Fun with Color

I sat down to dinner today with the newest issue of Christianity Today and came across an article titled "Knowing What the Bible Really Means: Why Multiple Translations Might Even Be Better than Scripture in its Original Languages." I correspond daily with speakers of other languages who love to study Scripture, so I read the article. Amidst a short discussion of how to translate God's name in Exodus 3, the author of the article wrote this:

"Of course, God knew that a name was inadequate to reveal his full nature, so he used a long historical narrative full of poetry, instruction, and vision in order to communicate who he is in relation to us. By studying this comprehensive work, the Bible, we find out about--indeed, find--God."

We humans are slow learners, so it takes the full narrative of the Bible and a full lifetime to learn about who God is. But on second thought, I'm not sure it's just that we're slow learners. I also think that God is so infinite that each day we live reveals a new dimension of God's character. The article reminded me that on this Easter Day in particular, God revealed himself in such a new and surprising way that it does indeed take a whole lifetime to get to know the Risen Christ and to figure out how we can live in light of the Resurrection.

So what did I decide to do with this heady knowledge? I decided to dye Easter eggs! The only theological connection I can make to my above topic is that the way we choose to live as followers of the Risen Christ is infintely more varied than the colors of my brightly-colored eggs. Nevertheless, here are some photos from the process:

 

On another note, I served in the nursery at church this morning and got this lovely poem with a bag of jelly beans from our nursery coordinator. Enjoy!

What have you learned about God through Christ's Resurrection? How will you live differently because of it?

Culinary Discoveries

Last Saturday I expanded my culinary skills by taking a cheese-making class in downtown Spokane at a store called Sun People Dry Goods. The teacher, Trish Vieira, owns Spokane Family Farm with her husband Mike, which produces local and minimally processed milk. She was a kick! She talked a mile a minute and knew more about milk in all its complexities than I ever knew existed. The class had 19 people (17 women), and we got to watch Trish make yogurt and mozzarella. I took notes and listened until my head was buzzing with thoughts about milk, cream, rennet, organic, Darigold, and more.

The highlight of the class for me was watching Trish make homemade mozzarella. It seriously looked like the easiest process ever and in just 40 minutes, she was cutting off pieces of warm, stretchy, salty mozzarella for us. It was so fun to eat because it stretched like gum. Trish asked us if we planned to make cheese, and I enthusiastically raised my hand. I do plan to carry out the mozzarella making (and document it here), but I realized I would need to pick up a couple things before making it.

In the olden days, people used cheesecloth to squeeze all the excess liquid out of their cheese (the whey). But Trish and those in the class who had made cheese before said cheesecloth is no longer any good for making cheese because the holes in the fabric are too big! I thought that an interesting statement about something straying beyond its original purpose. In place of cheesecloth, Trish used a piece of a polyester curtain that she found at Goodwill. I figured I would just go to Joann's to buy a similar piece of fabric to add to my mozzarella-making arsenal.

On Thursday, I had tea at the home of an older friend. She asked me if I wanted some old curtains from her mother-in-law. I said sure, and she showed me the heavy floral-patterned curtains. I didn't think anything of it until she showed me the sheer material that hangs behind the floral curtains...the exact material I needed for making cheese! I was too chicken to ask my friend if I could use the curtains to squeeze whey out of my homemade cheese. This is obviously not the purpose for which these curtains were intended! But as soon as I decide to make cheese, I will investigate.

On Sunday, I went to Trader Joe's with a friend from church and only got four things (shocking, I know!): baby bok choy, fontina cheese, Brie, and blueberry freezer waffles. On Thursday, I made this fried rice, and it turned out wonderfully! Instead of cooking brown rice, I used Trader Joe's frozen brown rice/barley mix, which made it super easy. I microwaved three bags and added sauteed baby bok choy, green cabbage, onion, and carrots with bacon and scrambled eggs, mixed it all together with soy sauce, and voila! Anyone want to come for dinner tonight?

