Yesterday was the last of our scheduled lunch meetings for the week--and it had the best food. It was a brunch, really, and one with far fewer people gathered than at our larger meetings that had been catered earlier in the week.
Perhaps the size of the group, perhaps the brunch-rather-than-lunch menu, or perhaps the joy of it being the last of the marathon meetings contributed to it feeling like an easier and even happier gatherings than the others. Or perhaps it was that this one was the only potluck of the week.
As you might have guessed, I have strong convictions about potlucks. Called covered-dish dinners in some places and, for a time, "community-luck" in this place of ours, potlucks demonstrate the true marriage of hospitality and practicality. Of graciousness and interdependency. Of need and of excess.
Whatever I bring to a potluck is not enough. But it's also, always more than necessary. Potlucks in that way can serve as strange sorts of life in the kingdom of God. None of us brings enough on our own, but together there is plenty--more than twelve baskets full left over (as anyone who has ever cleaned up after a potluck realizes right away).
Yesterday my contribution was what others (in the coastal areas of the country, I have noticed) call "strata" but what is known in these flat parts simply as "egg bake." I have a few guidelines for potluck cooking, which I'm sure I'll come to at some point. This dish fell into my "uncertain vegetarian" potluck category, and thus:
Egg Bake for a Brunch Potluck
4-5 C. soft breadcrumbs (always a good idea to use good bread; this was one small loaf of grocery store bakery french bread)
8 eggs, whipped to light color with
1 1/2-2 C. milk (largely depending on how much bread you use)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. Penzey's Forward Seasoning (or pepper, if not)
1 C. fresh spinach, lightly sauteed
1/2 C. mushrooms, lightly sauteed
1/2 C. shredded parmesan cheese
4-8 oz. shredded or cubed mozzerella cheese
Mix together breadcrumbs, cheeses, and vegetables in a greased 5-quart cassorole, whip together eggs, milk, salt, and seasoning and pour over the bread and vegetables. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes until set and golden brown.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
MorMor
I don't think I have yet introduced MorMor on this blog.
MorMor--Swedish for "Mother's Mother"--is in many ways responsible for what I'm working on in this little blog project.
Not in terms of technology: once I spent three hours of an afternoon trying to help her figure out how to manipulate a computer mouse, but ultimately we both gave up and I packed up the computer Uncle Bob had sent down so she could return it to him.
Nor in terms of writing: I asked her once to write out some of her life's story and/or family history for me, and she returned about ten, handwritten, double-spaced 4x6" pages in a little notebook. (My paternal grandmother, on the other hand--whom I'll write about soon, as well--wrote at least five typed notebooks full of family and personal history.)
But MorMor is responsible for this blog insofar as her home was the first place I was conscious of place and physicality mattering so much to me.
I knew the places of my childhood home were important, but since I lived with them daily, I'm not sure they stood out in my early thinking as vividly as did MorMor's house. Though it has long been razed and buried underneath what MorMor would surely call a "monstrosity," I can still smell her backyard. I can walk through her house in my mind: coming in the back porch to the kitchen, creaking on the old, then new, then old porch swing on the front porch behind the giant rhododendren, eating with family in the dining room, and eating, just the two of us, at the kitchen table. (She introduced me to artichokes and fennel; she cooked salmon for me and steamed beets; she made raspberry pie from what we picked out of her backyard.)
I don't know that I have too many recipes that are decidedly MorMor's, since most of what she cooked wouldn't come under the category of "recipe," but her fruit cobbler recipe is a staple--and one that I'm happy to share with all and sundry. I haven't made one from the summer peaches yet, but I will before the week is out.
MorMor's Fruit Cobbler
1 C. flour
1 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 Tb. butter
3/4 C. water
Preheat oven to 375; peel and slice enough fruit to fill your baking dish (I use a 9x12 oval glass casserole). Pears are my favorite, though the cobbler works very well with peaches, apples, blueberries, rhubarb, and even mango in a pinch. I haven't tried it with strawberries, but it's quite versatile.
