From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
- Scottish Saying
Whether you celebrate or no, I pray you have a safe and holy night. Tomorrow, is the feast of All Saints, and I for one, am ready to feast!
There’s nothing quite like a fresh, homemade donut on a chilly autumn morning with a cup of tea or hot cider. Even better? One that’s chock full of quintessential autumn ingredients like pumpkin, walnuts, maple, cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves.
This year for Halloween, our parish youth group is hosting an “alternative Halloween” since Halloween falls on a Sunday and (let’s face it) the teens really are too old to go trick-or-treating. (Just don’t tell them I told you!)
As part of the festivities, a couple of friends and I fried up 60 donuts plus donut holes for our teens. Some of them, we will serve on a platter. Some of them will be strung up with twine for Donuts-on-a-String, and the teens will take turns trying to eat their entire dangling donut no-handed without letting it fall to the ground! And the remainder of the donuts will be packaged up to be given out as Soul Cakes at the end of the night.
Soul Cakes are a British tradition, dating from the days when children and the poor would go a-souling. Travelling from door to door, they would beg of the kind residents
Soul, Soul, a soul cake!
I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!
One for Peter, two for Paul,
three for Him what made us all!
They would then be given a baked or fried treat. In exchange, they would agree to say a prayer for the repose of the soul of one of the baker’s deceased loved ones. Our Soul Cakes will be given in honor of my father.
I’d love to send each and every one of you, my readers, one of these delicious donuts, but I don’t know that they’d travel that well. Instead, enjoy the pictures; perhaps try the recipes (here and here), and if you find the time, say a little prayer for my father’s soul, won’t you?
And, isn’t that what this holiday is truly all about? Good, seasonal food. Friendly faces. Honoring our beloved dead. And prayer. Who said Halloween ever had to be anything but holy and wholesome? The one thing it probably isn’t is healthy. But, to everything—including indulging in scrumptious, sugary, fried dough—there is a season.
We gather, preserve…
…give thanks for all that goes too fast.
Yes, Lord, let me slow for this harvest, soak it all in…
Know in my bones that I was really, truly present for it all.
I don’t go in much for self-help books. Usually, I find them pretentious, self-centered, and well…unhelpful. They usually don’t have much to say to or about my “self” and instead work at hawking some concept of what the author thinks “today’s woman” or “the modern American spirit” encapsulates. I’m usually left wanting—among other things, wanting the hours of my life I wasted on the self-help schlock back!
This is not your average self-help book.
In addition, I’ve never been much into fashion. Sure, I like it because it’s beautiful and it has a story to tell, but I don’t subscribe to any fashion magazines. I don’t think I even knew that Dolce & Gabbana was a designer label until I was in college (I always thought it sounded like Chiquita Banana and thought perhaps they were somehow connected with Dole Fruit). I’m completely nonplussed by the cult of celebrity and couldn’t care less what this month’s hottest shade of toenail polish is.
This book made me completely rethink what STYLE encompasses.
Style Statement takes you on a reflective journey through your own psyche, from your foibles and failings to your deepest dreams, but it does so in a poignant, intelligent way that truly does inspire you to look inside yourself and face whatever it is that you see. Never once did I feel like this book was advising me to stroke my own ego or hole punch myself with a cookie cutter. It merely encouraged me in the most perspicacious ways to hold up a mirror and embrace what I saw, for better or worse—and then strive to be the best of myself.
And it did it with style.
When I first picked it up, I thought, Are you kidding me? You think you can just lead me through some silly list of questions, whittle me down to two words, and have anything good come from it?
Oh, they weren’t kidding. Who knew that a few journaling exercises could so adroitly help me articulate my worldview, from clothing to homemaking to careers to relationships to food to spirituality? Sure, it’s not the Bible, but I really think that this book has the potential to change lives for the better. It’s all about authenticity.
“…authenticity is a force for social change—as mighty as solar power and democracy and first love. It magnifies and heals and delights.”
