Dessert meme

I'm not entirely comfortable with the outcome of this....


1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you've eaten--or make them a different type color.
3) Cross out any of them that you'd never ever eat.
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your "To Do" List.
5) Optional: Post a comment here linking to your results--or just post a comment letting us know how many you've tried, or what you're going to try next!

I've also added a + for each thing I have baked (cooked, whatever...)

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar +
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars) +
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy +
14. Halvah
15. Macarons +
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca "pearls")
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats +
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies +
22. Croquembouche
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake +
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies +
50. Pralines +
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée +
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting +
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe
62. An "upside down" dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin) +
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S'mores +
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire's Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

Today's cooking challenge:
I wanted to create something with the beets and sweet potatoes, because I thought it would be tasty and seasonal and also really, really spectacular-looking. I was thinking of something that interleaved slices of beet and potato - that would look great, right? And they would taste right together - kind of earthy? (I had this thought originally when I was pulling some roasted beets out of the oven, and of course they smell like delicious, juicy dirt. Which sweet potatoes kind of do to, right? Well, to me they do.

Anyway, I think I will do something like this, which I have made before to delicious results and for which I have all the vegetables, even yellow peppers already sliced! Go me! Maybe I'll take a picture.

EDITED TO ADD: Well, okay, no picture, and no new recipe. I "created" something with beets and sweet potatoes only to the extent that I added beets to a sweet potato recipe, and it was sufficiently foolproof to survive. Presenting it composed rather than tossed didn't add much pizazz either. Knife skills might have made a difference...anyway, tasted fine, looked fine, healthy, fine....I just wonder what would have really made it sing.

And then they all turned into fish and swam away.*

I just had a completely surreal experience.

As I mentioned, I've had a cold for a couple of days; last night, it migrated from head to chest. This, of course, FEELS like a huge relief, being so much more pleasant less vile than dizziness, drippy nose, itching on the insides of one's eyeballs. But it does mean I actually have to work on getting better. Chest colds, for me, do not always go away by themselves.

So I left work early and came home to sleep. Husband and son came home a while later - the timeline is rather fuzzy for this whole day - and darling Ian stood by my bedside, stroking my cheek gently and saying "Momma? Are you not feeling so well?" He and his friend Heather had made me a get-well card, tracing some plastic bugs with markers on a shirt cardboard. "We Hope Your Bug Goes Away."

(Hahaha! Bite that, Hallmark.)

So moved was I with tender affection (and so addled from a low-grade fever) that, when Husband tried to remove Child from my bedside, I must have stopped him. "Oh, no, honey," I must have said," I'll take him for a while. You go relax."

And then I fell asleep.

And then I woke up - was it 3 minutes later? A half-hour? Longer? I truly have no idea - I kind of blacked out.

And you know how occasionally, when you fall asleep in the daytime, you wake up not knowing...anything? What day it is, or what part of the day, or why you're in this room, or if you're supposed to be somewhere? All I know is, I woke up, tangled in dampish covers, lying on my side, with a child hopping back and forth over me. I didn't recognize him.

I could not imagine how I had fallen asleep in my calm, ordered life and woken up in someone else's, being tortured by someone else's preschooler.

Plus, he was talking, telling me a story of some sort, in a conversational tone that indicated that we'd been doing this for a while already.

I moaned.

He lay down on his side, facing me, and gazed into my eyes. Oh, right, I thought. Ian. He's mine. That's right.

"Aw, momma," he sighed. "You are not feeling very well today. You are as sick as a penguin." **

"Daddy.." I bleated pathetically. Ian took over summoning Husband, who was mortified. Turns out that he had stepped downstairs for just a second, intending to come right back and collect the kid, but sat down and...blacked out.



*This is the way all my dreams used to end.
**On an episode of Go, Diego, Go!, a show of which I mildly disapprove,[1] Alicia needed a rescue boat to come out to an iceflow and get some sick penguins. The penguins indicted they were sick by giving the tiniest, more ridiculously fakey penguin coughs imaginable. A delicate, milquetoasty penguin cough. I found this to be freakin' hysterical, and so occasionally we daintily cover our mouths with our wings and make a tasteful little penguin cough.

[1] It's not that I mind Diego that much. I just think he's horning in on Dora's gig. Respect, people. (Besides, it's not just the pengion cough - I think all the amateurish fake animal noises are ridiculous.)

my most recent knitting project

























my next knitting project

1. I am the biggest baby on the earth. I have a head cold - A HEAD COLD!! - and I have been laying about whining non-stop for two full days.

