The Blood of Caesar

One of my friends at the UICA writer's group has been published--again. Congratulations, Albert!
The book is a mystery set in ancient Rome, and I love the characters. Dr. Bell's familiarity with the time period makes the book work on several levels. Many of the details are pulled right out of ancient texts. It's an amazing thing to see a book that you first read in double-spaced sections come out in print. Gives one hope for the future it does. To pre-order the book click Here. A sample chapter is available Here.
Albert has also recently won an award for his children's book, The Secret of the Lonely Grave. My daughter loved it, and highly recommends it. It's available Here. Albert's web site is listed on my blog roll.

Stocking the Freezer

Getting ready for baby is finally starting to gather steam. We cooked a months' worth of meals and have them all labeled and stashed in the freezer. There are still two or three more big days of cooking ahead. The spaghetti sauce and ground meat meals are all finished, but I still have the chicken and pork meals to prepare. The trickiest part is going to be the chicken casseroles. I like to cook the meals in real dishes instead of aluminum throw away pans, so we freeze them wrapped in plastic wrap in the 9x13 pans and then transfer them to 2 gallon freezer bags. I want to make six chicken casseroles, 2 each of Mexican Chicken Lasagna, Chicken and Rice with carrots, peas and cheddar and Chicken and rice with black beans, corn and pepper jack. I like to buy the meat in bulk, so I have to figure out how to get the dishes all cooked and frozen within the time frame that I can store the fresh chicken in the fridge. I think I'm going to make one Chicken and Rice dish, then the next day empty the pans, make the second, and boil the chicken for the Mexican Chicken Lasagna. Most of the remaining meals are more about mixing ingredients and putting them in various freezer containers, so I should be able to finish everything soon. Thanks, Karen.

Step Eight

The little church I did most of my growing up in was a place of orderly worship. The folks there weren't into emotional displays and they liked their routine. There was also a sense of reverence that took precedence over pageantry. When pastor was praying, we didn't move people around like scenery. He was talking to God, and we were supposed to respect that space as sacred, not as a good place for a scene change.
I still love order and reverence in my service. Liturgy comes naturally to me. I like it that we go through the entire Bible every three years. If I never hear another sermon out of Romans it won't adversely affect my lifetime average. The push to get through the entire Bible keeps stirring things up and uncovering forgotten gems. At the same time, since the pastor gets to choose what he wants to base his homily on it isn't rigid forcing us to listen to a sermon on the begats. I love it that everything we are commanded to do in the way of praying and such is covered in the order of service someplace.
One place where Protestant freedom has led to bewilderment is in the current lack of any system or theology of worship, or maybe it's that it changes so frequently and freely that it feels like there is no order or theology of worship. One week you stand for the reading of Scripture, the next you sit. One week you have communion, another you don't. Many services are highly orchestrated entertainment experiences with notable, impressive scene changes and dramatic presentations. The preaching tends to be haphazard, whatever appeals to the pastor gets preached what he doesn't find interesting is ignored. The push to have an emotional experience leads to all sorts of strange and strained things being done with music. I just can't relax and worship in the current milieu.
St. Mary's offers me a consistent worship experience that has it all. Worship, confession, prayer, preaching, the presence of Christ even such physical expressions as bowing, kneeling, standing and raising hands. It's all the good stuff without the excess or confusion. I can do without the fancy props and drama. I can't do without the quiet reverence liturgical worship cultivates.
This series begins Here. This series continues Here.

All Learning is for Everyone

My son loves to cook. He loves food. In order to get him to eat baby food, we had to grind up what we were eating because the boy needs flavor. If I'm in the kitchen, he's right there wearing his little chef's hat. So, why do the cookbooks for little people feature girls on the cover? The above cookbook is one of the best I've seen for a child his age, but couldn't they have put a boy on there too? My girls like to cook too, but none of them has been as keen on the whole thing as our boy. If ever there was an area where gender doesn't matter it's cooking. I'm a tad frustrated, and not just with this. Some of my daughters have inherited their father's interest in chess and engineering. Why are the books and kits about those subjects inclined to feature boys in the pictures? It isn't my son who is pressuring dad to make time to build the jet engine kit. I'm not saying that everything is genderless--Kurt won't be giving birth to this baby, but do we need to separate areas of inquiry and interest by gender starting in the toddler years?

