Cooking + Praying

A chronicle of long-gone pets

2012-02-09T22:21:00.000-05:00

Something got me thinking about all the pets we had when we were growing up on Apache Street. I realized that—with the exception of the newborn baby rabbits we took from a nest in the woods (our intentions were good but we were fools)—I don’t recall any of our pets dying. Here’s a list of the pets and what happened to them

Gypsy, the black Cocker Spaniel. If memory serves me right, Gypsy was specifically assigned to be the pet of my brother Steve. She bit that bratty Corridon kid across the street. I probably would have bitten the kid myself, had I had the chance. After the biting incident Gypsy was sent away to live on a farm.

Slinky, the mixed breed cat. Slinky was my pet. One day she just disappeared. Fifty years after her disappearance, my mother mentioned how much she hates cats and specifically mentioned that she found Slinky on the kitchen table, licking the butter. Slinky was never seen again. Maybe she went to live on a farm.

Various unnamed pink and yellow Easter chicks. They lost their downy feathers and began to look like real chickens and they pooped a lot wherever they wanted to poop. I don’t believe chickens can be house trained. I think they went to live on Vince’s chicken farm. Now I feel ill—we probably ate them.

Chiffon, my parakeet. I presume Chiffon was a girl, but I have no evidence of that presumption. I pronounced her name “Cheephon” with a French accent because I thought she seemed like a French parakeet. I used to put her under the covers of my bed but she had mites and I think I got the mites too. Chiffon took her cage and moved to a farm.

Oscar, the duck. Yet another Easter pet. Oscar developed a limp and my mother put him in the oven and turned on the gas to put him out of his misery. We were all getting asphyxiated, but every time my mother opened the oven door to see if he was dead, he just looked at her and quacked. So she finally turned off the gas and released him. He never limped again. But soon after the gas chamber failure, he was taken to live on the pond at the local cemetery. Although we couldn’t distinguish Oscar from the other ducks at the cemetery pond, I’m sure he lived a long, happy, limp-free life.

Babette, the Maltese. Babette was a repulsive little dog who smelled bad and had no charm whatsoever, despite her stupid French name. I love dogs and I couldn’t find it in my heart to love Babette. She left one day not long after her arrival and went to live on a farm.

It’s amazing that none of us kids left home to go live on a farm.

Rejecting Jesus

2012-02-07T22:31:00.000-05:00

I rejected an offer from Jesus today and I’m wondering if it was a big mistake. Do I have too much pride? Do I cling too much to my worldly stuff to accept his offer with humility? Do I put too much value on insignificant things? Oh, Lord, help me see through my greed.

Honestly, I got an e-mail from Jesus, sent at 3:15 this morning on my seldom-used AOL account. I guess Jesus doesn’t sleep like most folks. Or perhaps he’s in a different time zone. Nonetheless, it was a simple message: “30 for the drum. Jesus.” Jesus was a tad curt, wasn’t he? No pleasant greeting, no parables, no mention of blessings or peace be with you. It took a while for it to sink in with me. I thought of all the times I prayed, telling the Lord that I just didn’t understand his will. And now here was a cryptic message from him and still I wasn’t quite sure what he meant about the drum and was it 30 days and 30 nights? And I never imagined I would hear directly from Jesus on e-mail. I thought he was more of a voice-coming-from-the-clouds sort of guy.

Don’t expect me to admit that I’m having visions or that I’ve developed stigmatas in my hands. Lest you think this is some sort of indiscernible message from the real Jesus, let me offer an explanation. I have a djembe (a tribal drum from West Africa) for sale on Craig’s List. Some guy named Jesus was offering me a mere $30 for the drum that is a huge bargain at the $65 listed price.

I told Jesus no, I appreciated his offer, but it just wasn’t enough.

Been in the storm so long

2012-02-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

I’m reading Psalms—the Song of Ascents—and listening to African American spirituals. I put one of the songs on replay, playing it over and over again. It gives me the shivers. It’s the raw, powerful, mournful voice of a woman named Mary Pinckney singing I’ve Been in the Storm So Long. It’s an old field recording of the Gullah people on Johns Island, South Carolina. Mary Pinckney sings:

I’ve been in the storm so long.

I've been in the storm so long.

Oh, Lord, give me my time to pray.

I’ve been in the storm so long. . .

There’s a theme here, a theme that resonates through time from the Old Testament to the time of slavery to the present. God's people see themselves through troubles by lifting up their hearts to the Lord in prayer.

Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

Bury grief, plant a seed

2012-02-05T00:55:00.000-05:00

Today I was driving around, running errands just to keep busy. I needed distraction, something, anything to keep me from spending the day with either tears or doughnuts or both. Lynne Rossetto Kasper was doing her food show on the radio. I love her show and hoped she would inspire me to go home and cook something fabulous. But I only caught the show near the end of an interview about a seed distribution program for farmers in Iraq. In closing the show, she quoted an old German proverb: To bury grief, plant a seed.

At first I was disappointed that I had missed my usual food inspiration. But the quote was simple enough to remember and, since I was coping (or not coping) with too much grief, it sunk in to my muddled brain. Grief, I thought. Yes, I need to bury grief. I need to go on, to live, to find hope. Perhaps I need to plant a seed. So I did get another kind of inspiration, just not what I expected.

Now this seed could be a real seed—like I could work on my garden, but it’s too cold and I’m moving on to the metaphorical seed concept. I’m deep in to the grieving now but I know that that eventually I’ll exit this version of hell. Life springs from death. Growth can follow intense sorrow. Kindness, patience, compassion, love . . . perhaps all of these can become more sacred when we realize how easily life can slip away. I’ll catch my breath, pray, and believe that with faith the sorrow can be transformed into joyful regeneration. And I’m going to buy some packets of seeds just to remind me that I need to sow some seeds of joy.

Death cycle

2012-02-01T02:46:00.000-05:00

It’s after 1 o’clock in the morning. I should be in my warm bed, fast asleep. But sleep is something I don’t do well. I’ve got other things on my mind.

For example, I’ve got a project swirling around in my head and I’m thinking about fabric textures and colors and exactly how I’m going to construct this crazy thing. But tomorrow I’ll go to the fabric store and will begin to work it out and hope the sewing machine is strong enough. This is what I do—get crazy ideas and then obsess about getting them done. Like painting the armoire at 2 a.m. Oh, well. . . .

Then there’s the whole life and death thing that’s wrapped around my neck like a boa constrictor. I really don’t mind snakes, wish I could find that old photo of myself with a boa around my neck, but the strangulation could be a problem. I can’t work with this life and death thing like I do other projects—there’s nothing tangible I can do about it. No fabric, no paint, no planning. But still, I begin to see my brain go there, lights out, under the covers in my warm bed, and then I start getting worked up. Next thing I’m out of the bed, I fire up the computer, and I’m getting upset, figuring I can make some sense out of it, create order where there is none. Like I’m really going to find some sort of understanding of life and death. Oh, no, mon amie, that is to laugh. (I’m writing that in a French accent.)

I’m in this stinking death cycle. First my father died—it was horrible, heart-breaking. I truly loved that man and wasn’t ready to lose him. Less than a year after my father died, my brother Mark was murdered, shot in the back in his own front yard by an angry neighbor, just because my brother’s dog walked into the neighbor’s yard. I truly loved my little brother and wasn’t ready to lose him either. How could I have been? And now Mike—the one who shares my crazy adventures, my music companion, the best guitar player I know, my dear, dear friend—is dying from mesothelioma. I truly love that man and I’m not ready to lose him either.

In a little over a year—three men who have been deeply intertwined in my life—dying. Somehow the cumulative effect of these three seems more than just one plus one plus one. It seems unreal, like it's not my life. Did I step off the universe and get sucked up into a death cycle in an alternative universe, a world that looks strangely like my own, but can't be? Can I please return to the life I knew before? Can someone pull the brakes on this cycle? I’m tired and I just can’t take any more heartbreak.

Blessed assurance

2012-01-27T21:14:00.000-05:00

^“. . . let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. . .” Hebrews 10:22

Tonight I did yoga, then sat quietly on the floor, listening to Gregorian chant and pleading with God to let me feel the peace of His presence. Mike is dying and I can’t bear the thought of never seeing him again. When he goes he will leave behind a big hole in my heart and my life.

I’m so tired of death—in the span of one year my father died and my brother was murdered. And now Mike is slipping away. “What is it you want of me?” I cried to God in desperation. “How do you expect me to hold on to this faith of mine when life hurts so much?”

Then the words just came to me . . . blessed assurance. I have His blessed assurance.

There’s an old Christian hymn called Blessed Assurance, but we never sang that hymn in church when I was growing up—it was much too old-school Protestant for us baby boomer Catholics. But even though I am not that familiar with the old hymn, I love the concept of having blessed assurance. I need to feel God's presence, need to focus on trusting in His goodness, need to have faith that He is with me through all of these awful trials of life, that His peace is all I need.

An unlikely Christian

2012-01-20T16:49:00.000-05:00

Although this has been a big part of my life for over a year, I have written little about it. I didn’t want to invade his privacy. The story isn’t over yet but it bears telling at this point.

My dear friend Mike first got sick in October, 2010. One week before Christmas he got the definitive diagnosis. He has mesothelioma, cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma has a dire survival rate; it’s almost always terminal. He had chemotherapy, surgery to remove his right lung, and intense radiation therapy. Despite all the treatment, by the end of the summer the doctors told him the cancer had spread to his abdomen and the only course of therapy left was experimental chemotherapy. Mike decided not to get further treatment in order to live what may be left of his life as best he could, without being sick from chemotherapy.

He had to leave his job, sell his house, his horses, his power tools, and several of his instruments. He whittled down his possessions to only what could fit in two small rooms. And he lost the once-strong body that could wrangle horses or pick up a heavy gate and throw it in the back of his pick-up truck. He used to be strong and self sufficient but now he is occupying a body no longer his own, a body barely recognizable as Mike. In early spring, before his surgery, I took him to see the river at Great Falls. There, in view of the falls, he sat on a bench and bemoaned what had happened to his body. “I used to climb mountains,” he said.

I’ve been praying for him. Praying that the Lord would have mercy and heal him and praying that the Lord would give Mike some peace, some understanding, and, if He was feeling really, really merciful, that He would give Mike faith. I had a whole army of people praying with me.

Mike went to church with me a couple of times. He liked the preaching, appreciated the prayers on his behalf, but eventually he made it clear to me that he just wasn’t interested in organized religion. He said, “Nature is my cathedral.”

I kept praying, not even knowing what to pray for. About two weeks ago I wrote this on a sticky note: “There’s just one prayer now. Lord, if he is in need of witness to get to salvation, please make it happen.”

One week ago today, Mike expressed an interest in seeing my pastor. Two days later, the pastor and I drove from Arlington to Towson (about 70 miles each way) to see him in the nursing home where he is now living. Mike had a lot of questions for the pastor, questions about God and prayer and why he was dying. The pastor prayed for him, read Scripture, and simply talked to Mike about what he has been through and what he believes. Mike said that the past year had been the worst year of his life, but even more so the best year of his life. He said he feels blessed because so many people care for him and are praying for him. And he had come to the conclusion that such blessings had to come from God. He said the pastor had given him a lot to think about, that he just needed some time to digest all of it. After two hours of discussion, as we were wrapping up and heading for the door he surprised us. He said, “I have just one more thing I want to say to you. I do believe in Jesus Christ.”

He cried; we cried. The pastor prayed again and we left. In the following days, Mike told me he was learning to pray. He realized that God already knows what’s in his heart—he doesn’t need to find the right words to say, he just needs to feel God’s presence. He said he felt peace just washing over him. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “It’s real. It’s real.”

His favorite Bible verse so far, the one that caught his attention, and the one he says he reads over and over again is Romans 6:23—“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It gives him an understanding of why he is dying and a hope for perfect bliss beyond this flawed mortal life.

So he said he wanted to be baptized. And two days ago, the pastor and I drove back to Towson with a bottle of generic brand spring water and Mike got baptized. He said he believed because the blessings of his life had to have come from a loving God, that God was serving him, that he was just beginning to learn how to accept such love, the love for him that sent Jesus to die on the cross for his sins. He said many other humble, insightful things, things that I never thought I would hear coming from him. He, a man whose body has nearly totally failed him, said the day of his baptism was the best day of his life.

And after he was baptized, I kneeled on the floor beside him and held him. He said, “You’ve taken me on some great adventures, but this one is the best of all.”

Indeed, the best adventure of all.

I am in awe of the goodness of God and I ask Him to continue to bless my dear friend.

ERROR!!!

2012-01-11T13:16:00.000-05:00

ERROR!!! it flashed in bold, angry red letters. I stepped off the scale, kicked it gently, rearranged the fat on my body, and stepped back on. ERROR! it screamed in an accusatory tone with a tinge of petulant whining.

Had it been able to utter anything other than the rather rude ERROR message, I’m sure it would have called me an obese ignorant slut. I disagree with the slut accusation. There is no defense for ignorant and obese. Guilty as charged.

Had it not been disabled from the sheer full force of my weight, it might have flipped over and turned its back on me in disgust, continually flashing ERROR ERROR ERROR to the tile floor below.

But no, it said nothing, did nothing. I stepped off and the message disappeared. I didn’t have enough courage to try it a third time. I got the message.

Yes, I’m mired and suffering the consequences of the error my ways. And I’ve got the feeling that tonight, when I’m trying to sleep, I’m going to hear that wretched piece of metal in my bathroom, a voice that sounds like Satan, saying, “ERROR, ERROR, ERROR . . . ”

I may need to kill the thing.

Chicken stuffing soup: A concept

2012-01-04T19:33:00.000-05:00

Had I known this soup would turn out so well, I would have paid attention. I would have measured, adjusted, and written down what I did. But, alas, I was just cleaning out my pantry, trying to use up what I had while making something reasonably healthy and comforting on a cold winter day. Oh, well . . .

Here’s the general idea:

Chop one onion and sauté in olive oil in a large soup pot. Add some minced garlic and a lot of minced fresh ginger.

Put about 8 cups of water in the pot, heat until it simmers, add about 6 teaspoons of Penzey’s chicken soup base.

Chop a few stalks of celery and a few carrots and add to the pot with chopped fresh parsley.

Take a package of chicken tenders (raw), cut into large pieces, and add to pot.

Add one can of white beans.

When the chicken is cooked and the vegetables are tender, add one package of Stove Top chicken stuffing mix and heat through. Really, the stuffing mix gives it body and makes it very flavorful.

The evolution of distraction

2011-12-31T19:14:00.001-05:00

It’s New Year’s Eve. I’m sitting at home, listening to jazz, eating leftover cassoulet, drinking red wine, and thinking about distraction. I’m having a hard time concentrating on the distraction issue. I keep getting up and walking downstairs to see if my laundry is done. Then I go into the kitchen and check out what’s in the refrigerator. Then I go back to my writing but forget what I was doing. Maybe it’s the wine or maybe it’s human nature. I’m developing an anthropological treatise on how we have become more and more distracted over time and with technological advances.

Oh, and by the way, I’m thinking about painting the guest room—how do you think lavender would work?

Perhaps we mortals can blame our distractible nature on The Fall. In the early days, after the rib extraction, Adam and Eve must have given one another their full attention. They probably walked around the Garden of Eden discussing books and music and the wonders of God until they bit into the accursed apple. They were not distracted until they fell from God’s grace. Then all hell broke loose and we’ve been on a downhill slide ever since.

I don’t think we were so distractible when technology was simpler. For example, before Verizon invented call waiting, we simply talked to someone on the phone until we were finished. Now we get interrupted all the time by people taking polls on our grocery shopping habits. (I think they’re lying—they aren’t taking polls, they just want to see if they can link my toilet cleaner preference with my political affiliation.) One person I will not name, but who happens to have given birth to me, tells me to hold on but she forgets I’m holding on. She’s nearly 86 so she’s excused.

Then there are the people who respond to every ding on their cellphones and text message during soulful conversations about the meaning of life in relation to the age of toilet training. They say, “Go on, go on, I’m listening.” But I know they aren’t, especially when they nod and smile like a psychoanalyst when I say, “I’m into self mutilation and last week I gnawed off my left arm."

According to my theory, what do I expect to be the next wave of distraction? I figure it’s going to be something like this: I’m on my deathbed saying something deep and meaningful to my granddaughter when a hologram image of her friend Imogene appears in the room. Imogene tells my granddaughter that she simply must come to Paris for lunch. At which point, my granddaughter explains that she’ll just be gone for a couple of hours and she teleports herself to Paris.

Then again, maybe I should paint the guest room a deep caramel color.

Happy 2012!

The Josefinas

2011-12-23T22:14:00.000-05:00

I spent the evening doing Josefina's hair over and over again. Actually, there are two identical Josefinas in my house at the moment and they both have long, thick black hair that goes from sleek to a rat's nest in mere seconds. They are especially prone to getting their hair tangled when they are picked up by their hair and flipped upside down.

The Josephinas are American Girl dolls, the wards of my twin 5-year-old grandaughters, Harper and Lucy. The girls (and the dolls) are visiting from Texas. Today we went to the American Girl store, where we had lunch reservations, and where the dolls got their hair done in the store's salon. The dolls were seated in small pink salon chairs and draped with miniature plastic capes to protect their clothes. The girls picked hair styles for the dolls and the stylists (I wonder if they have to be licensed by the state cosmetology board) redid their hair with twists and braids and tiny ribbons and pony tail holders.

We weren't even back to the house before the dolls' hairdos were destroyed. So tonight, while the parents of these girls went to happy hour at McKeever's Pub, I stayed home as the designated doll hair stylist. I brushed and braided and revised the styles several times. But the final result was fabulous. Harper's Josefina got two traditional braids. Lucy's Josefina got a thick side braid, interlaced with red for Christmas. Lucy said what I did with her Josefina was better than any of the dolls she saw at the store. She suggested that I get a job as a doll hair stylist at American Girl. Brilliant idea, eh? I never would have thought of that before today, but perhaps I finally found my calling.

Elizabeth and His tender mercy

2011-12-19T15:15:00.000-05:00

Indeed, the story of Mary, the teenaged unwed mother chosen to be the mother of the Messiah, is amazing and inspirational. Her unquestioning faith is exemplary.

But what about Mary’s cousin Elizabeth? In Scripture Elizabeth is referred to twice as being “advanced in years.” I figured that being “advanced in years” in the year 1 BC was probably something like 30 years old. Girls got married at 13 and it seemed likely that they were considered old by the time they were 30. So I looked it up and found that biblical scholars think Elizabeth was well beyond the usual childbearing age, probably in her 60s. Holy Mother of God—instead of getting an AARP card, she got pregnant! In the year 1 BC it took the Angel Gabriel to facilitate a pregnancy where even IVF clinics would fail today.

Like her cousin Mary, Elizabeth had remarkable faith. And unlike her husband Zechariah, she was not bitter about her childlessness and she didn’t doubt God’s plan. She joyfully, with humility, accepted the news that she was going to give birth to John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah.

I become a little weak in the knees when I hear this story because I’m about Elizabeth’s age at the time she gave birth. I probably would have bristled at the news that I was going to have a baby when I’m so “advanced in years,” even though the child was destined to have an important role in the life of Jesus. (I guessing the angel didn’t tell Elizabeth and Zechariah that their son was going to be beheaded—it might have been a deal breaker.) But here’s the part that gives me hope—even though Elizabeth was growing old, God was not yet finished with her. He answered her prayer and used her to accomplish something very important.

In the words of Zechariah (Luke 1:74-78)

. . . that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins,

because of the tender mercy of our God.

Even when we’re old—maybe especially when we’re old—we can rely on the tender mercy of our God.

Affirmative action

2011-12-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

Don’t laugh—I’m doing cognitive therapy on myself. This means that I’m prodding myself out of my current malaise by using mental affirmation flashcards. (Don’t even ask about the malaise. Suffice it to say it’s a combination of seasonal affective disorder, grief, and general ornery-ness. There’s probably a diagnostic code for it. I have a graduate degree in counseling psychology so I’m entitled to diagnose myself.)

These affirmation flashcards are not tangible things, not like the picture of the zebra with the letter Z that you show your preschooler. But perhaps they should be. I could use photos to accompany the affirmations in order to reinforce the message. Here are the affirmations I’m working on:

(1) “I am who I say I am”—this is to remind me that no one else defines me—no former husband who mistreated me, no boss who devalued me, no Republicans or surly plumbers or cosmetic salesladies. For this one I’ll attach a photo of Michelle Pfeiffer and hope that my powerful positive thinking will make me look like her.

(2) “Cherish yourself”—I’m already having trouble with this one because there seems to be a thin line between self indulgence and self preservation. But what I mean is that no one else is going to take care of me, no one else is going to make sure I eat right or get enough exercise. For this flashcard I’ll attach a photo of Miss Piggy.

(3) “Live today like it’s your last day”—I’m having trouble with this one too. It scares me. It doesn’t make me want to fly to Paris; it makes me think I need to clean my closets and get my affairs in order so my kids won’t curse me when I’m gone tomorrow. They’re going to say, “Why in the hell did she need 146 cookbooks?” That’s it—the cookbooks are going to Goodwill tomorrow along with the 146 pairs of jeans that don’t fit. With this flashcard I’ll attach a photo of Little Edie. (I’m still obsessed with Little Edie.)