 

My final culinary discovery is totally wonderful. Berry compote. My friend and I meet for breakfast every Friday morning to talk, pray, and read Scripture. I found a recipe in a cookbook for berry compote, which seemed a great way to use frozen blueberries and to make a delicious topping for French toast. As I was eating the berry compote this morning, I had a wonderful revelation. This compote could work well with so many things: a mix-in for yogurt and warm steel cut oats, a topping for ice cream and toast, and so many uses that I haven't even discovered. And it's the easiest thing ever! You never have to buy flavored yogurt again!

 

Anyone want to come for breakfast tomorrow?

 

P.S. Here's the recipe for berry compote from this awesome cookbook: Mix 1 cup berries (straight from the freezer is fine) with 3 tbsp sugar (a little more or less is fine) and a dash of water. Bring to a boil on the stove in a small saucepan and boil for five minutes. In the meantime, mix 2 tsp of cornstarch with 2 tbsp of cold water until all the corn starch is dissolved. After five minutes, add in the cornstarch and keep boiling and stirring for two minutes. Add in another 1/2 cup berries and stir for another minute. Remove from heat and serve right away or refrigerate and reheat later.   

Lonely in a Crowd

On Saturday night, the Whitworth men's basketball team hosted an NCAA tournament game in the Fieldhouse for the first time in Whitworth's history. I decided to go to the game, even though I didn't have anyone to go with. As Whitworth is my alma mater, I figured I would be able to find someone I knew.

Before the game, I had a craving for Irish soda bread. By the time the bread came out of the oven and I had eaten dinner, it was 6:40 when I arrived at Whitworth. I walked into the Fieldhouse and tossed my $10 on the table, marveling at the noise of the crowd. The Fieldhouse was packed. I have never seen it so full, except perhaps for the Baccaleaurate service on my graduation weekend (and maybe not even then!).

Staring up at the crowds, I suddenly felt dwarfed and lost. I wandered around the perimeter of the room at the base of the bleachers searching for someone I knew and any seat in which to sit. Back where I started, I figured I was out of luck. I saw some professors I knew, but they didn't take initiative to motion me to where they were sitting. I finally found a spot to stand at the corner of the court against the wall. As I scanned the crowd, I suddenly felt an incredible sense of loneliness. I stood there watching the players warm up and was able to identify several familiar faces in the crowd, but no one made an effort to include me, to scrunch down on the bleachers to offer me six inches of space.

As the game started, I figured someone would see me and offer me a seat during the second half, so I watched the game closely, marveled at the incredible volume of the student cheering section, and enjoyed my close-up view of the action, careful not to let my distress show.

At half time, Whitworth alumni were invited to a reception in the lobby of the fitness center next door. I hoped this would be a good time to find people I knew. I walked next door, but soon realized that I knew no one in the room. I grabbed a cup of tea and went back into the Fieldhouse, where I expected I had a better chance of seeing people. It was no different. No one sought me out. No one walked down to say hi. No one invited me to sit or stand with them. For some reason, it became important that someone else take the initiative. It was hard to believe that in a crowd of 1800 people, I could feel so very alone.

Fortunately, the second half of the game was exciting, and I didn't think so much about myself. When the game ended (with Whitworth losing), I left quickly. I had no reason to stick around.

**
I got home that night and wondered if it had been worth $10 for two hours of feeling like an outcast. I have never minded being alone, as I have a personality that tends toward the introverted. However, I minded that no one took the opportunity to welcome me or to make me feel included. More than an indictment of others, the evening exposed my own selfishness. I know I have often been too busy or self-centered or scared to reach out to others who are lonely. The experience turned me inside out and made me vulnerable, but it also makes me want to be more like Jesus. Jesus who is the most profound example of one who includes the outcast, comforts the lonely, and takes the time to notice the individual.

**
The next morning in church, a woman said, "Oh Elizabeth! We saw you at the game! We wanted to invite you to sit with us but there was no room." On Monday, at lunch, a friend from Partners said, "Elizabeth! I saw you at the game. We were going to invite you to sit with us, but then I didn't see you again."

