0:12
Summer Produce, Cooked
You have probably heard about the dreaded cyclospora parasite that has sickened many people around the country. The source of the outbreak is thought to be lettuce or salad greens, but we don’t know for sure yet. One way to avoid it is to cook your produce, so this week I am sharing recipes that feature cooked vegetables and fruit. These recipes are not only splendid and seasonal, they can help you eat safer. Enjoy, and be well!
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Skillet Chicken With Summer Vegetables
Photo by Tom McCorkle and food styling by Gina Nistico for The Washington Post
In this one-pan dinner, savory chunks of chicken join peak-summer vegetables like, sweet corn, zucchini, tomatoes and onion. And at the end of cooking, the dish is brightened with tart lemon juice and fragrant basil. (If you don’t have any basil you’ve grown yourself or from a trusted local farmer, substitute 1 tablespoon dried basil.) A touch of cayenne in the chicken seasoning adds gentle heat, balancing the sweetness of the corn.
Get the recipe
Crispy French Toast Fingers with Blueberry Maple Sauce
Photo by Quentin Bacon and food styling by Lori Powell and Adeena Sussman
These fun crispy French Toast Fingers are nutty outside and tenderly egg-y inside, and wafting with cinnamon and vanilla. Served with a delightful blueberry-maple dipping sauce, they’re perfect for kids- or anyone who wants to feel like one again, which is me, always. A touch of maple syrup brings out the natural sweetness of the blueberries in this delightful fruit sauce which is ideal for French toast, waffles, pancakes, over ice cream or angel food cake, or on top of yogurt.
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Grilled Vegetable Stacks
Photo by Tom McCorkle and food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post
Here, the vegetables that make up ratatouille — zucchini, eggplant, onion, peppers, tomatoes — are grilled, then piled into stunning stacks that are showered with fresh basil (or sub dried, as in the recipe above). The grilled vegetable stacks simple elegance and make-ahead friendliness make it ideal for easy entertaining, and the unbeatable vegetable-meets-grill flavor really shines through.
Get the recipe
2:40
STAT+: Sales from controversial U.S. drug discount program rose to $100 billion last year
Prescription medicines purchased in the U.S. under a controversial government discount program amounted to $100 billion in 2025, a 22.8% increase from the previous year, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the program.
Expensive medicines represented an increasing proportion of spending in the 340B Drug Discount Program, accounting for $61.9 billion, or nearly 62% of all prescription drugs purchased through the program. Nearly $8.9 billion was spent on Merck’s Keytruda immunotherapy treatment, followed by more than $4.47 billion on Biktarvy, an HIV medicine sold by Gilead Sciences.
The data mark a steady rise in sales under the 340B program, which requires drugmakers to offer discounts that are typically estimated to be 25% to 50% — but could be higher — off all outpatient drugs to hospitals and clinics that primarily serve lower-income patients.
3:50
STAT+: FTC settles lawsuit with CVS Caremark over charges it manipulated insulin prices, impeded access
The Federal Trade Commission settled a lawsuit against CVS Caremark, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S., over allegations that the company artificially inflated the price of insulin and impeded access to the lifesaving diabetes treatment.
As part of the deal, which the agency maintained will save Americans up to $8.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs over 10 years, CVS Caremark, which is owned by CVS Health, must make several changes to its dealings with employers, health plans, and pharmacies. The FTC also estimated the deal will unlock up to $4.5 billion in further savings for patients through pharmacy counter rebates.
In its complaint, the FTC alleged that CVS Caremark — as well as Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx — created a “perverse” system of rebates that favored insulin, which was then sold at higher list prices in order to “line their pockets” at the expense of patients who were forced to pay more for the medication.
5:05
You Don’t Hate Authority. You Burned Out Before You Learned How to Advocate for Yourself.
You’ve probably heard yourself say, “I have a problem with authority,” as if it’s a fixed trait. The piece reminds us that this label often hides a deeper story—early sensory overload or social confusion that got misread as defiance.
When you were a kid, a noisy, bright, or fast‑moving environment could push you past your threshold before anyone noticed. Your blunt reaction or shutdown was taken as attitude, not as a sign you were dysregulated.
The article argues that this misinterpretation teaches you to hide your needs, because asking for help feels more costly than it should.
Recognizing that the “authority issue” is really a learned coping pattern can free you to practice self‑advocacy instead of staying stuck in the old narrative.
6:05
In Pursuit of Ordinary Unhappiness
I am highly susceptible to the theory that life has settings.
Give me a variable and I’ll adjust it. Change the morning routine. Quit the bad project. Take a walk. Move to another city. Try a new sauna.
Sometimes, this “fix it” mindset works well! See something, do something. Change your behavior to change your perspective.
It also makes a certain amount of sense, at least at a basic level. If you have a terrible diet and never exercise, you’re not going to feel great. Fix those things and you’ll likely start to feel better.
But what then? The problem is that the “fix it” logic eventually fails—or perhaps it just turns into wishful thinking.
Sooner or later, you won’t be able to manipulate life’s variables to your highest level of satisfaction. Something will come along that is horribly outside your control. You’ll get sick, a relationship will shift, someone you love will pass away.
Then you’ll experience profound unhappiness, because you thought you could fix anything merely by changing your behavior or environment. Where is the user button for unexpected disaster recovery? Spoiler, it doesn’t exist.
There’s a quieter cost too. If you believe everything can be fixed, then anything that stays broken starts to look like your fault. So then you’re not only sad—you’ve failed to fix being sad, which makes it a personal failing instead of a normal thing that happens to people. The first part was coming anyway. The second part you added yourself.
So of course, there’s a better way—or at least, another way.
The other way: understand that life is full of conflict and chaos. Humans are inherently conflicted. It’s natural and normal for us to be dissatisfied, because ultimately we can’t get what we really want.
Did you see that Bryan Johnson, the guy who spends $2 million a year on his quest to live forever, recently revealed he’d been diagnosed with an incurable illness? Life is indeed cruel and cannot be outrun.
It’s fashionable to hate people like Johnson, but I don’t begrudge him for trying. I just think, well, good luck, man. It sounds like a recipe for misery, trying to beat a force of nature that wins 100% of the time.
Does this mean we are destined to be sad all the time? (Nope!)
I mean, sure, if that’s your way of being in the world. I get it. I just mean, it doesn’t have to be that way.
The phrase ordinary unhappiness comes from Freud, who is probably liked less than Bryan Johnson these days, but I’m into it.1 Not everything is going to be perfect or wonderful, but some things are pretty cool, so I’m going to focus on those as much as I can. Specifically, Freud said:
“…much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. With a mental life that has been restored to health, you will be better armed against that unhappiness.”
I like that it’s a trade. You hand over the misery you’ve been manufacturing, and you get to keep your strength for the misery that shows up on its own.
So instead of pursuing happiness with the mindset of an optimizer, try being content with ordinary unhappiness. Life is chaotic; it’s full of both joy and sorrow. Fill up on the joy and accept the sorrow for what it is—a necessary ingredient of a complete life.
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P.S. Another helpful question: “Is this a problem to solve, or an experience I need to learn how to have?”
P.S. Shoutout to my longtime friend Steve Kamb, whose new book How to Try Again has been making headlines. It’s a wonderful message and I highly encourage you to check it out! It’s available wherever books are sold.
1
Technically, the phrase from Freud is “allgemeines Unglück,” or common unhappiness in English.
