A Recipe for More: Ingredients for a Life of Abundance and Ease

“This is more than a book: It’s a way of being.”—J . Wortham, staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and cohost of the New York Times podcast

“Deeply honest, compassionate, and wise . . . A Recipe for More is a generous book about breaking cycles of suffering, but also choosing pleasure, offering kindness to self, cultivating an electric network of friendships, and embracing this sweet life. I treasured every page.”—Janelle Monáe, singer, actor, artist, and New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Librarian

 "Each new day is a singular moment, a singular opportunity. No day is like the last and no day is like what’s to come. We have arrived, and we are simultaneously arriving.”  

In this expansive debut, A Recipe for More: Choosing a Life of Pleasure and Abundance, creative, host, and "pleasure doula" Sara Elise offers a profound and challenging inquiry into the forces that keep us in a state of survival and limitation and asks us to consider a new way to live. Sara Elise leaves us with what it means to be present to what’s unfolding around us and open to the change that is possible in that empty space.

A Recipe for More is a quest to examine the ingredients of our lives, those essential components that make up our days. Have we chosen rest, breath, movement, agency, visibility, play, and pleasure? Or are we trapped in the numbing and violent pattern of self-inflicted suffering? Do we celebrate the unique and precious wiring of our brains? Are our relationships a garden of ever-growing and evolving roots? Do we nourish our bodies with what it requires to sense and receive? Are we liberated, awakened, and alive? In the tradition of Adrienne Maree Brown and Sonya Renee Taylor, A Recipe for More is a radical argument for dismantling the systems that oppress us. But it begins with the individual, and the simple recipe of our every day. 

Groundbreaking, persuasive, inclusive, and warm, A Recipe for More brings the ingredients of an abundant life to all readers so that we might honor ourselves, deepen our communities, and finally be present in each miraculous and life-giving singular moment.

With contributions by Fariha Róisín, Tourmaline, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Ryann Holmes (bklyn boihood), Naima Green, J Wortham, and more.

This book is a meditation, a resource, and an invitation to reimagine everything. It asks a central question:

• Rest as Resistance: Reject “hustle culture” and the addiction to being busy. Learn why rest is not a reward for hard work, but a radical act of self-preservation and a key ingredient for a thriving life.
• Pleasure Activism: Discover how to live a life that turns you on. As a self-described “pleasure doula,” Sara Elise offers a guide to choosing joy, cultivating sensuality, and making pleasure a daily practice.
• A Neurodivergent Perspective: Written from a Black & Indigenous, queer, and autistic lens, this book offers a radically honest look at moving through the world, questioning everything, and dismantling oppressive systems from the inside out.
• Queer Friendships: Go beyond traditional relationships to build an “emotional retirement plan.” Explore how to cultivate the deep, intimate bonds of chosen family that form the supportive foundation of your life.