Life Around the Table

For a while, I was going through a dry spell with reading. I hardly read anything except cooking blogs and then only scanned through recipe after recipe. Then I house-sat and couldn't get the Wifi password to work. You might call this a saving grace. Besides hosting several groups of people, I also re-discovered my normal hankering for reading. My housemate asked me tonight: "How many books do you normally have checked out from the library?" Without hesitation, I answered, "About 30." Many are fated to only ever sit in stacks on my desk, bookshelf, and nightstand, but, if a book is lucky, I'll actually read it.

Such was the case with a new book called Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist. I just finished the book today and loved every sentence of it. Shauna, if possible, loves food even more than I do. It was a comfort to read the book and know that I'm not the only one in the world whose love of food veers towards obsessive. (Just ask my friend who went with me to Trader Joe's yesterday.) Better than that, Shauna grounds food and meals solidly in the living out of a faithful Christian life. You don't have to be a foodie to do this. In fact, I have a friend who hates cooking. But when it was her turn to host the Children's Ministry Committee from church, she made us a wonderful waffle, bacon and egg meal. Whether or not she enjoyed putting it together, there's no doubt that the meal unified us and prepared us for the discussion and prayer portion of our meeting.

Bread and Wine is full of stories from Shauna's life. Most of the stories were things I could relate to whole-heartedly and have experienced numerous times in cooking: spontaneity, inconvenience, unexpected mistakes and successes both, meaningful conversation, working-with-what-you-have meals, and simple, memory-evoking pleasures. Shauna also made it clear that it's okay for meals prepared for other people to be flawed. Perfection isn't the goal; fellowship is. I was comforted by this. I've often had friends over for dinner and have been more concerned with how something I cooked turned out than with the people at my table. Besides, what's life without a little imperfection anyway? It's why we try again (and again and again).

I always have cooking experiences from which I can draw useful spiritual lessons. One in particular stands out from recent weeks: making baklava with my friend Janie. She was making two trays of baklava for two different events, and I'd always wanted to make it. I came over to her house one Wednesday evening, and we got to work. After melting something like seven sticks of butter, we unrolled bundles of filo dough, impossibly thin and delicate. Following the complex instructions carefully, we layered the filo dough and brushed it liberally with the melted butter. Every once in a while, we'd spread a pecan-sugar mixture in between the layers. In the middle of the directions, we realized that we were going to run out of filo dough. Fortunately, mishap though it was, no one will ever know that we used 20 sheets of filo instead of 30.

When all the layers were assembled, it took us a good 15 minutes to score the baklava into narrow diamonds, so the honey-sugar syrup could soak into every crevice. By this time, it was nearly 9 PM, and I had to work the next morning, so I didn't get to help Janie complete the baklava. However, at work the next day, I had a visitor stop by with a package:

 

 

Biting into the honey-soaked squares of baklava made the work of the night before worth it. Actually, I take that back. Walking around my office and sharing squares of the baklava with my co-workers made it worth it. It was seeing my co-workers' eyes light up and hearing the crackle of the baked filo dough as they took a bite that made the often inconvenient work of making the baklava worth the effort. It's a tactile way of connecting one person to another. It's a blessed sharing and receiving.  

 

Shauna writes: "This is what I want you to do: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner's at six. I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter. I want you to light a burner on the stove, to chop and stir and season with love and abandon...Gather the people you love around your table and feed them with love and honesty and creativity. Feed them with your hands and the flavors and smells that remind you of home and beauty and the best stories you've ever heard, the best stories you've ever lived."

 

All I can say to that is: "Amen!" Go and do likewise.

Birthday Celebrations!

 

I had a blessed 24th birthday on Monday this week and enjoyed a couple celebrations with friends. On Friday night, my two friends from church took me out to dinner at Sante, the restaurant I enjoyed with my parents back in February. We ordered a Fromage plate to share with three kinds of cheese, salami, homemade mustard, apple-cherry preserve, candied walnuts, raisins, and slices of baguette. My main dish was ravioli stuffed with pork confit (con-fee) and apple cream cheese and covered with a mushroom crema sauce. Delicious! We finished up with bread pudding that had a homemade marshmallow to the side and butterscotch sauce drizzled over the top. The atmosphere of Sante and conversation made for a wonderful evening! Thanks Cindy and Becca!