(4) “Get off your ass”—this is self explanatory. It’s really card 2, part b. I need serotonin, vitamin D, and liposuction. I need residental addiction treatment—carbohydrates are my version of crack. For this card I’ll attach a photo of myself sitting on the sofa, wearing sweats, eating popcorn and drinking a beer. Nooooo! Quick—flash back to the picture of Michelle Pfeiffer—I am who I say I am, I am who I say I am . . .

Farina

2011-11-19T20:48:00.002-05:00

How low does a writer have to go to write an essay on farina? How much of total nerd does it take to even spend time thinking about it? Guess I’m about to find out.

A few days ago I was in the grocery store and overheard a young clerk tell an older clerk that a customer was looking for farina.

“Farina,” the young clerk said, “I have no idea . . . “

“Aisle 6 on the left, about halfway up the aisle,” said the older clerk, “on top, above the oatmeal.”

I chuckled and the old guy just grinned and rolled his eyes.

Wasn’t Farina related to Buckwheat? Who came up with the names of those characters in the Our Gang television series? Farina and Buckwheat were two of the little black kids—but who was Stymie? The show was equal opportunity when it came to stereotypes because it had black kids, a fat white boy, a whiney white girl, and a bully white kid. I’d love to see that show again. I’ll bet it’s not hard to find it online. Anything you want is on YouTube. (I recently watched a clip from the Milt Grant show—but that’s another essay on yet another important topic.)

But seriously, farina is a food grain and we Americans know it as Cream of Wheat. Look at the box and it will say exactly that—Cream of Wheat (subtitle Enriched Farina). It was a staple of my childhood—a warm, comfort-food breakfast. It was never, ever the quick-cook variety in the packet. Hell no! You had to cook it in a saucepan with water (or milk if you were feeling frisky) and a dash of salt. You had to pour the dry Cream of Wheat carefully into the boiling water and stir continually to avoid lumps. You had to cook it in the saucepan because you needed to learn the value of hard work and discipline by scrubbing clean the saucepan encrusted with Cream of Wheat that turns into cement if left to dry. You did this after digging potatoes in the garden, butchering a chicken, and before walking 5 miles to school with no shoes. Or pants. We didn’t wear pants but we wore little lace things on our heads. Or a folded Kleenex held on with bobby pins if we were desperate.

Oh, wait, I forgot I was writing about farina. A little break from our sponsor, that pesky attention deficit thing.

My children grew up loving Cream of Wheat but their favorite part was the lumps, so much so that they would request it cooked with lumps intact. They were creating their own tradition.

I’ve been sick and downtrodden. Life is hard. So I’ve been eating Cream of Wheat, chicken soup, and ginger ale. I will get better, things won’t always be so hard. And now I can say I’ve reached the pinnacle because I’ve written an essay on farina. Anyone want to buy my book?

Living in the basement

2011-11-17T23:46:00.005-05:00

For the past couple of weeks I've pretty much banished myself to the basement. Now I've got a cold, which gives me a legitimate reason to withdraw from mankind, but I was withdrawing even before the cold. I haven't been writing or cooking. Though I have been praying sometimes, saying, "Lord, what the blazes am I doing down here on the basement floor all day long?" I ask Him questions. He answers with more questions.

I have a pretty good idea what I'm doing. I'm trying to get lost doing something tangible, just sitting in the basement painting and grieving. I figure if I work really, really hard doing something that takes my mind off the incredibly sad things in my life, maybe the days will pass and I'll have created something. Plus maybe I can make some money to buy that new sofa I need.

Several weeks ago I began painting furniture that I already owned. At a store in Falls Church I found Annie Sloan chalk paint and waxes. My imagination went into overdrive. When I had painted everything feasible in my house I began going to thrift stores, then Craig's List, then to the back sheds at antique stores that have the really grungy stuff. You know--the pieces that are mildewed with spider nests and creaky parts. Those are the pieces I love the most. I've stripped off some horrible upholstery and I've glued and scraped and painted. And painted and painted. Now I need to sell some of this stuff to reclaim my basement. Here are some of the photos of what I've done.

The Bone Crusher's Christmas

2011-11-07T17:57:00.003-05:00

She was their own Christmas miracle, born on December 23^rd, so premature that they said they could see her blood flowing through her little blue veins. The doctor thought she might not last the night. But she continued to breathe through one night and another, until early on Christmas morning the doctor declared her the Christmas miracle.

They named her Maria Josefina Angelita O’Rourke but they just called her Angel. She was a perfectly formed, perfectly beautiful infant—a little rosebud mouth, flawless white skin, black curly hair, shining black eyes, and tiny delicate hands—like a replica of her big sister’s Snow White doll. People stopped breathing for a second when they saw her.

And like the child who was born nearly 2000 years before her, Angel grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. She was a delight to her family. By the time she was one year old, she had caught up with biggest babies her age. By the time she was entering kindergarten, she had surpassed her older sister in both height and weight and she was nearly as big as her diminutive grandmother. By the time she was in sixth grade, she was bigger than most of the high school boys, even bigger than some of the football players. Her grandmother had to disassemble three extra-large school uniforms to have enough fabric to sew one uniform for Angel. Yet she was still stunningly beautiful—like a giant Snow White statue. People stopped breathing for a second when they saw her.

We all know people can be cruel in the presence of an unusual person like Angel O’Rourke. Children pointed and laughed, often played tricks on her. One day in the cafeteria, Joseph Ruppert stuck out his leg and tripped Angel while she was carrying her food-laden tray. She lost her balance, sending the spaghetti, meatballs, Jello, and chocolate milk over half her sixth-grade classmates. And she twirled around as she hit the floor, her fall broken by the scrawny body of Joseph Ruppert. He was face-down on the tile floor, covered with food debris and that mountain of childhood Angel O’Rourke. Joseph Ruppert was soon to learn that his shoulder was dislocated and three ribs were broken. It was a brief moment in time that Angel would never live down. Henceforth she was called the Bone Crusher.

In the weeks before her 13^th birthday, Angel’s family suggested they plan a big celebration, inviting all of her friends from her class.

“But, Mama,” she said, “I have no friends in my class. Have I ever been invited to one of their birthday parties? You know I haven’t.”

Her grandmother pleaded with her, “Angelita, you need to be a friend to make a friend. Invite them. We’ll have a nice party and they will see you smile and they will know you. Just do it for me and you will see.”

“I don’t know about this,” said her sister Linda. “This has disaster written all over it.”

Angel paced the floor and broke out in a sweat. She looked down at her grandmother, her hands clasped at her chest as if in prayer, and she agreed to have the party. She immediately regretted it but she couldn’t back down.

On the day of the party, she begged her parents and her grandmother to disappear into the background before the guests arrived. They reluctantly agreed. The house was decorated with Christmas lights and a nativity scene and purple and yellow streamers. A big banner announced “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGEL” at the front door.

Angel was wearing a pink sequined top and a red taffeta skirt. Linda was dressed all in black. The other guest, wearing her best yellow party dress, was their 10-year-old cousin Rosie. The three girls sat in the living room, Christmas music blaring on the stereo. For over an hour they kept replaying the same three records over and over. Andy Williams was singing—again—“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” when Angel walked over to the stereo and pulled the plug out of the wall.

“How can he say that?” she cried. “For me it’s the most terrible time of the year. I hate my birthday. I hate Christmas. They all hate me and I hate my life.”

Her sister left, her cousin left, and Angel sat alone in the living room watching the lights blink on the Christmas tree. She noticed the heart-shaped ornament on the tree, an ornament on which her grandmother had lovingly embroidered “Angel 1948” the year she was born. And she wondered how her grandmother had controlled her own enthusiasm over the birthday party. Angel had fully expected her grandmother to sneak in to meet her “friends” but she never appeared.

Angel sang happy birthday to herself, cut a piece of cake, and put the cake on a poinsettia paper plate to bring to her grandmother. The old woman was not in her room. She wasn’t in the basement folding laundry. Angel called out to her, but her grandmother did not answer. She went into the garage and saw her grandmother on the floor under large metal storage shelves that had fallen on her. Angel dropped the cake and, as if she was only lifting a paper bag, lifted the shelves off of her grandmother.

“Angelita,” said her grandmother. “I knew you’d come for me. It’s another miracle!”

Constancy

2011-11-01T16:17:00.000-04:00

This morning I was walking outside. The sky was bright blue, the changing leaves are in full color, and no trick or treater vandalized my car last night. Life is good. I breathed in, I breathed out, praying that I could learn to focus on life’s joys instead of the sorrows. And I realized that in difficult times my frail human nature causes me to question God’s wisdom. I wonder how He can allow such hardship. What kind of God would let His children suffer and die? How can an all-powerful God be so unfeeling to let there be war and famine and cancer and murder? Did He really intend for life to be so hard? How can I have trust in a God like that?

Yet when things are good I say that I have been blessed, that God is with me. I think He’s good when things are going my way.

Has God changed? Of course not. I am the one who changes. By nature, God is constant. He is good all the time and He is with me all the time, even when I doubt His existence or question His wisdom. I fail. God doesn’t.

Fish chowder

2011-10-29T21:40:00.001-04:00

It turned nasty cold here, mostly rain with some sloppy snow. It's the kind of weather that demands comfort food. So I tried to come up with something I could cook without going to the grocery store. I baked oatmeal raisin cookies. But one cannot (should not!) live by cookies alone, even home-baked cookies. I looked at a couple of online recipes for fish chowder and adapted. Most recipes don't use sole because sole is such a delicate fish that it falls apart in the chowder. But I had sole in the freezer and it worked but I think this would work even better with a less delicate white fish like cod or halibut.

Fish Chowder

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

3 new potatoes, sliced thin

1 clove garlic, minced

3 cups vegetable stock

1 (8 ounce) can diced tomatoes

¼ cup shredded carrot

1 cup whole milk

Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound white fish cut into 1-inch cubes

1 pinch cayenne pepper (about 1/8 teaspoon)

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and celery, and cook until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and garlic, and continue cooking until the potatoes have softened slightly, about 10 minutes.

Pour in the vegetable stock, tomatoes, and shredded carrots. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the milk, season to taste with salt and pepper, then stir in the fish. Add cayenne pepper. Continue simmering uncovered until the fish is flaky and no longer translucent in the center, about 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Pumpkin soup

2011-10-28T16:04:00.001-04:00

Thanks for reminding me about this recipe, Beth. It's a great one. Actually, I think I'll make it while I'm baking oatmeal raisin cookies. Then I can post a photo too.

Zesty Pumpkin Soup

Makes 6 cups

¼ cup butter

1 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic crushed

1 tsp. curry powder

½ tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper

3 cups chicken broth

1 ¾ cups (16 oz. can) solid pack pumpkin

1 cup half-and-half (can substitute whole milk)

Sour cream and chives (optional)

In large saucepan, melt butter. Sautė onion and garlic until soft.

Add curry powder, salt, coriander, and red pepper. Cook 1 minute.

Add broth. Boil gently uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes.

Stir in pumpkin and half-and-half (or milk). Cook 5 minutes.

Pour into blender and blend until creamy.

Serve warm or reheat to desired temperature.

Garnish with sour cream and chopped chives if desired.

(Note: I also have used toasted pumpkin seeds—pepitas—instead of sour cream as a garnish. And you don't have to puree it in the blender if you don't care if it's super smooth. One less kitchen gadget to wash.)

Going once, going twice

2011-10-24T21:49:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks I’ve pretty much been tethered to my house. I keep my appointments with my trainer and I go to the post office. That’s about it. I go to the post office almost every day because I've been home cleaning out excess stuff and selling it on eBay

I’m new to the eBay selling thing. I’ve sold a few pieces of silver Indian jewelry, things I never wear any longer that are just clogging up the system. eBay is addictive—you sell a thing or two then you start looking around the house for more things to sell. Pretty soon nearly everything is up for grabs.

Today I crossed into new territory. I sold my entire collection of Chuck Taylor All-Star shoes. I’m pacing the floor, wondering if I’m going to miss them now that I’m committed to sell them. I sold nine pairs of various-color Chucks (mostly high-tops) as a lot for over $80. Does it shock you to know that people will pay for someone else’s old sneakers? I sold the pristine John Lennon Peace Chucks, in the original box, for $50.

Chucks were sort of my signature shoes. No one knew I wore them with orthopedic inserts. They fostered my image of an aspiring blues-playing, crazy old lady. I’m still an old lady, getting older by the day. I’ve given up blues guitar for old-time banjo.

No more Chucks. It’s great to have an entire shelf open up in my closet and it’s nice to have the money but I think I’ve lost my image. ‘Tis more the pity.

Comforting beef

2011-10-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

It's a glorious fall day here in Virginia. I could be thinking about how pleased I am that the holidays are coming soon, but I'm not. (Bah, humbug.) I could be thinking about building a fire in my fireplace. (I have a gas fireplace so I just push a button.) Or I could be thinking about comfort food. Of course! Just imagine all the comforting possibilities like macaroni and cheese, curries, split pea soup, comforting shredded beef. Comforting shredded beef?

This is a version of a recipe that I got from one of the old Silver Palate cookbooks. My son Nathan particularly loved this when he was growing up, maybe just because of the name. We never just called it beef, or pot roast, or slow-cooked meat. It was always known by its full original title—Comforting Shredded Beef. And so it is.

Comforting Shredded Beef

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons oil

1 bottom round roast (approximately 4 pounds)

Salt and pepper

1 large sweet onion, sliced

½ cup Cognac

2 cups beef or rich vegetable broth

3 cups (approximately) full-bodied red wine (Chianti or Burgundy)

Heat oil and butter in a Dutch oven or slow cooker pot over medium heat. Sauté onion until soft and remove from pot.

Sprinkle roast with salt and pepper and brown on all sides in the oil and butter.

Pour Cognac into pan, warm it to a simmer, then light it with a match. Let it burn until flame dies out.

Pour in broth, ½ cup of the wine, and onion. Then cover and simmer over low heat for about 3 hours, adding additional wine so that there is always about 1 cup of liquid in the pot.

Remove from heat. When meat has reached room temperature, shred into small pieces. Return meat to the liquid in the pot and heat thoroughly.

Makes great hot beef sandwiches, or serve over rice.

Serves 6 to 8.

Primal urge

2011-10-15T01:51:00.002-04:00

This morning I read a story in the Washington Post about how archeologists have discovered that ancient people seemed to have had an innate desire to express themselves using paint.* A hundred million years ago people in Africa were painting their faces or painting drawings on the walls of caves. (Maybe it was a hundred thousand years ago—I often get confused with zeros in large numbers. That could explain why I’m so disappointed when I find I have a couple hundred dollars in my bank account instead of a couple million.) Archeologists found clam shells and animal bones that were used for painting tools as well as paint made of ground ochre and charcoal, bone marrow, and minerals.

I wondered what has been compelling me to paint. Last week, while the weather was perfect painting weather, I painted my back gate with ochre and oxblood (redwood color alkyd paint) and patched and painted my deteriorating front door with chalk, petrified cedar roots, and boiled yak eyeballs (white alkyd paint).

But that was purely functional painting, just an effort to make my old wooden gate and my front door last through another winter. What about the urge to create?

I’ve been doing that too, feeling the fever to transform something with paint. My current thing is painting furniture using European chalk paint that I discovered. I got the inspiration, tracked down the supplies, watched some instructional videos, and read a couple of books. A little more than one week into this new obsession, I have finished three pieces—my kitchen table, a small Victorian plant stand that my mother just gave me, and an old pine drop-leaf side table with lovely spool legs. (I've posted the photo of the drop-leaf table, nearly done, still waiting for its final coat of wax.) I’m testing colors and wax techniques and varying how much I distress the pieces. There’s hardly a piece of furniture in my house that’s safe. And as soon as I finish a piece, I start looking at it again, wondering how it would work in another color, another technique.

I haven’t been to the grocery store in about three weeks and have barely left the house except for frequent trips to the paint store. (You should see my cool new wax brushes—I’m psyched.) What a great avocation for me—I can sit on the basement floor in grubby clothes. I can’t answer the phone because I’m covered in paint, wax, and dust. So I understand the primitive people sitting in their caves with their paint and their tools. I get them. It’s just what we feel compelled to do, to pull away from the world and create. Slightly different circumstances, but the same nonetheless. Eccentric hermits, aren't we all?

*See the original story online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/african-cave-yields-paint-from-dawn-of-humanity/2011/10/12/gIQApyHrhL_story.html.

Pie and vodka

2011-10-08T15:11:00.000-04:00

I’m not giving up on the pie crust thing, not going to let a little lard and flour conquer me. So I put enough pressure on myself not to fail again. I’m going to a potluck concert tonight and I’m bringing apple pie. This morning I went to the farmers market and found my favorite pie apples, apples that are only available here for a couple of weeks in the fall—Stayman Winesaps. Apple pie is about the only thing I can bring tonight. There is no other food in my house unless I decide to invent something with Cream of Wheat. (Actually, I was considering the options. Do you think Cream of Wheat could adapt to a savory dish? Kind of like a polenta thing? I could make curried Cream of Wheat with almonds and dried cranberries. What if I told them it was an Afghani dish from the tribal regions . . . probably not.)

Recently I became intrigued with a supposedly foolproof pie crust recipe that gave me reason for hope. The secret ingredient? Vodka. Here’s the thing—you have to beware of eating the raw crust dough. You know how there are all those little scraps and things that fly out of the food processor and you know they are unsanitary so you eat them raw to keep the kitchen clean? They have vodka in them. So in the middle of a lovely Saturday afternoon, I’m in the kitchen baking apple pie but I’m like a soused June Cleaver.

A number of foodie bloggers have written about this pie crust, originally from Cooks Illustrated. (Here’s the post from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite bloggers http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/11/pie-crust-101.) I made it in one big flop-over crust à la Martha Stewart and used Martha’s filling recipe for Bottom Crust Apple Pie.

The dough worked beautifully. It just came out of the oven. It smells incredible and it looks pretty darned good. Tonight we'll see how it tastes. Maybe vodka was the secret all along.

Calm in the storm

2011-10-02T21:21:00.000-04:00

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

Today Pastor Mark preached in the Book of Jonah, about how Jonah ran away from God and God came after him. Whoa, that was an eye opener! This God of ours is no wuss. How many times have I run away from God? At this point the count of my run-away episodes is just one less than the count of the times I’ve come back. Thankfully he is a forgiving God.

And how about the strategies I use to avoid God? I say I’m having issues with “organized religion” or that I’m too busy or I’m ignoring God because I’m angry with him. Or I get stuck in that flower child I’m-okay-you’re-okay version of faith, feeling that everyone has a valid point of view when it comes to truths about a higher power. The trouble with the I’m-okay-you’re-okay thing is that it keeps me swirling around in my own self-righteousness without any real convictions or accountability. And when trouble comes into my life—as it certainly does—and I’m only relying on myself, then I’m hanging on to thin air. Thin air doesn’t work well—I’ve tried it. I need God.

Consider what happened to Jonah. Jonah got cocky and ran in the opposite direction from God. Jonah thought he knew better. God had to send a whopper of a storm to get Jonah’s attention. And, as Pastor Mark said, God left no doubt about who is in control. God has sent me some whopper storms too and he finally got my attention. It is through storms and suffering that God reveals himself. If there were no troubles in my life, I would not have turned to him in desperation. If my self-sufficiency had been enough to survive life’s storms then I would not have learned the peace that comes through trust in God. God calms the storm.

Chesapeake

2011-09-25T21:10:00.002-04:00

The Chesapeake Bay is a vital part of my family. My father grew up on the Bay, in a community called Neeld Estate and the Xander boys sailed on the Bay and ate what they could pull out of it. And they passed the love of the Bay to the next generation. For years my brother Mark and his family have lived on Kent Island, on the Maryland Eastern Shore. Every year in September, Mark's family hosted a huge Xander family crab feast at their house. But this past April, my brother Mark was murdered by his next-door neighbor in the front yard of that house on Kent Island. For the first time in many years, this year there was no Xander crab feast. So my sister and I spent the day around Annapolis, including eating crabcakes at a quiet little restaurant on the water. We talked about Mark, cried, and honored the strong bond of family. It was bittersweet.

So, in honor of my little brother, here's the crabcake recipe that I've been refining for at least 30 years. I hope he would approve.

Maryland Crab Cakes

1 lb. crabmeat (backfin is best) cleaned gently

¾ cup crushed saltines

1 tsp Old Bay seasoning

2 eggs beaten

½ cup finely chopped herbs (parsley, with a little green onion or chives)

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce + dash Tabasco

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Mix all ingredients except crabmeat. Pour mixture over crabmeat and mix gently with wooden spoon.

Refrigerate for an hour before molding into crabcakes. Fry in pan with oil and butter. (Or spray lightly with olive oil and bake in 375 degree oven for 30 minutes, turning after 15 minutes.)

Four servings.