My encounters with these two women puzzled me. It made me wonder if, for some sovereign and inexplicable reason, God wanted me to experience loneliness. Their statements made me feel ashamed. I couldn't admit out loud that I had been achingly lonely. But perhaps if I had been bold enough to admit my loneliness, they would have understood. Surely I'm not the only one who's ever been lonely in a crowd.

In the Thick of Lent

It's funny to me that spring is at once bursting with promise and notoriously lean. The bursting-with-promise part is easy to imagine as spring bulbs begin to pop up everywhere. However, the notoriously lean part only occurred to me after reading (or re-reading) one of my favorite non-fiction books, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. The second-to-last chapter in Kingsolver's book about eating locally with her family for a year is entitled "Hungry Month: February-March." She writes:

"January is widely held to be the bugbear of local food, but the hungriest month is March, if you plan to see this thing through. Your stores are dwindling, your potatoes are sending pale feelers out into the void, but for most of us there is nothing new under the sun of muddy March, however it might intend to go out like a lamb. A few spring wildflowers, maybe, but no real eats. Our family was getting down to the bottom of our barrel" (322).

She goes on to extol the wonders of the chest freezer, but I won't go into that here. :)

When I take my almost daily walks up to Whitworth's campus, it doesn't look like spring will ever come. The grass is dank and yellowed and it's hard to imagine it will ever be lush and green or that the trees will ever have blossoms and leaves. If you really do live off the land and what you have to eat is all in your freezer and root cellar, you have to be creative with what you have left. The root veggies of winter are wrinkled and woody and the asparagus, lettuce, and spinach of spring are only just beginning. It's an awkward, in-between time.

I'm definitely in the thick of my Lenten discipline. We're already four weeks from Ash Wednesday, but we're still two-and-a-half weeks from Easter. For one deprived of sugar on a daily basis, Easter seems especially distant. (As I write, my housemate is making double chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen. Really? Is this fair?!) If I'm honest with myself, I am longing for Easter, but I also like that Easter feels distant and that my deprivation weighs on me and temptation surrounds me. These are the necessary and even, dare I say, good rigors of Lent. I love that the Church Year acknowledges the times in the course of a normal human life that are in limbo. It's not winter and not yet spring. It's not Christmas and not yet Easter. Primroses on racks outside Fred Meyer and royal purple crocuses are the only harbingers of spring.

That makes me wonder about the harbingers of Easter. When we look to Jesus' life and ministry, I would say baptism, temptation, cross, and grave. The road ahead of us to Easter is Lenten and is so very like this time between winter and spring. Where there is life after Easter and spring, we see only death during Lent. Yellowed grass and gnarled trees. Temptation and deprivation. Sin and selfishness.

But the great news about Easter is that it radically changes everything, and it's not just the appearance of things that change. It's not just that the grass becomes green and lush and the trees bud and the flowers bloom. It's not just that I can once again eat cookies and ice cream. It's that our very nature changes.

"We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ...for when we died with Christ [in baptism] we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him" (Romans 6:6-8).

Temptation gives way to victory. Darkness becomes light. Death leads to life. And, best of all, the crucified Christ becomes the Risen Christ.

A Weekend with Mom and Dad

My parents came to visit this last weekend from Thursday to Sunday. They did all kinds of nice things for me while they were here: took my car through emissions (it passed!), got my car's oil changed, helped me put new (soft and warm!) flannel sheets on my bed, bought me an awesome bike helmet for summer biking excursions, helped me with my taxes, etc. It's so nice to have parents.

Most of all, I appreciated the companionship of two people I know so well. I get used to doing things alone. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing--indeed, I love spending time alone with my thoughts and prayers--it's also wonderful to share daily life with others. It was so much fun to show my parents places I frequent as part of my daily life here in Spokane. One morning we walked down to the Little Spokane River. Another morning we visited Le Petit Chat bakery for a loaf of fresh bread and Egger's Meats for a four-pound chuck roast destined to become a Friday evening pot roast supper. Our time together reminded me of this quote from the novel Mrs. Miniver:

"This was the cream of marriage, this nightly turning out of the day's pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.” 