2. My banana bread did a television appearance this morning.

Eric did a news segment on Channel 9. He's done a couple of these over the past year - they get a gang of financial experts together and have them field questions from a phone bank and a studio audience, and do a short interview with the anchors as well.

Eric brings along some baked goods to the TV station, to show appreciation for the crew. Okay, yes, and suck up - in a tasteful way, of course! - so that he'll get asked back. It has not appeared to have any effect at all on the frequency of bookings. He does a really good job - truly, he is in his element answering questions on the hoof.

BUT as we watched the last moments of the morning news show (well, when I say 'we', I must admit that Ian was not as interested as I was:

me: Oh look! Look at the that! Who's that on the TV?
Ian: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I WANT ICE CREAM! I WANT TO WATCH WUBBSY!
me: Daddy's on TV. Isn't that exciting?
Ian: AAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHH. I hate you. (1-second pause.) Hug me.

I looked up from my son's downy head to see a full-screen shot of my walnut banana bread. It's what the station ran under the closing theme music.

So I thought about posting my banana bread recipe, or maybe the details of the vitamin C pasta dish I cooked myself for lunch. But instead I will save both those (the pasta dish needs more work anyway.) And tell you the banana tip. The tip that makes last-minute, tv-worthy banana bread possible.

When the bananas in the basket on your kitchen table start to look a little soft - not, like, fuzzy or anything, but more brown than yellow and more soft than sturdy - you can freeze them. Don't cut them or peel them, just throw them into the freezer. The peels will immediately turn completely black. Don't let that scare you.

They won't get any riper in the freezer, but they'll be really soft and sticky when the warm up; perfect for baked goods or a smoothie, anything where they're smooshed up). When you're ready to use them, take some out and let them thaw on the counter. They'll grow a layer of frost over their black peels, which will make them look completely rotten. Ignore that. You can break them into pieces to help them warm up faster. Leave them alone for about 10 minutes, then slit the peel with a butter knife and slip if off with your thumbs.

That's it! You'll want to warm them up a little longer if you're mashing them by hand, but you can mash them mechanically while they're still frozen.

hey, day 2 of the post-prandial walk. I think tomorrow will have to be a post-lunch walk instead, as we are having a meeting at church about the farm project (I wanted to do a link to info about the farm project - and there's nothing about it on our website. A temporary condition, I'm sure.)

I do not actually care for walking.

I like it as a mode of transportation, but as a form of exercise, it's kind of a drag. But I do like observing, and talking to myself. (Silently. In my head.)

And I do love (in a non-creepy way, of course....)...um, peeping in windows.

Okay, let's pause for a moment and see if we can imagine a non-creepy way to peep in windows.)
First of all, IT'S FROM THE SIDEWALK. It's not like I'm taking a ladder around with me, like Bluto at the sorority house.

informal survey:

some of the things
that the people
who live withing a mile of my house
were doing
between 6 and 7
on a Sunday evening.

grilling (1)
working on cars (2)
letting the dogs out (6)
standing in the front yard in bathrobes (1)
tying a mattress and box spring to the top of a compact car (2 men, one bedding set)
leaning in car windows to flirt (2)
making music (1 boy, front porch, harmonica; 1 person, converted garage, drum kit)
placing halloween decorations (2)
transporting crying infant from car to house (1)
shouting at brother on playground (1)
hiding behind porch to jump out and scare big sister (1)

Soup for a rainy night:

Edited to add: This recipe is a definite winner! I warmed up the carrot puree base at work, and stirred in the ginager juice, a glug of half-and-half, and it was terrific! The cardamom is a good addition - I might use more, but wrap it in cheesecloth or use a teaball, in the interest of avoiding the 'miscellaneous bug parts' garnish.

This is bubbling away right now. The lightning storm has mostly passed by, though there's still enough thunder to scare the kid - Daddy has taken him out of his room, and has bedded him down temporarily in ours, in a nest of pillows. I thought I would whip up some noodle soup for tomorrow's lunch, but was shocked to find that I had used up my fairly enormous stash of broth. We usually have gallons, practically.

But instead I am trying the carrot soup from Rachelle's recipe site. I don't have cream, but I have ginger and I boy, howdy, do I ever have carrots.