Freezing and Thawing

The weather here in Michigan has been unbelievably harsh. As a transplanted Marylander, I've been enjoying the moderating affects of global warming, but this winter has been full on Michigan frozen wonderland. For a few days we couldn't even do laundry because the temperatures were so low the dryer failed to dry things in less than three runs. Vacationing from doing laundry is pleasant until you're vacationing from clean underwear. Thankfully we're back out of the single digits.
My sister has always been one of my favorite human beings. From the first time I spotted her alive and breathing in the hospital nursery I was a big fan. However, we are separated by five and a half years, and that always made relating difficult when we were children. Adulthood has brought us much closer, but there are still times when I wonder if we'll ever really understand each other.
One of my big rituals when preparing to give birth is to stock the freezer with at least a month's worth of dishes--me being me I get carried away and the "month" is actually three months, but this time we have a much smaller freezer. In order to store Christmas provisions, we eat the freezer empty the month before. I was really stuck as to how I was going to get the maximum out of such a minimal space. The usual cook until you drop approach would only have resulted in a chaotic overflow of food we'd have had to eat right then. That's when my sister stepped in.
When my niece was on the way, Karen was finally close enough for me to run down and cook until her freezer was groaning. The entire day was great, and I loved knowing that I'd made her first month with my niece a little simpler. Now that I'm the one expecting, Karen decided to repay the favor, only not with cooking, but with a freezer. It was one of those moments where you feel completely understood and loved. My beautiful freezer is sitting out in the garage waiting for me to get busy.
In honor of such a grand space--that baby has 9 cubic feet--I bought two new cookbooks. Fix, Freeze and Feast has turned out to be surprisingly well done for those of us who are familiar with the pitfalls and pleasures of once-a-month cooking. The authors have dishes that are as easy as measuring ingredients into freezer bags and then thaw and heat. They look delicious. I'll let you know which ones turn out to be better than the lack of effort suggests. The other book, Cook's Illustrated Make Ahead Meals, reflects my desire to upgrade our culinary efforts. I figure a few of their more complex meals will round out the line-up of old favorites and new speedy recipes. All that remains is to make up the shopping lists and get cooking. I love cooking.

Step Seven

Anti-Catholic rhetoric was a big part of my theological education. The expressions ranged from personal stories about Catholic mistakes to twice daily lessons for a week on how the Roman Catholic Church will be responsible for Armageddon (including overhead slides with flames and a picture of the pope on a gold throne with demons whispering in his ear.) One of the most shocking charges was that Catholics practiced idolatry--that they worshiped statues, saints, Mary, crackers and alcohol. It was a real head scratcher as to how any Christian church with even a nodding acquaintance with the Bible could miss something so big as one of the ten commandments. I was young, though, and satisfied that the adults wouldn't mislead me on something so outrageous as that.
By the time I was in my adulthood and had begun to have Catholic friends I'd learned to take such things with a grain of salt, but I still felt it necessary to inquire as to how they could feel comfortable praying to saints and such. The answer was simple. They weren't worshiping the saints, they were merely asking them to pray for them, just like I'd ask anyone to pray for me. Catholics don't think of the dead as inaccessible. They think of them as still an active part of the church. This makes tremendous sense to me. I find the idea of the communion of the saints amply expressed in Scripture (for a fuller treatment with copious Scripture references see Catholic and Christian). It also reflects my personal beliefs about heaven. To me heaven is not geography, it is complete union with God--to will as he wills. Now, if I am in heaven and I am going to will as he wills and I am a part of the great cloud of witnesses, then I am going to will that struggling saints still here will be successful as they fight for truth. I can't imagine just sitting by playing my harp while the battle still goes on. If that's heaven then I'm going to be spending my time ear pressed to the door of the throne room trying to look casual as the angels go in and out.
I also like how it respects the idea that God works through human beings. We have work prepared ahead of time by God for us to do. I think that includes the work of praying for each other, and I don't think that stops just because you're dead.
This series starts Here. This series continues Here.

Cook's Illustrated February Magazine Recipe Review

Normally I reserve fancy cooking for Christmas. I love to cook, but with all that we do getting dinner on the table becomes more about speed and quantity than excellence most of the time. We also do most of our food shopping at Sam's Club which is great because it saves us tons of money, but not great in that the food offerings are pretty stable and pretty basic. Food had become a boring necessity, and I decided we needed to do something to shake things up.
I've mentioned my appreciation of Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen several times, but now it was time to subscribe. I am now committed to cooking every recipe in the magazine at least once, which has really livened up dinner and food in general. We've had a great month and now it's time to fill you in on the results.

Slow-roasted Beef--Superb! Beef is limited in our home because of its high fat content, so to find a recipe that used such a lean cut of beef and made it fabulous was a highly acclaimed feast. Definitely worth the extra fuss.

French Chicken in a Pot--OK. It may have been our oven which has its finicky moments, but it took much longer than specified to cook. No one was particularly overwhelmed by this rather good chicken recipe. We probably won't make it again, but it was tasty.

Crunchy Baked Pork Chops--Fabulous! This was a tremendous amount of work. If I ever make it for company, which I will, I'll follow the make-ahead instructions and just pop them in the oven. The work was most certainly worth it. We loved this recipe.

Best French Onion Soup--Unbelievably Wonderful! Two things, one this is a different recipe than the one in the The New Best Recipes Cookbook. Two, I hate onions. I only made this soup because I'd committed to making every recipe in the magazine. I'm so glad I suffered through cutting up all those onions. Perhaps it's because you get to torture the onions for several hours and through two or three deglazings, but whatever it is, this soup is to die for. We served it in Panera bread bowls which we warmed in the oven and covered all over with Gruyere cheese. Everyone was in love, even the kids. You must try this soup.

Spanish Style Garlic Shrimp--OK. I couldn't get the dried peppers which may have made a difference, and I think I forgot the sherry vinegar which most certainly made a difference. In any case, we enjoyed the shrimp, but it didn't blow us away. It was just nice.

