🥂 Cheers to Hosting & Attending Parties

In alignment with your values 🎉 🎂

Author

Jaclyn Kirby
September 18, 2025

My younger self had a mindset of, I can be healthy easily when I’m in my routine, by myself, but the second I get out in a party setting, surrounded by fake food, I’m doomed.

It’s all out the window and there’s nothing I can do about it…

Now as I listen to people talk about this exact same thing — “I was doing so well until Saturday when I attended my friend’s birthday dinner and went off the rails because there were no healthy options…” I think about how I can’t relate to that at all anymore.

So with this week’s conversation, I’m sharing:

1). How I came to this place where now it’s very easy to not be tempted by things that don’t make me feel well and

2). Changing the way we think about hosting so that it’s actually healthy

Because as much as we think that if you’re going to have a party, you have to stock up on bags of chips, fast food delivered pizza, chemically colored cakes, and coolers full of soda… That’s really just not it.

You can host people while still serving the same quality of health food as you do for yourself when no one’s watching.

It’s not too expensive and it’s not too much work. Plus it’s way more enjoyable to share meals that contribute to everyone’s health.

If you’re a host worried about pleasing everyone, that’s mistake #1. And to combat that discomfort of, “What if every single person who comes doesn’t like what I offer?” I always just think about how I would never knowingly poison people. Even if it makes them happy for me to do so.

You all can poison yourselves on your own time if you choose to do so, but I will never bring in toxic synthetic substances into my home for any reason and if that means you think I’m the worst party thrower ever… That’s great! Because it shows how clearly unaligned we are and how we probably don’t need to hang out very often.

So consider this convo if you want to rethink the way you host or attend your next party to stay true to what you know is best.

This Week’s Recipe

Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Salad 🌶️🥗

What you’ll need:

- Lettuce

- Homemade pasta: flour, eggs, salt

- 2 red bell peppers

- 1 tomato

Ingredients for the dressing, 1 ½ roasted bell peppers plus:

- 120 g feta

- 120 g cottage cheese

- 1 tbsp raw honey

- 4 garlic cloves

- Juice from ÂĽ of a lemon

- Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes

- EVOO just enough to receive desired texture

Directions:

1. Make pasta dough. Let sit for 30 minutes. Then form your desired spiral shaped noodle. Store in the freezer if you aren’t cooking them right away.

2. Cut the core away from the bell pepper and save ½ of one bell pepper to chop up. Roast the other 1 ½ bell peppers in the top rack of the oven at 400 degrees.

3. Add roasted bell pepper to a blender along with the rest of the dressing ingredients until smooth. Add EVOO as needed.

4. Chop tomato and ½ bell pepper and set aside in the fridge.

5. Boil noodles. Then strain and let cool for a few minutes. Add some dressing to the noodles while the cool down to avoid sticking.

6. Assemble salad by pouring lettuce into a big bowl. Then add chopped veggies, cooked noodles, and dressing. Mix well.

🤍🤍 Jaclyn

P.S. I always link to Spotify, but Cheers to Growth is also on Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Listen where you like to!