Carrie and Danielle, I couldn’t agree more.
If you can’t wait to pick up Style Statement in paper form at your local library, you can check out the method at the authors’ website www.stylestatement.com. Happy reflecting.
I love my slow-cooker. I really do. There is something supremely gratifying about sitting down to a delicious dinner that you’ve been salivating over for the past few hours while it simmers away contentedly with no effort on your part—and all the dishes are already cleaned up because you did the prep work hours ago. I love the rich flavors imparted to slow-cooked dishes. I love the complexity and depth that you just can’t get with a quickly prepared dish. And, I adore the meltingly tender texture of slow-cooked meats.
But, there is one drawback to the slow-cooker: all too often, it seems be to be used exclusively for down-home American cooking.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I love a Crockpot meal of baked beans, barbecue pulled pork, or chili as much as the next girl, but with all the things the slow-cooker has going for it, I just knew there had to be something more, something that would utilize all of its strengths as a tool of gourmet cooking. That’s when I discovered chef Pichet Ong’s recipe for Caramel-Braised Pork.
Oh my gosh! So amazingly delicious. Melting meat. Delicious sweet-and-sour interplay. Just plain good. And with the innovative addition of sweet potato, it’s the perfect time of year to give this recipe a go.
I served it over steamed brown basmati rice with some traditional Broccoli in Garlic Sauce on the side. By the way, the broccoli garnered rave reviews equal to those for the pork, so don’t miss that one, too. It’s embarrassingly simple to make, but then again so was the pork! And anyway, who says gourmet has to be difficult all the time?
Just ask the slow-cooker. She’ll tell you.
I was having a tough week.
It culminated in a rough day.
My husband came home with a dozen red roses.
We stood in the entryway and kissed like we kissed when we were eighteen and just falling in love, the way we have kissed on a daily basis for the eight years since.
As I put the flowers in water and set them on the dinner table while I finished pan-frying some tilapia, he told me a story about what happened when he was buying them.
“The sales guy told me, ‘You’ve been in the doghouse too long. I hope they work.’”
“What?” I asked.
Brian shrugged. “I told him I wasn’t in the doghouse as far as I knew.”
Why do we wait for these things?
Why do men wait for doghouse days to give flowers to their brides?
Why do women wait for roses to kiss their husbands like they’re eighteen again?
Why do we wait for a spilled juice cup before turning our coveted attention to a child?
Why do we wait until a loved but oft-neglected grandparent is on death’s doorstep and too sick to chat and share a meal before we buy the plane tickets to visit?
Why? Why? Why? Why do we wait until things are bad or better or otherwise remarkable, before we do what we should have done all along?
In the musical Rent, playwright-composer Jonathan Larson gave this message:
NO DAY BUT TODAY!
Rent received a bevy of Tony awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize. On both occasions, it was Larson’s sister who took the stage to receive the awards on his behalf. He had died tragically and unexpectedly shortly after the play was completed.
No day but today.
Don’t wait until the falling apart or the kind gesture or the phone call. Don’t wait.
Cardamom Maple Leaves
adapted from Gourmet and Martha Stewart Living
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. light brown sugar
1/4 c. maple syrup
1 egg yolk
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. cardamom
1 1/2 c. flourmaple syrup and sanding sugar for decoration
Cream butter and sugars in stand mixer until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed, add maple syrup, then egg yolk, beating well after each addition. In a small bowl, combine salt, cardamom, and flour. Add dry ingredients to wet all at once and beat until just combined. Form dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight. (Dough will keep chilled up to 4 days.)
Preheat oven to 325F. Roll dough out on lightly floured surface to 1/4’’ thickness. Cut out cookies with maple leaf-shaped cutters and arrange on greased parchment on baking sheets. Use the tip of a paring knife or other sharp knife to draw the veins of the leaves onto the cookies.