I also have celery. It's not called for in the recipe, but what the heck, I figured, and threw a couple stalks in. The smell of cooking celery instantly overpowered everything else, and filled up the entire house. I spent the next few minutes fishing diced celery out of the soup.

I dropped a couple cardamom pods in as well. I must remember to fish those out. They are not a pleasure to bite down on.

AND in the time it took me to write that, the carrots boiled dry. Just barely, though - I saved them from burning. Soon, I'll puree.

++++++++++++++++

Okay, it's about half an hour later. I have pureed the carrots and their cooking water, and juiced the ginger (using a coffee filter and my tiny but mighty fist). The celery had no detramental effects, but the cardamom might have been a mistake - the pods open up in the simmering water and release their little spherical seeds. Which are dark green. And are too small to strain out of the puree. And look just a little like bugs. Or parts of bugs. Bug heads.

I sampled a little - it is tasty - and packaged it up for tomorrow. My plan is to cart the components to the office - soup base, ginger juice, my small pepper grinder, plus a carton of cream - and mix it together and heat it up for lunch with the boss.

So far, this recipe is a winner, since all it involves is boiling and Cuisine-art-ing. The ingredients are inexpensive, and my old knobby carrots have sprung to gorgeous, fresh blinding orange and a beautiful velvety texture. It's practically a metaphor.

A new sermon

by me.

http://www.crcc.org/converse/talks.htm

(Thanks to Russ Dulaney, who shoots, edits and posts our sermons practically every Sunday afternoon, when the rest of us are taking our naps.)

Instead of typing up my sermon notes so I can email them for review

I present the best blog post ever

warning: anatomical terms.
And some non-anatomical terms. And one vulgar diagram. On pink paper.

Also the phrase "like a rat up a pipe" which I cannot even type without snorfling.

Love's a mystery, but I'd do it again.

Ah, the magic of the cameraphone.

So we went into Baltimore to see the Pretenders. It was the Attack of the Suburban Dads - all squinting at their wristbands, then shrugging and taking their places in the hall to hop, nod and point.

As did we. My urban hipster days are far, far behind me...though I must say, Chrissy Hynde does give one a different vision, an aspirational vision, of older womanhood. Seriously - I came out feeling really inspired about my future as an old, artistic, iconoclastic mom.

Anyway, I had not brought earplugs, and the Suburban Dad to whom I am married was getting a little foggy from being so close (we were, in fact, very very close) to the speakers. (I want to point out that, when I was going to shows, no one carried earplugs. Not even people who worked in the venues.) (Which is why we are a little deefer than the current generation of music-lovers will be in 20 years.) Anyway, we left, like hundreds of other Dads, before the Hold Steady came on. Here I had figured we'd be out til 2am. Ah well - saves on babysitting, I guess. Perhaps I can use the savings on a couple black t-shirts.

6 ideas

1. Sundays aren’t important
That is to say: Coming to church on Sunday does not make you a Christian or constitute a spiritual life. A Sunday isn’t our one chance to save souls or glorify God. It’s not the one place to learn about God, commune with the Holy Spirit, or be challenged. In many ways, as we spend time, sitting still, thinking about or listening to people talk about God, Sundays run the risk of being the least spiritually forming day of the week.

2.Sundays are important
They’re our front door, our chance to host strangers and long-lost friends. They can give us a chance to reflect, which most of us rarely get (or take) during the week. They tell us how to make direct contact with God. They provide a chance to consider new ideas about God and the world; the combination of time with God and new perspective may open the door for transformation.

3. A journey together, not a presentation to an audience
We are not in the business of trying to sell anything, convince anyone of anything, or impress anyone, with our logic or with our artistry. Including God. A worship gathering has a bunch of living humans making contact with a living God, and even though we do our very best to plan things well and have a destination in mind, we cannot anticipate or control everything that happens. I don’t think we should want to.

4. It matters that we are all together in one place
There has got to be a difference between coming to church and hearing a sermon on a podcast, listening to Passion CDs in the car, praying in the shower. It has to matter that we can look one another in the eye, touch one another, and actually converse rather than monologue. Our bodies have to matter, and our proximity has to matter.

5. some things are beyond words
Not only is God beyond our logical comprehension – we are. The mundane world is. We need to make peace, deep in our souls, with the idea that God is worth a lifetime of study, service, prayer, digging, listening – and that we are not going to get to ‘answers’. Ever. Much is lost when we try to make God ‘make sense’. It’s not even a good marketing ploy, because smart people can see right through it.