Serve with sauce—mayonnaise, Dijon, lemon juice and capers.

Womanhood, piecrust, and Rachel's tomato tart

2011-09-20T13:57:00.000-04:00

Last week I had come to the conclusion that I was a total failure as a woman. I was having people over for dinner and, as one final tribute to the waning days of summer, I planned to bake my once venerated lemon meringue pie. Total piecrust fail. Despite my respectful treatment of the unbaked crust, and despite my use of ceramic pie weights, the crust shrunk down like a . . . well, it shrunk down to a mere shadow of its former self. So I sprinkled the warm, shrunken crust with sugar and cinnamon and ate it. I felt obligated to hide the evidence of my failure, which of course was a yet another version of failure.

Then I called in the reserves. My friend Kath came down from Gettysburg and baked a piecrust suitable for the lemon meringue pie. It was a good pie but my feminine ego was crushed by my failure.

When I was in Seattle last month my daughter-in-law, Rachel, made an incredible heirloom tomato tart. Rachel is such a woman that she baked the tart for 3-year-old Theo’s picnic birthday party while carrying newborn Ignatius on her hip. So I got the recipe from Rachel and made the tart. It’s perfect—perfect crust, perfect filling, and simply beautiful. I feel like a woman again. Thanks, Rachel!

Rachel’s Heirloom Tomato Tart

Crust:

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flower

½ cup butter, cubed and chilled

1½ cups grated parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons ice water (or more, as needed)

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

Topping:

11 ounces chevre

2 tablespoons cream

3 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped

½ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

6 medium heirloom tomatoes, uniform size

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt

Combine sea salt, flour, butter, and parmesan in a food processor and pulse quickly to get a sandy texture with some pea size pieces of butter. With a few more pulses, blend in the ice water. The dough should stick together when you pinch it between two fingers. Roll out dough to even rectangle and place in pan, pressing across the bottom and working towards the sides and up to form a rim. Chill the tart shell for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the tart shell from the refrigerator and poke a few times with a fork. Cover the tart with parchment paper or aluminum foil and fill with pie weights or dry beans. Place on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Take shell from oven, remove parchment paper and weights, return shell to oven, and bake for another 10 minutes, until deep golden brown. Remove and sprinkle with ½ cup shredded parmesan. Let cool completely.

In a medium bowl, combine the chevre, cream, basil, and black pepper, and place mixture in an even layer in the cooled pastry shell.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange in a nice pattern. Top with a drizzle of the olive oil, sea salt, and garnish with more fresh basil.

Cobalt confession

2011-09-16T18:20:00.000-04:00

It was the humane thing to do. I had to buy it to rescue it from the indignity of sitting on a shelf in the discount store.

It was dark outside, raining and windy. I should have been at home ironing napkins. But I went out to see if I could find a new bathroom rug like the old bathroom rug that got ruined when I spilled bleach on it. As I was walking through the back of the cluttered discount store I glanced down the cookware aisle. There among the cheese graters and the cheap Teflon frying pans I saw something blue and noble. I walked toward it, thinking it was going to be an inferior imitation, not the real thing. It was indeed the real thing—a Le Creuset cobalt blue buffet casserole, 12-inch diameter.

It was half the retail price, and even at that it was expensive for me, especially since I wasn’t planning the purchase. I paced up and down the aisle. I put it in my cart and walked around the store, thinking, thinking, examining my conscience. I flirted with the front of the store, wondering if I should put it back, when three Armenian men presumed I was in line and stood behind me. Or maybe they were Russian. That did it—I was afraid that the Armenian men would get the blue pan if I put it back on the shelf. I didn’t want them to take it back to Armenia and boil goat meat in it. They simply could not appreciate it.

So I bought it, all the while considering that it was returnable, that perhaps I could foster it for a few days until it was safe to bring it back to the store. I brought it home and washed it. I put it on top of my stove. I introduced it to the other cookware and noted that it looked especially beautiful next to its cousin, my beloved Le Creuset cobalt blue Dutch oven.

I just pulled out the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe for sole meunière and I think I have the perfect pan to cook it in.

Little Edie

2011-09-14T18:15:00.003-04:00

This afternoon I was in the check-out line at the grocery store. The woman in front of me was chatting with me about the rag magazines near the check-out lines. She was buying fresh flowers and two huge party platters of fruit. She was beautifully coiffed and she was wearing a pressed white blouse, khaki slacks, and cute little flat shoes with flowers on them. I was buying twenty cans of cat food, cat litter, and a 3-way light bulb. I was wearing sweat pants, black clogs, and a black t-shirt covered with—what else?—cat hair.

My purchases rolled along on the belt and I had a sudden objective view of myself that made me shudder. I saw myself as a disheveled, crazy old cat lady.

Last week I watched an old documentary film, Grey Gardens, about a mother and daughter, relatives of Jackie Kennedy, who lived in a run-down, formerly grand house in East Hampton. They lived in squalor with a bunch of free-range cats on their beds and raccoons in the attic. The mother (Edith Bouvier Beale—Big Edie) and the daughter (Edith Bouvier Beale—Little Edie) were beyond weird. Were they totally nuts or just incredibly eccentric? Probably both nuts and eccentric. I felt almost hypnotized watching Little Edie, a former debutante and failed actress, who wrapped her head in turbans that appeared to be made out of drapery panels and old sweaters. She paraded through the film in a variety of costumes, danced, marched, and hammed it up for camera close-ups. And she tore up entire loaves of Wonder Bread to feed to the resident raccoons. There was a mountain of empty cat food cans in the corner of the living room.

Lord help me, I’m turning into Little Edie.

A love incorruptible

2011-09-13T23:48:00.000-04:00

Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible.

Ephesians 6:24

Pastor Mark has been preaching on Ephesians for months and months—the theology, the discussion of the roles of parents and children and husbands and wives, and the whole armor of God section. But, to me the final blessing contains the most simple, beautiful words in the entire book of the Bible—“with a love incorruptible.”

For us human beings, love seems painfully corruptible. Though parents usually have good intentions, they love their children imperfectly. Misguided intentions and the weight of worldly obligations can drive a wedge between parent and child. Husbands and wives get side-tracked by selfishness, lust, or boredom and fail to live up to the expectations and promises made on their wedding day. Even the idea of loving one’s neighbor continually falls short. We are human, far from perfect, and we never seem to achieve that incorruptible love. By its nature, life corrupts.

So how do I learn how to love that way? The example of Jesus is how I learn. He lived a perfect, sinless life and he gave his life for my salvation. That is a love incorruptible.

Loss of innocence

2011-09-11T22:42:00.001-04:00

“For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”

Ecclesiastes 1:18

I really am not fond of that passage from Ecclesiastes. It’s enough to make a person eschew knowledge. (Does it seem like I just got an assignment to use the word eschew in a sentence? I could have said avoid but I’m feeling rather pretentious in a wordy way and I’ve chosen to use the word eschew. That’s the problem with having a blog of my own—there’s no one to stop me. Tis more the pity.)

So I read that passage from Ecclesiastes about knowledge increasing sorrow and I kept thinking of Robert Preston in The Music Man, singing about the sadder-but-wiser girl:

I snarl, I hiss: How can ignorance be compared to bliss?
I spark, I fizz for the lady who knows what time it is.
I cheer, I rave for the virtue I'm too late to save
The sadder-but-wiser girl for me.

Is ignorance bliss? What happens when we realize that life will never be what we expected it to be? Does it harden us when we truly understand the fallible nature of humankind? Does it diminish our own spirits when we learn that we can’t trust our fellow human beings?

Ten years ago today, on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was at work at my office outside of Washington, DC. The airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York. A plane flew into the Pentagon and another into a field in Pennsylvania. We heard a rumor that a bomb had exploded near the White House. And my first thought was, is John okay? I prayed, please, Lord, let him be okay. John was my ex-husband and he worked near the White House. We had an ugly divorce, yet from my heart, my first concern was about him. Fast forward. . . . he was unhurt on September 11, 2001, but died three years later from brain cancer.

I know this sounds like I need serious medication—I’m mixing Ecclesiastes, Robert Preston, 9-11, and my former husband. But it makes sense to me in that swampy mess inside my head. It’s about a loss of innocence. Scripture tells us that with knowledge comes sorrow. This sadder-but-wiser girl wanted to believe that the world was a safe place, that no terrorist plot could ever reach American soil. This sadder-but-wiser girl wanted to believe that guy met girl, they fell in love, they married, had a happy family, and did not part ‘til death. This sadder-but-wiser girl didn’t want to lose her innocence. This sadder-but-wiser girl didn't want to know that there is grief in wisdom.

Runaway

2011-09-03T22:33:00.001-04:00

“You can't run away from things, Siddalee. You've got to stay in this house where your life is. Don't you think I want to run off and hide in a bookmobile or join the circus? We all do. But we have responsibilities.”

—from Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells

Doggonit, I do want to run away from home. The woes of the world are weighing heavy on me, especially the death of my brother. Funny how sometimes I go through the days, doing the mundane things of life, and it doesn’t sink in that my brother was murdered. And then it hits me again—that in early April he was senselessly shot and killed. He’s gone and I’ll never see him again. Sometimes it’s just too real—like now.

Rationally I know that I can’t run far enough, that I just have to be present, to stand firm and take the blows of grief. I know that life is fragile and sometimes sorrowful. I know that I have a responsibility to my family, to myself, and to God to endure. But I’d love to hide in a bookmobile or join the circus. Just in case, maybe I should learn to walk on a tightrope or swallow fire or something.

Southern style tomato sauce with pasta

2011-09-01T19:57:00.000-04:00

My friend Kathy’s brother is in the final days of his life and has been put into hospice care. They asked him what he wanted to eat. His choice—liver and onions and banana cream pie. What? They can give me liver and onions and banana cream pie if I’m dying and I’m totally unconscious. Can’t you just see those hospice people pureeing liver and onions, throwing in a pie, and putting it in my feeding tube? I really don’t want to go to my maker having just eaten liver and onions. It would be my version of hell.

The whole idea of food for terminal illness got me to thinking about what I would really want to eat, presuming I wanted to eat at all on my death bed. If I can request music for my funeral then surely I can request food for before my funeral. (I’ll come back to haunt you if you play any of the following at my funeral: Amazing Grace, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, or Country Roads. Given time to think, I’ll probably add to the list of banned songs.)

So here’s one of my most perfect recipes, what I could eat every day, including my final meal:

Southern Style Tomato Sauce with Pasta

1 32 ounce jar Rao marinara sauce

1 stick unsalted butter (or more to taste)

1 pound imported capellini

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (not the stuff in the green can!)

Warm the marinara sauce over low heat. Meanwhile, cook the capellini in boiling salted water until cooked al dente. Drain the pasta. Add butter to sauce until it just starts to melt. Put cooked capellini onto a platter, pour marinara sauce on top, and add grated Parmesan.

Mucous train like a snail

2011-08-31T20:52:00.003-04:00

Inspired by the last day of August, a freewriting exercise . . . choose a line from a book, eyes closed, and just write, working up to the line.

The Dog of the South—Charles Portis, p. 124

“The old man left a mucous train behind him like a snail.”

“Maveen! Maveen!” he shouted, “get down here and find me a switch so I can beat your scrawny ass.” Maveen and I were sitting on the roof again, trying to see if we could get a glimpse of the big cargo ships sailing up the channel toward the port in Baltimore. Maveen didn’t have a scrawny ass and soon as her daddy hollered for her to find a switch he’d forget what he was mad about. Everyone called her daddy Young Chester or Big C but he was neither young nor big. He was a runt of a man, old as the hills, and purely mean, but in his old age Big C forgot what made him so mean. Still, out of habit, he yelled and threatened Maveen just so he could blow off steam. Maveen said she wasn’t sure how old her daddy was but he lost his arm fighting in the big war and was a widower twice over when he married Maveen’s mother, Ada, who was only 16 at the time. We figured he had to be at least 50 years older than his teenaged bride. It was a big town scandal when Big C and Ada got married—a shotgun wedding no less. Big C gained the loud disapproval of the town’s women and the unspoken esteem of the town’s men. In a small town like that no one’s sins were kept secret. Maveen had a crush on a merchant marine who called himself Ace. Ace was working a big cargo ship out of Baltimore. Maveen had met him down at the beach early in the summer. She gave Ace a huge shark’s tooth—the pride of her daddy’s collection—just because he admired it so. He told her he would hang it on a chain around his neck, that it would be near his heart to keep remind him of her. Maveen ate up that sweet talk. She was sure she was in love. Ace sent her occasional postcards from ports in Africa and he promised he was going to see her as soon as he got back to Baltimore. He wrote that he would be back sometime in late summer, so around about the first of August she made me sit with her for hours, scanning the bay for the cargo ship that she was certain she would recognize. Just before Labor Day I was sure that all the waiting and pacing and sitting on the roof had finally made her crazy. She swore that one of those big ships—the one with the big orange stripe on the hull—was Ace’s ship. She said he flashed her some sort of signal from the deck. I couldn’t talk any sense into her and I couldn’t convince her to wait until she heard from Ace. She insisted that he was in port and she was going to get to him before she had to wait one minute longer. She grabbed a six-pack of National Bohemians and a bucket of ice and sat them at the feet of her daddy who was sitting on the back porch. He chuckled and said, “You do something wrong, Maveen? You trying to make up to me for something?” She said, “No, Daddy, not at all. I just thought you looked thirsty.” He drained one after the other and his head began to nod just as the sun slipped behind the pine trees. She grabbed the keys off the hook in the kitchen and headed for her daddy’s truck in the side yard. Big C was old and drunk and had just one arm but he caught up with her before she could get the truck into drive. He jumped off the porch and reached through the truck window and grabbed the steering wheel. “Just where you think you’re going, missy?” Big C didn’t know that Maveen was as strong as he was and nearly as mean. She pushed the door open as hard as she could, smashing her daddy in the face and knocking him to the ground. She floored the ignition and flew down the driveway, spewing gravel in her wake. He pulled himself out of the dirt and hobbled after the truck in vain. The old man left a mucous train behind him like a snail.

Grandbabies

2011-08-30T02:07:00.006-04:00

My children have made me proud in so many ways. But the best thing they have ever done for me is to give me grandchildren. I have five now and I've spent most of August visiting with them in Telluride and Seattle. Here they are in order of birth.

This is Scarlet. She is five years old, she lives in Seattle, and she just started school today!

This is Lucy. She lives in Austin and she is going to be five years old on September 10th.

This is Harper. She lives in Austin and she's going to be five years old on September 10th also. Isn't that an amazing coincidence?

This is Theo and he lives in Seattle. Theo just turned three a few days ago and we had a birthday picnic for him on Lake Washington.

This is Ignatius, born two months ago, the newest addition to the Seattle contingent of grandbabies. Aren't they fabulous?

Parsnips

2011-08-21T21:08:00.000-04:00

I’m feeling bad for parsnips. Parsnips are America’s least favorite vegetable. I don’t detest parsnips, but truthfully I haven’t paid much attention to them and don’t think they’ve ever been on my shopping list. So now I feel like I’m part of the problem. Parsnips aren’t pretty; they’re not the sexy darlings of trend-setting foodies; they’re just lowly root vegetables.

This information about the popularity of vegetables came out in a poll by Consumer Reports this year. Here’s a summary of the vegetables American like and dislike.

The most popular vegetables were:

§ lettuce

§ tomatoes

§ carrots

§ potatoes (not sweet potatoes)

§ broccoli

§ corn

§ peppers

By contrast, the least popular vegetables were:

§ parsnips

§ Swiss chard

§ bok choy

§ turnips and rutabagas

§ artichokes

§ eggplant

§ okra

Parsnips were the biggest loser—87 percent said they rarely or never ate them. Parsnips lost out to okra? I thought the slime factor would have put okra at the top of the least popular list. I've cooked with everything else on the unpopular list, and lest you think I'm prejudiced against unattractive root vegetables, I must confess that I'm a bit of a rutabaga fanatic. I guess I just don’t understand my fellow countrymen and their vegetable preferences. Frankly, I thought potatoes would be on the top of the popular list. Isn’t this the supersized nation that eats a ton of French fries per capita each year?

I’m trying to do my part to rescue the humble parsnip from the top of the hated vegetable list. So I found a recipe for a parsnip side dish that sounds delish. Please note that I haven’t made this dish yet, but I’m going to look for parsnips at the farmers market and try it. Soon, I promise. (I have not been compensated by the National Parsnip Advisory Board for this product endorsement.)

Sauteed Parsnips and Carrots with Honey and Rosemary

(source Bon Appetit, November 2007)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound carrots (about 4 large), peeled, cut into 3¼ by ¼ inch pieces

1 pound large parsnips, peeled, halved lengthwise, cored, cut into 3¼ by ¼ inch pieces

Coarse kosher salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

1 ½ tablespoons honey (such as heather, chestnut, or wildflower)

3 ounces sliced pancetta (optional)

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add carrots and parsnips. Sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and pepper. Sauté until vegetables are beginning to brown at edges, about 12 minutes. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

Add butter, rosemary, and honey to vegetables. Toss over medium heat until heated through and vegetables are glazed, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with more salt and pepper, if desired.

Optional: To add richness, sauté three ounces sliced pancetta until crisp; crumble over before serving.

NOTE: Carrots can take a bit longer to cook than parsnips, so if the carrots are large and mature, sauté them for a minute or two to soften slightly before adding the parsnips.

Truth, fairy tales, belief, and unbelief

2011-08-18T16:42:00.002-04:00

She asked me if I ever doubted the existence of God. “Yes, I often have doubts,” I admitted, “but I prefer belief to unbelief.”

She said, “But I just don’t get it—the whole thing about Adam and Eve, the predictions about the birth of Jesus, his miracles, his death on the cross to save us, and his rising from the dead. Doesn’t it seem like a fairy tale to you?”

No, it’s not a fairy tale. To me, the difference between truth and a fairy tale is that the truth changes your life and a fairy tale is just a story. So whenever I have doubts I remind myself of the passage from the Gospel of Mark where a father asks if Jesus can cast out a demon from his son:

And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried outand said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

Although this father’s natural inclination was to be a skeptic, he saw that indeed Jesus was able to heal his afflicted son. His skepticism dissolved when he saw tangible results of the existence of God.

Like the troubled father, I see tangible results of the existence of God. The most powerful result I see is when lives are changed because of belief—the lives of others and my own life. Belief gives my life focus, a grounding that I could never find in unbelief. And because of that belief I know all things are possible.

3 new ways to fat

2011-08-17T20:52:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a lovely birthday lunch with two of my dearest friends. All three of us were born in the same week, same year, same time zone. We went to a restaurant and made rather restrained, sensible lunch choices as befitted women who make restrained, sensible lunch choices. I honestly can’t remember what I had for lunch—as I said, it was restrained and sensible. And apparently it was completely forgettable. Dessert? A shared piece of deep-fried cheesecake. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to its promise. It was okay, not worthy of the lard factor—some sort of marbleized cheesecake, coated in a crusty thing and deep fried. It’s a shame that it wasn’t a dessert to die for because I was hoping it would be something so delicious that it wouldn’t matter about the calories, grams of fat, or days subtracted from my life. Oh, well. Life is full of disappointments.

Then I heard about the newest, hottest food at the Iowa State Fair this year. In honor of the butter cow’s 100^th birthday, food vendors at the fair were serving deep-fried butter on a stick. (Imagine my naiveté—I never even knew there was a specific cow that produces butter and I’m amazed to know that a cow could live 100 years.) Someone needs to explain to me how they get the butter on a stick and why it doesn’t just melt when it’s deep fried. If I put a lot of butter in a pan, melt it, and insert a stick in the pan isn’t that the same thing? That’s what I had for dinner tonight. And I've never knowingly gone to Iowa.

Paula Deen wouldn’t be surprised by any of this. After all, Paula Deen is the one who has a recipe for deep-fried butter balls. (You can see for yourself at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/paulas-fried-butter-balls-recipe/index.html.) The recipe is basically butter, cream cheese, and a pinch of flour, deep fried. Paula Deen is probably going to live to be 100 years old, like that butter cow, and we’re all going to feel like fools when we spend our lives eating transubstantiated fats. (Don’t write a letter to the editor to correct me—I know that I wrote transubstantiated but it’s a theological concept that I don’t have time to explain.)

Standing in my gospel shoes

2011-08-15T22:06:00.000-04:00

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. Ephesians 6:14-15

I need to get me some gospel shoes. You probably think you really can’t buy gospel shoes. You’re wrong. I found them online. They look like high-top black Chucks with a cross on the tongue and the verse from Ephesians—"and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace"—written on the side. Of course these man-made gospel shoes that can be bought aren’t the kind I need.

For the past few weeks Pastor Mark has been preaching on the Whole Armor of God passage in Ephesians. He has stressed Paul’s exhortation to us to stand firm, to stand our ground, to stand with steady confidence rooted in the gospel.

Life has been hard lately. Death, illness, violence, sadness, and fear have been coming at me like darts, from all angles. But I keep reminding myself to stand firm. I realize that nothing I do on my own is enough to help me to stand in the midst of this onslaught. I need faith. It is faith, the complete reliance on God, that will give me the strength and peace to stand firm. I’ve got to put on my gospel shoes.