Mix dry ingredients together; cut in butter to coarse crumbs; spread dry mixture over the fruit. Pour water over all and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream or cold for breakfast (if there are leftovers; it's mostly fruit, right?).
Bring to family events, church potlucks, and boring meetings; pass the recipe around freely. It makes people happy.
MorMor--Swedish for "Mother's Mother"--is in many ways responsible for what I'm working on in this little blog project.
Not in terms of technology: once I spent three hours of an afternoon trying to help her figure out how to manipulate a computer mouse, but ultimately we both gave up and I packed up the computer Uncle Bob had sent down so she could return it to him.
Nor in terms of writing: I asked her once to write out some of her life's story and/or family history for me, and she returned about ten, handwritten, double-spaced 4x6" pages in a little notebook. (My paternal grandmother, on the other hand--whom I'll write about soon, as well--wrote at least five typed notebooks full of family and personal history.)
But MorMor is responsible for this blog insofar as her home was the first place I was conscious of place and physicality mattering so much to me.
I knew the places of my childhood home were important, but since I lived with them daily, I'm not sure they stood out in my early thinking as vividly as did MorMor's house. Though it has long been razed and buried underneath what MorMor would surely call a "monstrosity," I can still smell her backyard. I can walk through her house in my mind: coming in the back porch to the kitchen, creaking on the old, then new, then old porch swing on the front porch behind the giant rhododendren, eating with family in the dining room, and eating, just the two of us, at the kitchen table. (She introduced me to artichokes and fennel; she cooked salmon for me and steamed beets; she made raspberry pie from what we picked out of her backyard.)
I don't know that I have too many recipes that are decidedly MorMor's, since most of what she cooked wouldn't come under the category of "recipe," but her fruit cobbler recipe is a staple--and one that I'm happy to share with all and sundry. I haven't made one from the summer peaches yet, but I will before the week is out.
MorMor's Fruit Cobbler
1 C. flour
1 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 Tb. butter
3/4 C. water
Preheat oven to 375; peel and slice enough fruit to fill your baking dish (I use a 9x12 oval glass casserole). Pears are my favorite, though the cobbler works very well with peaches, apples, blueberries, rhubarb, and even mango in a pinch. I haven't tried it with strawberries, but it's quite versatile.
Mix dry ingredients together; cut in butter to coarse crumbs; spread dry mixture over the fruit. Pour water over all and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream or cold for breakfast (if there are leftovers; it's mostly fruit, right?).
Bring to family events, church potlucks, and boring meetings; pass the recipe around freely. It makes people happy.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Free Lunch
Today marks the beginning of the pre-semester ritual of various meetings made palatable only by the lunches to which they are attached (and some, not even that--let's be honest).
While the meetings themselves can be maddening--largely insofar as they provide ample time for me to be obsessing about all of the other things I NEED to be doing--they do provide a genuine transition back to the routines of campus life. There will be people around, regularly and not just haphazardly, this week; the hallways won't be quite as lonely even though the classroom floors are still dark.
And the lunches, paid for with our time and half-hearted, often snarky attention, will also allow us to catch up with one another, to find out what summer plans remain undone, and to try to place new faces amid the now-familiar.
We've had a lot of movement on campus this summer; I'm also hoping that lunch will provide me with time to find out where people's new offices are and perhaps an answer to the question of why they put the campus safety office and the coaches in the library.
Tedious at times? Yes. But simple gatherings with colleagues--usually over food--have provided some of the best moments of my life at this university. I work with skilled and smart people, people whose hearts share my heart's passion. Even when I don't understand them or when I sincerely disagree, I am energized by their commitments to students and to this particular incarnation of Christian community.
I'll try to remember that when I'm furiously making lists of things I could be doing besides sitting in yet another meeting. And I'll remember that the lunches are usually the best of the year.
