Alise Greenfield

“I just thought I was bad at handling stress now.”

That’s what a patient told me last week. I felt for her, and for all the women I see who feel this way.

She said it like it was something she was doing wrong — like somewhere along the way she’d decided her exhaustion, her shorter fuse, her inability to absorb a hard day the way she used to... was a shortcoming.

It wasn’t.

In perimenopause, estrogen stops being predictable — and estrogen has direct effects on serotonin and dopamine, your mood and resilience chemicals. When estrogen gets erratic, your capacity to handle stress changes too. That’s not a shortcoming. That’s physiology.

If you’ve quietly been wondering what happened to your ability to just... handle things — this is exactly the kind of thing I break down in my free hormone guide, the foundational pieces that explain a lot of what you’re feeling.

Comment GUIDE for the download!

Oooo, let’s not leave out “sanitary napkins.” 🤦🏼‍♀️

And taxing period products sounds like some woman-hating BS.

Let’s tax Vi**ra, yeah?

No wonder women feel shame and guilt and confusion around their bodies. It’s built into our values and our culture.

Hard pass on that cultural norm, thanks 👊🏽 I’ll be over here teaching women their bodies are powerful, sacred and worthy of revering 💪🏼

I’m obsessed with ice cream. 🍦

But ice cream from the store or from ice cream stands always makes me feel awful.

So I started making my own ice cream. I didn’t know what I was missing.

I get to control the ingredients, get to cook with my daughter, get the satisfaction of eating my own food that tastes good.

Plus my daughter brags to everyone about how good my ice cream is. 😉

This is strawberry chocolate chip ice cream adapted from

Ingredients:
2 cups organic cream
1 cup organic whole milk
3-4 egg yolks (varies depending on my mood)
3/4 cup sugar + 2T
3/4 pound of fresh strawberries
1 generous teaspoon vanilla paste
Pinch of salt
1 whole dark chocolate bar

1. Add cream, milk, salt and 1/2 cup sugar to a pot and heat on low. Watch closely
2. In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks with 1/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy (a hand whisk is fine)
3. When cream mixture is warm, slowly add about 1/4 cup of it to the egg mixture, whisking continuously to temper the eggs
4. Pour the egg mixture into the cream mixture. Stirring continuously, heat until reaches about 170F then remove from heat.
5. Pour into a heat-resistant container. Place container in an ice bath to prevent cooking more. Add the vanilla
6. In a blender, pulse strawberries and 2T sugar until pulverized. Then add to custard base.
7. Cool custard base for several hours

For the chocolate chips:
1. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate. (Could use a microwave if you wanted)
2. On a sheet tray lined with parchment paper, pour the melted chocolate and spread until thin. Freeze

Make the ice cream
1. Once cooled, churn the ice cream per your ice cream makers instructions
2. Towards the end of churning, take the tempered chocolate from the freezer and chop into small pieces. Add into the ice cream
3. You can eat the ice cream right from here. It’ll be like soft serve. Or freeze it for a few hours to let the flavors come together more!

Tag me if you make this!