September 2016

Monday, November 28, 2016

OBJECT-ified!

from Lexi Eddings...

I was flipping channels the other day and ran across an ad for a show called OBJECTified. I haven't watched it, but the premise seems to be that the things we treasure reveal something about us.

Makes sense.


So, I thought I'd share one of my favorite pieces of furniture and let you decide what it tells you about me.  When most people think about a cozy reading place, they picture a window seat laden with pillows or an overstuffed recliner. 

I think about my old oak rocker.

I know, I know, it doesn’t look very comfortable. But let me assure you the memories attached to that straight-backed piece make it heavenly. You see, I rocked my two babies in that chair. When I close my eyes and listen to the homely creaking, I can almost feel their dear little heads resting on my shoulder. I smell their sweet newness, their little bodies totally limp in innocent slumber.

Then when my girls grew older, we’d read aloud together in the chair. How we laughed over Frog and Toad or the silly adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Then later, when they were too big for both of them to fit on my lap, I’d still be reading from the chair while they sprawled on the floor, chins resting on their palms. We wept together through Where the Red Fern Grows and fell in love with the world of Anne of Green Gables.

So it went through their growing up. We dove into the world of “kiddie lit” together and came out with a wealth of shared experience. We developed a private lexicon based on our readings, a way of speaking in code using favorite quotes. 

And all of it centered around that old rocker.

Now they’re grown with their own busy lives. But when I sit down to read by myself, I never feel lonely. The memory of those sweet, simple pleasures keeps me company and I know when they read by themselves, they still feel the connection we forged in those early days.


When you read, you’re never really alone.

So now, it's YOUR turn. What's your favorite piece of furniture and why? 

Monday, November 21, 2016

Juggling Competing Family Needs...

My mom has decided to do the full blown Thanksgiving meal with turkey and all the trimmings on Friday since we have so many travelers arriving late Thursday. That leaves me to do a meal for 13 on Thursday night.

I don't want to do anything too heavy. After all, we'll all be in a turkey coma the next day. It's important to pace ourselves.  To make things even more interesting, I have at least one vegan coming so I need to have a good option for them.

At first, I considered doing two kinds of soup: a thick beef stew and a 15-bean soup. Add a tossed salad, some Grands biscuits, and a dessert and I'd be done.

But that didn't seem very festive. So now, I'm planning to offer number of choices and let people put together their own meal: a spiral-cut ham, some buffalo Swedish meatballs, sour cream & chive mashed potatoes, a fresh veggie tray, and a couple different kinds of bread.

Then for the vegans and anyone else who wants something unique, I found this recipe on the Minimalist Baker's website. It sounds worth trying to me. What do you think?

VEGAN THANKSGIVING WRAPS


Prep time
5 mins
Cook time
25 mins
Total time
30 mins

Healthy, hearty, 30-minute Vegan Thanksgiving Wraps with roasted sweet potatoes, crispy chickpeas, and garlic-dill sauce, tucked inside homemade Garlic Herb Flatbreads!
Author: Minimalist Baker
Recipe type: Entree
Cuisine: Vegan, Thanksgiving
Serves: 4
Ingredients
SWEET POTATOES
·         2 large sweet potatoes (~300 g | organic when possible)
·         1 Tbsp (15 ml) grape seed oil
·         1 tsp fresh thyme
·         1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
·         1/2 tsp sea salt
·         optional: pinch cayenne pepper
CHICKPEAS
·         1 15-ounce (425 g) can chickpeas, rinsed, drained and thoroughly dried in a towel
·         1 Tbsp (15 ml) grape seed oil
·         1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
·         Pinch ground cinnamon
·         1 tsp ground cumin
·         1/2 tsp smoked paprika
·         scant 1/2 tsp sea salt
·         optional: Healthy pinch each ground coriander + cardamom
FOR SERVING optional
·         4 Garlic Herb Flatbreads* (or store-bought flatbreads or pita)
·         Garlic Dill Hummus Sauce
·         Toasted sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds
·         Dried cranberries, chopped
·         Fresh arugula or parsley
Instructions
1.       Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2.       Thoroughly wash and dry sweet potatoes, then slice (skin on) into bite-sized rounds/pieces.
3.       Add to a mixing bowl with grape seed oil, thyme, cinnamon, sea salt and cayenne (optional). Toss to coat, then arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet.
4.       To the same mixing bowl, add rinsed, dried chickpeas, and grape seed oil, thyme, cinnamon, cumin, paprika, sea salt, and coriander + cardamom (optional).
5.       Toss to coat, then arrange on baking sheet with sweet potatoes where space permits. (Depending on size of baking sheet, you may need to use a second to accommodate all potatoes and chickpeas).
6.       Bake for a total of 25 minutes, flipping/stirring once at the 15-minute mark to ensure even cooking. You'll know they're done when the potatoes are fork tender, and the chickpeas are golden brown, dehydrated, and slightly crispy. Remove from oven and set aside.
7.       In the meantime, prepare toppings and dressing (if using).
8.       Once potatoes and chickpeas are finished baking, wrap flatbreads in a damp towel and warm in the still warm oven for 1-2 minutes (or in the microwave for 30 seconds) to soften and make more pliable.
9.       To assemble, top each wrap with a portion of sweet potatoes and chickpeas. Add desired toppings, such as dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, arugula, and Garlic-Dill Hummus Sauce (recipe link above).
10.   Best when fresh, though leftovers keep separately in the refrigerator up to 3 days.