Almost No-Knead Bread--YUMMY! I bought my first bottle of beer for this bread. It was so worth it. Being me, to justify the expense of the beer I made four loaves and we were all so glad I did, though cooking the bread assembly style did create some problems with the way I was supposed to adjust the oven temperature and such. They all turned out though and they didn't last very long. We especially enjoyed this bread with chili. The crust is just the way I've always wanted crust to be and couldn't get. Very, very good. I'll be trying the variations and maybe I'll even get crazy and make a true sourdough now that I know how to get a good crust.

Roasted Broccoli--Worth fighting over! When you have children ages 3-12 fighting over the last broccoli spear you know a recipe is really good. You must try this!

Thin and Crispy Oatmeal Cookies--No Opinion. I didn't make them. I'm trying to get over being such a perfectionist and when I read the directions they would have taken forever and none of us like oatmeal cookies that much. Sorry.

Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting--It grows on you. I've already made it twice. The first time I just thought it was nice, but the taste haunted me. I had leftover ginger root and a Superbowl party to go to, so I made it again. The second cake cemented my addiction. It will make a nice alternative to my favorite carrot cake recipe. Very moist.

Tramontina Dutch Oven--They said that this would be almost as good as LeCreuset, and since I don't have 230 dollars to spend on a pot I bought one. It really is an excellent pot and performed quite well when I made the chicken, the bread and the soup in it. I'm glad I acquired it. We needed a medium size soup pot. Bonus, it's only 40.oo bucks at Wal-mart.

To the Future

One of the themes of this blog is my obsessive planning. If you think I carry out all those plans to the letter, you are mistaken. Planning is its own reward. Even if you never really carry one out you move closer to the goal because you are closer to knowing how. My plans as a kid were always theoretical because I knew there was no point in really planning until I had the power to make things happen, but even then I was planning.
A new baby on the way always amps things up. I cook a month or more worth of meals and stock the freezer. I lay out all the stuff and fill in the gaps where baby equipment has bit the dust (or in this case been given away since we thought we were done). I reorganize and alphabetize and generally prepare for war. This time I'm obsessing with next year's homeschooling curriculum. This doesn't seem directly related to baby, but April is when curriculum goes on sale. Baby is due mid April.
My new goal of having our oldest do AP level work during high school has given direction and purpose to my planning. I have the AP website on my bookmark bar and I consult it regularly. We've laid out a curriculum plan and I've been hunting up resources. They say that most kids can only handle one or two tests a year, so we are going to ask her to start taking tests in ninth grade. This raises the question of whether she'll be able to handle the higher level analysis AP tests require, but I'm less concerned with high scores as I am with high aims.
Next year we are going to consider our oldest's seventh grade year, which means we have time to work on the basic writing and analysis skills she will be needing in the future. Two years now seems very short with all that we need to accomplish, but there are resources that I think will help. As the final phases of the firstborn's curriculum begin to come together I become more confident in the materials and resources we are using with the younger children. Number six should have a great school experience, thanks to all the hard work of his older siblings.

Step Six

Recently I was given a pamphlet with this interesting sentence in it. "Catholic history can be traced back to the early centuries AD, but the trail is one of scriptural error, intolerance, cruelty and greed." There were a number of other interesting things in it, many of them incorrect, but it doesn't matter, the truth of it is that the Christian church is marked by error, intolerance, cruelty and greed. Catholics with their insistence on unity and continuity are of course the easiest target having the longest history. Being Catholic means having to deal with such horrors as the Inquisition, Crusades and the Pedophile Priest scandal, but this is hardly a problem limited to the Catholic church. I grew up backstage enough to know that all those horrors happen in one form or another in every church. If you think your church is different, give it time. For example, let's take a look at the Protestant church with the longest established history--German Lutheranism. Enough said.
It's human nature to try and find a way to wiggle out of human frailty. We'd all like to think that we, and our associates are different. We'd do it differently. They are not us, but that's a lie. The endless schisms that mark the Protestant effort are due in large part to this fantasy. Churches grow ever smaller in the vain belief that if we just get rid of "them" everything will be error-free, tolerant, kind and charitable, or at least the kinds of errors, intolerance, cruelty, and greed practiced by our little group will be more comfortable than the current situation. Catholicism says that's crazy. Catholics tend to stick it out, do what they can to fix problems, and keep moving forward--together. The basic idea that Christ came to save sinners is pretty simple, and as long as we are willing to admit we are sinners it works. The hard part comes in admitting that even in our best efforts to imitate Christ we are still sinners. We deflect that harsh reality by looking into the intricacies of doctrine and vainly hoping if we can somehow do better there we will do better in our souls. It would be far wiser to simply look deeper in our souls and correctly diagnose the problem there, than to continually point fingers at others and tear apart the fabric of the church. God is infinite. We are finite. We are guaranteed to fall short, in every area. Christ's coming says that doesn't matter. God loves us anyway. If only we would choose to love each other. To me, Catholics, by sticking it out and insisting on unity do a better job of that.
This series begins Here. This series continues Here.