While the meetings themselves can be maddening--largely insofar as they provide ample time for me to be obsessing about all of the other things I NEED to be doing--they do provide a genuine transition back to the routines of campus life. There will be people around, regularly and not just haphazardly, this week; the hallways won't be quite as lonely even though the classroom floors are still dark.
And the lunches, paid for with our time and half-hearted, often snarky attention, will also allow us to catch up with one another, to find out what summer plans remain undone, and to try to place new faces amid the now-familiar.
We've had a lot of movement on campus this summer; I'm also hoping that lunch will provide me with time to find out where people's new offices are and perhaps an answer to the question of why they put the campus safety office and the coaches in the library.
Tedious at times? Yes. But simple gatherings with colleagues--usually over food--have provided some of the best moments of my life at this university. I work with skilled and smart people, people whose hearts share my heart's passion. Even when I don't understand them or when I sincerely disagree, I am energized by their commitments to students and to this particular incarnation of Christian community.
I'll try to remember that when I'm furiously making lists of things I could be doing besides sitting in yet another meeting. And I'll remember that the lunches are usually the best of the year.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Taste and See
Thursday is our non-daycare day, so I generally spend that day centered around home rather than centered around the office. It's a wonderful chance for me to reorient myself midweek and to sneak a bit of housework in among the schoolwork that generally occupies my other days.
Since it's August, and since a colleague dropped off nearly fifteen pounds of tomatoes in my office on Tuesday, I devoted part of yesterday to preserving. Nothing too fancy--just drying tomatoes and peeling green chiles that Jonathan had roasted. Both tomatoes and chiles will be frozen to give us a taste of August all year long.
As I was peeling, Jonathan called from the other room to ask if I was singing. I hadn't really registered it, but yes, I was humming a tune I've been singing with Jo at bedtime off and on for the last few weeks:
(to the tune of Holy Manna--with the lyrics below)
All who hunger gather gladly;
holy manna is our bread.
Come from wilderness and wandering;
here in truth we will be fed.
Ye that yearn for days of fullness,
all around us is our food.
Taste and see the grace eternal;
taste and see that God is good.
Oven-dried Tomatoes
I didn't bother peeling the tomatoes (I'll let you know if I'm sorry about that later). Quarter washed plum tomatoes and place on parchment paper in a 200-degree oven. Mine took about 11-12 hours to dry to a pliable but not tacky state. I've packed them in freezer bags with as little air as possible (I don't yet own a vacuum sealer, but that may change). I managed to deal with almost all of the tomatoes in only a few days.)
---
In the pounds of produce that come in the door in these days (and even in the drying cornfields around us that are devastating our local economy), taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
Next up, the peaches.
Since it's August, and since a colleague dropped off nearly fifteen pounds of tomatoes in my office on Tuesday, I devoted part of yesterday to preserving. Nothing too fancy--just drying tomatoes and peeling green chiles that Jonathan had roasted. Both tomatoes and chiles will be frozen to give us a taste of August all year long.
As I was peeling, Jonathan called from the other room to ask if I was singing. I hadn't really registered it, but yes, I was humming a tune I've been singing with Jo at bedtime off and on for the last few weeks:
(to the tune of Holy Manna--with the lyrics below)
All who hunger gather gladly;
holy manna is our bread.
Come from wilderness and wandering;
here in truth we will be fed.
Ye that yearn for days of fullness,
all around us is our food.
Taste and see the grace eternal;
taste and see that God is good.
Oven-dried Tomatoes
I didn't bother peeling the tomatoes (I'll let you know if I'm sorry about that later). Quarter washed plum tomatoes and place on parchment paper in a 200-degree oven. Mine took about 11-12 hours to dry to a pliable but not tacky state. I've packed them in freezer bags with as little air as possible (I don't yet own a vacuum sealer, but that may change). I managed to deal with almost all of the tomatoes in only a few days.)