So anyway, I'd love to get your take on this. Which menu do you think I should do? The competing soups or the ham/buffalo/vegan buffet?

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Election Reflection

Years ago, when the presidential candidate I was supporting didn't win, I got a phone call at oh:dark-thirty the morning after the election. It was my grandpa. He didn't say hello. He didn't ask how I was. He simply started singing in his gravelly voice "Happy Days are Here Again!" 

My party was out and his was in.

The song was my grandpa's way of saying, in the immortal words of Dr. Beverly Hofstader, "Buck up, Sissy-pants!"

I swallowed my disappointment and congratulated him. My family has always been pretty diverse in our political views, but while the discussions were sometimes heated, we never let politics swamp the love we have for each other.

The truth of the matter is that we often agreed on basic values and goals for our country. We just had different ideas about how to get there.

I support the rights of those who feel they need to protest the outcome of the election. This is America. We started out as a rabble of seditionists and malcontents. Our system guarantees that we can say any silly thing we like.

What we can't do is assault people and break things. You lose me then. I stop listening because all I see is violence.

Besides it's not as if we are under the thumb of a distant king. We live in a democratic republic. If you don't like how things are done, you can work within the system to change things. And if there's one thing you can bank on in politics, it's that it's not a bullet train, always going forward. It's a pendulum. Over time, we swing from one extreme to the other, hoping to find the golden mean that makes the most people feel safe and happy.

I've been very upset by the way some folks have turned on family and friends over this election. One string of tweets showed up in my Twitterfeed from a woman who'd decided to cut her mother off from seeing her grandchildren because she didn't like the way her mom had voted.

Really? Disappointment over the outcome of an election is worth shredding your relationships with those who disagree with you? Might I suggest, as Oprah did, that you need to take a deep breath?



Our families, our friends and neighbors--these relationships are where we all live. Nothing that happens in Washington can impact our daily lives as much as these precious connections with others. My grandpa is gone now, but I still miss him dearly. In fact, even though I supported our president-elect, I can honestly say I would wish that the outcome of this election had been different...

...if it meant I could hear my grandpa sing again...


Sunday, November 6, 2016

Funny Church Signs

I am a fan of funny signs. I sort of collect them. So when I wrote The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club, I wanted to put an epigram, the verbal equivalent of a sign, at the beginning of  each chapter. Here are a few of them, interspersed with some of my favorite funny church signs:

After God created the heavens and the earth, He pronounced them good. Of course, He made squirrels, too, but everyone’s allowed at least one mistake.
~ George Evans, terror of fluffy-tailed rodents everywhere




Mrs. Chisholm is suffering from insomnia. She requests prayer and a recording of Pastor Mark’s sermon.
~ Marjorie Chubb, Captain of the Methodist Prayer Chain




The Reverend Harold Hiney will be filling in for Pastor Mark for our midweek chapel and the regular Sunday services. Our visiting speaker invites us to call him Pastor Harold.
No one calls him Harry.
~ from the Methodist Church bulletin




The sermon topic next Sunday will be “Is Hell Real?”
Come early and listen to our choir practice!
~ from a Methodist Church bulletin


Now it's YOUR turn. Have you seen any funny signs lately?