🍫 This is why we braid babka...

And how to host a low waste holiday!

Author

Hawnuh Lee
December 19, 2024

Hi friends,

I’m making my famous (to me, it still counts) vegan, sourdough chocolate babka to usher in the end of 2024. With tri-twists of dough ropes, I’m tying up loose ends of another turn around the sun. Between coiled layers of cakey, cinnamon bread and dark chocolate swirls, I’ve left the anxieties of what’s un-finished to prove and bake until golden brown. 

In a year of deep growth, unexpected challenges and changes, we’ve all earned a soothing bake therapy session. An opportunity for tactile transition and something just perfectly sweet. There’s a reason I save babka for special occasions–there is intention behind every braid. This generational dessert bread was created out of excess, a waste-not by-product of leftover challah dough on the Sabbath. Babka became an incidental ritual, and eventually, a favorite holiday practice.

For our leftover dough, for our leftover sentiments, we braid babka.

Scroll on for the recipe and a low impact way to host your holidays this season!

And as always–

Stay hungry,
Hawnuh Lee | Founder, Closed Loop Cooking

PS - We’re taking off the next two weeks to rest and unwind! Thinking of you all with a Happy Holidays and joyous New Year. <3

Vegan sourdough chocolate babka.

Two important places to donate this holiday season:

Roasted acorn squash with white beans + chimichurri.

Low waste holiday hosting

A mindful guideline for the host with the most this season by Maia Welbel

The idea of hosting, especially around the winter holidays, often comes with a whole bunch of baggage that, frankly, has way more to do with capitalism and patriarchy than creating a genuine community experience. We are here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way! The ritual of gathering over a shared meal, marking a milestone or a season, must be among the most ancient traditions we have as humans (Shabbat might be my personal favorite example). Whether you’re having people over for a multicourse sit-down meal or a casual potluck, you can be the host with the most sans social anxiety, stressful food prep, or a heaping trash bin you have to deal with the next morning. Here, we’ve put together some of our top tips for cultivating a plant-based, low waste holiday gathering that centers connection and joy without all the excess.

The Food

Brainstorm your menu

Go to the dishes that have been a hit in the past — either with guests you’ve hosted or just a favorite in your own household, as a starting place.  

Consider sharability. Dishes that can be made in a big batch and easily portioned out — think soups, stews, mashes, and slaws — typically require less work than fussier single-serve items when cooking for a crowd.

Wherever you can, go for one pot or minimal-dish-use recipes. 

Choose at least a few dishes that you can make ahead of time.

Add flair. Remember you can make even the simplest dishes feel special with colorful garnishes and toppings like fresh herbs, sprouts, spices, oils, seeds, or nuts.

Don’t get attached to anything too specific yet — you'll be letting your ingredients inform the final menu.

Start with what you have

Look around your kitchen and pantry. Have any grains, canned goods, or frozen produce that have been sitting around? Can any be incorporated into the menu or even spark inspiration for a dish to make?

Borrow and share!

If there’s an appliance you don’t have that would make any aspect of your prep easier — think, high power blender or immersion blender, slow cooker, rice cooker, or even just a big soup pot — ask your friends if they have one you can use. Offer to return the favor with something from your kitchen next time they’re hosting (maybe they’ll find themselves in need of that ice cream maker you bought five years ago and never took out of the box…)

Buy what you’ll use

If a recipe calls for an ingredient that won’t be used up in one dish, make sure it’s something you want to use in the future. If not, think about swapping it for something you would use. Be creative, most recipes are more flexible than you think!

Make your shopping list

Shop consciously

If you live in an area that has a farmers market this time of year, try starting there and seeing what’s available. Even in colder climates there are often roots, tubers, shrooms, squashes, cabbage, and more fresh from the farm. This could also be an opportunity to spring for any fancy shelf-stable items you may have been tempted by in the past — think jams, heritage grains, sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, salsa, oils, vinegars, spice blends, and dried beans.

Choose low-waste at the grocery store

Smaller local grocers often have more bulk and package-free options than supermarket chains, but even at the Walmarts and Krogers of the world, you can minimize waste by bringing your own produce bags, and shopping bags, and opting for items with the least packaging.

Resources:

The Litterless Zero Waste Grocery Guide featuring stores in every state 

Polly Barks’s low-waste Walmart routine

Cooking for a Crowd, Closed Loop style

A few ideas to inspire–

Make soup a main event–elevate a nourishing, easy to whip up ahead of time, bowl and accent with crusty bread and fancy mocktails. Leek + potato or broken lasagna are both great options.

Instead of a large spread, try highlighting one or two menu features with supporting elements. Throw a latke party and have friends bring toppings to share.