6. The only decent ‘selling point’ in favor of a life with God is that you get to have a life with God.

Back to School with the RevGals

It's time for a Back-To-School Friday Five!

1. Is anyone going back to school, as a student or teacher, at your house? How's it going so far?
Not exactly, though Eric performed at a huge Back-To-School Night last week (a huge success, since kids who wanted to see the show bugged their parents to take them, and so the school had a much bigger parent turnout than usual. Plus, the show kept the kids occupied for an hour, so parents and teachers could confab in relative peace. It was a really good idea! I would never have thought of it!)

Also, the big, brightly-colored ball of utter fabulousness that is Mystery Academy is all ramped up for the fall season, doing after-school programs at a ton of area elementaries. So, while no one's in a classroom for a full day, yeah, we did notice that it was September.

At our church, we treat fall as the new year - new fiscal year, new sermon series, new discipleship groups, and this year, a new way of structuring kids ministries for elementary schoolers.

2. Were you glad or sad when back-to-school time came as a kid?
Glad, I guess (though I imagine that I am gazing through the rosy gauze of nostalgia.) Certainly I was excited to go back to college...

3. Did your family of origin have any rituals to mark this time of year? How about now?
I remember going shopping - we lived in a rural area (to say the least), and so my poor, beleagured parents would pack me and my brother into the car for one whirlwind day of back-to-school clothes and shoe shopping at the glamorous and very sophisticated Harrisburg East Mall. We only went that one time every year, and so, every year, my dad would miss the exit. There we would be, sailing past the mall, keeping up with the traffic, unable to get anywhere near it. So every year, someone would shrug and say "I guess you can't get there from here, huh?"

4. Favorite memories of back-to-school outfits, lunchboxes, etc?
When I was going to kindergarten, I picked out the very best lunchbox from the display at the Rea&Derricks - a Superman lunchbox!

This one. (Lunchboxpad.com confirms that this is the design that was released in 1967. So that would be right.) Look at it! It's gorgeous! The shiny reds, the brilliant yellows...it's an excellent design.

The kids in my first grade did not see it that way. They made fun of me for having a boy's lunchbox! Why in the world would a lunchbox be a boy's lunchbox? Didn't everyone like Superman? He's super, for Chrissake - how could his appeal be limited to boys? Besides, it was mine, and I was indeed a girl (despite occasional speculation to the contrary) and so it must be a girl's lunchbox. Besides, it's the best one.

My exemplary reasoning did not sway anyone.
(And Mrs. Gross did nothing to intervene on my behalf, I now realize.)
I had the courage of my convictions at school, but broke down in tears at home.
.
But my mom did the best thing ever. My mom (though it could have been my dad) looked at the box, and had an idea. I chose a nice metallic gold, and we taped off some shapes and spray-painted the box. You could still see some of the great primary colors, but now they made colorful abstract patterns through dot and flower and heart outlines...even the word "LOVE" spelled out in masking tape on one side. It was completely original, one-of-a-kind, and mine. And no one ever made fun of it again.

(The whole gender question persisted, of course. When I was in second grade, I cut my own hair with my mother's layout scissors because I believed that would make me a boy. (Wearing a baseball cap everywhere hadn't quite done it.) This is reflected in my school pictures, where I am wearing a blue turtleneck, 1/16-inch bangs, and the most resentful look you have ever seen.)

5. What was your best year of school?
Second grade was very cool - I had a great teacher, Mrs. Murray. She loved golf and was allergic to grass. She read us Charlotte's Web. She was 6 feet tall, with enormously long arms and legs, and looked a little like Carol Burnett. I didn't know this at 7, but it turns out she was married to a notorious homosexual (it was the 60s, there were still people married to notorious homosexuals) and they had what my mother referred to as 'an arrangement'. I get the feeling that my parents were very fond of her, at least partly in spite of themselves.

Sophomore year of high school, I ran briefly with the Popular Crowd, which I enjoyed. Junior year, I accidentally gathered my own crowd of misfits, philosophers, gender-traitors and underachievers, which I enjoyed much more.

by request:

Someone (can't recall who) a while back (can't recall when) asked me for the cold coffee concentrate recipe/technique that I had extolled last summer in this post. Well, of course, I couldn't tell her - now I just throw a bunch of grounds in a pot until it looks vaguely right and then let nature take its course in the fridge. The link in the old post is broken, and so I went to find another similar recipe online.

