A total of 210,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added in November, according to the Labor Department, significantly fewer than economists' forecast of over 500,000 and October's addition of 546,000. Lingering concerns about the coronavirus and the large number of people who have not returned to the workforce since the height of the pandemic are seen as factors in the sluggish growth.

Employees want to work for companies that match their values, will help them learn new skills to advance their careers and provide flexible and rewarding working conditions, write Cher Murphy and Jeffrey Sindone. They outline three steps leaders can take to create such an atmosphere, such as asking better questions about talent, including candidates who don't join the organization.

Registered dietitian Ella Davar writes that as an integrative dietitian, cooking nutritious meals at home comes naturally to her, but she understands it can sometimes be a challenge. Davar writes that she tries to simplify healthful eating for clients and notes part of that is having go-to foods on hand, such as capers, buckwheat, cranberries, leafy green vegetables, bone broth and walnuts.

The number of telehealth visits by Medicare beneficiaries soared to 52.7 million last year, a 63-fold increase from around 840,000 in 2019, with behavioral health care providers recording the largest increase in telehealth visits. An analysis of Medicare fee-for-service data showed urban and white beneficiaries were more likely to seek and use telehealth services compared with Black beneficiaries and those in rural areas.

Employees talk about the loss and dread they feel as companies demand a return to the office, even if just on a hybrid basis, as the autonomy, freedom and better work-life balance they now know is possible via remote working is ripped away. "It just doesn't have to be this way," says Jennifer Gravel, a director at New York City's Department of City Planning, while Stew Friedman of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School advises workers to negotiate flexibility with their managers.

I spent part of Saturday cooking with my daughter and her best friend, Jayla. Jay came to me a couple weeks ago and said she was trying to get back into shape but needed to know how to eat better. Kawai suggested we all get together at my house for a cooking session. So we did.

It was a blast! The girls arrived loaded down with bags of food. We turned on the Christmas music (Ms. Patti, John Legend and Nat King Cole), made a plate of snacks to nosh on and got down to business. We made balsamic chicken and mushrooms, roasted asparagus and caramelized sweet potatoes. I also taught her how to get creative with chicken breast marinades (“Keep Pappy’s on hand.”) and how to salvage two-day-old white rice by turning it into fried rice (“I add egg and green onion. Kawai adds everything but the kitchen sink.”).

We also made a list of foods and spices she needed to have stocked at home. Among the items on that list were green leafy vegetables, nuts and fish. These same items appear on dietitian Ella Davar’s list of staples in today’s Health and Wellness story. I like Davar’s suggestions for keeping cranberries, capers and bone broth on hand. I added those to my grocery list. Those are terrific, easy ways to punch up salads and fish.

What’s on your go-to food list? Mine also includes sesame oil, chili paste, Sapporo saimin and shoyu (for my 808 friends, only Aloha Shoyu lives in my house). Tell me what you must have in your kitchen to help you stay on the straight-and-narrow road of health. And if you enjoy this brief, tell others so they can benefit also.