The quote refers to marriage, but I believe we can also share this kind of relationship with true friends and beloved family. I certainly experienced it this weekend.

And, of course, this wouldn't be Elizabeth Brink's blog without some detail about the food we ate. (If you're tempted to replace "some" with "incredibly exhaustive," you're probably right.) But don't worry! I have pictures to lend some excitement. :)

 

Here's the four-pound chuck roast about ready to go in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. I wanted to try making the roast with red wine, so I bought some two-buck Chuck at Trader Joe's. After browning the roast in the pot and moving it to a plate, you pour in a cup of red wine and scrap off the browned bits on the bottom of the pan to flavor the wine. Then you add the roast back in with beef stock, halved onions, and fresh rosemary and thyme. Let me tell you, the gravy from this roast was SO GOOD.

 

Here's the full meal: rolls stuffed with cheddar and sweet onion, the roast with carrots and onions, mashed potatoes, and the delicious gravy. And below are my parents getting ready to enjoy the meal!

I loved making this big meal for my parents. It fed us Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, and I made a whole casserole with the leftover roast meat that I've been eating this week. Plus, the meal was warm and filling and delicious. Just what a meal with beloved family should be.

 

Since I don't get to spend my dad's birthday with him in April, my mom and I made him his favorite dessert: Lemon Meringue pie. And much to his delight, I sent five pieces home with him on Sunday, so I wouldn't ruin my Lenten fast (no dessert).  

 

To celebrate my birthday (also in April), my parents took me to a restaurant in downtown Spokane called Sante, which is French for health. I've been wanting to try this restaurant for ages because they serve seasonal meals, use locally sourced ingredients where possible, and make their own charcuterie. We ordered a plate of their house-seasoned salami. It came on the plate above with grilled bread, brie, port-soaked raisins, and homemade mustard. This was my favorite part of the meal. The combination of all the ingredients was absolutely delicious. The mustard was wonderfully flavorful. My dad liked it so much he bought a pint of it, so I now have a half-pint in my fridge waiting to be put to a wonderful culinary use.

 

My mom ordered a delicious bowl of Delicata Squash soup that came drizzled with creme fraiche and local honey and sprinkled with a bit of cayenne pepper.

 

My dad and I both got delicious sandwiches with side salads. I thought the service was excellent and the staff was friendly and helpful. It inspired me to be creative in the kitchen again and to savor my food. I think I know where I'm going for my actual birthday now, too. :)

 

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend and now my parents are in southern California visiting their other daughter. Thanks for reading!

Sehnsucht

Recently, I've been missing England. It could be because I'm neck deep in season three of Downton Abbey. Or because I never get a decent cup of tea here except at my college mentor's house. I even had a dream recently that I was in England with a giant list of activities planned out. Having studied abroad in Great Britain, I know exactly the places to which I would (and wouldn't) return.

I particularly thought of England today for two reasons. The first is that when the weather is good, I drive through the countryside to get to church, which is about 15 minutes north of my house. There is one spot on the drive where the Little Spokane River looks a lot like a spot my study group hiked to in Wales. Here's a photo from the hike:

 

There is also a walking trail down to the Little Spokane River about a mile from my house. I walked to the river on the trail this afternoon. There's something about the rushing water and the leaf mold smell and the fresh, clean air of the trail that brings beautiful memories to the forefront of my mind: memories of my grandpa's farm and the Columbia River Gorge and the walks I took in England in the Cotswolds and the Lake District. I think these places are the building blocks of many of my most poignant memories of creation's beauty.

 

 

When I was shielding my eyes from the bright sun and looking out over the river and the marshes and trees this afternoon, I identified the emotion I was feeling. Sehnsucht. C.S. Lewis is known particularly for his use of this word. Sehnsucht at its essence means a yearning or longing for beauty and goodness that cannot be satisfied through human experience. Lewis uses the term sehnsucht as an anchor for his autobiography Surprised by Joy, pointing to instances throughout his life in which he encountered beauty that left him longing for more. At the river today, I realized that God uses Sehnsucht for the purpose of drawing us to the end of ourselves. When we yearn for beauty beyond what we see and experience on earth (the nagging Sehnsucht), we realize that it is the beautiful reality of the Trinity--Living God, Word-Made-Flesh, Life-Giving Spirit--for which we ultimately long.   