Bake cookies in batches in the middle of the oven for 14-16 minutes. Remove parchment with cookies to cooling racks, and let cool 5 minutes. Brush with more maple syrup and sprinkle with sanding sugar.
“…if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:2b
Sitting around a campfire with long-missed friends, toasting homemade marshmallows and talking Jesus… There are few things that can fill you up so completely, so fast, and so satisfyingly. Fire, food, God, and talk can sum up huge portions of last weekend for me. It was good times.
Delicious chocolate-drizzled pumpkin scones and sizzling bacon over discussions of Gideon gave way to trail-munching up the mountainside and worship hymns hummed while fishing the St. Joe. Through it all, discussion, laughter, and debate abounded, and it was good to be able to talk freely in unpretentious, nonjudgmental fellowship.
As we feasted and chatted, snacked and sang, one topic seemed to cycle back again and again, and on the long drive home I found myself reflecting upon a single word: tolerance.
I think that tolerance has gotten a bad wrap, and now it’s so wrapped up in connotations and misconceptions that it has become warped.
Few topics are as hotly debated in Christian circles today as the tolerance of Christ. Was He, in fact, tolerant? Some say no, pointing to the overturning of the moneylenders’ tables in the Temple. Some say yes, and they recall the woman caught in adultery who was granted mercy and sanctuary in the breast of her Savior. Those on the fence assert that Christ “hated the sin and loved the sinner,” and I think there is much truth in this. But, it is a hard line to walk in our own lives, this hate-love, and Christ was better at it.
So often, we forget that the sinner is so tightly bound up in her sin. Too often, we forget that there are still too many planks in our own eyes to see clearly. Too often we forget that love is greater even than faith.
There is, I’ll grant you, a call for Christians to hold one another accountable. But, what of love? Is “hard love” the only way?
I tried that once. I laid down the law and towed the line, encouraging, entreating. It brought me nothing but alienation and heartache. Those I was trying to help felt nothing but disappointment and rejection.
Hard love was more about the sin than the sinner.Thank God He softened my hard love and taught me tolerance again before time ran out to love.
Where hard love closed doors, tolerance opened the lines of communication again.
Tolerance opened the paths to forgiveness.
Tolerance taught me compassion and it enabled that compassion to be felt by others.
And if it did not eradicate the sins of others, at least it taught me a more righteous way.
Tolerance is not blind acceptance. If it were, then I would feel no compunction to reject in my own life those things that I tolerate in others’. Tolerance is merely the act of choosing the sinner above the sin. It is recognizing and honoring the human being so inextricably linked to fallen human nature. It is ignoring the splinters in our neighbor’s eye and learning how to extract the beams from our own. It is living by example rather than by preaching and loving in the midst of all our brokenness, yours and mine.
It is the choice to love unconditionally and let God do the work of sanctifying…
in our neighbors…
in ourselves.
It is taking faith in our hope, hoping in faith, and trusting to the greatest of these.
Well, first a nasty cold wended its way through the family. It’s still hanging on for dear life, dratted thing, but at least we all seem to be over the hump.
While still battling coldzilla, we packed up and drove… 7 hours… all the way across Washington, into North Idaho for a five-day camping trip with some dear friends. It was a glorious time of fellowship and glorying in God’s Creation, but needless to say, I returned home more exhausted than when I left.
On top of it all, I’m just in one of those times where stress seems to be a constant presence. You know that feeling where every little molehill becomes a mountain because you have some actual mountains you need to scale and you just don’t know if you’re up to the climb? Well, if you’ve never had that feeling, count yourself blessed! For those of you who know, say a little empathetic prayer for me, won’t you?
As to the blog, I’m hoping to have a post up as soon as my mind is capable of organizing a cohesive thought again. (Don’t worry, I swear it will happen one of these days!)
And, for those of you who were wondering: No, I’m not pregnant, even if I am acting like I’ve got the world’s worst case of pregnancy brain!