Well, either I've been doing it wrong for a year (hardly out of the question) or...something. Everything I can find on the webs is all "chickory this" and "whole pound of coffee" that and "12-24 hours on the counter at room temperature" (which makes my food safety antennae perk up with concern, or perhaps retract in shock.) My procedure is smaller and colder.

Okay, so here's what I do, for cold coffee for one or two.

grind some coffee - we get Ethiopian beans when we're flush, but I'll use whatever's hanging around in the freezer otherwise - medium to coarse, as you would for a french press. How much? Hell if I know. 1/3 cup, maybe? I'll check next time. This is a recipe in R&D. And for me, it's been really hard to screw up - regardless of exact amounts, it always makes, you know, coffee. But I will say it really is better with dark roast coffee, ground right then.

drop them into a small container - I use the carafe from my college-dorm-sized, 4 cup Mr. Coffee. Cover with cold tap water and stir.

Add about 1/2 teaspoon of sugar (which is the same as I take in a large hot coffee) and 3 cardamom pods. Stir again if you want, or just put it in the fridge overnight.

To serve: stir to break up the floating biscuit of coffee grounds, and strain into a glass through a fine strainer (see note below) or through a paper coffee filter in a normal strainer.

Serve with or without ice, about equal proportions of coffee and 2% milk. You can compost your coffee grounds!

I think this makes regular-strength cold coffee if you steep it 8-12 hours, and some great massive strong stuff if you forget it's there and drink it 4 days later. NOTHING BAD HAPPENS IF YOU LEAVE IT FOR A WEEK. Yes, it is still delicious, even if you make it Sunday night and it sits in the carafe until Friday morning. I am serious.

About my strainer: I have this gold mesh conical strainer that I THINK is a tea infuser, which I THINK my brother left at our house, perhaps as far back as when he lived here many years ago. The closest image I can find on the web is this:
which is available from www.tealaden.com/. It would be very handy even if you never made coffee this way, or even tea, for that matter. It is indestructible and strains very tiny particles, and yet, surprisingly, is not that hard to clean. I definitely recommend.

People on other websites hasten to remind you, so I will too: cold-brewed coffee has more caffeine than coffee made with hot water - the heat breaks down the caffeine a little. I don't know if there's a caffeine difference between the 8-hour coffee and the 48-hour coffee. What's a little racing heartbeat among friends?

Friday Five on Sunday

1. Is vulnerability something that comes easily to you, or are you a private person?
Any private-ness that I may have clung to, in any area, has evaporated over the last few years. I've always been pretty much an open book by nature; I am the opposite of a mysterious woman. There's an old Peanuts cartoon where Lucy tells Linus that he should never try to put anything over on anyone, because he's transparent - he has "a glass head." Well, that's me.

2.How important is it to keep up a professional persona in work/ ministry?
Two Christmases ago, I had a baby. While I was on leave, the founding pastor of our church left (I mean, we knew he was leaving, it's not like he up and quit one day.) and we got a brand new pastor.

I returned to work with a 3-month-old son under my arm, undiagnosed postpartum depression, insane rage, boob trouble, and no freakin' idea who I was now or what I would do - I knew that staying home was sucking, but I had no idea how working would work.

So my first meeting with my new boss consisted of me crying for 2 hours. Not a little tasteful sniveling. I got snot on his sweater. No kidding. I had met this man exactly once before - you know, hmm, good choice, seems nice - and then I spent 2 hours snotting on him. (The New Guy had the unhappy task of telling me about an new policy that was going to be very, very hard for me to comply with; my old supervisor had been too soft-hearted to tell me.)

Well, after all that snot, it was clearly too late to make a good impression. There was no way to 'game' this. I had nothing to lose by being myself and speaking my mind - with The New Guy or anyone else. I have no image to maintain with my co-workers, every one of whom has walked in on me breastfeeding or pumping behind a closed door. Everyone in my congregation has seen me cry, drop the bread, heard me sing off-key, heard me curse.

Honestly, I do a good job - I don't want it to sound like I'm just some big shambling mound of snot and harsh opinions. I've always worked hard, and I think the last few years have made me a much better leader. I don't waste people's time, and I'm dependable and not just a mess of jello at work. I think it's an advantage that most of my work is nurturing and encouring, and working with art and artists - things might be very different if I had to be authoritative all the time, but I rarely do. And there has been astonishing grace for me with this community (even though I sometimes think of it as being nothing but critical....)

