【推荐1】I have lived in rural America for nine years, first in Michigan, where I got my PhD; then in central Illinois and now in Indiana, where I am a professor. In a place where most people have lived the whole of their lives, I feel like a stranger. There are few things I enjoy more than complaining about my geographic isolation. I’m a vegetarian, so there’s nowhere to go for a nice dinner that isn’t 50 miles away. I’m black, so there’s nowhere to get my hair done that doesn’t involve another 50-mile drive. And the closest major airport is two hours away.

I recite these gripes to my friends. We all have grand ideas about what life would be like if only we did that, or lived there. And there’s this; I really don’t intend to change most of the things I complain about. Griping is seductive on those days when happiness requires too much energy. But it also makes me lose sight of the fact that I was born and grew up in Nebraska and have lived most of my life in one of the plains states. When I go to the coasts, I am struck by how unappealing big-city living can be.

While I may not love where I live, there are plenty of people who are proud to call this place home. At a party with colleagues, I was going on about everything I couldn’t stand in our town when I noticed that they were silent and shifting uncomfortably. That moment forced a change in me. Complaining may offer relief, but so does acceptance. There is no perfect life. By focusing on gripes, I risk missing out on precious moments of appreciation. When I get home, I stand on my balcony, look into the night sky and see the stars. I know that I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

【推荐3】In June of 2021, during the pandemic, the hospitals in New York City were crowded with healthcare workers and a group of nurses flying from the West Coast to lend a hand. One of the young nurses was assigned a mother of six children. She was on a ventilator (呼吸器), quarantined (隔离) from her husband and frightened. The young nurse, Carly, decided to cheer her up by bringing a group of nurses together to sing “My Girl.” With a tube in her throat and needles in her arm, the young mother cried and raised a few fingers to say thank you.

With a simple hand gesture, the mother expressed her gratitude. “That little thank you changed me forever,” Carly says. “I went because I wanted to make a difference. I came home, grateful for what I learned.”

Gratitude moves us to be kinder. A woman who lost her husband during the pandemic felt lonely. Her neighbors, grateful for over 50 years of friendship, expressed their gratitude by delivering a box of fresh produce to her house every Monday during lockdown. It’s our gratitude that becomes the power to create good acts.

In the early morning quiet, when we are awakened by the uncertainty of the coming day, we can find peace by mentally listing the things we are grateful for. And we reach a new place in our life that we accept and appreciate. What’s next is to share. Send a thank-you note. Make a call. Look around. There is always someone to thank. By doing so, we become something new that makes a difference to someone’s life.

【推荐2】When most of us read the words “plant-based diet”, we tend to think of foods such as salads and grain. But there is another option — the newest super-food: seaweed. The brownish-green oceanic plant like matter that washes up on beaches is in fact edible. Nori, the papery sheets used to wrap sushi rolls, is likely the most well-known and enjoyed seaweed, but these large leafy algae (海藻) come in hundreds of colorful varieties. Seaweed helps to support other life in the ocean and to clean the water surrounding it. When out of the water, seaweed can bring more nutrition and minerals to our diets.

“Even though we try to eat healthily, we’re relying on land-based and soil-based agriculture for the most part,” said Sarah Redmond, founder and owner of Springtide Seaweed in Gouldsboro, Maine. “Seaweed is a really interesting alternative because it provides the nutrients that are really hard to find in other land plants.”

For humans, seaweed is a one-stop shop for our necessary nutrient needs. “Seaweed is an excellent source of dietary fiber and minerals,” said Mary Ellen Camire, professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Maine.

Though nutrition varies slightly between green, brown and red varieties, across the board seaweed contains a number of vitamins, including B,C,E and K, omega-3 fatty acids, protein and 10 times more minerals than land-based plants, according to a recent study.

However, you don’t need to pile your plate high with seaweed. “Some brown seaweed is very high in iodine (碘),” Camire said. “It has so much iodine that consumers are advised to eat it no more than three times per week.”

Seaweed is just as beneficial to the planet as it is to our personal health. Seaweed pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and uses it to make more carbohydrates (碳水化合物). “We are not sure how much seaweed farming it would take to have a significant effect on global warming, but it helps,” Camire said.

Seaweed also consumes elements that can harm the ocean. It can also provide a place for smaller sea creatures to hide from their enemies, establishing environments that can help restore diverse ocean life in over-fished habitats.

【推荐3】When ice cream maker Adrienne Borlongan first experimented with a White Rabbit flavor, she thought it tasted like “cheap vanilla (香草)”. A few weeks after she added it to her Los Angeles shop, Wanderlust Creamery, visitors showed little interest. But when Borlongan posted a photo of an ice cream cone wrapped in White Rabbit-branded paper, word quickly spread on social media.

The candy, first produced in Shanghai in the 1940s, is known for its red-white-and-blue packaging and is beloved by kids all over China. And when Chinese people began to live in other countries, their love for the white, creamy candy went with them.

Soon after Borlongan posted that photo, people were driving to Wanderlust from all over California. Since then, White Rabbit has been the mainstay of Wanderlust’s ice cream lineup and is regularly sold out in their webshop.

But the story of the ice cream is about way more than taste — it’s about the power of nostalgia (怀旧) and eye-catching branding. White Rabbit’s origins date back to a business called the ABC Company, founded in Shanghai in 1943. It was later sold to the state-owned Guan Sheng Yuan Food Group, which owns it to this day.

The mix of colorful wrappers and the sweet milky taste proved a winner. Kids from Beijing to Hong Kong grew up on the sweets, and it also became a national symbol of the country — most famously, US President Richard Nixon was given some when he made his historic visit to China in 1972.

As for the flavor? The creamy consistency (黏稠度) actually comes from milk, and there’s a piece of rice paper between the candy and the wrapper to prevent melting. Over the years, White Rabbit has tried out other flavors, including red bean and peanut. But it’s the first version that has the most nostalgia connected to it.

【推荐1】Here we are, wrapping up 2023 in a red bow like one of the holiday presents in a TV commercial. It was a year full of poetic discoveries for our editorial team and especially for me. I encountered so many new-to-me poets. Diana Solís from the December 2022 issue and Joyce Mansour from the June 2023 issue are examples of this: poets with whom I was unfamiliar and who have now become part of my daily conversation. Living in Chicago, I might have encountered Diana Solís some other way. She is an icon of revolutionary poetry and photography. What a gift to learn, to be enthusiastic about new poetics like I’m still in the front row of the classroom, trying to do my best.

Two truths I’ve learned about Chicago since moving here: Chicago is a city that holds things close and doesn’t need to show off about its riches. And there are riches everywhere —great music all over the place, the best pizza, an embarrassment of architectures, and, of course, poetry on every corner. Nelson Algren said every great writer must spend time in Chicago.

The final version of 2023 is from a distinguished Chicagoan, the poet and journalist Frank Marshall Davis. When I read his work for the first time, I was struck by the truth of the poems, his clear-eyed critique(批评). He was a truth teller when no one wanted to listen. This issue also includes poems of another Chicago great, Li-Young Lee. His poems taught me how to think about romance as an engine for a poem. Multiple generations of poets have been using the man’s gestures in their love poems, often without realizing it, because even their teachers were borrowing from Li-Young Lee too.

So maybe that is why this issue has me in my holiday feels. Poems can be for the poet and the community concurrently, an offering of the self that indicates the care of the giver.