Colorado fish lips

2011-08-13T22:27:00.000-04:00

I just got back from being in Colorado for nearly two weeks—in Aspen and Telluride. Both towns are in stunning locations. The feeling of standing on the heights of the Rocky Mountains at nearly 14,000 feet, inhaling clean air, seeing meadows of wildflowers and rushing mountain streams is breathtaking.

And both towns, particularly Aspen, are dripping in money. The rich aren’t stupid—they know where to go and where to be seen by other rich people.

But I’ve got the feeling the women of Aspen and Telluride aren’t representative of the average women of Colorado. For example, I drove from Aspen to Telluride and stopped in Paonia, Colorado, a small town surrounded by mines and fruit orchards. In Paonia the women wear beehive hairdos and false teeth. In Paonia the women wear polyester clothes left over from the last century. But at least the women in Paonia don’t look alike.

In Aspen there are a bunch of women who seem to have been punched out of a cookie cutter, like an updated version of Stepford wives. They all have Jennifer Anniston hair. They are all rail thin. Beyond rail thin. (It’s useful to be rail thin in Aspen because all the uber-expensive clothing stores carry clothes sizes that range from size 000 to size 4. Those of us who shop in the “women’s” section at Target might as well wrap ourselves in a table cloth.)

But here’s the thing that startled me most about the women in Aspen (and the non-hippie women in Telluride)—they all have those fish lips that you see in the plastic-surgery-gone-wrong photos. They walk around town with frozen faces and glossy lips way out of proportion to the rest of their bodies. I swear I just don’t get it. When did it become fashionable to look like a domestic abuse victim?

Saturday night

2011-07-30T19:38:00.001-04:00

It’s Saturday night and I found myself singing, “Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. I got some money ‘cause I just got paid.” (I love that song—where else could you find a rhyme that says, “instead of being my deliverance, she had a strange resemblance to a cat named Frankenstein.” Is that high art or what?)

I’m sitting here staring out the window, occasionally pecking on my computer keyboard, feeling like a giant nerd. Don’t all the cool people go out on Saturday night? Isn’t everyone at the movies or having romantic dinners with their sweethearts? Don’t get me wrong because I could be going out if I really wanted to. Like I need to go to the grocery store to pick up skim milk and multivitamins. Or I could go to Home Depot to get caulk. Maybe I could drive by the post office and drop my almost overdue phone bill in the mailbox. That’s exciting stuff.

I know rationally that there are plenty of people like me, people sitting home alone on Saturday night, doing laundry. Maybe this Saturday-night nerd thing is a leftover from high school. I never had a high school boyfriend. I just hung out with the girls. We girls found plenty of things to do and maybe we were better off because we didn’t have boyfriends, but we didn’t have very strong self-esteem and we thought something was wrong with us because we weren’t desired by teenaged boys. I’ve grown out of that—I no longer want to be desired by teenaged boys. Sometimes I just think it would be nice to have a reason to put on pantyhose, to wear that little black dress that I don’t even own. Is Saturday night overrated?

Watermelon salsa fresca

2011-07-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

Totally got this from Lydia at the Perfect Pantry. (One of my favorite blogs--www.theperfectpantry.com.) It's a great recipe and everything except the mango is available now at my local farmer's market. I changed one thing by substituting sea salt for the kosher salt. I served it with a simple grilled chicken. It's delicious, fresh, and beautiful. Thanks, Lydia!

Watermelon, mango, and tomato salsa fresca

1 cup watermelon, diced
1 mango, diced
1/2 cup ripe tomato, seeded and diced

1/2 cup seedless (English) cucumber, diced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeds and ribs removed, minced
Juice of 1/2 lime (or more to taste)
Sea salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Chill until ready to use.

Recipes

2011-07-24T14:35:00.001-04:00

I'm at risk of destroying my reputation by posting these recipes. Both are recipes that I developed and refined. But both are so easy that I should be ashamed. Is this not the woman who makes bittersweet chocolate ricotta torte that takes all day to bake? (All day to bake and less than an hour to eat. By myself.) Is this not the woman who makes Moroccan chicken couscous with about 120 ingredients? Yep. But truth be told, there is something so satifying about a simple recipe that works. You don't have to go to the grocery store with a spreadsheet as a shopping list--you can simply remember it. And you can add or change ingredients for variations.

For example, the chicken burgers started out as turkey burgers that someone at Weight Watchers told me about several years ago. The original version had defrosted frozen chopped spinach instead of sun-dried tomatoes. (That's great too but I prefer chicken to turkey and I like serving the chicken burgers with the spinach/orzo salad and need not to repeat the spinach.) And you can add julienned red bell pepper or marinated artichoke hearts or pinenuts to the salad. But again, there's something addictive about the simple light spinach/orzo combination that doesn't really need anything else.

Greek Chicken Burgers with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

1 pound ground white meat chicken
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil), chopped
1/2 cup feta cheese, diced
1 teaspoon Greek seasoning
1 tablespoon olive oil

In a bowl mix ground chicken, egg, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, and Greek seasoning. Form into 4 or 5 patties.

Heat oil in non-stick skillet and sauté burgers until brown, about 5 minutes per side.

Spinach/Orzo Salad

1 pound orzo

¼ cup olive oil

2 medium-size lemons, juiced

1 teaspoon Penzey’s lemon pepper

8 ounces baby spinach leaves, shredded

Cook orzo in boiling salted water. (Do not overcook!) Drain and transfer to a large bowl. Add enough olive oil to thoroughly coat the pasta. Add lemon juice and lemon pepper. Let the mixture sit until it has cooled to room temperature. On a cutting board, shred spinach (like shredding cabbage for coleslaw) and add to orzo mixture. Stir gently and chill for about an hour before serving.

Gibran, sorrow, and joy

2011-07-16T20:55:00.003-04:00

I woke up today thinking about Khalil Gibran. In The Prophet he wrote, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?”

It’s a concept that I’ve carried with me for years, the concept of having a capacity for feeling that can be filled with sorrow or filled with joy. So maybe the capacity for deep feeling—feeling either sorrow or joy—is indeed a gift. Should I be grateful for such a gift? Even when it seems there's a load of sorrow in my cup?

You know how some people are relatively flat? They smile occasionally, they may get a little angry or sad, but on a scale of one to ten, they go from zero to two, maybe all the way to three when their mother dies or they win the $250 million lottery. Maybe they were genetically engineered that way, they just got skipped over in the distribution of feeling genes.

Then there are others like me, those who cry when they see a dead cat in the road, those who catch their breath when they see the sun breaking through the mist over the river, those who have to dance when they hear Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie. How many times have I had to remind myself that it’s a gift when I am saddened over something that may not seem to affect others? It’s a gift because it’s the capacity to feel high, content, or madly in love, but the flip side is the capacity to feel hurt, anger, discouragement, or grief.

So now I grieve the senseless murder of my brother. I am saddened to see my dear friend going through grueling cancer treatment. I am concerned about my sister who had difficult surgery last week. I wish I were and I long to be in one of the joyful times. But for me, now is one of those times when the cup holds more sorrow than joy.

"The selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears." Gibran

Grilled chicken strawberry salad

2011-07-15T09:16:00.002-04:00

I'm being gently chided (prodded?) for not posting for a week. Am I out of town? No. Am I depressed? No. I'm simply otherwise engaged. Certainly not otherwise engaged in the terms of "when the hogs ate Willy they was otherwise engaged"--that's an inside joke.

COOKING? Not much. I'm not cooking anything interesting because I'm in my first week back on the Weight Watchers wagon and trying to get my bearings.

PRAYING? Of course! I'm praying for my sister and praying to stay focused.

However, even though I'm not really cooking much, I'll share a great salad that I made twice this week. No measurements, just delicious in a guidelines sort of way.

Grilled chicken strawberry salad

Butterhead lettuce (I just like the tenderness of butterhead in this salad)
Handful of pea shoots
Grilled chicken breast (leftover chicken, grilled the night before)
Persian cucumber, sliced thin
Sliced strawberries
A few walnut halves
Trader Joe's cranberry walnut gorgonzola viniagrette

Fat prayer

2011-07-08T21:25:00.001-04:00

Dear Lord—You know how I write you letters when I get really desperate? I’m really desperate. And the additional indignity of posting this on my blog for all the world to see brings the indignity to another level. (This is a huge leap of faith, this assumption that all the world is going to see what I write on my blog. I have a total of three readers and they are all in the

United Arab Emirates

. They are English 101 students and their interpretation of this will be something close to Yes, I'll have fries with that.)

I’m fat. I have to admit it and I have to realize that I haven’t been very effective correcting the situation on my own. I need you, Lord. I need you to keep me focused. I need you to give me the willpower not to eat what I shouldn’t eat. I need you to give me the energy to work out.

I can blame it on a thousand things—age, metabolism, bad genes, my hurt shoulder, emotional upheaval, my love of cooking. But placing blame doesn’t matter because the end result is the same. Please, Lord. I feel awful. I don’t understand what has happened but I’m trusting in your wisdom, your limitless power, and your patience to move me in the right direction.

Please, Lord. I promise you that I’ll try if you’ll just stay with me. Guide me to solutions, help me to find strength and focus. When I scream and yell in frustration, please be with me. In prayer, with you, it will happen.

Baguettes, Pete's, and beans

2011-07-01T21:40:00.012-04:00

I just hate it when this happens. I’m innocently minding my own business when various forms of food jump out from behind the bushes and attack me. You guessed it—I’ve found more things to love.

(1) Seeded baguettes from Leonora Bakery.

I was waiting in the dermatologist’s office, reading an article in Washingtonian magazine about local food sources. One of the things mentioned in the article was the baguettes at Arrowine. “How convenient,” I said to myself, “I’m only a few blocks from Arrowine.” So after the dermatologist burned some offensive items off of my body I consoled myself with a stop at Arrowine, a shop in Arlington on Lee Highway that features wine, cheese, and other gourmet foods. (http://www.arrowine.com/) I was just going to buy one of the infamous baguettes, but the man behind the counter told me there were even better baguettes and directed me to a basket of bread behind the counter—the Leonora baguettes. I humored him and bought one. How good could they be? Ummm . . . it’s about a ten minute drive home and I ate almost an entire baguette in the car. I went back the next week to make sure they were that good. They are that good. The baguettes are delivered warm to Arrowine on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You can get them delivered directly to your home for a minimum order. (www.leonorabakery.com/HOME.html) So I can be a shut-in and still have baguettes? Dangerous.

(2) Pete’s Crazy Chicken Blend.

I found this on that trip to Arrowine too. It’s a dry spice rub with an unlikely magic blend that includes things like wasabi and paprika and maple syrup. Go figure. I marinated chicken breasts in a simple mix of olive oil, lemon juice, and a very generous portion of Pete’s Crazy then grilled the chicken. Drop dead delicious. It comes from a spice vendor, the Spice and Tea Exchange, that sells online as well as from retail outlets. (www.spiceandtea.com) Just looking at the website makes my imagination run wild—like how can I use green chile sugar?

(3) Rancho Gordo Heirloom Beans.

You knew about heirloom tomatoes, of course, but did you know you could buy dried heirloom beans? I can’t even tell you how I ended up at the Rancho Gordo website. I don’t know if was the work of the Lord or the work of Satan. (http://www.ranchogordo.com/) Rancho Gordo makes beans fun again. (Maybe for you beans have always been fun but for a while I had lost the fervor.) There is a wide variety of beans as well as chiles and rice and spices. I got some Tiger’s Eye beans (Ojo de Tigre) and some flageolet beans to make cassoulet. Tomorrow I’ll make the Tiger’s Eye beans into some sort of slow-cooked bean concoction but the cassoulet is on hold until cooler weather.

I was not compensated for any of these product endorsements. Doggonit.

Elsie G. Roe

2011-06-26T22:39:00.000-04:00

Did you ever feel a connection with a stranger—someone you will never meet, someone long dead? I feel connected to Elsie G. Roe.

A few days ago I received a book I had ordered from one of those Amazon book resellers. The book is rather yellow and worn but I think it only cost me one cent over the shipping cost. It was written in 1969 by Clarence Jordan, a preacher, biblical scholar, and proponent of social and economic justice. This charming book (The Cotton Patch Version of Luke and Acts) is one of a series of Clarence Jordan’s versions of books of the New Testament, translated into a rural Southern vernacular.

Inside the front cover of the book is a bookplate—an etched drawing of an owl—and underneath is written, “from the books of Elsie G. Roe.” And tucked between the pages of the book I found two aging color photographs. One is a photo of three women standing in front of a large barn/garage structure. The second photo is of two women, a teenaged girl, and baby. One of the women is in both photos—I figure it must be Elsie Roe.

She is a stout woman with an ample bosom, a sweet smile, and over-sized glasses. In one of the photos she is wearing an unfortunate print turtleneck, a navy blue vest, and navy blue pants. The vest has five wooden buttons but Elsie has only buttoned a single button in the center and she has some papers stuffed in the front pocket. It was probably the 70s and I don’t think Elsie cared much about fashion. But there’s something about Elsie, something that compelled me to find out more about her.

Elsie Gertrude Roe died in 2003 at age 83 in Traverse City, Michigan. She was a graduate of a Bible college, a retired practical nurse, the widow of a Methodist minister, a mother, and grandmother. Her obituary says that “. . . she gave her heart to the Lord at a very early age and continued to live a Christian life.”

But here’s why I feel connected to Elsie Roe—this old used book of hers has phrases and passages underlined in red or highlighted in yellow. Reading the pages she read, knowing something about her, and seeing what she thought was important intrigues me. For example, from Acts 7:44:

“Now David got the idea of putting up a more plush sanctuary for the God of Jacob, but Solomon actually built it. But—THE ALMIGHTY DOES NOT LIVE IN MAN-MADE BUILDINGS.”

Or from Acts 10:23:

“All right, but as for me, God has made it plain as day to me that I’m never to think of any man as inferior or no good.”

I’m guessing Elsie Roe was a good woman.

His strength

2011-06-19T23:11:00.000-04:00

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might." Ephesians 6:10

Funny thing how God seems to pound on my door sometimes, telling me exactly what I need to hear at exactly the right time. Yesterday I wrote about the things that give me strength. At church today the sermon made me focus on the source of strength, bringing me to acknowledge that any strength I may have comes from God.

Our pastor was giving us an introduction to the “Whole Armor of God” section of Ephesians. I’ve read this before, but never before was I so convicted.

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” Ephesians 6:13

Indeed I have witnessed firsthand the evil in this world. An evil man murdered my brother on April 3^rd. The thought that evil exists is no longer an abstraction, a theory to me—it is a hard reality. I have seen the “evil day” of which Paul writes. But I also know where to find the strength to withstand the evil. I know that without my faith in God I am simply not equipped to overcome this horrible knowledge. The strength is not mine but His.

Things carried

2011-06-18T19:18:00.001-04:00

"Think about the things you carry,” he said to me a few days ago. So I’m thinking.

It was my counselor who challenged me with this assignment. He’s the pastoral counselor I’ve been seeing in the past few weeks since my brother was murdered. I’m just trying to sort out some things, to come to grips with my brother’s death, which for me was the latest and most horrific in a series of losses.

My most immediate thought was The Things They Carried, the gut-wrenching, beautifully written novel about the war in Vietnam by Tim O’Brien. In this book the author details the things that the infantrymen carried through the jungle—rifles and ammunition, communication equipment and mess kits, as well as letters from home and photographs. But these things that the troops carried are symbolic of their emotional burdens—fear, grief, love and longing, guilt, and an increasing alienation from their former lives back home.

Obviously the counselor is not asking me to think about the things I carry literally—not my purse and my calendar and my water bottle—but the things I carry figuratively. Some of the things I carry serve a purpose, they help me survive. I need a decent amount of fear to protect myself physically. I need a modicum of financial concern to keep a roof over my head, food in the pantry, and gasoline in my car. Just because I’m human I feel grief when I lose someone important to me. I love my children and grandchildren and don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop worrying about them or wanting to protect them—it’s just what mothers do. Yes, I feel remorse about things I have done and things I have failed to do, but I also realize that no amount of guilt will rewind time and let me relive the past. Yes, I sometimes fear the future. I fear facing future losses, I fear sickness and pain, I fear old age and loneliness. I fear anxiety, depression, and dependence. I wish I didn’t carry those fears but I don’t know how to put them aside.

Mostly I’m trying to focus on things like resilience, wonderful friends and family, creativity, and faith—these are the things I carry that make me strong.

Chocolate-covered bbq potato chips

2011-06-13T19:17:00.001-04:00

Don't ever accuse me of being a serious food writer.

I had a brainstorm. I have a slight addiction to barbeque potato chips. I was in the grocery store noticing all things coated in chocolate—pretzels and nuts and celery sticks. I’m lying about the celery sticks. It made me wonder why no one made chocolate-covered potato chips, then I took the idea one step further to imagine chocolate-covered barbeque potato chips.

So I googled the term “chocolate-covered bbq potato chips” and found that, yes indeed others have had the same idea. There’s nothing new under the sun. There are recipes that detail the process for making a chip-specific chocolate sauce with instructions on how to dip the chips (with tongs!) in the sauce. Some claim that you should use rippled chips—probably a good idea because it seems you would need a hearty chip to stand up to the chocolate sauce.

If you don’t want to make your own, there are websites for gourmet food producers that sell chocolate-covered chips by the pound. (For example, see http://www.mantorvillefarms.com/ChocolatePotatoChips.html.) Some put the chips in fancy little boxes and some add a little squiggle of white chocolate. Why didn’t I think of the white chocolate squiggle? Someone is always a couple of steps ahead of me.

I suppose I could make a bittersweet chocolate ganache in which to dip the chips. Or I could order a couple of pounds online. Or I could try one of the recipes. Or maybe I could just buy a jar of good hot fudge sauce, heat it in the microwave, and serve with barbeque potato chips. Rippled, of course.

Chicken burgers

2011-06-09T20:58:00.000-04:00

Question: Is a burger a burger if there is no beef involved? I don't know the answer to that question. But here's a variation on my infamous Greek Turkey Burgers. The turkey burgers have spinach and feta cheese in them. I wondered how it would work to use sun-dried tomatoes in a turkey burger. Then I ditched the ground turkey (because I just don't like turkey that much) in favor of ground chicken. This worked out pretty well. Next time I think I'll substitute Parmesan cheese or perhaps mozarella for the feta and do an Italian spice instead of Greek. Quick, easy, healthy. See what you think.

Chicken Burgers with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

1 pound ground white meat chicken
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil), chopped
1/3 cup feta cheese, diced
1 teaspoon Greek seasoning
1 tablespoon olive oil

In a bowl mix ground chicken, beaten egg, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, and Greek seasoning. Form into 4 or 5 patties.

Heat oil in non-stick skillet then saute burgers until brown, about 5 minutes per side.

Faith

2011-06-02T21:25:00.000-04:00

Call me crazy, but I’m being re-baptized on Sunday. I tried to get excused from the public baptism ceremony by telling Pastor Mark that I was a precocious infant and I knew what I was doing when I was baptized the first time at two months of age. It didn’t work. I’m not comfortable being in the limelight but still I’m doing the full-tilt dunking thing in the presence of others. In addition to being videotaped (whine . . .) I need to make a brief profession of faith. So I’m trying to pull together my thoughts on faith—not just any faith, but my faith. Here’s what I’m thinking.

Until recently I thought of faith as an exercise in will—if I choose to believe and then act as if I believe and pray to believe, then I will believe. But in truth, that is a rather egocentric view of faith. If I believe scripture, then I was chosen by God to believe, rather than the other way around. In a sense I’m still hanging on to my will, my ego, when I say that my choosing to believe makes it so, for it was God’s will—not mine—that put the choosing on my heart.

I was a little Catholic girl and was baptized as an infant. I sort of always believed in God—more from a distance than in a personal way. Several years ago I was visiting my son in Seattle and we went his Acts 29 church there. The pastor was preaching from Ephesians. He said that we are not saved by good works, but by faith. What?!! Then why had I been so concerned about good works, why had I been doing all that rote prayer for so many years, thinking I was solely responsible for praying myself and everyone else into heaven? The pastor said that we should take that knowledge—that by grace we have been saved because Jesus has already atoned for our sins—and have fun, be joyful. It was a huge revelation to me. I had always felt that I would never be good enough to merit salvation. And then, right there in scripture, in God’s own words, I could see that I was off the hook. I realized that I needed to pay attention to scripture and understand what God was telling us directly, not to rely on someone else’s interpretation. I realized it was not my job to earn salvation, that I didn’t have to be perfect, that all I had to do was to believe in Him and act accordingly.

I chose to know God directly and personally. I chose the joyful route.

Shoe addiction

2011-05-31T23:05:00.000-04:00

The box from DSW arrived today with a printed warning that shoes are highly addictive. I didn’t mean to buy them. Really—I just bought them to be kind.

