourself, or a loved one. 

Make a sandwich for yourself, use Japanese Shokupan

A little planning, a gentler week.

2) A Cake Tradition (Because It Just Works) 🍏

As you know, I love a tiny baking ritual that makes the week feel gentler.

For my Baba and I, it’s anything with apples and cinnamon; apple cake, apple pie, apple tarts. We’ve always loved them. Every spring, when I visit my parents in DC, we seek one out. I don’t bake when I’m there (no one in my family owns so much as a mixing bowl!) so instead, we go to Balducci’s and pick out an apple tart.

my simple Apple Tea Cake

For now, I am making my Apple Tea Cake. We’re not quite in Spring yet. The days are getting lighter, but we’re still reaching for warmth. All you need to bake this is one apple, the one sitting in the fruit bowl, and slightly forgotten.

A simple cake to make your week gentler.

3) A Little More from Your Oranges ✨

In my house, we go through a lot of oranges. I always segment them to make this salad, and there’s something satisfying about a bowl of neatly cut fruit. But the peels? I never throw them away.

my orange salad

Here are 3 simple ways to use them:

🍊 Candy the peels – Simmer in sugar syrup, let them dry, and you have a sweet, citrusy treat.

🍊 Make citrus salt – Mix zest with sea salt for a fragrant seasoning to sprinkle over vegetables or pasta.

🍊 Turn them into a natural cleaner – Soak peels in vinegar for two weeks, strain, and use it as a fresh-smelling, grease-cutting cleaner.

For more ideas, check out Zero-Waste Chef—she’s an expert at making the most of every ingredient. 

I collect so many of these peels

4)The Gentle Ritual of Cooking from a Book 💫

There’s something about turning the pages of a book. The weight of it in your hands, the pages worn soft from use, the moment of choosing a recipe—not by Google search results, but by instinct.

Of course, I’d love for you to cook from my blog, which is an online resource—but sometimes, slowing down means reaching for a book, and letting inspiration find you.

This week, I’ve been looking through The Lost Kitchen by Erin French. My son asked me to make fried chicken (not something in my usual repertoire), so I turned to Erin’s book for guidance. It’s filled with beautiful photographs of Maine; ponds, the wooded lanes, the farmlands surrounding a tiny village called Freedom. The kind of place where food feels deeply tied to land and season.

Maybe you’ll do the same and pick up a cookery book, and find something that speaks to you. Let it be a small pause from the endless scroll, a moment to be fully present with the food in front of you.

May my 4 Tiny Ideas+Rituals be useful, and bring a little ease to your week. If you give any of them a try, I’d love to hear from you—please share your thoughts in the comments (and a ‘like’ ❤️ helps this post reach more readers, so I’d be grateful for that). Wishing you a calm and intentional start to the week ahead.

All love,  Shayma x

All photographic beauty in this newsletter is by me, unless otherwise credited.

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