Freezing Green Chiles
We're lucky enough to have a grocery store that orders and stocks Hatch New Mexican Green Chile--a food that signifies God's blessing, as far as I'm concerned. To preserve (we usually do a whole case; this year, I'm contemplating more depending on when they may put it on sale again), roast the whole chiles on a grill or under the broiler until the skin blackens and/or bubbles up on all sides. Cool and sweat in a paper grocery bag with the top rolled down and then remove the stems, skin, and seeds (remembering that most of the chiles heat is in the seeds and membrane). Pack in vacuumed freezer bags in whatever portion is suitable for you. ---
In the pounds of produce that come in the door in these days (and even in the drying cornfields around us that are devastating our local economy), taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
Next up, the peaches.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Do I dare to eat a peach?
There's a lot wrapped up in Prufrock's question.
Uncertainty. Fear. Anxiety. Inferiority. Abstraction.
Nevertheless, the question flared up in my mind this evening as I sliced myself a peach from our hardware-store lug of peaches. (Why the hardware store sells the best peaches in town I don't know, but I do know that I've bought them every summer I've lived here and have yet to be disappointed.)
I'm uncertain enough these days. Fearful and anxious, too, in some ways. But I sliced my peach and am glad enough of it as a symbol of my rebellion against my own insecurity.
"Check it at the door," a friend said to me today, encouraging me to set aside my habit of stewing in self-doubt.
I'm eating my peach as I write, defying Prufock and his inhuman abstractions, and choosing instead the sweet and sticky reality of my own human self.
Do I dare?
Uncertainty. Fear. Anxiety. Inferiority. Abstraction.
Nevertheless, the question flared up in my mind this evening as I sliced myself a peach from our hardware-store lug of peaches. (Why the hardware store sells the best peaches in town I don't know, but I do know that I've bought them every summer I've lived here and have yet to be disappointed.)
I'm uncertain enough these days. Fearful and anxious, too, in some ways. But I sliced my peach and am glad enough of it as a symbol of my rebellion against my own insecurity.
"Check it at the door," a friend said to me today, encouraging me to set aside my habit of stewing in self-doubt.
I'm eating my peach as I write, defying Prufock and his inhuman abstractions, and choosing instead the sweet and sticky reality of my own human self.
Do I dare?
Monday, August 20, 2012
To Practice
It's nearly a new year for me.
January has never really worked as a starting point; I'm too much acclimated to an academic calendar. Late August/early September have always inspired me to set goals, outline plans, organize my life for the year to come.
So here we are, at the start of a (almost--I've still got two weeks, techincally) new year, and I've been reminded of the principle of practice.
Too often my goals, plans, and organization for the new year are lofty and easily abandoned. But as I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World and its reflections on spiritual practices and as the sermon yesterday morning cited Wendell Berry's "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front," which concludes with the instruction to "Practice resurrection," one of the goals I'm setting is to practice.
Practice what?
This morning, after I adjusted my thinking to include a trip to the gym (thank you, Dear Husband, for putting it in your schedule so I was challenged to put it in mine), I thought perhaps my own goal could be "Practice incarnation."
I've had a good weekend to use as a starting point for this. We gathered vegetables and apples (hooray! Apples!) at the farmer's market and bread at the bakery. I moved the dust off of the bookshelves, sorted out the toddler's toybaskets, and cooked. (Oh how happy I am to have a case of New Mexican green chile to roast, peel, and freeze for the year ahead.) I ate a lovely quiche at a new-to-me bakery I've been meaning to get to for nearly four years. I had dinner on some friends' deck and watched the toddlers jump up and down in their bouncy patio chairs, and I managed to be the (somewhat) stern mama and not laugh out loud. I drank wine and ate ice cream. And I sweated at the gym this morning, trying to quietly pay attention to the strength (and limitation) of my own body.