3. Masks, a form of self protection discuss...
Not an effective form, since the masks people choose expose much more than they protect. Really, there is no protection - no one hides stuff anywhere near as well as they think they do.

4. Who knows you warts and all?
Eric, of course. Beth. Chuck. (I have known these people for 28 years. As of this week.)
My brother. Saint Dad and The New Guy, who I have known for only a few years.

5. Share a book, a prayer, a piece of music, a poem or a person that touches the deep place in your soul, and calls you to be who you are most authentically.
It's really just a couple of sentences, from the end of the catechism section of the Book of Common Prayer (ECUSA). To the removed observer, this could seem like an arcane bit of verbage, a little legalistic - but believe me when I tell you that this belief is central to my experience of God, church, and my ministry.

Q: Is God's activity limited to these rites?

A: God does not limit himself to these rites; they are patterns of countless ways by which God uses material things to reach out to us. (www.bcponline.org)

Well, thanks be to God.

Sequestered in Baltimore

AHHHHHHH!

We are going to see the PRETENDERS!!!
in 2 weeks!!!
also The Hold Steady!

Please express your intense jealousy by volunteering to babysit. Thank you.
(actually, there's no need to be jealous, as the tickets were relatively inexpensive and they aren't sold out. www.Sonarbaltimore.com - if you scroll down to the show and click on Buy Now, it will take you to TicketMaster, where they will gouge you on fees but YOU WON'T CARE BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO SEE THE PRETENDERS!)

In fact, you won't care because you're going to be leaving the house sans toddler. In 2 weeks.
I should start napping now.

This made me feel better today:

All great deeds and great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. —Albert Camus

Peanut Sesame Noodles

My most requested recipe! A friend just called me to get this, and I thought I'd post it. I got it from the Washington Post food section, several years ago.

Boil a big pot of water.
Blanch 2 large stalks of broccoli for a couple of minutes, fish them out and chop them into bite-sized pieces.
Cook 1 lb of pasta (I usually use thin spagetti, but any long noodle works) in the same water. Drain.

Dressing: mix together:
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 + 1/4 teaspoons chinese hot oil (it's red, soybean oil infused with red chilis)
1/2 cup peanut butter (any kind)
2 tablespoons sugar
3 cloves garlic, pressed

You can whisk that together, or, if you have a jar with a tigh-fitting lid, shake it together. It's kind of gross and clumpy, and seems like it will never come together... then it magically does! And it's all creamy and lovely!

Toss the dressing with the warm noodles and brocoli. Serve warm or cold. Top with chopped green onions, peanuts or sesame seeds if you want it to look fancy.

This is a great potluck dish - it doubles and triples with no complications; you can sub other things for the brocoli or skip it entirely; it's vegan (and MAN do the vegans appreciate it!), low in saturated fat, no cholesterol, about 35% of calories from fat.

Seriously, you have to try this. Everyone love it.

Get me to the church on time - a late RevGals Friday 5

On the Labor Day theme:
1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.
Himmmph, tough call. I've had a number of jobs that started out okay and got really, really bad - partly because I worked as a temp. Why do companies need temps? Yeah, occasionally to cover for maternity leaves or sudden workload changes, but mostly BECAUSE SOMEONE IS A FREAKIN' NUT AND THE PEOPLE WHO WORK UNDER THEM KEEP QUITTING, and eventually they give up on filling the position and just start revolving temps.

I spent a very unhappy couple of months at the postal service headquarters in DC, with the people who manage the development and deployment of complicated machines. The people HATED one another and hated their work. And were paid way, way too much to quit. Even I was, as a temp. That tension makes highly-paid work a real trap, I think. (Ha, not to worry - I doubt I will ever strain against that particular tension again.)

I had one terrible theatre job, creating props for a nationally known regional theatre. I was 20; I was just coming out of a debilitating depression - I really had no business taking the job at all. In a perfect world, I would have spent that summer going to therapy, fine-tuning medications, taking long walks and sitting by a pool. Instead, I took an allegedly prestigious intern position in a fairly high-stress company. I was crap at it. Truly. And I had a boss who always said every single thing that came into her head immediately.

