Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Feast of the Incarnation

We took a bit of a break there to travel, to shop, to wrap, to bake, to party, to sing, and to shovel the snow (and to grade the last papers, but those aren't worth mentioning).

But now we're in the midst of both the secular and liturgical feast, eating and laughing and eating and playing and eating and sleeping and eating a little bit more.

Our days leading up to the Christmas feast proper are always filled and hectic, with lots of joy--but also lots of schedules.  What this means when we're visiting is that sometimes the meals before the holiday itself can become a bit haphazard.

As our preparation, we have settled on a few accidental traditions in order to accommodate both the preparation and the feast.  One of the annual parties my parents host calls for Taco Soup--origin indeterminate--that's a casual but always anticipated meal to share.  And our Christmas Eve celebration settled years ago on Eggs Benedict after the late service, so our supper beforehand is usually a simple soup that calls for cleaning out the fridge of the last leftovers before we open up the ham on the day itself.

Along the way, the snacks roll in the door (we're visiting fruit country, so we have wonderful pears and apples aplenty along with my seasonal favorites, Satsuma oranges), and we fill in the cracks with fruit and cheese, Dorothy Carr's lefse, krumkakke, and other cookies.

---

Perhaps none of these meals is remarkable in itself, but the point of the feast is the preparation, anticipation, and the extension.  A feast is not a momentary celebration but goes on for days (liturgically, the twelve days of Christmas have only just begun; Easter goes on for fifty!): feasting is about dwelling in celebration for a length of time, not simply a day.  It's fitting that this first major feast of the church year is, in fact, the Feast of the Incarnation.  We celebrate, first of all, the divine entrance into human life that transforms the whole understanding of what it means to be human.  So we eat.

And we sing and we laugh and we give and we play and we sleep and we eat.  And as we dwell with one another in the best of our humanness, we think of the Word become flesh, who dwelt among us.

Merry Christmas!  Have something to eat.

---

Taco Soup

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1 onion, diced and sauteed
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 can corn, rinsed and drained (or about 1 C. frozen corn kernels)
1 can diced or crushed tomatoes
1 can diced green chiles (or repace tomatoes and chiles with a jar of salsa)
1 package taco seasoning
Enough water or chicken broth to cover
Salt and pepper to taste

Simmer on the stove or crock pot as long as you need.  Serve with grated cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips.

---

Clean-Out-the-Fridge Christmas Eve Soup
(This year it was Chicken-Mushroom-Brown Rice)

6 C. cooking liquid (either all chicken broth or up to 2 cups of dry white wine with chicken broth)
1 C. leftover cooked chicken
3 C. sauteed mushrooms
1/2 onion, minced and sauteed
1 clove of garlic, minced and sauteed
1-2 tsp. poultry seasoning or Mural of Flavor
1 C. brown rice (pearl barley or wild rice or some combination would also be nice)
salt and pepper to taste

Simmer for 1-2 hours; finish with 4 oz. cream cheese, stirred in; serve with grated parmesan cheese.

(Last year it was Minestrone)

6 C. cooking liquid
1/2 onion, diced and sauteed
2 cloves garlic
2 carrots, chopped and sauteed
1 zucchini, diced and sauteed
1 can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 large can crushed tomatoes (or tomato sauce, in a pinch)
1 C. small pasta (elbow macaroni-sized)
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried rosemary (crushed)
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. hot sauce (to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Simmer all ingredients except pasta for 20 minutes; add pasta and cook until tender.  Serve with grated parmesan cheese.



Monday, December 17, 2012

Naming the Women

On Saturday, Dad called me trying to decipher Dorothy Carr's Lefse recipe.  While I was looking for something else, I ran across the recipe for Myrtle's Coffee Bread in my great-grandmother's handwriting.  Both of these brought to mind Ruth Brekke's Ginger Cookies.  Esther's Cardamom Toast.  Arlene's Pan Bread.  And other recipes in my repertoire that invoke a name--sometimes known, sometimes unknown.

Dad said he remembered Dorothy Carr, and even I remember Ruth Brekke, but I'm not sure any of us know who Myrtle was.

In the food that we eat, however, we invoke their names and their lives, the care they took for family and friends, and their  willingness to share with others who want to pass along the goodness.

Most recipes, despite their individual varities, are anonymous.  Most of the time, we don't pass along our name as the source of what we share in this way, and we don't recall whose dish inspired us this time we make it.

But when I am reminded as with these examples of the generations (primarily of women) who have cooked and shared and blessed  the people in their lives--and me--with their recipes and their names, I am also reminded of the many nameless whose lives have fed my own.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

On the Eve of Gaudete Sunday, 2012

On weeks such as this one, I wonder about this little writing project of mine.  Cookies?  Really?

But while cookies (or, rather, food in general) are the surface feature of what I'm working out here, the underpinnings are at the same time far more complex and far simpler.

Human beings suffer and die.  Innocent.  Guilty.  Beloved.  Forgotten.  Reviled. 