Even as I make this list, I also recall the moments I spend in my own head--waking up to worries about lists and too-short time and obligations that largely exist because I invented them. So I hope that this reminder will call me back to practice incarnation. To practice living in my own body, sustaining it with good food, exercise, laughter, hard work, and rest. To practice the work of the mind that can be energizing and challenging. And to set aside the abstracting ideas that call me away from who--and where--I am.
Even though this blog is a kind of abstraction, it's already helping me to practice. To think about incarnation (and, therefore, resurrection--which is its theological corollary, as far as I'm concerned) in a disciplined way. Not to perfect this, by any means. But to practice.
January has never really worked as a starting point; I'm too much acclimated to an academic calendar. Late August/early September have always inspired me to set goals, outline plans, organize my life for the year to come.
So here we are, at the start of a (almost--I've still got two weeks, techincally) new year, and I've been reminded of the principle of practice.
Too often my goals, plans, and organization for the new year are lofty and easily abandoned. But as I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World and its reflections on spiritual practices and as the sermon yesterday morning cited Wendell Berry's "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front," which concludes with the instruction to "Practice resurrection," one of the goals I'm setting is to practice.
Practice what?
This morning, after I adjusted my thinking to include a trip to the gym (thank you, Dear Husband, for putting it in your schedule so I was challenged to put it in mine), I thought perhaps my own goal could be "Practice incarnation."
I've had a good weekend to use as a starting point for this. We gathered vegetables and apples (hooray! Apples!) at the farmer's market and bread at the bakery. I moved the dust off of the bookshelves, sorted out the toddler's toybaskets, and cooked. (Oh how happy I am to have a case of New Mexican green chile to roast, peel, and freeze for the year ahead.) I ate a lovely quiche at a new-to-me bakery I've been meaning to get to for nearly four years. I had dinner on some friends' deck and watched the toddlers jump up and down in their bouncy patio chairs, and I managed to be the (somewhat) stern mama and not laugh out loud. I drank wine and ate ice cream. And I sweated at the gym this morning, trying to quietly pay attention to the strength (and limitation) of my own body.
Even as I make this list, I also recall the moments I spend in my own head--waking up to worries about lists and too-short time and obligations that largely exist because I invented them. So I hope that this reminder will call me back to practice incarnation. To practice living in my own body, sustaining it with good food, exercise, laughter, hard work, and rest. To practice the work of the mind that can be energizing and challenging. And to set aside the abstracting ideas that call me away from who--and where--I am.
Even though this blog is a kind of abstraction, it's already helping me to practice. To think about incarnation (and, therefore, resurrection--which is its theological corollary, as far as I'm concerned) in a disciplined way. Not to perfect this, by any means. But to practice.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Because Human Beings Are Not Ideas
<Another sigh.>
We're back from our trip--which was lovely, thank you.
But the journey home was delayed. And delayed. And then they had to change the airplane tire, thus delayed again.
And it was sometime after I had boarded the last airplane, settled the toddler next to me, and wanted to weep that I thought about the speed and convenience of our technology. And I wished for a moment that I could travel as quickly and smoothly as sounds or images can across fiber optics and wireless networks.
But I remembered--gladly, even as I wanted to weep--that I am human. And human beings are not ideas. Human beings are not bits of information that can be compressed and communicated through wires or webs. Human beings are bodies. Human beings occupy space--even when airlines compress the space to what seems to be smaller than imaginable, we humans still live and move in time and place.
Part of the frustration of being human is the inability to be in more than one place at a time, but this is also one of the great gifts of being human. I am here. I have been there. Someday, God willing, I will go to other places.
In the meantime, I hope to remember that here is a good place to be. It is human to be someplace--even a crowded airplane late at night next to a cranky toddler. I cannot be compressed. Despite how thinly I spread myself, I cannot be distributed across a network. My body ultimately needs food, water, rest, time, and space. I am not an idea. I am not an abstraction.
I am human, and that is good.