 

On Sunday evening, I had the pleasure of cooking my mom's wonderful lasagna for several of my friends and housemates. We talked about our alter-egos at the dinner table, and then went out for Froyo. You don't want to know what was on my Peanut Butter/Birthday Cake frozen yogurt. Let's just say I have a high sugar tolerance. :)

 

My co-worker Emily and I joke that we're the same person because people call her Elizabeth and me Emily. We sometimes call ourselves Emily Elizabeth, like the owner of Clifford, the books about the big, red dog. So, as a present, Emily crocheted this adorable mini-Clifford for me: 

 

 

On Monday, I left work early and drove up to Trader Joe's (next two pictures). Call me crazy, but I simply love looking around that store. I didn't even get a ton of exciting stuff, just chicken breasts (which are currently in my Crock-Pot with onions, salsa, and taco seasoning), bacon, Fontina cheese, Roasted Red Pepper Spread with Eggplant and Garlic on the recommendation of a friend, Yogurt O's Strawberry Cereal, and a bouquet of flowers. I was having trouble getting my face, the flowers, and the Trader Joe's sign in the picture without blinding myself (the sun was bright!), so this is the best picture you'll get: 

 

I love having fresh flowers in the house again! My co-worker got me the Nutter Butters as a present. It's peanut butter. Enough said!

 

My housemate Pam made me this lovely sign and hung it above our front door. It's so great! It was the first thing I saw when I walked upstairs at 6 AM on Monday.

My housemate started her first day of a new job on Monday, so to celebrate doubly, my housemates Pam (left), Justina (right), and I went to a taco truck for dinner. We got a simply delicious burrito with marinated pork and onions and nachos with ground beef. It was delicious!

 

My co-worker bought me a bag of candy Princess jewelry with two necklaces, two rings, two lipsticks, and a bracelet with a "diamond." She said I'm the Party-Planning Princess at work, so I needed appropriate accessories. I put the ring on my finger and almost had to eat it off. Oops! A bunch of us in the office also love Downton Abbey, so she got me this awesome t-shirt! If you're Downton-Abbey literate, you'll know that Mr. Carson is a black-and-white, toe-the-line butler who also has a good heart. :)

 

We had our April birthday celebration at work and one of my co-workers brought this enormous, pizza-sized cookie! It was quite the sight! We also had brownies, a Mexican dip with chips, and fruit. I was a little sugared out at dinner, so I ate salad, roasted asparagus, and roasted cauliflower leftovers and a bowl of Strawberry Yogurt O's for dinner. Yum!

 

 

Overall, my birthday was a delight. However, in light of the bombings in Boston that happened on my birthday, I realized and continue to reflect on how grateful I am for the gift of life and for the gift of so many friends and family who have made my twenty-four years full of joy. Thank you! Life is precious, and I pray that we're each able to embrace life with the joy and courage given to us through Jesus Christ. 

Year of Plenty Part 1: Proper Complexity

**This series is rooted in my weekly Sunday School class at Colbert Presbyterian Church in which we are studying the book A Year of Plenty: One Suburban Family, Four Rules, and 365 Days of Homegrown Adventure in the Pursuit of Christian Living. Our classes have been rich with discussion, so I wanted to continue some of the discussion here in order that we might all think more deeply about how our spending and eating choices affect both our spiritual and temporal lives.**



I was partially leading discussion yesterday, so I admit that I wasn't listening as well as normal. I was often focused on how to formulate my next question and when I should move the discussion along instead of attending to the discussion at hand. But I did glean some that I'd like to share.

First, a little back story. Craig Goodwin, the author, is a Spokane-area pastor. One Christmas, he and his wife Nancy realized how exhausted they were from the consumerist rush of the holidays. In a rock-bottom moment, Craig and Nancy decided that the year 2008 would be an experimental year in living locally. The Goodwin family was guided by four rules for the year: everything they bought had to be local, used, homegrown, or homemade. Local is defined as roughly the Eastern Washington and North Idaho area. As pastors, Craig and Nancy are also very interested in how all this applies to the Christian life. As you can see, it's a perfect book to be discussing in our particular location (and at this time of year). It's also a topic that's close to my heart.

My classmates are varied, thus it's quickly become apparent that no one person is going to approach this issue from the same background or come out with the same resolutions. We have avid canners and gardeners rubbing shoulders with those who shop mostly at Costco. The question I posed to my classmates yesterday arose from a chapter in which Craig creates a homemade pinata for his daughter's eighth birthday. After the experience, Craig writes: "We were discovering the importance of proper complexity."

My question is what is proper complexity?