---

On Thursday, as a culminating class event, we hosted a round-table discussion of leaders in our community who are committed to combatting hunger in many and various ways.  We were confronted with staggering statistics--many about children--and an overwhelming sense of need.  Along with that also came an overwhelming fear, confusion, and grief about what to do in the face of such need.  And along with that came the excitement in sharing community, passion, and purpose with others who are joyfully doing God's work in feeding the hungry.

---

On Friday, we ended the class officially with a simple soup and bread lunch, wrestling with what we had heard the night before.  I overheard one student say, "This was the best meal I've had in months."  I'm sure it wasn't, but I think the fact that two teachers would make homemade soup and homemade cookies for college students just before finals week changed the ordinariness of the offering into something special.

---

Today I made peppermint bark and cardamom toast, preparing to send Christmas packages on Monday.  Trying to send a bit of ourselves to those beloved far away who are suffering and rejoicing in their own ways.

---

The Third Sunday of Advent is celebrated as Gaudete Sunday, when we are called in the midst of the solemn season to rejoice.  The joy we are called to is not the joy of the revelation of Christmas but is the anticipation.  This is the joy we are called to in the midst of the darkest time.  This is the joy of the very-nearly-but-not-yet.  This is the joy of the hope of both Christ's first coming and his second.

---

As complicated as my feelings are about being called together to rejoice in this moment, somehow the summons is fitting.  Joy doesn't wait around for us to find circumstances fitted to it.  Joy doesn't expect that the evils of the world will cease in order for it to be marked.  Joy cannot wait--even until the end of Advent--for us to make the world a safe place for all of God's children.  The joy is in our hope in God's redemption that comes precisely because of all that is wrong with the world.  The joy is in the promise of God With Us, precisely at the world's darkest moment.

---

As I write this, again I wonder how simple it all sounds and how impossible it all is.  Cookies?  They're not enough.  Never.  And I would be the last person to suggest that somehow I could take the restoration of the world into my own buttered hands.  But this project pulls me back to joy in the ways I might be able to recognize it in my own life and bring it, bite by bite, into others'.  That this joy takes tangible form is my witness to the incarnation, to God With Us.  Washing.  Eating.  Drinking.  Living with one another in hope only because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Rejoice.

---

Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup
(the students scraped the crock pot clean)

1 lb. Bulk Turkey Italian Sausage, browned
1/2 sweet onion, diced and sauteed
2 cloves of garlic, minced and sauteed
6 C. chicken broth (or Better than Bullion and water)
1 1/2-2 lbs. potatoes, diced (I used Baby Yukon Golds this week, but any potato will do)
4 large leaves of kale, stems removed and chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. fennel seed, crushed

Simmer all together until the potatoes are tender.  Add 4 oz. light cream cheese and stir until dissolved.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

St. Lucia

Last weekend, our congregation celebrated an annual tradition of the St. Lucia festival. 

I've known the story of St. Lucia since I was a small child (as most children of even nominally Swedish hertiage do), and it's a fascinating, mysterious, gruesome tale (as most saints' tales are).  It ends, however, with light.

St. Lucia's day is historically associated with the darkest day of the year (according the Gregorian calendar; it's currently observed on December 13).  And in Sweden, the tale is connected to a distinctly Scandinavian miracle:  at dawn on one December 13, in the darkness of a northern winter and in a time of famine, St. Lucia appeared, with a crown of candles on her head, on the shores of Lake Vanern, bringing coffee and rolls to the people.

My husband always laughs at the idea.  A saint whose primary miracle is coffee and rolls.

But, in the darkness, in the cold, in the hunger, the simplicity of the miracle is profound.  Coffee and rolls?  Yes.  Candles?  Yes.  Christmas Cookies?  Yes.  Lefse?  Yes.  Krumkakke?  Yes.

So we celebrate.  The children sing and dance in traditional costume; we gorge ourselves on cookies (the rule is to show up early or all the rosettes are gone); and in the end, a shaky young girl walks through with a crown of lighted candles on her head (fire extinguisher ready at the door).

In Scandinavian tradition, St. Lucia Day means the Christmas season has finally arrived, and we'd better get baking. 

It's dark now, but soon the light is coming, and we'll need something to eat.

---

I'll post about the other Christmas baking as we get closer to the feast itself.  At this point in the season, I'll make Esther's Cardamom Toast (biscotti) and Peppermint Bark, which both keep well and ship well.

(My Swedish Great-Aunt) Esther's Cardamom Toast

1/2 C. butter, creamed with
1 1/2 C. sugar, add
3 eggs and
2 3/4 C flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cardamom (fresh)

Spread on cookie sheet in rectangle, about 1/2" thick, and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done (cakelike consistency).  Cut into bars, 3"x1/2", separate, and bake in a 250 degree oven until dry and crisp (about 1 1/2-2 hours).