And all of the people encroaching on my space in a crowded airplane? They're human, too. We're all in this together.
It was good to go away.
It's good to be home.
We're back from our trip--which was lovely, thank you.
But the journey home was delayed. And delayed. And then they had to change the airplane tire, thus delayed again.
And it was sometime after I had boarded the last airplane, settled the toddler next to me, and wanted to weep that I thought about the speed and convenience of our technology. And I wished for a moment that I could travel as quickly and smoothly as sounds or images can across fiber optics and wireless networks.
But I remembered--gladly, even as I wanted to weep--that I am human. And human beings are not ideas. Human beings are not bits of information that can be compressed and communicated through wires or webs. Human beings are bodies. Human beings occupy space--even when airlines compress the space to what seems to be smaller than imaginable, we humans still live and move in time and place.
Part of the frustration of being human is the inability to be in more than one place at a time, but this is also one of the great gifts of being human. I am here. I have been there. Someday, God willing, I will go to other places.
In the meantime, I hope to remember that here is a good place to be. It is human to be someplace--even a crowded airplane late at night next to a cranky toddler. I cannot be compressed. Despite how thinly I spread myself, I cannot be distributed across a network. My body ultimately needs food, water, rest, time, and space. I am not an idea. I am not an abstraction.
I am human, and that is good.
And all of the people encroaching on my space in a crowded airplane? They're human, too. We're all in this together.
It was good to go away.
It's good to be home.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Summer School
<heaving a sigh of relief.>
Today's the last day.
With only a week between the spring final exam period and the beginning of summer school (and bear in mind that was moving week), I'm feeling exhausted. Actually, the exhausted feeling kind of dragged behind me from the spring semester and has simply settled into my office for most of the summer.
But today's the last day.
My summer Wednesday night class meets from 6:00-9:00, so I determined early on that food might help us to make our way through the heady and heavy discussions of literary criticism. I brought bars and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and strawberries and cupcakes from HyVee and, on the night we discussed Marxism and Jameson's formulation of Late Capitalism, HoneyMaid Angry Birds Honey Grahams. Thankfully, my students got it.
It's our last class meeting, and the presentation project my students have devised seems to lean on Top Chef, so I'm sure there will be some food involved. What will I contribute? I'm thinking about brownies, though the Hershey's "Especially Dark" Chocolate Cake is great.
Perhaps I'll swing through HyVee once more, since I need to pick up diapers for the trip tomorrow and I have a pile of grading to get through this afternoon (baking would be an indulgence I may not have time for).
But we will have something to celebrate: the end of summer, the beginning of summer, the accomplishment of a challenging course, and the rest we all need.
Time for a snack, and time for a break.
I'll be back on August 20.
Today's the last day.
With only a week between the spring final exam period and the beginning of summer school (and bear in mind that was moving week), I'm feeling exhausted. Actually, the exhausted feeling kind of dragged behind me from the spring semester and has simply settled into my office for most of the summer.
But today's the last day.
My summer Wednesday night class meets from 6:00-9:00, so I determined early on that food might help us to make our way through the heady and heavy discussions of literary criticism. I brought bars and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and strawberries and cupcakes from HyVee and, on the night we discussed Marxism and Jameson's formulation of Late Capitalism, HoneyMaid Angry Birds Honey Grahams. Thankfully, my students got it.
It's our last class meeting, and the presentation project my students have devised seems to lean on Top Chef, so I'm sure there will be some food involved. What will I contribute? I'm thinking about brownies, though the Hershey's "Especially Dark" Chocolate Cake is great.
Perhaps I'll swing through HyVee once more, since I need to pick up diapers for the trip tomorrow and I have a pile of grading to get through this afternoon (baking would be an indulgence I may not have time for).
But we will have something to celebrate: the end of summer, the beginning of summer, the accomplishment of a challenging course, and the rest we all need.
Time for a snack, and time for a break.
I'll be back on August 20.
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