I took my car to be serviced last week. While I was waiting for the car I wandered into the adjacent shoe store. I was innocently killing time. But I remembered that a couple of weeks ago I received a postcard from DSW—Designer Shoe Warehouse—telling me how much they missed me. I felt guilty for not keeping in touch with them and they were so forgiving that they offered me $20 off a pair of shoes. (Note to self: The first step is to realize that you are powerless in the presence of shoes and discount coupons.)

I found a really comfy pair of ballet flats in a practical neutral color. But the store didn’t have them in my size. The coupon was expiring soon, screaming at me to be used, threatening the stability of the economy and world peace. So I went home and used my little coupon to order the shoes in the appropriate size from DSW’s website. The shoes arrived today and they are now in my closet getting acquainted with the others. For now there is peace in this little corner of the world.

What is the thing about women and the addictive nature of shoes? Do you know any men who are addicted to shoes? I sure don’t. My friend Mike says that once in his life he went into a store and bought three pairs of shoes at the same time. “I felt so ashamed,” he said. I should feel such shame.

Perhaps the thing with shoes is that, unlike other items of apparel, you can see them. Think about it. You can’t see the earrings you are wearing or that cute little blouse from Banana Republic unless you look in a mirror. But just look down and there are your feet. You can be sitting at the bus stop with nothing to do other than to look at your feet. On a good day, you can say, “Oooooh, cute shoes.” On a bad day, you might say, “Euwww, these shoes make my feet look big and they don’t match my outfit and now that I see them in natural light I realize that they are just the wrong shade of black.” Enough to ruin your day and send you running to DSW with a coupon, searching for just a little peace in your wretched little life.

(Note to self: Step number two is to realize there is a power greater than myself that can restore me to sanity.)

Blessed

2011-05-30T22:53:00.000-04:00

“Blessings,” he said. “May you feel the presence of the Lord.” And briefly I wondered if indeed I have been blessed and I recalled how often I have doubted the presence of the Lord in my life.

I’ve heard the word blessed used recently with reckless abandon. What does it mean to be blessed? Surely it doesn’t mean what some of those televangelists say—that you are blessed if God gives you financial prosperity. Think about the beatitudes that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount. Did Jesus promise you a Mercedes Benz and a color TV? (My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.) Did he promise you heaven in addition to health and happiness on earth? Nope, sorry, not part of the promise.

I needed to be reminded that—in spite of my grief—I am blessed, that I will find comfort in both the presence of God and the support of the people God has put in my life. Then I realized that perhaps I am not blessed in spite of the grief, but I am blessed in the grief itself. In a song entitled Blessings, songwriter Laura Story wrote, “The trials of this life are your mercies in disguise.” When we can trust the hand of God in the hard times is when faith grows. It’s easy to love and trust God in easy times. Then God is like a good-time Charlie whom we praise when things are going right and curse when we think He has failed us. I want to trust that God is with me and has blessed me in the joys of my life, but also in the sorrows. It is in the sorrows that we grow, that we learn to rely on His inscrutable plan, and when we go to Him for comfort. He doesn’t send us sorrows and hang us out to drown in our misery. He sends support in the arms of people who hold us and cry with us. He sends others in our churches and our communities to pray for us and He sent His own words to reassure us:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

An insomniac's prayer

2011-05-25T01:36:00.001-04:00

Don’t give up! At church on Sunday Pastor Mark talked about not selling God short, about believing He can do great things, things beyond our wildest expectations. I want to believe that. I want to believe that He can do great things in our community and in the world. And I also want to believe He can do great things in me, in my heart, in my life. It’s more than persevering. It’s expecting the seemingly impossible. I need to pray with an open heart, pray without my own agenda, that He just knows much better than I how my life should unfold.

Yet at this moment I do have an agenda--all I'm praying for is to sleep. Lord, I’d like to say that I appreciate having so much opportunity to spend time with you in the wee hours of the morning, but I’m not feeling all that appreciative. It’s 2 a.m. I’ve been trying to get to sleep for 4 hours now. I turn out the light, get everything just so in my bed, but then I toss and turn trying to get the right position, moving the sheets, changing the speed of my ceiling fan, taking the phone out of the room because the blinking light is bothering me . . . and on and on. I get up for a while. I go back to bed for a while. I get up again. I start out this routine by saying, “Okay, Lord, here I am again, not sleeping, so let’s have a little chat.” But that little chat has become dull. I’m tired. I can’t think of anything else to say and I’m pretty sure you’ve fallen asleep out of pure blissful boredom. Is that you I hear snoring?

Please just let me sleep. I promise I’ll talk to you in the morning when I’m rested.

Lemon hummus

2011-05-23T20:49:00.001-04:00

I have this new fixation on the lemon hummus at Whole Foods. I have observed myself (with amused detachment, as if I am a disembodied spirit) eating said lemon hummus from the container with a spoon. It's either that or Talenti Belgian milk chocolate gelato and there's no gelato in my freezer at the moment. Tis a pity. I realized that it's silly to pay Whole Foods to make my hummus when it's so cheap and easy to make myself. So I've been trying to deconstruct the recipe and I think this comes rather close. I only tested it with four cans of garbanzo beans and made a HUGE amount because I was bringing it to a family cook-out. I swear. Feel free to cut it down to a more respectable proportion.

Lemon hummus

4 cans (usually 15 or 16 ounces each) garbanzo beans

½ cup sesame tahini

3 lemons

1 teaspoon Penzey’s minced garlic

1 ½ teaspoons coriander

2 teaspoons Penzey’s lemon pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

½ cup olive oil

Drain garbanzo beans and reserve liquid. Juice the lemons and put the garlic in the lemon juice for a couple of minutes to rehydrate. Place drained beans, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, coriander, lemon pepper, and cayenne in food processor. Turn on food processor and slowly add olive oil. Add enough reserved liquid from beans to make a smooth, fluffy puree. Keeps refrigerated for about 5 days. Makes about 4 cups.

Hate them meeces to pieces

2011-05-22T20:54:00.000-04:00

A friend was telling me that she thinks she has a mouse in her kitchen. She said she was moving out until her husband gets home from a trip because she can't cope with the rodent. I told her a little of my own rodent story. Here's my story:

The Exterminator’s Tale

Now that I think about it, I need to pray about the mice. A couple of weeks ago I found a mouse in the foyer. The cat was flipping her tail around, batting at the mouse with her paw with no intention of harming the rodent. So I caught the mouse in a cup and released it across the street in the park. I thought the little critter was a bit cute and thought myself rather noble and fearless for catching it and releasing it. I reasoned that I had one cute little mouse in the house—no big deal.

Then last week I came home from work and found the cat chasing a mouse down the hall. Again I caught the mouse in a cup and released it in the pouring rain behind the house. Hmmm . . . another mouse. I hoped it wasn’t an indication that mom and dad, the septuplets, Aunt Minnie, Uncle Mickey, and the rest of the YMCA (Young Mouse Civic Association) had taken up residence. Late that same night I saw a mouse flit into the drawer under my stove. I pulled out the drawer, grabbed my trusty cup and gingerly began taking out the pots and pans in the drawer. Down to the last cookie sheet—the mouse darted out, ran around the kitchen, under the stove, and down the hole where the gas line came in. I did not catch this one, but at some point in the process, while I was trying to catch it in the little cup, I heard something erupt from my throat. This was a sound I can’t recall ever making before and don’t think I could replicate it if I had to, like something from The Exorcist. The cat ran fast and far—her only responsibility as a feline pet is to protect me from rodents and she failed miserably.

“No more Mr. Niceguy,” I shouted down the hole, after I stopped screaming like a woman possessed.

Forget that “all creatures are sacred” philosophy. I’m failing Buddhism 101. The mice are sacred when they are cute and I can catch them in a little plastic cup and release them outside in the park. They are not cute when they escape down a hole like the rodents they are. So that night I threw on my coat and drove in the pouring rain to an all-night grocery store, looking for weapons, wondering if there was a 24-hour waiting period and did I need a permit.

There was not a huge selection of rodent eradication products in the store. I ruled out poison because, while I wasn’t happy with the cat at the moment, I didn’t want to poison her in an attempt to get the mice. I thought about the traditional spring-loaded mousetraps. But, yuck, I cringed at the thought of having to dispose of the carcass, pictured the mouse with the trap across its neck, tongue hanging out, eyes in a horrified death stare. I found something new, a less traditional rodent eradication product—glue traps. The package claimed they were very effective, but provided few details on how they actually worked. I imagined that a mouse would get stuck on the trap and disappear, just vaporize. So I bought the glue traps, brought them home, and slid them under the stove next to the hole.

The next morning I thought I heard squeaking under the stove. I stayed very quiet and moved closer. Yes, squeaking, definitely squeaking. The stove had never squeaked before on its own. Now what? I did what any brave woman would do under the circumstances. I went to work. No, not to work taking care of the mouse—I drove to my office to escape.

At work I told Ed the gist of my mouse saga. He said, “You do know how the glue traps work, don’t you?”

I winced and shook my head no, for I was beginning to expect that my theory of mouse vaporization was not scientifically sound.

He grinned wickedly, knowing that he had a tale to tell me that was going to make me squirm. “It gets one paw stuck in the glue. In an attempt to get loose, it gets the other paw stuck. Then it gets its little face stuck in the glue. There’s no hope. It dies slowly from dehydration, stuck in the glue.”

“No,” I whined. “Couldn’t it just have a stroke or go into shock and die quickly?”

“I don’t think so,” he said with an uncharacteristic evil smirk, “I’ve seen it happen.”

I spent the entire day at the office obsessing about the mouse at home under my stove, mired in the glue. And I was going to have to go home and deal with the situation. I called my friend Mike. Knight in shining armor—he has a key to my house—he went there before I got home and disposed of not one, but two mice caught in the glue traps under the stove. Mercifully he didn’t provide any details about the condition of the unfortunate creatures.

So I put two more glue traps under the stove. Friday—no mice. Saturday and Sunday—no mice. Monday morning I heard squeaking. No, it can’t be—maybe the refrigerator motor needs to be oiled. But considering my recent experience I realized that it might be wise to check those glue traps under the stove. I pulled out the drawer, and aimed the flashlight in the corner. No!!!! There was a little gray mouse stuck in the trap. I closed the drawer and paced, considering my options. Mike was nowhere around. So I put on industrial strength work gloves, pulled out the drawer, and dragged out the trap with long-handled pliers, mouse firmly cemented on the trap. I slipped the offending item into a plastic bag, then put the plastic bag in a paper grocery bag. I knew the mouse was still alive and I knew the humane thing to do. So I took the bag out to the cement patio and whacked it hard, three times, with a brick.

Let this be a lesson to the others, if there are others—I have weapons and I will use them. Just leave peacefully and no one will be hurt.

Later is now

2011-05-20T08:53:00.000-04:00

Today is my brother Mark’s birthday. He would have been 56. It’s also his wife Diane’s birthday.

If I run into you in the neighborhood and you ask me how I’m doing, I’ll probably say, “I’m doing okay, thanks.”

If I see you in the grocery store and you ask me how my mother is, how my family is, I’ll say, “We’re all muddling through, thanks.”

If I see you in church and you say you’ve been praying for me, I’ll say, “Thank you. The prayers are appreciated.”

The truth is I feel like a 300 pound person is standing on my chest in high-heeled combat boots. The truth is that I hear my mother say she can’t live through this—our family is still grieving my father’s death and now another. We are just beginning to understand how much it hurts and we wonder how we’ll cope with yet another intense loss. There are no words that can describe this and, frankly, I can’t even talk about it any more. Don’t ask me what happened. Don’t ask me what’s happening to the man who killed my brother. Don’t ask me because I still haven’t found the words to explain it and I don’t think I ever will.

It has been six weeks since my brother Mark was murdered. Six weeks ago, when I was going to meet my sister at my mother’s apartment to deliver the bad news to my mother, I told myself that I would just will myself through what I had to do and I would face the grief later. Later is now.

Loss is piled upon loss. I can feel the ugly churning in my gut when I realize that this horror is real, that I’m not going to wake up in the morning and it will be gone. The trouble with later is that later comes eventually.

Oh joy, oh rapture

2011-05-19T19:14:00.002-04:00

Does anyone know what time the rapture is supposed to come? It’s coming this weekend, don’t you know? Yep, some of the Christian fringe people, maybe the Branch Davidians (are there still Branch Davidians?) have calculated that the rapture is coming on May 21^st. We have only a couple of days to prepare. Apparently Jesus is coming to take the faithful up to heaven with him. To prove that I’m legit, that I’m really one of his people, I’m going to show him my Bible, the cross around my neck, and my collection of Guadalupe tchotchkes. (Do you know what I had to do to get this computer to get the right word in there, that tchotchkes word?) The Lord will descend on a fiery white steed to lead us into heaven.

I need to get some details straight though—don’t argue with me—time is of the essence. I need a ruling—please tell me Donald Trump is not getting in under the line. If The Donald wants to be included in the rapture he would have to do something pretty convincing because he has never impressed me as being a true follower of Jesus Christ. But lucky for him, the decision is God’s, not mine. Maybe he decided not to run for president because he knows about the rapture and now he hopes to get a higher post than president of the United States. All I know is that I’m going with Jesus. Why am I even thinking about Donald Trump when I have so much to do in the next couple of days?

I have another question of a rather indelicate nature. Are all the saved dead people who died before the rapture being raised from the dead this weekend? Isn’t it going to get really strange with dead people rising from their graves? I imagine them like Jacob Marley, wrapped in burial clothes, clanking chains, body parts in various state of disrepair. It’s going to look like a zombie convention. Are the zombies going to be put on the same buses as the believers who are still alive? What a mess.

Since I am reasonably sure that through God’s grace I’ll be saved, I have other concerns. Like what are our flight arrangements? Is Jesus using a fleet of standard commercial carriers? Are they going to have bag limits? I’m going to be gone . . . umm . . . forever so I guess I need to bring most of my stuff. Will they have grocery stores in heaven or do we need to bring an eternity worth of toilet paper? Wait—maybe we won’t need toilet paper in heaven because of the perfect bliss promise.

But the bad news is really for the folks that get left behind. If you don’t believe in Jesus when he comes on May 21, you get left behind on Earth. Earth is not the place to be. The word on the streets is that this will be the final five months of the existence of the planet Earth. It will be a time of war and natural disaster. Tsunamis will wash away major cities. I actually saw a film of a tsunami gushing into New York, tearing through the Twin Towers. (Weren’t the Twin Towers already leveled on 9-ll? I’ve got some doubts about the authenticity of the video.) Guerilla armies will be fighting but no one will know who the enemy is, kind of a Mad Max thing. At the end of the 5 months on earth, the unbelievers will rue the day they turned down Jesus’s offer to be part of the rapture. Tough luck, dudes, no second chance. You’re stuck in an exploding universe.

I shouldn’t admit to being so soft-hearted but it concerns me that non-believers will be left behind and I know a lot of those people. Doesn’t sound all that rapturous for all the participants. Maybe God will postpone it, give people a little more time. Still, I’m packing my bags just in case.

Her absence

2011-05-13T21:49:00.000-04:00

I've been in a fog, heart aching, frozen with grief. I made curried cauliflower soup today, but a recipe I posted a few weeks ago. (It's still delicious!) So in an effort to divert my attention from my grief and to try to write--just write--I did one of my freewriting exercises. Open any book to any page, find any sentence and write something that ends in that sentence. Here it is as it erupted from my brain in one unedited spew.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, p. 6.

“Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence.”

“I don’t believe in you,” she said. “Never have, never will.” She was a beautiful girl, 15 years old, hair the color of the maple tree in the front yard of my childhood home. The last time I saw that tree ablaze with color it was six months before she was born. I was her age when she was born, a child myself at 15. But for her defiant attitude and her lanky built—with the wobbly legs of a young filly—she didn’t look much like me. Yet her hair was unmistakably the same color as Billy’s, a color to this day I’ve never seen on another human being. She was my child and his child, even if she refused to believe it. I didn’t tell my papa I was pregnant, but I had been puking every morning for weeks and he figured it out. He screamed and yelled, smacked me upside the head, and called me the devil’s own whore. Papa was a Pentecostal preacher. I was used to seeing him roiled into a lather, calling down God’s vengeance, and making people go down with the mere touch of his hand. But this time it was more than a touch of his hand. One punch of his work-gnarled fist sent me to the floor. My younger brother cowered in the corner for he had felt the wrath of my father’s fist as well. Papa dragged me to the shed and padlocked the door. For two days I sat there in darkness, begging him to let me out, pleading for forgiveness. It was to no avail. After two days, he dragged me out and pushed me into the back seat of a beat-up old station wagon. Uncle Frank was driving and Aunt Corinne was beside him in the front seat. Aunt Corinne handed me a handkerchief saying, “Now child, quit your sniveling. You’re going with us and that’s all there is to it.” Uncle Frank was quiet, thoughtful man and Aunt Corinne was a matter-of-fact woman, not cruel, just not much on sentimentality. I delivered that little red-haired girl in the back room of Aunt Corinne and Uncle Frank’s house. Aunt Corinne called a midwife to come in when my labor pains started. The midwife bundled the baby in a blanket and let me hold her for a little while before she took the baby from my arms and bound up my breasts. For five days I could hear my baby cry in another part of the house and my entire body ached for her. On the fifth day they put me on a bus with a ticket for Cleveland and the address of a boarding house. Years and years passed but not a day went by that I didn’t think about my baby girl. There was not a word from anyone in my family. It was as if I simply didn’t exist, none of them existed, and I had never seen the maple tree in our front yard. Until last month. My Uncle Frank tracked me down and sent me a letter. He said Corinne had died last year and Annabelle—they named her Annabelle—was acting up something terrible. He loved her like his own child but was at his wit’s end and feared he would lose her. So in desperation he reached out to me, thinking maybe I could connect with her, maybe step in and fill that place in her heart that seemed unreachable. I still ached for her. When I saw her face, her hair, her long legs, and felt that fire in her eyes, I wanted to do something. But what? I didn’t know how to be a mother. I had never learned. All I knew about parenting was the harshness of my father. My own mother died giving birth to my brother. Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence.

Mayo and mayhem

2011-05-06T22:29:00.002-04:00

I wish I had celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday. I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of holiday that celebrates the wonders of mayonnaise. I’m a fan of mayonnaise, but it has to be really, really good mayonnaise. Miracle Whip does not qualify—it should be abolished. If you eat Miracle Whip I’ve lost all respect for you. The universe should be divided into two camps: (1) good mayonnaise (like Hellman’s) people and (2) Miracle Whip people. Miracle Whip people should be sent to live on an island with their beloved Miracle Whip and should not be permitted to communicate with civilized people. Truthfully I’ve even grown beyond Hellman’s and I now prefer a pricey mayo called Lemonnaise that I have found only at Whole Foods. So call me a mayo snob—I don’t care.

I've done a lot more praying than cooking lately. At least sometimes I think about food. But truthfully I’m writing this silly stuff about mayonnaise to distract me from what I’m really feeling. What I’m really feeling is that I want to run away from home. I’ve had it, done, no more, Lord, please no more. For a month now I’ve been trying to absorb the loss of my brother—his senseless murder on April 3^rd is incomprehensible. Little things hit me now. Like I just wrapped a Mother’s Day gift for my aunt and signed the card, “with love from Joan, Mike, Steve, and Donna.” No Mark. For the first time I had to acknowledge with pen and paper that my brother Mark is not one of the siblings, he is not among the living. How can that be? I went to his funeral, I’ve cried my eyes out, I’ve received many lovely sympathy cards, but it all feels like a bad dream.

But what’s getting to me is the piling on of bad stuff in addition to my brother’s murder. My friend Trish tells me that astrologically things are totally messed up. A bunch of planets are hanging out in a dangerous neighborhood and things won’t calm down until the middle of next week. It can’t come too soon.

People are getting divorced and having miscarriages and getting cancer. For example, my friend Mike had surgery on Tuesday for mesothelioma. His right lung was removed, tumors were removed from his diaphragm and elsewhere, and something around his heart was reconstructed. That’s serious surgery! That’s not like going to the doctor and having a wart removed. After four days he’s still in ICU and now he’s been in a crisis with heart issues (atrial fibrillation). Only a few months ago he was training horses and playing the guitar and living a pretty normal life. Now he’s in the ICU at Johns Hopkins breathing with one lung, hooked up to monitors, being pumped with drugs.

My son is in London on business and he developed a bad eye infection. My friend’s son got suspended from school. Another friend lost her job months ago and can’t find work. My sister had botched oral surgery and now has to have reconstructive plastic surgery to rebuild the roof of her mouth. My daughter’s cat has stomach cancer and probably will have to be put down soon. A relative has developed Alzheimer’s disease. There are a thousand other things, large and small, things that I promised to pray about but the prayer list is so long now that important things are slipping off the list because of the sheer volume.

Honestly, I’ve been telling the Lord that I’m overwhelmed, that I simply can’t take another tragedy, another worry, another sad story. I tell Him that I don’t believe that He only gives you as much you can handle. He has seriously overestimated my capacity.

My solution is to run away from home, go where trouble can’t find me. Wonder how far I’ll have to run.