It's more complex for me to make and can 14 quarts of applesauce. It took a considerable amount of time to pick the apples, chop and core them, fill jars, and process them in the canner. Each jar of homemade applesauce came to $2. It would take maybe 20 minutes max for me to drive to Fred Meyer to buy a jar of applesauce. Which is better? I think the answer is "It depends."

Which is why I think it's really important to ask this follow-up question: What is gained and what is lost by ____ (fill in the blank)?

In my example, what is gained by making my own applesauce? One easy answer: relationships. I purchased the apples from farmers who attend my church. While making the applesauce, I spent time by myself, praying and thinking and being present to the task and the process. With the extra applesauce, I fed my co-workers. With six of the jars, I'm able to share with my parents.

What was lost in making applesauce? Money and time I could have spent doing other things.

To be attentive to the two great commandments that Jesus reiterates in Mark 12:28-31 means the answers to many questions may never be the same two times in a row. It's more important to have the love of God and people as our overarching rules than to follow Craig and Nancy's local, used, homegrown, and homemade guidelines. However, it's very possible that to love God, the world he's created, and the people who bear his image, following Craig and Nancy's rules may provide an excellent framework for a proper and rooted-in-love complexity. Whether or not we like it, the world is complex, and we face choices every day that demand tough-love decisions from we who embody both the brokenness of this world and the beauty of the Kingdom to come.

***

How do you see this idea of proper complexity playing out in your own life? What decisions are easy to make? What decisions do you struggle with?

I Survived a 20-mile Bike Trip!

I know, I know, two posts in one day is a lot, but isn't an influx of writing is due after weeks of nothing? I hope you'll forgive me.

**

Before I stopped working at Partners, Bob Savage and I had been planning a company bike trip on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, a beautiful 70-mile bike trail in northern Idaho. Fortunately, another woman at work took over the logistics planning and the trip happened as promised on Saturday. I rode with Bob and his wife Martha on the 1 1/2 hour trip to the small town of Harrison, Idaho, on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene. We had a great turnout for the trip, 19 Partners employees and family members. It was a wonderful time!

**

The day was supposed to be in the 90s, so we wisely arrived in Harrison in time to be on the trail by 10:30 a.m. We biked in smaller groups along the trail until around 1 p.m., many of us going 20 miles round trip. Back in Harrison, we enjoyed sandwiches on homemade bread from one of Harrison's cafes. The 19 of us (including a five-week old baby) sat on two picnic tables and had a marvelous time sharing chips, sodas, and muffins, enjoying our sandwiches after a morning of rigorous exercise, and talking up a storm. There's something wonderful about spending time away from all the demands of daily life with good company. It revives the soul. We also got big ice cream cones from a local shop and were thankful we had the foresight to order only one scoop each. One scoop could easily have been considered three scoops in any other ice cream shop.

**

The trip reminded me how much I enjoy and appreciate the people who work at Partners. This might have made me sad several weeks ago, knowing what I was missing day after day at work. But now, I feel joyful to have met them and have resolved to continue the relationships to the best of my ability and as God leads. It reminded me never to underestimate the value of being in a person's life for even a short period of time. God may mean some relationships to last years and some to last only months. But the impact of a relationship isn't always based on time.

**

That being said, I have another funny story. My housemate Rachel and I were on a walk yesterday and decided to cross Mill Road to walk in another neighborhood. We passed the house of one of my college friends whom some of you know. I happen to know the whole family and a light was on in the window, so Rachel agreed to stop with me so I could say "hi." Hannah Whisenand opened the door and with characteristic warmth gave Rachel a big hug before even learning her name. We had a delightful 10-minute conversation and both left with a handful of Tootsie Pops. I know where I'll be going on Halloween. :o)

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This next thought is totally unrelated to the above two stories, but I couldn't help but share it. You know the reason I love grocery shopping at the Fred Meyer near my house is that I almost always see people I know. Rachel and I were there on Friday, and I saw several different people I know. It was so fun! (Also, making zucchini chocolate chip muffins with M&Ms instead of chocolate chips is a really good idea.)

**

A final note, the article I wrote for Partners several weeks ago has been published in a local newspaper Good News Northwest. It's a good article because I had two excellent proof readers to help me along (thanks Gordon Jackson and Amber Holloway!). If you can't find a newspaper copy, you can find the recent issue online at http://www.goodnewsnorthwest.org/Paper/index.html. The article is on pages seven to 11. It's a great example of a local Spokane church partnering with a ministry called Christian Outreach Fellowship in Ghana, West Africa. God is doing great things in the world. Hallelujah!