Girl dinner is always a wonderful option. Pairing lower effort (but still aesthetically on point) recipes like homemade beet hummus and crackers saves time but still delivers on flavor.  

Make dessert a cookie exchange. Guests can bring a container to swap treats and you don’t have to bake more than once. (But these chocolate peppermint crinkles are worth it.)

The space

The most important thing to remember here is that your home DOES NOT NEED TO BE PERFECT for you to host an absolutely delightful celebration. Clean up in a way that balances your preferences for how the space looks and feels and your realistic energy and time constraints. No one will care if you never got rid of the pile of documents on your desk, dusted the tops of your bookshelves, or organized your spice cabinet aesthetically. 

If it makes sense with your schedule, you can make a piecemeal cleaning plan a week in advance, breaking it down by room or task, and getting a little bit done each day so that you don’t find yourself in an overheated, wheezy meltdown trying to do everything at once. 

Start with what you have

Imagine you’re on a movie set and your job is to design the dinner scene. Approach your home as if it were a boutique consignment store and “shop” around for props and flourishes that fit the vibe you’re trying to create. You could even make a mood board first to clarify your vision and go from there. 

Don’t be afraid to experiment: A vintage scarf could become a pretty table runner, branches foraged from the neighborhood could be an artful centerpiece.

As always at CLC, we recommend using cloth napkins, and real plates and utensils over disposable whenever possible, and having clearly labeled compost, recycling, and landfill bins for guests to use. 

Borrow and share! 

You know your friends have some funky glassware from their grandparents that they’d love to put to use. 

Bonus inspo: Tejal Rao’s takeaways from reporting on this year’s LA County Fair tablescaping competition

  • Find your theme, commit to it.

  • Pick a color scheme of about two to four colors.

  • Use handmade items whenever possible.

  • No matter the dĂ©cor, start with straight, even place settings.

  • Use cloth napkins; try a fun napkin fold.

  • Make sure people can see each other over the centerpieces!

  • When your table is finished, sit down at it; take it in from different angles.

Prioritize accessibility

The season of gathering unfortunately coincides with peak season for a bunch of gnarly viruses, so do what you can to minimize risk: encourage guests to stay home if they’re feeling any symptoms coming on (Zoom cameo appearance is always an option!). Be clear about any masking and/or distancing expectations and make sure guests feel comfortable taking those precautions themselves if not explicitly requested. Hepa filters are shown to effectively reduce risk of airborne viral transmission, so turn em on if you’ve got em!

Provide as much info as you can on the invite. Offering details like start and end times, a tentative schedule, and any potential access barriers in your home (stairs, scented candled, etc.), promotes a culture of inclusivity while decreasing the stigma around asking for accommodations. 

On the invitation, ask guests if there are any supports or things you can do to make the experience most comfortable for them. And during the event, check in to ask if lighting, temp, etc. is feeling good for everyone.

Create a world

Mindful gathering expert Priya Parker suggests that turning your event into a group project makes guests feel more comfortable and connected. Giving them a small role when they get there — think, stirring the sauce, juicing lemon over the cruditĂ©, arranging chairs — not only alleviates some logistical pressure on you, but also satisfies our innate desire to feel useful. Additionally many of us would love to be given something to do with our hands as we chat at the beginning of a party when social muscles haven’t quite warmed up. 

Offering a task ahead of time does double duty of giving guests a little job and developing a shared sense of purpose at the celebration. Feel free to get as zany or creative as you like depending on your group’s general level of down-ness with more structured play, but here are a couple of examples:

On the invitation, ask guests to come with one thing in mind that they discovered this year that they want to share with the group. It could be anything that made your life a little better or brought you joy — think, a recipe or cookbook, a novel, a local small business, a kitchen hack, a morning ritual, or your favorite newsletter (cough cough). At some point in the evening, everyone goes around and talks about their thing, and you (or a guest you assign this role to) writes them all down to share out later as a list to make the start of everyone’s new year a little brighter.

Offer a word, phrase, or broad prompt on the invitation and at the beginning of the meal (or any time that feels natural) allow guests to share brief reflections on the prompt one at a time. The idea of an ice-breaker adjacent activity might send a chill down your spine, but by choosing a prompt or theme that feels authentically meaningful to you (can be silly or serious!), and making sure no one feels obligated to contribute if they don’t want to, a simple invitation for reflection can become a surprisingly powerful way to deepen connection. It can also open up space for guests who tend to be quieter or less likely to interject (introverts, I see you). Whether it’s a quick go around the table, or it ends up sparking a longer group conversation, it’s a nice way to elevate the mindfulness of your gathering.

And of course, enjoy. Once everything is set in motion, be the host with the most who’s present for the festivities and celebrate your efforts in gathering. Happy holidays!

These handmade choco bars are the only holiday gift I really want.

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