Stands with fist

2011-05-01T18:24:00.000-04:00

Back then he called me Stands with Fist, the name of a young woman who was a character in the film "Dances with Wolves." He called me that because of my defiance. I thought about that today in church, in the time after communion when I was sitting in silent prayer. I pictured myself standing with my right fist clenched, my arm raised in the air like an Olympic gold medal winner standing on the award platform. My fist raised in triumph, my head bowed in reverence and humble pleading to God.

I am no athlete. I never competed in anything. I’m just a non-descript, somewhat pudgy, aging woman in sensible shoes. But I’m feeling defiant and I’m feeling awed by God’s grace. Life has been downright awful of late—just one bad thing happening after another. As much as I rhetorically wonder why life is so hard, why bad things happen to good people, I have a sense of the answer—the answer is that sometimes bad things just happen. It’s the price of being a flawed human being. But I don’t want to let misfortune own me; I don’t want to define life solely through a dark lens. I just want to stand defiantly, undefeated, with my fist in the air and my head bowed in prayer for deliverance.

Blessed and broken

2011-04-26T11:03:00.001-04:00

Blessings alone do not open our eyes. Indeed, blessings by themselves tend to close our eyes. We do not come to know Him in the blessing, but in the breaking. --Chip Brogden

Everything was just fine for the first 40 years or so. Well, all four of my grandparents died, and my young cousin died, and there was that pesky abduction. Other than that, life was without major sadness, disease, heartbreak, or other mayhem. I married the person I thought was the love of my life and had two incredible children. Life was full of blessings and I didn’t think I really needed God.

Then all hell broke loose. The love of my life crumbled, cheated on me more than once, and our marriage ended. Then he died. I lost my job. My father died. My roof caved in. My brother was murdered.

And somewhere in there, in the breaking, when I thought I had nothing left, I found God.

In the midst of the heartbreak there is so much good. Yes, indeed the barn has burned down but now I can see the moon. There are so many blessings—my little house (roof fixed), my garden, my cooking, my books, my music, my faithful friends, my church, my family, my God.

Insulation

2011-04-22T13:03:00.000-04:00

We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world

On this Good Friday I’ve been thanking Jesus for His incredible sacrifice for the sake of my salvation. I’m taking the whole salvation thing very personally. He didn’t go to the cross for everyone; He went for me. He went for me and for anyone else who chooses to believe in His life, His death, and His resurrection.

Belief in salvation sets me apart. This world can be a wretched place. I recently have witnessed that fact first-hand. This world is full of grief and pain, sickness and death, tsunamis and war. But Jesus overcame the world. I’m hanging on to Him so that I have some insulation from the world, a way to rise above it. And from the bottom of my heart I thank Him for His saving grace.

Sweet innocence/hard reality

2011-04-20T23:16:00.000-04:00

This old photo is breaking my heart. It's my mother in the center with her newborn baby Mark on her lap. Steve is standing to her right wearing the ironed white shirt, Michael is standing in front with the cute little shorts with suspenders. I'm the geeky big sister in the back. There was one child yet to come, our youngest sister Joan. It breaks my heart because the photo was taken so long ago, in the innocent mid-1950s. Our mother is a beautiful young woman, obviously pleased with her young family. We are all dressed like we were going to church (very likely). We lived in a rambler in the suburbs and we went to Catholic school. We had pot roast or spaghetti for supper on Sunday and our grandfather always came to eat with us. Every summer we drove to our grandfather's house on the Chesapeake Bay. We ate crabs and got stung by sea nettles. Steve was an altar boy and a cub scout. Mike promised our mother that when he grew up he would never leave home and every night when he was grown he would bring her a bag of doughnuts and a pack of CocaColas. I was going to be a nun or an airline stewardess. As Mark got older he longed to be a trash man--he would put his toys in a blanket, climb to the top of the bunkbeds, and throw the toys down into an imagined garbage truck.

I look at my mother's innocent face in the photo and wonder if she ever imagined that she would be 85 years old, a widow for less than one year, when that baby boy she is holding would be shot and killed. Every mother's greatest fear is that one day she could lose one of her children. But to get to the age of 85 and have her youngest son murdered is too much for an old woman to handle. She said today that she would not hesitate to trade her life for his, that she wishes she could have died in his place because the sadness is too much for her, that her life will never be the same. The loss is too great and he was her son for 55 years. The innocence was so sweet . . .

The crap

2011-04-17T19:31:00.000-04:00

When I was about eight years old and my brother Steve was about six, I beat up Danny Kellaher in defense of my brother. Danny Kellaher was probably eight years old at the time. He grew up strong and played college-level football, but how scary can an eight-year-old boy be? I was a scrawny girl with bruised shins and mosquito bites—he was taller than me and outweighed me by many pounds. I always thought of him as the biggest, toughest kid in the neighborhood, much more formidable than any of the Boeteler boys or the Herlihy boys. But I lost all fear when Danny Kellaher hurt my little brother.

I can’t remember the reason for the fight. All I know is that the boys were at the end of our block near the mailbox. (Remember those big blue mailboxes on the corner of every block, the metal bins where the boys dropped in cherry bombs? The Postal Service says that it has nearly eliminated neighborhood mail boxes as a cost-cutting measure but I think it was really all about cherry bombs.) The pummeling of my brother had begun. I didn’t think about Danny Kellaher’s size or my relative inadequacy. I became fearless. All I knew was that I had to protect my brother so I started beating up Danny Kellaher and he ran home to his mama.

That’s the image that I keep replaying in my brain now—the image of myself as a scrawny kid defending my little brother. And I think about my youngest brother Mark, shot and killed two weeks ago by his neighborhood bully. I’m still the big sister and I wish I had been there to defend him. I wish I had beat the crap out of that guy to keep him from killing my brother.

Round two

2011-04-13T21:16:00.001-04:00

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5

I really don’t want to be a person who is a bottomless pit of woe. This is not the life I imagined for myself. I want to process this emotionally and rationally and get back to my rather dull life, imperfect as it was. I’m deep in the throes of grief again. On April 8, 2010 my dear father died. And on April 3, 2011 my dear brother Mark died. My dad was nearly 89 when he died from complications of open-heart surgery. My brother was 55 when he died from being shot in the back. I thought I knew what grief was when my father died and I was wrong. This is something else, something beyond grief, something crushing that sits in the middle of my chest and grabs my throat from the inside. It’s angry and aching and seemingly inescapable.

People are asking me (rhetorically, I presume) where God is in all of this. How could a loving God permit my brother to be murdered? I don’t know. I’m not even asking Him for an answer to that big question now. I’m just asking Him to help us get through the days. Please. Lord, this pain, this grief is . . . there’s not a word for it, but surely He knows. Will we be stronger because of this? I don’t want to be that strong; I don’t want to believe anything this horrific could ever happen again.

But how do I process this grief? By giving up the need to make sense of it in my flawed human mind? By giving up on trying to grasp God’s plan? Once again I go back to Proverbs to try to discern what God wants me to know.

God shouts

2011-04-11T16:55:00.001-04:00

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” – C.S. Lewis

What is He shouting to us now?

I’m processing a new reality in relative quiet. The funeral is over, my children have flown away, and I stare out the window hearing only the fan of my electronic air cleaner, the hum of the refrigerator, and an occasional car passing by. I’m hoping to hear what the Lord is shouting.

Eight days ago my younger brother was murdered, shot in the back by his neighbor. I don’t think any of us can process this heartbreak and senselessness while it’s so raw. But we all need to have something to hang on to, some reason to find meaning in this tragedy. I don’t use the word tragedy often and I’m not using the word glibly now. It is a tragedy, the worse thing that has ever happened to our family.

Days ago I decided that I have to create a box inside my head that I’ll label “senseless things I’ll never understand.” Mark’s death will be in that imaginary box. I could spend the rest of my life grappling with it and it will never, ever make sense.

As soon as Mark died, people started caring for me and my family. My neighbor Nancy drove me 25 miles on Sunday night because I was too shaken to drive to my mother’s house to break the news to her. My dearest friends have been by my side. People from my church called me and sent me messages offering to do anything for me—I know that they meant it. People from all over the world prayed for my family and me—I know that their prayers were lifted to the heavens in one great cry of grief and comfort. My two children cancelled everything else they needed to do to fly across the country just to be with me.

What is God shouting? I think what He is shouting is that terrible, terrible things can happen in this world, There are evil people who can take away people we love. Things happen that we will never understand while we are on this Earth. This is a world of hurt. But in this world of hurt there are so many good people, people who reach out to us, comfort us, pray for us when we get blind-sided by the world of hurt. God isn’t with us in a physical sense but He sends people to us who reflect His love. Thank you, Lord, for showing us in a real, tangible way that you are weeping with us.

Murdered

2011-04-04T20:26:00.000-04:00

I have heard that writing can help to heal wounds of the heart. I’d have to write War and Peace one hundred times over to heal this wound. Yesterday my little brother Mark was shot and killed by his next-door neighbor. Yesterday my little brother was murdered.

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon and my brother was doing yard work, weeding and trimming shrubs at his house on Kent Island, Maryland. There are no credible witnesses to describe what happened next. Yesterday my little brother was murdered. Only my brother Mark and the murderer and my brother’s dog were there and my brother can’t tell his side of the story because he is now dead. The dog may have wandered into the neighbor’s yard. The neighbor had issues in the past with the dog and my brother has tried to keep the dog within the bounds of his own property. No one is sure what happened. My brother had hedge clippers. The neighbor had a gun. My brother was shot in the back with a double-barrel handgun loaded with those wretched bullets that enter a body and explode.

Yesterday my brother was murdered. Apparently he staggered a few yards from where he was standing when he was shot. He collapsed and died in his front yard, near the little cherry tree.

Can someone explain to me what kind of person would carry a double-barrel handgun in his yard on a Sunday afternoon? Can someone explain to me why someone would kill another person because of a dog wandering into his yard?

Mark was a peaceful, friendly guy. He worked hard and loved his family. He doesn’t even own a gun—he has hedge clippers and a riding mower. He was a sweet, loveable man who would give you the shirt off his back. And now he is dead. Yesterday my brother was murdered. I don't know if a big sister's heart can ever heal from a hurt like this.

Natalie's bread

2011-03-31T23:34:00.005-04:00

My niece Natalie brought a homemade yeast bread to my house a couple of weeks ago. I'm not good with yeast breads, never was able to get them to rise properly. But Natalie is a Montessori preschool teacher and she said that she bakes this bread with her three-year-old students so surely I can do it. (Ha! Should I consider that a challenge?)

So she sent me the recipe and I baked two loaves a couple of days ago. I didn't get it to rise really well and it looked flatter, more like focaccia than Natalie's loaves, but it was still delicious. And I'm determined to conquer this bread thing and I'm going to keep at it until I get it right. I can't let a toddler outbake me, not even a Montessori toddler.

Vegan Rosemary Garlic Bread

1½ cup lukewarm water
1 packet active yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ cup chopped fresh rosemary (divided)
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour
1/3 cup olive oil
3 to 6 cloves of minced garlic
2 teaspoons kosher salt (or sea salt)

In a small bowl, mix the water, yeast, sugar, and half of the rosemary. In a separate large bowl, add 1 teaspoon salt to flour, mix, then add yeast mixture to flour. Mix slowly until the dough forms a ball.

Knead on a floured board for 10 minutes (this is when having a three- or four-year-child around comes handy). Place the dough in oiled bowl, cover, and let it sit in a warm place until it doubles in size (about an hour).

Mix olive oil, remaining rosemary, and garlic. Punch dough down, knead a few times to make it easy to handle. Shape dough into 2 loaves, place several inches apart on the baking sheet. Score loaves, pour oil/rosemary mix on top. Sprinkle each loaf with kosher salt.

Allow loaves to rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Fishsticks on Friday

2011-03-25T20:58:00.031-04:00

I’ve been hankering for a hot dog all day today. I couldn’t quite figure out why. You’ve heard the horror stories about how the processing plants basically grind up some unfortunate hog (hair, skin, teeth, and bones) and slide the ground mass into a section of intestine. We buy it, grill it, and put it on a bun with relish and spicy mustard and call it lunch. It sounds great to me now and I’ve figured out why. It’s Lent and it’s Friday and I’m not supposed to be eating meat. Tomorrow a hot dog won’t be the least bit appealing but today it is forbidden, hence the only reason I want it.

When I was growing up it was a mortal sin for Catholics to eat meat on any Friday. (A mortal sin is the really bad kind of sin, the kind that condemns you to hell for all eternity. Venial sins are the little sins, like telling a minor lie, for which you burn in purgatory for an undefined period of time. Sister Mary Ignatius said it was sometime between 300 years and 700 billion years. I don’t know where she got her data.) At some point I heard that it was a mortal sin not because eating meat was wrong but because it was considered disobedience to the church. But the Catholic Church changed the rules in the 1960s with Vatican II and now the abstinence from meat rule is in effect only on Fridays in Lent.

Apparently there were lots of exceptions pre-Vatican II but none of them worked in our house. If you were over 60 years of age you were exempt because you were too old. If you were a nursing mother you were exempt because I suppose babies need meat in their breast milk. If you were of Spanish descent you were exempt because sometime in the last 2000 years someone Spanish did a favor for the pope so all Spanish people were henceforth exempt from the no-meat Friday rule. The girls in high school in Mother Rosary’s Spanish class claimed that they were exempt because they were learning to speak Spanish. What a fool I was to be taking French.

Did you ever hear George Carlin’s take on Catholicism and not eating meat on Fridays? George Carlin also grew up Catholic under the old rules. He said it seemed unfair that people were spending eternity in hell on a “meat rap” for their sin before the no-meat on Fridays rule was changed. Timing is everything.

Forever I will associate tuna noodle casserole with meatless Fridays, though sometimes growing up in my house we had fish sticks or pancakes. Over the years I messed with my mother’s basic tuna noodle formula—tuna, noodles, and cream of mushroom soup. My kids loved my doctored-up version of tuna noodle casserole whether it was Friday or not. You’ll never see this recipe in Bon Appetit.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

16 ounces egg noodles
8 ounces cottage cheese
6 ounce can French-fried onions
3 cans tuna
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 cup frozen chopped spinach
½ cup grated carrot
1 cup milk
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook noodles as directed on package until barely cooked, drain. Mix cooked noodles with cottage cheese, half of the French-fried onions, tuna, soup, frozen spinach, grated carrot, and milk.

Put noodle/tuna mixture in a large deep casserole dish. Top with remaining half can of onions and grated Parmesan.

Cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly and brown on top.

Cauliflower soup

2011-03-23T23:09:00.003-04:00

What to do when you find a beautiful head of cauliflower sitting on your kitchen counter? You make curried cauliflower soup!

I happened to have saffron and turmeric and ghee in my pantry and I searched through my files, combined, adapted, and came up with this recipe. It was yummy and really not hard to make. [If you don't have an immersion blender, get one! It's a great little tool!]

Curried Cauliflower Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium-size head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 large onion, diced
1 tablespoon ghee
1 teaspoon sugar
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
Pinch saffron
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (½ teaspoon if you want it hotter)
3 cups chicken broth, homemade or from a carton or can
½ cup half-and-half
½ cup coconut milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep pan. Add cauliflower, then onion; saute, stirring occasionally until vegetables start to turn golden brown, about 7 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add ghee, sugar, and garlic. Cook about 10 minutes until vegetables are brown and carmelized. Add ginger, turmeric, saffron and cayenne pepper; and saute 1 minute longer. Add broth and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, until cauliflower is tender, about 10 minutes.

Remove a few pieces of cauliflower and set aside. Using an immersion blender, puree until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add half-and-half and coconut milk and heat through. Add cauliflower florets that were set aside and serve.

Makes about 4 servings.

Swordfish

2011-03-20T15:30:00.004-04:00

On Friday night I had almost nothing in the refrigerator. I held out one more day and avoided the grocery store. But in spite of my self-imposed no grocery shopping embargo I had a really great dinner last night. I even used the pickled sushi ginger (but not the buttermilk).

God bless Ina Garten! I had a couple of Trader Joe's swordfish steaks in the freezer. I thawed them and made this recipe from the Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics cookbook. I used chopped sushi ginger instead of fresh ginger. It was fabulous and I'll bet it's a great marinade for chicken too.

Here's the recipe almost exactly as I made it--you know about the ginger and I only used 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard. I'm even posting her photo of the dish. Absolutely no one is better than Ina Garten.

Indonesian Grilled Swordfish

1/3 cup soy sauce

¼ cup canola or peanut oil, plus extra for brushing the grill

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (2 lemons)

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ cup minced or finely chopped fresh ginger

2 tablespoons minced garlic (4 cloves)

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

6 (8-ounce, 1-inch-thick) swordfish steaks

Combine the soy sauce, canola oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, ginger, garlic, and mustard in a bowl. Pour half the sauce in a low flat dish that’s just large enough to hold the swordfish in one layer. Place the swordfish on top of the sauce and spread the remaining sauce on top. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight.

Thirty minutes before you’re ready to serve, build a charcoal fire or heat a gas grill. When the coals are medium-hot, brush the cooking grate with oil to prevent the fish from sticking. Remove the fish from the marinade, allowing some of the ginger to cling to the fish, and discard the marinade. Sprinkle the fish generously on both sides with salt and place it over the coals. Cook for 5 minutes on each side, just until it’s no longer pink in the middle. Place on a platter, cover tightly with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

Concoction

2011-03-18T20:49:00.003-04:00

For the past few days I have refused to go to the grocery store. I’m just not in the mood. But that posed a bit of a problem when I opened my refrigerator tonight to figure out what to make for dinner. I refused to call for pizza delivery. Beer and oven-roasted asparagus are nice but they don’t make a balanced meal. So I looked at what I had available—Canadian bacon, buttermilk, cheese, pickled sushi ginger, and a jar of olive salad. I didn’t use the buttermilk or the pickled sushi ginger—they will have to be breakfast tomorrow. How about a buttermilk/sushi ginger smoothie? Anyone want to come to my house for breakfast tomorrow?

So tonight I took what I had available and came up with a concoction that actually was quite good. I didn’t measure so I can’t tell you exact amounts. Just punt.

Pasta with Canadian Bacon and Olive Salad

Canadian bacon, about 4 slices, cut into julienne strips

Angel hair pasta (the one that’s high in protein)
Boscoli Italian Olive Salad, about ¼ cup
Shaved parmesan cheese

Saute the Canadian bacon until crispy.
While the bacon is cooking, boil water and start cooking the pasta.
When the pasta is cooked, drain and toss with bacon and olive salad.
Sprinkle parmesan cheese on the top and eat it.

Serve with beer and oven-roasted asparagus.

Serves 1 lazy person.

Fen-Phen

2011-03-17T21:56:00.003-04:00

It’s a shame about Fen-Phen. It’s a shame that the FDA discovered that it caused heart damage in as many as 30 percent of the people who took it. It’s a shame because it worked.

Fen-Phen was a combination of prescription drugs that was used to suppress appetite. Toni and I went to a doctor to get prescriptions for it back when it was the hottest thing in weight loss. Toni and I have done many crazy things together. Going to a diet doctor was but one of our misadventures. We loved Fen-Phen. Dieting was effortless. We were skinnier than ever. It seemed too good to be true and I suppose it was.

It probably has been 20 years since we heard about this doctor who was prescribing the weight loss wonder-drug combination. So we both made appointments and went together to his office in Alexandria. Neither of us liked him—he was a pale, pudgy, weasel of a man and he just seemed creepy. But still, he was a means to an end. Apparently he needed some sort of excuse, some diagnosis, in order to submit the charges to medical insurance and to prescribe Fen-Phen. Amazing but true, both Toni and I were diagnosed with . . . are you ready for this? . . . ear wax. The weasel doctor stuck instruments in our ears, extracted ear wax, and prescribed appetite suppressants. I suppose the appetite suppressants also suppressed the accumulation of any future, deadly ear wax. Go figure.

At first Toni wasn’t losing weight as quickly as she wanted so he also gave her a prescription to rev up her thyroid. Wow—that really worked. The guy was probably giving us drugs that would kill us, but we’d be thin when our hearts blew out.

Yep, it’s a shame about Fen-Phen. It’s a trade-off. Would you rather be a fat person with ear wax or would you prefer to keep your major organs functioning? I know, I know—it’s a hard choice.

That dirty word

2011-03-16T22:20:00.002-04:00

Since when did the word evangelical become a dirty word? I never try to hide my Christianity. Yet I’ve noticed that some people kind of look at me sideways when they ask me if I’m evangelical, like that’s just too weird. I know what they’re thinking because I used to think the same thing. They equate evangelical Christians with Republicans and Tea Party members and meat eaters and people who wear lots of polyester. Politically I am somewhere between leftist and I-don’t-care to be either a Republican or a Tea Party member. I’m a fallen vegetarian. I prefer natural fibers but I have no moral repugnance to man-made fibers. Even man-made fibers are useful on occasion. But I’m still determined to be a Christian—does that make me (that dirty word again) evangelical?

(Never, ever depend on me for a definitive explanation of anything theological. What I write has no theological basis, it’s just an observation.)