Peppermint Bark
(for the busy parents of two-year-olds and others who need an easy homemade gift)
1 package almond bark
1 doz. standard candy canes
 
Chop and melt almond bark slowly in the microwave or stovetop, stirring often.  Crush candy canes in a zip-top bag (a task that can be given to  the aforementioned two-year old, at least in part).  Fold the crushed candy canes into the melted almond bark and spread on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets, about 1/8- 1/4" thick.  Chill for 45 minutes, and break into pieces.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A poem for Advent

(Sorry I missed yesterday; I plead child-home-from-daycare.)

from "Mysteries of the Incarnation"

"She Said Yeah"

The land lies open: summer fallow, hayfield, pasture.  Folds of
cloud mirror buttes knife-edged in shadow.  One monk smears
honey on his toast, another peels an orange.

A bell rings three times, as the Angelus begins, bringing to
mind Gabriel and Mary.  "She said yeah," the Rolling Stones
sing from a car on the interstate.  "She said yeah."  And the bells
pick it up, many bells now, saying it to Mechtild, the barn cat,
pregnant again; to Ephrem's bluebirds down the draw; to the
grazing cattle and the monks (virgins, some of them) eating
silently before the sexy tongue of a hibiscus blossom at
their refectory window.  "She said yeah."  And then the angel left her.

--Kathleen Norris, Little Girls in Church

Friday, December 7, 2012

Party Food

It's that season!

In the midst of the papers I'm supposed to be grading and the evaluations, reports, and syllabi I'm supposed to be writing (our next term begins on the ninth day of Christmas:  Ladies dancing, all around.) come the parties.

We hope to get together with friends sometime this weekend for a little birthday brownie pudding, and on Sunday we have our annual Christmas gathering at school, a catered dessert buffet before the Christmas concert.  Monday, the dean has invited us over for heavy hors d'oeuvres.  It looks like we have a break until Thursday evening, with cookies and punch at a campus event, followed by Friday's last-day-of-classes feasting in various forms. 

I'm sure I've overlooked a few, and that's only the next week.

I do love party food.

Given the opportunity, I try to make sure it's reasonably healthy, since I know that the snacking can add up to much more than it might seem to on the surface.  When we manage it ourselves, we lean heavily toward hummos and veggies, fresh chunky salsa and chips, and stuffed mushrooms.

My favorite, though, is baked artichoke dip, a variation that goes something like this:

---

Baked Artichoke Dip

1 can artichoke hearts (not marinated), drained and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 C. plain yogurt or light sour cream

Mix ingredients together until they are thoroughly combined.  Top with 1/4 C. breadcrumbs mixed with 2 Tb. olive oil and another 2 Tb. parmesan cheese.  Bake in a 9x9 dish at 375 until hot and bubbly (about 25-30 minutes).

Serve with bread, crackers . . . spoons . . .
 


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

I'm supposed to be grading papers . . .

but instead I'm thinking about Christmas shopping, about philosophy, about sunshine in December, about sushi, about next semester's meetings, about former colleagues, and about dinner.  That is, just about everything except the papers.

This is the time of year when I challenge myself with words and images of stillness, of silence and reflection, and I come up short because the list seems, somehow, to keep getting longer.  Tackling the list seems impossible this far out, and so I look up ways to stretch it out some more (especially if it means not grading papers).

I do this in part because I know that the papers are inevitable--as is the time I spend wasting before I actually sit myself in the chair and deal with them.  But I do it also because sometimes there's a flash of brilliance, a really good idea, that comes while I'm busy not doing something I'm supposed to.

---

One of my colleagues and I have a lot of conversations in doorways.  We both know we shouldn't.  We should be prepping for class.  We're on our way to meetings.  We should be writing something.  We should be grading papers.

But, this year (after five years of such behavior), we have embraced the doorway conversations--even begun to celebrate them.

We've recognized that in the midst of our rambling chats about students, kids, the papers we're not grading, university goings-on, books we've read or want to read, and food we shouldn't be eating, we have developed important projects that have improved our teaching, our thinking, and our life together as a department and university community.

There's no way to codify our doorway converations; that's precisely the point.

We're not supposed to be having them.

We are supposed to be doing something else.  (Like I'm supposed to be grading papers.)

In the inevitability of the supposed-tos, however, sometimes something else breaks in.  And so I open the door for it.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Waiting for Stillness

In yesterday's call to worship, the liturgy reminded us of "the silence of this space."  I was sitting in our habitual back corner, kids row.  It was neither silent nor still.

I love the liturgies of Advent that remind us of the stillness and silence of waiting, but it's also good to be reminded of the fluster of preparation and hectic tasks that come at this time of year.  I realized that my  hope for silence and stillness will likely come after Christmas, if at all.

Waiting, nevertheless, remains part of my days at this time of year.  The countdown to finals.  The countdown to the last papers to grade.  The countdown to packing and getting on the airplane.  The countdown of parties to attend and host, cards to write, concerts to applaud, presents to gather, treats to create.  All many and joyful things, but all part of the list of things to do.

I'm working on stillness still, however.  To sit in the midst of kids climbing over and under chairs, in search of fruit snacks and toy cars, and to hear the prophecy anew:  "Lift up your heads; your redemption is near."