And I had one fairly terrible job at a non-profit, where people said things like "we're like a family!" and "Of course we all work a lot of hours, but no one minds! Because it's such fun, and we all love each other!" What they actually meant: "If you have any interests outside of this office, you're not really a team player." And "If you don't care for how we do things, it just shows that you've never really fit in." It was a little like The Stepford Office. I felt like a horrible failure when I quit after 11 months. I later learned that 11 months was the tenure of my 3 predecessors combined.

I've also had a ton of super-fun jobs, in theatre, retail (yes! It's true!), non-profits and on Capitol Hill. On balance, I think I've lucked out.


2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.
3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.
Don't barf. The job I have now is by far the best job I've ever had, and it's what I would be doing (mostly) if I could be doing anything. All my other ideas for perfect jobs - radio DJ, gallery curator, humor columnist, restaurant critic - pale in comparison.

Actually, I bet a lot of the RevGals and Pals say that.

4. Did you get a break from labor this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?
I had a week with a friend in Ohio, and that was wonderful. I'd like more, of course, but I think, for moms of almost-three-year-olds, a break from labor may be a relative term.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?
I am excited! I'll post a whole post about why. Plus I always love fall, regardless of what's going on.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labor and delivery (LOL)?

I was too large to go into labor.

My darling zygote was accompanied by more than 3 times the necessary amniotic fluid, and so when I say I was as big as a Volkswagon, I am not being hyperbolic. I actually frightened some of my friends when I turned in profile.

I really wasn't aware of how big I was - I was round before, and those pants, they're, you know,..stretchy! - until I saw a photo from my shower, 3 weeks before delivery. ("Holy *^$%!" I believe I said, when my husband handed me the print.)

My due date was Jan 4. When the doc said that I would not be making it to January, I made a plan to work through our Christmas Eve service, and drive to the hospital the next morning. Or perhaps the one after that.

My brother, having seen an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where the always-ignored child had to suffer the indignity of sharing his birthday with a new baby, called and begged me not to have my kid on Dec 21. Um, at this point, it may not be up to me, exactly, I explained, but I'll do my level best.

Well, yes to my brother, no to the baby Jesus. My scheduled c-section went flawlessly on Dec 22. I spent my 15 minutes in the delivery room encouraging the anesthesiologist to come to our church on Christmas eve. I stayed in the (nearly deserted) hospital 'til almost New Years Eve.

Monitoring indicated, surprisingly, that I actually had begun having contractions in time for my delivery...but my belly was so enormous that they could not have gotten organized enough to hurt, let alone push anybody out.

New Recipe: Accidentally Thai Orzo salad.

I made this up off the top of my head the other day, and it ended up being DELICIOUS!

Put a large pot of water on to boil

In a skillet, heat some garlic and minced shallots in olive oil.

Seed, slice into tiny bits, and add to pan 3-4 of the hot red peppers that the guy who works on you car gave you. Add those to the skillet. Cook until garlic is golden and shallots are soft.

Shred some napa cabbage, and throw it into the skillet – as much as will fit. Add a splash of the hot water from the pasta pan. Cover and cook until it wilts.

Once the cabbage has shrunk down enough so that the pan’s contents are almost stir-able, uncover and let the water boil off, stirring occasionally.

About this time, the water should be boiling in the pasta pan. Add some orzo (I used about 1/3 of the small box, so a couple of ounces) and cook uncovered until done (about 9 minutes.)

Turning your attention back to the skillet - Once the water from the skillet has boiled off, throw in a decent glug of seasoned rice vinegar, and let that cook until the super-acidic smell has dissipated. (You're reducing it, but it’s hard to know when it’s reduced, because the cabbage is throwing off a little water. You have to do it by smell.)

When that seems done, take it off the heat. Transfer to a storage or serving dish, to cool.

When the orzo is done, drain it (REALLY WELL – shake the colander) and add it to the dish. Toss to combine.

Taste and adjust seasoning. I went a little astray at this point - Perhaps I got a pepper seed on my tongue, because when I tasted it at this stage, I had the impression that this dish was abusively spicy - like it might be entirely too hot to eat. This did not turn out to be true.

Chop one cucumber and half a red bell pepper, and drain them on a paper towel. You might even squeeze them a little. I was really worried about the dish turning out watery, so I tried to squish every drop out of the orzo and the fresh vegetables. As it turns out, It wasn't watery in the least. Was that because I was extra-vigilant? Or was it a dumb thing to be worried about? Who knows? Anyway, add the chopped vegs to the salad and toss to combine.

Refrigerate. Serve with a squeeze of lime juice.