I’m not even sure what the term evangelical Christian means any longer. I think it’s supposed to mean that a person who believes in Jesus is called to proselytize, to “spread the faith to all nations.” No one else ever affected me by preaching to me and I’m not comfortable preaching to others. I’m just going to live my life the best way I can, try to “live the Gospel,” and not be an embarrassment to Jesus. Sometimes I fail.

For me it’s okay to defy description. It’s okay to be a liberal, a Bible-toting Christian, a feminist, and a banjo player all at the same time. None of those labels is inconsistent with being evangelical, is it? Can I simply work on being a good Christian and not worry about the labels?

Irish cooking

2011-03-16T12:32:00.005-04:00

A number of years ago my mother recounted her adventure eating Irish food. She was in Ireland on a group tour. The food had not been memorable and toward the end of the trip they were craving something different so they went to an Italian restaurant. She ordered spaghetti and meatballs. The dish arrived—a pile of spaghetti and meatballs in the center of the plate, surrounded by mashed potatoes. So much for Irish food.

My opinion of Irish food wasn’t elevated much by all the women of Irish heritage who surrounded me when I was growing up. For over 30 years I was married to a guy who was 100 percent Irish. Not a drop of non-Irish blood sullied the family bloodline until he married me, a mongrel. My mother-in-law was a wonderful woman and she made great spareribs. But I recall one Thanksgiving looking at the table and seeing nothing green—there was a turkey, ham and roast beef, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rutabagas, stuffing, and slightly burned rolls. I think there was a brownish jello mold.

My husband used to complain that I didn’t have the things in the refrigerator that his mother had. Like he could always open his mother’s refrigerator and find a plate of cooked meatballs, unimpeded by any kind of protective wrap. He always entered his childhood home through the back door to the kitchen and walked straight to the refrigerator. I just wasn’t a good wife or a real woman because of a cold meatball deficiency. It was grounds for annulment in the Catholic Church.

Yesterday my dear friend Trish made colcannon and sausages and brought them to my house. Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish that is a sort of cabbage and potato hash. The colcannon was yummy, but note that although it has a fancy Irish name it’s still cabbage and potato hash. What’s not to love about cabbage and potatoes fried together with butter?

For our Irish meal I made a new recipe for Irish soda bread that turned out well—slightly salty, slightly sweet, slightly caraway—and not dry like the commercial soda bread you buy at the market. And it’s easy—just requires a bowl and a wooden spoon, a quick stir, and pop it in the oven.

Irish Soda Bread

2 cups all purpose flour
5 tablespoons sugar, divided
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons butter, chilled, cut into cubes
2/3 cup raisins
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly butter a 8-inch-diameter cake. In large bowl stir together flour, 4 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Cut in butter with pastry cutter until coarse meal forms. Stir in raisins and caraway seeds. Make well in center of flour mixture. Add buttermilk. Gently stir dry ingredients into milk to blend. Do not over mix.

Using floured hands, shape dough into ball. Transfer to cake pan and flatten slightly (dough will not come to edges of pan). Sprinkle dough with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake bread until brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Cool bread in pan 10 minutes. Transfer to rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Chicken salad for Anna

2011-03-10T21:01:00.004-05:00

Anna! My sister said she sees you occasionally at church and that recently you said you remembered my chicken tarragon salad. I think of chicken salad as something that I make only when the weather gets warmer. And that will be soon so thank you for reminding me about the recipe.

I would love to see you!

This is a recipe that I've changed and refined over time. I don't think I ever make it the same way twice but this is a basic version.

Chicken Salad With Artichokes and Tarragon

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
32 ounce carton chicken broth
½ cup sour cream
½ cup mayonnaise
1 cup celery, cut into julienne strips
1 tablespoon dried tarragon
Salt and pepper to taste
6½ ounce jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped

Place chicken breasts in single layer in a large pot.
Add just enough chicken broth (add water or white wine, if necessary) to cover chicken. Heat to simmer, cover, and cook very gently for about 10 minutes, until no longer pink. Remove from heat and allow chicken to cool in liquid for 20 minutes.
When chicken has cooled, break into bite-sized pieces.
Mix sour cream, mayonnaise, celery, tarragon, and salt and pepper.
Pour over chicken, add artichokes, and blend gently.
Refrigerate for 4-6 hours before serving.

Serves 6.

Idiot

2011-03-09T18:16:00.006-05:00

As if there aren't enough things in this cruel world to do damage to an old woman like me! I just found one I didn't expect. But, of course, when one has an accident it's just that--unexpected.

I was reading a thing about home safety, the kind of article I usually see in the AARP magazine. (I really hate the fact that I get that AARP magazine and that I bother to read it. It's just so old.) It discusses injuries (and causes of death!) that happen in the home. The U.S. Home Safety Council says that every year nearly 20,000 people die and 21 million medical visits are needed due to home accidents in the United States. Put me down for one of those medical visits.

Here's what the Council reports:

Those most at risk are children and the elderly--a recent report from Harvard Medical School found that the chance of dying from a home accident increases dramatically after the age of 65. In fact, people over the age of 75 are four times more likely to die from a home accident than those aged 65 to 74.

Of course, people of all ages can be hurt by an accident (you've likely got at least one home-accident story of your own by now). The irony is that most home accidents are the result of human error and could almost always have been prevented.

The list includes the top six causes of injury:

(1) Knife cuts
(2) Slamming fingers in windows or doors
(3) Falling down stairs
(4) Cooking burns
(5) Falling out of windows
(6) Electrocution

Yes, I've likely got at least one home-accident story of my own by now. I've done all of those things at one point or another. The injury du jour happened yesterday. I was innocently putting a box on the top shelf in my office. I innocently stood on my desk chair to reach the top shelf, ignoring the fact that the desk chair has wheels on it. (Don't laugh--I've innocently done it before and it never rolled when it wasn't supposed to roll.) Well . . . yesterday it rolled away when I was at the top of my ascent with a box in my hands. The descent wasn't pretty. I landed crumpled on the floor with a boxful of papers scattered over me like dry leaves on a dead squirrel.

So I sat there on the floor, stunned, saying to myself, "You old fool, just look what you've done now." My arms hurt the most and I expected I had dislodged a fingernail or two trying to break my fall by grasping the edges of the bookshelves. No blood, no obviously broken bones. Eventually I got up and walked. I iced down the hurting parts and waited for morning.

When I got up this morning I realized that the damage is all concentrated on my right side--right arm and shoulder, right leg, and right ankle. This afternoon I went to the chiropractor and he did what he could to straighten me out. His prognosis is that I'll hurt for a while but I'll live.

Do I need to remind myself not to stand on that desk chair with the wheels? I'm an idiot.

Toggle switch

2011-03-02T17:52:00.003-05:00

I’ve spent the day driving around, cleaning winter’s muck out of my garden, and muttering to myself about the sheer existence and nature of God. I’ve been having some “issues” with the Lord. It used to seem that my relationship with him was like a light switch—on or off. I was either lying at his feet, praying and worshipping, or I was ignoring him because his being seemed so implausible. I’m much more mature now, more sophisticated (that’s a joke!) because I now see many more variations in my relationship with him—more like a toggle switch than simply on/off.

I believe in him, but sometimes that almost makes it more difficult. I believe but I wonder how a loving father can let his children live in a world that is filled with so much pain. Why are pain and suffering, fear and turmoil, cruelty and depair such a big part of our humanity?

So I’ve been reading the Book of Job to try to understand what God has told us about the nature of suffering. And I still don’t get it. Why did God even take the bait when the adversary (Satan) got him to test Job’s righteousness? Why didn’t God just tell the adversary to go back to hell where he belonged? And what about Job’s alleged friends? A lot of help they were. Job’s children died along with all of his animals then he got herpes all over his body and he scraped at it with broken glass. Yet he wouldn’t curse God. If I get a splinter wedged under my fingernail I might come close to cursing God, but Job didn't.

The only answer is that human suffering is something we cannot understand because God is God and we are not. Job says, “He is not a man like me that I might answer him.” (Job 9:32) Job has no logical explanation for his suffering, but he doesn't lose faith in God. Where does that kind of faith come from?

Cobb salad update

2011-02-27T21:16:00.006-05:00

Successful b-day party for my mom. She had a great time on her cruise and came home ready for more festivities for her 85th birthday. I swear, she looks younger than I do--85 years old just doesn't seem that old to me now.

My version of the classic Cobb salad turned out well. I adapted Barefoot's viniagrette recipe by adding a little honey. I used chicken breasts, a mix of regular bacon and pancetta, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, blue cheese, and avocado on a bed of chopped greens (romaine and bibb lettuce). I made scones (of course!) and my niece brought two beautiful loaves of home-baked rosemary/garlic bread. My sister brought a cake with raspberry between the layers. Quite lovely!

Happy birthday, mamacita!

2011-02-25T20:24:00.006-05:00

Today is my mama's 85th birthday! My dear mother is a piece of work and all of her kids love her! She's turning 85 today and she has been on a Caribbean cruise for the past two weeks so I didn't even get to talk to her on her big day. But her ship gets back into port tomorrow and we're having a little birthday party for her on Sunday at my house.

I've been thinking about what to make for her birthday party. She loves Cobb salad and I've got a Barefoot Contessa recipe for Cobb salad, but it's lobster Cobb salad. Nix on the lobster. I think she really likes the traditional version with chicken and I don't feel like dealing with the lobster variation anyway.

So I'm adapting Barefoot's version, substituting chicken for lobster and using romaine lettuce in place of arugula. I'm also going to try using pancetta instead of the usual bacon and I think I'll cook the chicken with Italian herbs so it will be Italian chicken Cobb salad. Should I substitute Parmesan cheese for the blue cheese? So I guess I'm barely sticking to Barefoot's recipe, except I'll make her viniagrette. So while I'm on a run of posting recipes with olive oil and lemon juice, why not one more?

Sometime I'll try the full-fledged Barefoot Contessa version from her Family Style cookbook but not this time. Here's the original version:

Lobster Cobb Salad

For the viniagrette:
1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
5 tablespoons good olive oil
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the salad:
2 ripe Hass avocados
Juice of 1 lemon
1½ pounds cooked lobster meat, cut in ¾-inch dice
1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut in half or quarters
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ pound lean bacon, fried and crumbled
¾ cup crumbled English Stilton, or other crumbly blue cheese
1 bunch arugula, washed and spun dry

For the vinaigrette, whisk together the mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.

For the salad, cut the avocados in half, remove the seed, and peel. Cut into ¾-inch dice and toss with the lemon juice. If the arugula leaves are large, cut them in half crosswise.

Put the lobster and tomatoes in a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper and toss with enough vinaigrette to moisten. Add the diced avocados, crumbled bacon, blue cheese, and arugula and toss again. Serve at room temperature.

Ted Kaczynski and me

2011-02-23T09:27:00.005-05:00

That's Ted Kaczynski's typewriter. The Unabomber's cabin and some of its contents (I'm sure the FBI kept the crucial stuff) were taken from Montana to the Newseum in Washington, DC. I've seen it. He wasn't into high-tech gadgets and tidiness was not one of his virtues. I suppose he had few virtues.

But still, I'm feeling a bit of kinship with Ted Kaczynski. He, sitting at his typewriter, holed up in his cabin in the snow, writing incoherent political ramblings; I sitting at my . . . um . . . typewriter, in my humble townhouse in the snow, writing inane non-political ramblings. And some of the things I write get posted on this blog. My stat counter tells me I'm getting close to 4,000 views. Most of the viewers are from the United States, but just last week I had a lot of hits from the United Arab Emirates. Go figure.

But for all of those views on this blog I've had only a handful of comments. Is this blog idea just pure silliness? Should I just shut it down and leave cyberspace to someone more worthy?

Meyer lemon olive oil cake

2011-02-21T19:05:00.009-05:00

There must be something wrong with me. I think I have a metabolic imbalance that's making me bake these THINGS. This one smells so good . . . I was afraid to eat it because surely I gained five pounds just smelling it. I tasted it anyway. It tastes even better than it smells. I was inspired by two things: (1) I read a recipe for an olive oil poundcake that intrigued me, and (2) I had heard of Meyer lemons, never tried them, and there was a beautiful bag of them at Whole Foods. So, voila, Meyer lemon cake, inspired by a blood orange cake.

Meyer Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Adapted from cookbook In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite, by Melissa Clark, p. 356. (Hers is Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake.)

3 Meyer lemons
1 cup sugar

½ cup buttermilk

3 eggs

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

Confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with butter.

Grate zest from 2 lemons and place in a bowl with sugar. Using your fingers, rub ingredients together until lemon zest is evenly distributed in sugar.

Cut rind completely off two lemons. (Only pulpy interior of lemon will remain.) Cut lemon segments out of their connective membranes, remove seeds, put them in a bowl, break up into ¼ inch pieces, and set aside.

Halve remaining lemon and squeeze juice into a bowl and add buttermilk. Pour mixture into bowl with sugar and whisk well. Whisk in eggs and olive oil.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gently stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Fold in pieces of lemon segments. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake cake for 45 minutes, or until it is golden and a tester inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and cool to room temperature right side up. When cake is cool, sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.

Italian tomato bread soup

2011-02-20T20:51:00.006-05:00

Mahala and Sarah from my church community group came over yesterday and we cooked. This is our adaptation of a recipe by Ina Garten in her Back to Basics cookbook. It's so good I'm feeling like I need to beg forgiveness for loving it so much. Don't skip the topping! The topping in itself is a work of art.

Italian Tomato Bread Soup

For the soup:
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups chopped sweet onion
1 cup medium-diced carrots
1 fennel bulb, trimmed, cored, and medium-diced (1½ cups)
4 teaspoons minced garlic (4 cloves)
3 cups diced ciabatta bread, cubed to 1-inch pieces
2 (28-ounce) cans good Italian plum tomatoes (I used Cento brand)
4 cups chicken stock
½ cup dry red wine
1 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1½ teaspoons ground black pepper
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

For the topping:
3 cups diced ciabatta bread, cubed to 1-inch pieces
4 slices (½ inch thick) pancetta (about 5 ounces), chopped coarsely
24 to 30 whole fresh basil leaves
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

For soup:
Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, fennel, and garlic and cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, until tender. Add the bread cubes and cook for 5 more minutes. Add the tomatoes chicken stock, red wine, basil, and pepper to the pot. With immersion blender, pulse the mixture several times just to break up the tomatoes. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook partially covered for 45 minutes. Stir in Parmesan cheese.

For the topping:
Preheat oven 375 degrees F. While soup is simmering, place bread cubes, pancetta, and basil on a sheet pan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss well. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 to 25 minutes, until all the ingredients are crisp.

Put soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with topping.

Makes six generous servings.

George

2011-02-18T20:10:00.003-05:00

I almost drove into my old neighborhood yesterday, to the street where I used to live. But I chickened out. Sometimes when I take one of my longer walking routes I walk through the edges of the neighborhood, but never, ever walk down my old street. I just can't handle the emotion. If I tell you why, maybe you will understand. This is a story I wrote and submitted to The New York Times for their Modern Love feature. The story got rejected. But, ha!--I've got my own blog and I can post the story and even that big powerful newspaper in New York can't stop me.

George and the Queen of the Neighborhood

I had lived in the neighborhood only a few weeks when I first began to notice him. My house was on a short street of just five houses and George lived at the far end. For exercise he would walk slowly to the end of the street, then back again, leaning heavily on a cane. One day while I was walking the dog I stopped to talk to him. He was short and stocky with tawny skin, wisps of thinning hair slicked down on his head. His speech was slurred and difficult to understand because he had a thick eastern European accent and, I soon learned, also had been affected by a stroke.

Over weeks, in the course of many conversations, he filled in the details of his life. When I met him, George was in his 70s, widowed, and a retired physics professor from Johns Hopkins University. He was born and raised in Hungary where his father had been a renowned psychoanalyst, a contemporary and a rival of Sigmund Freud. George still lived in the house where he and his wife had lived for many years, the house where they raised their daughters. The daughters had moved to distant cities and he still missed his wife. “My life is so lonely without her,” he once told me, his eyes filling with tears. She had cancer and died just a few years before, prior to his stroke.

Because he walked so slowly, if I saw him from my kitchen window, I knew how to time his walk so I could catch him on his way back. Often I would take out the dog or go to the mailbox, just to have a chance to talk to him. This pattern continued for a couple of years. We talked about the weather, the neighbors, our families, or his health. When the weather was bad or when he traveled, I sometimes went weeks without seeing him.

Two years after moving to the house, my husband left me. When I told George, he was shocked and said, “I can’t believe it. But why?”

“Another woman,” I replied.

“But how could he? How could he leave you? You’re the queen of the neighborhood.”

Salve for a broken heart. To know that this charming man thought I was worth having somehow helped to lessen the grief, the intense pain of the loss and betrayal.

When the divorce was final, my house had to be sold. George kept telling me how the neighborhood wasn’t going to be the same without me. The day before the movers were to arrive, George left a message on my answering machine, saying he needed to talk to me before I left. From the sound of his voice, I thought something was wrong, so I quickly called him back. He said, “I want to see you. Can you come to my house this evening at 7 o’clock?”

We sat in his living room among the photos of his family. We chatted about my new place and how hard it was for me to leave the house I loved. All the while I was worried, wondering if there was something wrong with his health. Why did he need to talk to me? What was the urgency? I braced myself for bad news, but he said nothing. When it was time for me to go, he walked me to the door and hugged me. “I love you,” he said in that distinctive George voice that sounded like Henry Kissinger on sedatives.

"You’re so sweet, George,” I said, “I love you too.”

“No,” he said, “I mean it. I really love you.” I was already at the brink of intense emotion because of the move, but now this sweet old man was telling me he loved me. That was the urgent message he had for me, the thing he had to tell me before I moved away.

I searched for something to say to him, but couldn’t find the words. Now, several years later, I realize how much courage it took for him to say it and I wonder what he was thinking. If only the right words had come to me at the time. If only I had found the perfect thing to say to him. I would have told him that he was such a dear man, sadly the wrong one at the wrong time, that he warmed my broken heart, that he made me feel worthy of being loved, and that I would treasure this moment.

But I just said, “Thank you, George. I’ll miss you.”

The next day I, the queen of the neighborhood, moved away. I never saw him again. I heard that he died and now his simple little house has been torn down and replaced with a huge heartless mansion. Rest in peace, George. I love you too.

Underpants

2011-02-18T01:05:00.002-05:00

Tonight I was talking to a friend who said he had worked alone all day in his office because his co-workers were away at a conference. I advised him to double check to make sure he hadn't left anything embarrassing in the reception area. Anything like perhaps underpants. His response? Silence. Where do these crazy thoughts come from? I'm sure he thinks the inside of my head is a dangerous neighborhood. It is dangerous, but I have justification this time.

You see, I’ve had issues with underpants before and I would be reassured to know that someone else could be as stupid as I was. Like that time in my office. I worked as a grant writer for a small non-profit organization. Everyone in the office was out of town for a conference and only I stayed behind at the office to hold down the fort. Because I was the only one there and I was in charge, I declared that there was no dress code for the days I was alone in the office. It's good to be queen.

But apparently I didn't handle power all that well. The night before I had been out late playing music. So I got up in the morning, threw on the same jeans that I had worn the night before, brushed my teeth, and headed out to the office. I unlocked the office door, turned on the lights in the reception area, went back to the kitchen to make coffee, then settled into my office in the back of the suite. After working for a couple of hours, I went up front to check on the mail and I saw something strange on the floor just inside the front door. On closer examination, I realized it was a pair of underpants. They looked familiar. They were mine.

Apparently they had been stuck inside my jeans and worked their way out my pants leg without my noticing. I shudder to think how humiliating it would have been if someone else had found my old lady underpants in full view on the office floor. I was humiliated enough just knowing about the incident myself. I called a staff meeting with myself and decided I needed to be put on probation.

Pasta carbonara

2011-02-12T20:38:00.006-05:00

A little over a year ago I took a class with famed chef Roberto Donna. The class focused on Italian pasta sauces and we made our own pasta as well. Someone recently asked me, of all the sauces we made, which one was the most memorable. To me, it was the carbonara. I've made carbonara sauce before but I fell in love with it in the class. It's simple, comforting, satisfying--everything pasta should be. Here's my basic version of carbonara. You can add a little garlic or onion if you like. You can make it into a primavera by adding some veggies. But it really needs nothing else.

Pasta Carbonara

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 ounces pancetta, cubed
3 to 4 eggs (depending on size of eggs)
¼ cup half-and-half
¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 pound dry pasta (I like angel hair pasta but fettuccine and others also work well)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook just until it is at the al dente stage. (For angel hair pasta this takes less than 5 minutes, but fettuccine takes closer to 10 minutes.)

While water is heating, start to prepare the sauce. Heat olive oil in deep skillet over medium heat. Add pancetta and cook just until crisp (about 5 minutes).

