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What fuels your creative spark: Beauty? Quiet? Noise? Mess? Neatness? And when do you feel most like yourself: Alone? In groups? With friends or family?

These are all questions that guide me when I’m feeling slightly off. Which happens. There are days, weeks, months, when my internal barometer of fineness feels entirely tweaked. Like someone came along and shook everything up, forcing me to look at the world in a different way.

And in those moments, I do all I can to take a step back and ask myself the questions that bring me back to center. I also like to eat foods that ground me—savories that feel earthbound and steadying.

The heavy mineral content of sea veggies like nori and seeds like sesame help tremendously with this, as do an abundance of veggies. This sushi bowl offers it all. It’s packed with vibrant and hydrating veggies, alkalizing sea veggies and apple cider vinegar, the healthy fat of avocado and sesame seeds, and tons of spices to reignite any dulled spirits.

The bowl features shichimi togarashi—Japanese seven spice—a blend introduced to me by fellow blogger Jessica Fiorello when I was in New York this spring. Jessica said she’d basically had an IV feed of the stuff going over the past year, so obvi I had to try it myself. Like her, I’ve now taken to putting it on everything—eggs, sautéed greens, rice bowls, you name it, I’ve togarashi’d it.

Here’s a link to the one I bought, though you could easily put together a blend at home. Here’s some more info about it, from The Kitchn.

And of course, let us not forget the glory of ume plum vinegar. I’ve sung ume’s praises many times before, but it really gets to shine in this cucumber carrot salad with lime and toasted sesame oil. It’s so simple it’s a little addicting, and you can use the extra dressing from the salad on your sushi bowl, if you want.

This is a bowl you can riff on as much as you like—want cooked greens instead of raw? Sure! Radish instead of carrot? Absolutely. Ditch the avocado? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU NOT WANT AVOCADO???

Sorry. I promise only to judge you a little bit if you come to my house and don’t want avocado. Like, maybe we’ll be able to get over it.

Enjoy your sushi bowls, my loves! Happy steaming, and grinding, and chopping, and whisking, and noshing. May all of it bring you back to center.