 

The second reason for thinking of England today (by now you've likely forgotten there was a second point!) is that I made Cornish pasties (pass-tees) for dinner from an English cookbook called River Cottage Every Day. River Cottage is also the name of an English cooking show I watch on YouTube. When I tell people this, they usually make a strange face and say something like "Why would you want to watch an English cooking show?" Whatever your stereotype of English food is, the Cornish pasty is a tradition that's worth keeping. River Cottage Every Day has recipes for three pasties, so I made the vegetarian filling with lentils and butternut squash (and a little too much mustard, but oh well). They looked so lovely and authentic that I had to take some photos:

 

 

Like a pasty, you got all the "meat" of this blog in the middle. I'm sure that you, too, have experiences both of beauty and of Sehnsucht. As always, I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments section, over e-mail (even better), or in person (best!). May the beauty of this life always draw us into the beauty of God and may we be especially aware of beauty as signs of spring begin to emerge!

I Declare February to be Freezer-Emptying Month

My blog tends to catch me at the highs or lows of life. I'm particularly tired tonight, and I think it's because I've had several particularly long days of work and lots of desserts in the past few days. A couple people at lunch today at Partners hypothesized that eating sugar makes one feel groggy and sluggish. I've given up sugar for Lent at least twice before, and it's my plan again this year. I'm actually quite looking forward to it. Sometimes food can be a kind of bondage and fasting has a great way of freeing us.

As part of this Lenten initiative, I decided that I would try to use up what's in my chest freezer downstairs. The majority of what's in there is chicken broth, tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and peaches, so this is going to be a fruit-sweet month. Good timing! I will keep you informed of my progress in emptying my freezer.

I have found two creative uses for my freezer food this Monday. I'm hosting a children's ministry committee meeting for church. The other challenge in making this meal is that our group has a vegetarian, two gluten intolerant folks, and one person who avoids dairy. After much deliberation, I decided to make a pot of chili with tomatoes from my freezer. To this, people can add in sour cream, shredded cheese (also from the freezer), and onions and/or scoop up chili with gluten-free Fritos or corn tortilla chips. I'll make a big salad with a balsamic dressing. For dessert, I'm going to serve vanilla ice cream (thank you Tillamook and Fred Meyer for the sale this week!) with lightly thawed peaches and blueberries and homemade hot fudge sauce. Yum! I'm also making a gluten-free, no-bake cookie that has cornflakes, peanut butter, and butterscotch chips.

It sounds extensive, but it's really a ridiculously easy meal for company since so much can be prepared a day or two before. So, slowly but surely, I will clear out the old in the freezer and make room for the new.

Tonight, I volunteered with a friend from church at the Mead Food Bank. We packaged food based on the number of family members. I was in charge of the fruit station. I grabbed a random can and happened to look at it before putting it on the scale: shoestring beets. I almost gagged. I sneakily moved that can to the back and grabbed a can of sliced peaches instead. As I continued to pile cans of fruit cocktail, applesauce, and pears in plastic bags, I had to wonder. Since when did I become so fortunate that I had so much wonderful, fresh/frozen fruit in my freezer? Volunteering, like walking and fasting, gave me a new perspective.

I'm praying that this Lent will be all about new perspectives. I need a new perspective on my sinfulness, so that I understand Christ's mercy and grace more fully. I need a new perspective on life to realize anew that life is enriched by love of God and others. I need a refreshed view of food as something to enjoy in its proper place. Lent is about stripping away the old to bring in the new life of Christ, and I'm ready for it.

How do you plan to mark the season of Lent? Will you add a discipline? Give up a negative habit? I'd love to hear more about your plan.