Drain pasta and add to the pan with pancetta and toss gently for about 1 minute to mix. Beat the eggs, cream, and Parmesan in a mixing bowl. Remove the pan from the heat and pour in the egg, cream, Parmesan mixture into the pasta, blending quickly and gently. Do not let egg mixture harden (it shouldn’t be the consistency of scrambled eggs). Return pan to burner and gently cook for about a half minute, just until the sauce is no longer runny. If necessary, thin the mixture with additional cream. Season the carbonara with freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve topped with parsley and additional grated Parmesan.

Almond cake and pagan babies

2011-02-11T15:52:00.007-05:00

Someone asked me for a recommendation for a good Valentine's Day (VD--do you think the acronym is a coincidence?) dessert that's not chocolate. How about the almond cake recipe that my sister and I love to serve at Christmas? I've never made it for VD but it seems perfect, especially since it looks like a valentine--sprinkled with confectioner's sugar and garnished with red raspberries.

Last year Texas Monthly published a story of mine that included the almond cake recipe. The full article is a piece about my Catholic elementary school and how we used to buy pagan babies. At the time it seemed so innocent but now it sounds illegal. You can find the story at http://www.texasmonthly.com/2009-12-01/webextra.php.

Almond Cake With Raspberry Sauce

Cake:
¾ cup sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounces almond paste
3 eggs
1 tablespoon kirsch or Triple Sec
¼ teaspoon almond extract
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
Powdered sugar

Raspberry Sauce:
1 pt. (2 cups) fresh raspberries (with 2 tablespoons sugar) or 1 12 ounce package frozen raspberries, thawed

For cake: Preheat oven to 350º. Generously butter and flour 8-inch round cake pan (springform works best). Combine sugar, butter, almond paste in mixing bowl and blend well. Beat in eggs, liqueur, almond extract. Add flour and baking powder, beating just until mixed through—do not overbeat. Bake until tester comes out clean, about 40 – 50 minutes. Let cool. Invert onto serving platter and dust lightly with powdered sugar.

For sauce: Combine raspberries with sugar in processor and puree. Gently press through fine sieve to remove seeds. Serve sauce as accompaniment to cake.

Beaucu & Jez

2011-02-09T18:22:00.005-05:00

Today a freewriting exercise. It's just what happens. Based on a prompt, write without knowing what you're going to write, don't go back and edit. Just let 'er rip.

Paul Harding, Tinkers, p. 172. “He loved the job, the smell of the fresh coarse brown paper, the bundles of bags, sharp blocks of pulp, peeling bags off the piles, snapping them open.”

Beaucu Stein didn’t intend to kill the woman. He was sitting in his underwear on the recliner in his 3rd floor walk-up apartment, chain smoking, drinking cold black coffee, and watching the evening news. He was getting aggravated with the hippies protesting the war. He started shouting at the TV, pounding his fists on the coffee table, and kicking the wall. In his anger and frustration, he picked up the television, pulling out the electric cord and the antenna connection in one giant power snatch, and tossed it out the window. He didn’t know old Mrs. Kellaher and didn’t see her on the sidewalk below. Mrs. Kellaher didn’t see the television flying out the window above her. She was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. Beaucu was sentenced to 90 days in the county jail and he lost his job. For 20 years he’d had a perfect work record with Bergmann’s Laundry. He drove a truck, picking up and delivering oriental rugs to be cleaned. Bergmann’s loved him because he could handle the big, heavy rugs by himself without a partner, thus saving Bergmann’s the expense of having two men on the truck. But even though his employer loved him, they couldn’t keep him with the manslaughter conviction. It was a good thing Beaucu was strong and it was a good thing he preferred to work alone; no one wanted to work with him and hear his social and political rants. Beaucu fancied himself to be in a political party of which he was the only member—some variation of ultra-conservative neo-Fascism. An unsuspecting person unfortunate enough to get into a political conversation with him might hear Beaucu mutter words of praise for the Nazi party. This in itself was a mystery, for everyone in town knew that Beaucu’s parents were Jews who emigrated from the old country. Beaucu Stein was a mountain of a man, a bear who towered over all the lowlife people he despised. He hid behind mounds of bushy black hair and a black beard down to his chest. His forearms were the size of tree trunks. No one knew where the name Beaucu came from and no one dared ask. After he got out of jail, Beaucu’s parole officer got him a job bagging groceries at a local organic food market. Beaucu hated the job and rarely spoke to anyone; he just went to work, walked home to his apartment, and listened to the radio. Until the day Jezebel McClosky-Jones began working as a cashier at the market. Jez was the antithesis of Beaucu--she was a tiny as Beaucu was huge; she had a pierced eyebrow and tattoos and a spiked short white hair; she was ultra liberal. She was a vegan pacifist who believed in radical environmentalism. But Jez appreciated Beaucu’s work ethic and she began to request that only he bag groceries in her check-out line. She smiled at him when he was grumpy, she teased him, and brought him cookies during his work breaks. She recited poetry to him and sang silly songs while she worked. All of the customers loved Jez’s cheery spirit. Beaucu didn’t understand why he liked going to work now. Suddenly things had changed. He loved the job, the smell of the fresh coarse brown paper, the bundles of bags, sharp blocks of pulp, peeling bags off the piles, snapping them open.

Promise kept

2011-02-07T22:29:00.004-05:00

I promised, I promised. Last week I mentioned that I was trying a simple one-bowl chocolate cake recipe that Smitten Kitchen posted several months ago. Another winner! Smitten did it again--a nice, moist, uncomplicated cake that's just perfect in its chocolate simplicity. It was devoured before I got a chance to photograph it so I'm using Smitten's photo and giving her every bit of credit. Go to her site!

Here's the version I made, with slight adaptations.

Simple Chocolate Cake

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen at http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/08/everyday-chocolate-cake/ who got it from Magnolia Bakery At Home.

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup cocoa powder (I used Scharffen-Berger cocoa)

½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
Confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Butter and lightly flour a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a butter-flour spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together right into your wet ingredients. Stir together with a spoon until well-blended but do not overmix. Scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 to 15 minutes, at which point you can cool it the rest of the way out of the pan. When cool, dust with confectioner’s sugar.

The famous Blain girls

2011-02-01T18:01:00.005-05:00

That's my great-aunt Hazel in the photo. Yesterday I was talking with my mother about her mother and her mother's sisters who grew up in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in the early 1900s. My great-grandmother, Marielice Langlois Blain, must have had her hands full with those girls: Eva, Irene, Rose (my grandmother), Lena, Hazel, Flo, Estelle, and Jeanette. My mother said they were lively dark-haired beauties who loved to go to local dances. Aunt Lena was missing a front tooth and when she went to dances she would stick a dried lima bean in the gap in her mouth to fill the empty space. Sounds quite glamorous, doesn’t it?

Aunt Hazel lived into her nineties. A number of years ago, not long before she died, she was talking with me on the phone from her nursing home in Florida. I told her that I worked with a man who was born and raised in Holyoke. Aunt Hazel said, “You’ve got to ask him about the Blain girls. If he’s from Holyoke, he’ll remember us. The Blain girls were famous in Holyoke.”

I hate to think about what kind of fame the Blain girls had that their reputation survived for nearly 100 years. Quite a legacy we have to uphold, we who descended from the famous Blain girls.

(Thanks to cousin Anita for the photo of Aunt Hazel and all the other old family photos!)

Apricot ginger scones

2011-01-31T22:26:00.011-05:00

Combined a couple of my favorite things (apricots and ginger) with butter and sugar and came up with a new scone combination. They're nice! But in an effort to get the recipe just right I probably need to test it a couple more times to fine tune the proportions. I also have a simple chocolate cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I need to test. It's a noble effort, eh?

Apricot Ginger Scones

2 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar
¼ tsp lemon peel
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
½ cup diced crystallized ginger
2/3 cup diced dried apricots
½ cup buttermilk (may need more)
1 large egg

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and lemon peel in large bowl. Stir in ginger and apricots. Cut in butter with pastry knife. In small bowl, mix buttermilk and egg. Pour into flour mixture then stir just until mixed. Do not overmix. (If necessary, add just enough buttermilk to moisten mixture—it should hold together but not be sticky.)

Flour hands and turn dough onto ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Pat dough gently into circle 1 ½ - 2” high and score into 8 scones with floured knife and separate about 1 inch apart. Brush tops with buttermilk then sprinkle top with additional sugar.

Bake in preheated oven at 375º for 18 – 20 minutes until top is light brown.

Convicted

2011-01-30T19:52:00.002-05:00

Did you ever notice that occasionally one single word keeps assaulting you? Perhaps it’s a word that normally would glide by in a passage you are reading or in ordinary conversation. But at another time in your life that single word stings and you wonder why it never affected you that way in the past. It’s probably not a coincidence that a specific word captures your attention.

I’ve been “reading” (listening to a recorded version) the novel Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese—a compelling story, beautifully written. Listening to the book yesterday I heard a passage about a doctor who was dying without regrets, but who understood that a man may die knowing that his biggest regret is leaving bitterness in the heart of someone who loved him. The doctor said, “I’ve been blessed. My genius was to know long ago that money alone won’t make me happy . . . But one thing I won’t have is regrets. My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they’ll leave in people’s hearts.”

And earlier there was the fortune cookie with the quote from Confucius—“It is better to live in peace than in bitterness and strife.”

Today in worship service, Pastor Mark was preaching on Ephesians 4 and the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christians. Ephesians 4:31 says, “Get rid of all bitterness.”

Bitterness is the word that has been assaulting me the past few days. I thought about the person I loved who died leaving bitterness in my heart. Over the years I have tried releasing this bitterness, tried through sheer strength of will to expel it. Obviously my will is not sufficient for I have not been totally successful doing it on my own. The passage of time and self-help books and medication and sayings in fortune cookies have not erased my bitterness. God must have wanted me to pay attention because he keeps putting the word in my path. I stand convicted.

Kayak

2011-01-28T19:15:00.011-05:00

The risk of stir craziness was high today. I’ve been holed up at home for a couple of days because of a snow storm and for part of that time there was no power. So today I needed to get out and breathe.

Last year I bought myself an incredible bargain—a lifetime pass to all the National Parks in the United States. Because I’m officially a senior citizen, it cost me only $10. Frequently I go to Great Falls National Park just to flash my LIFETIME PASS and to walk and absorb the seasonal changes. (Can you tell how much I love that lifetime pass?) Today it was snowing lightly, peaceful and quiet in the chilly fog, and the moody day gave me a great opportunity to take some photos. The photos appear to be black and white because of the snow, the grey Potomac River, the barren trees, and the rocks. I had the entire park almost to myself.

Almost to myself. There was a guy in an orange kayak running the rapids. He paddled around in the eddies, struggled upstream, and disappeared. He soon reappeared carrying his kayak to the top of a huge craggy island and back down the other side. Then he reappeared in the river, paddling down a section of the rapids, then back up to repeat his climb over the island back to the river. He must have been some kind of crazy.

For some reason I kept worrying that I was going to lose my keys today as I scrambled along the rocks and snow to get a view of the falls. Is that ridiculous? I’m worried about losing my keys while the guy in the orange kayak is in freezing water, climbing snow-covered rocks with his kayak on his back? I was in such danger—what if I had lost my keys? Who's the crazy one?

Mulligatawny

2011-01-27T17:42:00.005-05:00

It sleeted and snowed overnight and then some. No power here for hours, but it's back now. So naturally I'm thinking about warm food. I decided just to stay home today and see if I could create something new with what I had available in the pantry. Mulligatawny soup seemed appropriate. Researching recipes, I realized that there are no absolutes when it comes to mulligatawny soup. Sometimes it has chicken, sometimes pork, sometimes it's vegetarian. And the extras range from zucchini to garbanzo beans to cashews. This is just what I had available and it turned out well. Smells great too. Sometimes being snowed in is not all that bad. (Yes, I really had ghee in the pantry, but you can substitute clarified butter.)

Mulligatawny Soup

4 tablespoons ghee
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 large onion, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger
1 coarsely chopped apple (baking apple like Winesap)
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 cup dried red lentils
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup tightly packed fresh baby spinach
¼ cup dried cherries (or raisins)
1 (14-ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
Cooked basmati rice (optional)
Chutney (optional)

Directions

Sprinkle garam masala on chicken breasts. In large sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of ghee and cook chicken over medium high heat, turning often. Set aside to cool.

Place large Dutch oven over medium heat and add the remaining ghee. Sauté onion and pepper until translucent. Add garlic and ginger and cook for about 2 minutes then add apple, sweet potato, and lentils. Add chicken stock and simmer until lentils are done and sweet potato is soft, about 20-30 minutes. Shred cooked chicken and add to vegetables in Dutch oven. Add spinach, dried cherries, and coconut milk and heat through over low heat, about 5-10 minutes.

Serve over rice, if desired, garnished with a dollop of chutney.

Farm Market in Winter

2011-01-22T12:35:00.015-05:00

I love the Falls Church Farm Market at any time of year. Going there on Saturday mornings is ritual for me, a highlight of my week. In summer there are peaches and corn and heirloom tomatoes, fresh-cut flowers and pea shoots. And in the warm weather there are musicians playing and busking at the market. (On the 4th of July weekend last summer I was playing and busking at the market—my fellow musician and I made nearly $80! It’s much too cold to be playing outside now.) But there’s something special about the hardy souls who sell their goods all year ‘round.

The Falls Church Farm Market is held every Saturday in the parking lot of City Hall. In the winter the number of vendors is less than half of what would be there in the warmer months. But even in winter there are cabbages and mushrooms and apples and a variety of meats and prepared foods.

It was really, really cold this morning, still in the teens by the time I headed home from the market. The vendors were wrapped in layers of clothing but they had to count money with bare hands. My hands lost feeling in the few minutes I was there. I could only imagine what the vendors must feel like by the end of the day. But they were all so happy on this gloomy, frigid day, smiling and making jokes about the cold, saying they come back no matter what the weather because they love seeing their regular customers. The vendors drive hours from Pennsylvania, the northern part of Maryland, and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Dan from Atwater Bakery in Baltimore loads his truck at 4 o’clock in the morning to get to the market.

Today I bought baking apples, perhaps to make a tart, from Black Rock Orchard in Lineboro, Maryland. I bought a fabulous tangy jalapeno cheddar bread from Atwater Bakery and a winter-busting pumpkin soup from the Dragonfly Farms in Mt. Airy, Maryland. And I carefully chose just two truffles—cinnamon dark chocolate and toasted almond dark chocolate—from a homemade chocolate vendor. There were so many things I wanted that I didn’t get this week—lavender soap, and croissants, pickles, homemade ravioli, coffee, and cheese.

There will be another week, and another week after that, no matter what the temperature outside.

More food therapy

2011-01-21T20:08:00.005-05:00

It's cold outside and I needed something warm and comforting but I didn't feel like cooking. That's why God created freezers. Opened the freezer and--like a miracle--there were a couple of containers of this soup that I made and froze weeks ago. Thank God for creating the microwave also--instant dinner, no fuss, no mess.

I love this soup. I got the recipe from my daughter Jenny (the mother of my precious twin granddaughters). Jenny takes care of those girls and works and cooks and seems to do everything so well. Isn't it great when we get recipes from our children? Apparently she adapted it from a Rachael Ray recipe. Now I have it and you have it. It's relatively easy, healthy, kid-friendly, and the best antidote to a cold day in January. I added sauteed mushrooms to the latest batch. Nice!

Double Dumpling Chicken Soup

2 TBS extra virgin olive oil

4 celery ribs - chopped

2 med. onions - chopped

2 medium carrots - chopped

1/2 to 1 cup shredded carrots

1 bay leaf

6 cups chicken stock

1 pound ground chicken (I used ground white-meat turkey)

2 cloves minced garlic

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 egg

1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1 package gnocchi (I used whole wheat gnocchi from Trader Joe's)

1 cup frozen peas

Heat the olive oid in a soup pot over medium to medium-high heat. Add the veggies and cook for 5 minutes. Add the stock, cover, and bring to a gentle boil. While the stock heats, place the chicken in a bowl and add the garlic, nutmeg, egg, bread crumbs, and cheese. Combine the mixture and roll into walnut-size meatballs and add to the soup. Cook for 2-4 minutes, then add the gnocchi to the pot and cook for 5 minutes longer, or until they float. Add the peas and cook for 2 minutes longer. Turn the heat off and allow it to stand for 5 minutes to cool and thicken.

Food therapy

2011-01-17T14:08:00.004-05:00

My dear friend Mike has cancer and he just started chemotherapy. I told him I'd cook him anything he would like. (Within reason--I don't think he'd be in the mood for elk parmesan or sushi.) So, the requests--meatloaf, green beans, baked potato, and oatmeal raisin cookies. That I can do. I think he's feeling better--at least he liked the food.

Since Mike gave me two Barefoot Contessa cookbooks (bless his heart!) I made her raisin pecan oatmeal cookies to show my gratitude. The cookies were a hit--so was the meatloaf. And I actually think my photo of the cookies is even better than the Food Network's photo. You can find the recipe in Ina Garten's book, Barefoort Contessa Back to Basics or online at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/raisin-pecan-oatmeal-cookies-recipe/index.html.

The man in the moon

2011-01-16T23:09:00.002-05:00

On Sundays I go to worship service in a space that has beautiful floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows. For the past few weeks, while we’re singing songs of praise to God and while Pastor Mark is preaching, I’ve watched a man outside the stained glass window. His face is not visible, just his outline as he sits in the cold, huddled against the building. For a long time this morning he sat motionless. Through a golden yellow crescent-shaped section of the stained glass, I could see the shape of his downcast head. The golden crescent looked like a quarter moon. A quarter moon with a man in its center. Eventually he got up, brushed the dirt off his clothes, folded his blankets, put on his backpack and walked away. His routine has been the same every week. He must be able to hear us singing. I wonder if he can hear the pastor’s voice. He must have a sad story to tell, our man in the moon.

And once again I thought about my childhood friend Sarrie. I wrote about Sarrie a couple of summers ago after I spoke with a homeless woman in Georgetown. Here’s the piece I wrote.

Life on the Street

There’s been a code-red air alert here for the past few days—all that heat and trapped ozone makes breathing difficult, even for healthy people. The media have been relaying requests that people take the public transportation to cut down on car exhaust. I was driving on the beltway, trying to recall the last time I rode a city bus. And I began feeling guilty for driving my car and got to thinking about whether I’m just a snob, too elitist to take the bus.

Karen, whom I met yesterday, probably would be happy to have the money to take a bus. She’d probably feel fortunate even to have a reason, any destination that would put her on a bus.

She didn’t look bad from a distance. She was sitting on a bench outside the C&O Canal headquarters in Georgetown, smoking cigarettes and having an animated, angry conversation with the sky. It’s hard to tell, but she’s probably in her late 30s, slim with short brown hair. She was wearing heavy black biker boots, jeans, and a heavy shrunken sweater, despite the intense heat. The jeans were too big, rolled at the waist, but still sagging so much below her hips that the skin below her naval was completely exposed, and if one were to look closely, I’m sure her pubic hair was visible. I didn’t look that closely. She didn’t make much of an effort to pull up the pants.

I was with a group of people playing music and having a picnic lunch. No one in our group of musicians took offense when Karen came to eat the food we had on the table. We actually offered her more food, encouraged her. I sat and talked with her while she ate. Her body odor was foul and her hands were filthy. She told me her father was a Rockefeller and that her mother had been raped. She repeated these “facts” several times. Someone had stolen her clothes and she was trying to get to the consulate to get a passport so she could get back home. I asked her if she was an American and she said, no, she was from the Middle East. I doubt that was true because she seemed like she could have grown up next door to me in white-bread America. She mumbled something about 9-ll and the drug wars. I told her that I would try to come back soon with some clothes for her. I gave her twenty dollars and she quickly stuffed the cash in her pocket and left. And I thought about Sarrie.

Sarrie was my childhood friend. She was brilliant, beautiful, with a gift for drawing. She seemed to have it all. She was the only daughter of a Jewish couple who miraculously survived the Nazis and emigrated from Poland after World War II. Her father had been an engineer before the war and, in this country, found worked as a television repairman. She was their future. But in young adulthood her life got derailed by schizophrenia and she disappeared. I saw Sarrie in Karen’s face.

There are many people, men and women like Karen, living on the streets. I don’t want to sound like Pollyanna, but I wonder what Jesus would do. No kidding—shouldn’t we all strive simply to be kind and compassionate? It doesn’t burden me to talk to Karen, to humanize her, pray for her, maybe give her something to make her life easier. She enriched me. Sadly, she enriched me because I put Sarrie in her place and I felt that in a small way I was reconnecting with Sarrie.

And I thought that there, but by the grace of God, go I. I don’t want to be arrogant, throwing her loose change like a pampered suburbanite. But what else can I do? How can I approach it other than based on who I am and by doing it from my heart? She did touch me. She is not just another faceless person who is mentally ill—seriously mentally ill—and living on the street. It’s so dangerous for someone like Karen. She could disappear, die tomorrow and maybe no one will ever know. I’m sure she has family members somewhere who are heartbroken over what has happened to her. And in her confusion she probably has chosen to live on the street because there is not adequate help for her. It’s a mess. I ask God how he can allow such things to happen. He doesn’t answer.