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The Raw and The Cooked

Simple Meals + Honest Book Reviews + Practical Living

Why I’m Finally Slowing Down My Reading Life 📚

Every year, I set a reading goal. Sometimes it’s 50 books, if it’s a postpartum year. Sometimes 75. A few ambitious years, even 100. For a long time, those goals felt motivating. They gave structure to my reading life and made me feel productive, disciplined, like I was “keeping up.” But this year, after nearly two decades of tracking books and chasing numbers, I found myself asking a different question:

What exactly am I rushing toward?

And honestly… who cares how many books I read in a year? There is no version of life where we get through every bestseller, every hidden gem, every recommendation, every “must-read” list. Our time is limited. And maybe accepting that is actually freeing.

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Numbers 1:1 – 4:20 | Bamidbar | “In the Wilderness”

When I first got my copy of The Rational Bible by Dennis Prager, I remember feeling genuinely elated. This ancient, often dense and difficult text was finally opened up in a way I could understand—clear, thoughtful, and deeply engaging. And, maybe just as meaningful to me, it was written by a Jewish author.

A lot of the accessible, lay-friendly Bible commentaries I’ve found come from Christian writers—which can be wonderful (if you’ve been following along, you know I’m a big fan of John Mark Comer). But there’s something uniquely grounding about learning from someone who shares your foundational perspective. It adds a different kind of clarity. So when I realized that Prager’s Rational Bible series skips Leviticus (for now), I had to shift gears a bit. I leaned on Sefaria to get through that stretch—grateful for it, but it just wasn’t the same as sitting down with a physical book and a highlighter in hand.

Now, I’m back. Highlighter ready. Pages turning. Welcome to Numbers—Bamidbar.

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The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Today I’m sharing a book review that I’ve been really excited to sit with and talk through. I recently received The Correspondent in the mail from a good friend of mine—someone from what feels like another lifetime ago—and I’m genuinely glad she sent it. We tend to overlap in reading taste, but I’ll admit I was skeptical going in. This novel is written entirely in letters, and that’s a format I usually avoid.

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Leviticus 25:1 – 27:34 | Behar + Bechukotai | “On the Mountain” + “In My Statutes” 

You guys. We did it. This is the last parsha of the book of Leviticus. I can’t even pretend that I’m not thrilled to move on, because I am, I am thrilled. Like most people, I find Leviticus very tedious, cumbersome, repetitive, and simply difficult to get through. But we did. We came through it, this is our final week on the Book of Leviticus, before next week, when we pick up in the wildness narrative, and move onto the Book of Numbers.

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The 2:00 PM Reset

There is a very specific moment in the afternoon that I don’t think we talk about enough. For me, it’s usually around 2:07 p.m.

The kitchen is still messy from lunch. Someone is asking for a snack. Someone else is crying over something small but very important. Dinner hasn’t been started yet. The morning mess hasn’t fully been reset. You’ve been busy all day, but somehow it feels like nothing has actually gotten done.

And looming in the background is the rest of the day—school pickup, dinner, homework, bedtime, backpacks, closing down the house. It’s a lot.

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Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23 | Emor | “Speak”

I knew going into this… Leviticus is a bear. It’s always Leviticus, right? This weeks parsha is no exception. At first glance, Emor looks like a list of rules for priests. Who they can marry. When they can mourn. What disqualifies them from serving. It feels… distant. Irrelevant. Upon reading the first half of this parsha, I had to sit for a while to find the deeper meaning, the real thread to pull. I feel wildly unqualified to even begin to dissect the first half of Emor. And then, the final half, we have God, laying out the various feats and holidays that He wants us to observe. Holiness is structured. It lives in people, and it lives in time. “These are My fixed times,” God says—not when you feel ready, not when life slows down, but fixed. Built in. Protected. Emor, at its core, is a blueprint for a life that makes room for God—intentionally, rhythmically, and with care.

Meanwhile, enjoy a super cute photo of Poppy, our two week old Easter Egger.

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