I saw the sign...

Today, as I was driving back from the gym, I came to a corner in Holyoke where a man was holding up a sign that had what looked like an old school cd player that he was holding onto the back. Now it's 23 degrees outside and I had no desire to roll down my window to hear what was being said but the sign said "TRUST JESUS" in huge red letters. I smiled and nodded which is my usual way of acknowledging such things. Perhaps it is my way of saying, "Yup, ok, I know this Jesus. We're down" and also probably a little bit of  "Really, a sign? Is this necessary?".  and an annoyed sprinkle of  "You do realize you very well may cause an accident with this distraction, right?"

But what do I know? I suppose God can use whoever He wants to say whatever He wants to say. Perhaps some person was having one of those mornings we all have where nothing seems to go right, and we begin wallowing and pitying ourselves down this road of believing there is nothing bigger than ourselves and our little world. Maybe, just maybe? that kind of sign is just the reminder they need to turn their eyes back to the One who made it all.

But if you don't believe in Jesus at all...or life isn't so simple (and really, when is it?) does that sign change from a gentle love tap of our Savior into a taunting condemnation? Because to me, seeing this huge sign when in the midst of life and its twists and turns, could make one want to shout, "OKAY! How does one even DO that?"

And isn't that the real question...of the faithful, of the searching, of the clinging on by just a thread? I do believe, help me in my unbelief.

Trust-- that is an action packed word. And I love Jesus from the tips of my toes on up. But trust, that doesn't come easy. I've learned however, it doesn't come with a choice either. I either believe that my God is good, know that He is Sovereign even when I don't understand why things are going the way that they are, or I don't. And that place of I don't believe is way too dark and lonely for me to want to go near.

I have been struck by the comparision of my faith walk to a river as of late. I have been teaching a pretty cool unit on rivers to my second graders and the aerial shots are cool to see...how so many little tributaries gather together to form the larger river which is always flowing, always reaching toward the mouth, where it opens into the sea and becomes swallowed up in something more. Driving over the bridge next to my house and seeing the water in the Connecticut frozen mid movement was significant as well. Fire is so destructive...burning and laying waste to things in it's path...but ice...ice is scary too, because that river had been flowing, moving, reaching, when the cold came and froze it mid-stream. The river didn't freeze smoothly, it looked as though there were a fight between the elements and it froze all the way down in upward chunks of life frozen mid stage. It will be interesting to watch that river thaw in the springtime...

Because I think that's been my life...thawing. I used to be all fire...passionate, feeling, throwing caution to the wind. And in God's blessed way of making me mature, thankfully with time has come temperance. But part of me got frozen in a four year winter of ice. Lately, I have been learning that I have been created to love a certain way, and that even when I know it will cause me pain, I would rather love my friends and family the way we all want to be loved...and that I need to trust that even if it does hurt me, Jesus is big enough to handle that too. I carve out time to meet with the girls because I know it is needed. Even if I am tired and achy and at the end of me, I know that I can do it and I should do it. I love my friends who don't understand the biggest parts of me because maybe they are searching for someone to understand the deepest parts of them. I love my selfish friends and family who don't even know they are selfish even if they don't know how to apologize in a meaningful way. I know I have been all of those people to someone else somewhere along the road...the selfish friend, the misunderstanding one, the one who needs advice. And I know, that I have been loved the way I so want to love. It hasn't been an easy month. Old demons that I thought had long been conquered came a haunting, and lots of running to Jesus was needed. There were a lot of secret tears, and a lot of wanting to let the cold freeze up my journey. But I'm still fighting, still moving.

So I suppose one little sign can do something. It made me write this...

Trust Jesus. 

So simple...and yet...

Souper Duper

This is my second re-make of this amazing soup. The first time I made it, I took it to school to share with my co-teacher, who in her very New Haven Italian girl way said, "That soup is bangin!'". It still makes me laugh right out loud.

Today, I had the amazing blessing of being able to shop at Whole Foods with freedom from financial worry. I received the most thoughtful gifts from my classroom, one in the form of a substantial giftcard to Whole Foods. I fancied myself a Top Chef contestant as I browsed the choicest of shiitake mushrooms for this soup, and then had my choice of which manchega cheese I thought would go best without regard to it's cost. I chose the sheep's milk one from New Jersey, only because the one from Spain was more aged and that tends to bother my migraine sensitive head. I also was able to purchase all the GF flours and ingredients I will need for my January challenge to myself (more on that later)...

This soup was as wonderful as I remembered. My friend added the salad as his addition to the dinner with two kinds of craisins (pomegranate and cherry), as well as dried strawberries. We topped it with Brianna's poppyseed dressing, which if you haven't tried it, is the very best kind there is.

The soup comes out a combination of creamy and chunky, with the cheese just sticking to your spoon the further through the soup you go. This recipe is from my favorite soup book Super Duper Soups by Michael Van Straten. The book talks of the healing qualities of ingredients, this soup especially good for it's immunity boosting shiitake and mood-enhancing combination of mushrooms and cheese. Mmmm.....Super Duper!

Merry...Hannukah?

I have been thinking about latkes ever since we talked about Hannukah in school way back at the beginning of the month. Now, I have never eaten an official latke, but my mother can make a mean potato pancake and I have a sneaking suspicion they are veeery similar.

I have had some sweet potatoes hanging out in the house ready to be eaten so when my friend Kat said she could come for lunch today, I knew just what to make. This recipe called for some added shredded zuchinni, onion, Mrs. Dash, GF flour and egg substitute. I finally got the use the remainder of the fresh parsley my brother grew in his garden this summer! The recipe can be found here: http://www.recipe4living.com/recipe/sweet_potato_latkes_2.htm

They might look a little burnt in the picture but they didn't taste that way at all. Since the sweet potatoes make the pancakes a little extra sweet, I preferred them with the sour cream rather than the applesauce. It was a nice lunch with a sweet friend. Shout outs to Lauren too for my new serving dish!

Ocean Arrows

I can't think of anything that calms my soul more and makes me remember exactly who I am than the ocean. Just the sight of it makes my whole being just want to be still. I drove a friend who has a little bit of the winter blues to the ocean yesterday, and even if it was 20 degrees, I think oceans and their wide open spaces are exactly what tired souls need.

After that, we went to Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit, ME. http://www.arrowsrestaurant.com/index.cfm
The restaurant is set in an old farmhouse about two miles from Ogunquit center and is one of chefs Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier's 3 restaurants. When we arrived, we could see a chef pacing back and forth in the kitchen. When we started to walk to the front entrance, he came outside to offer us carmelized onion and bacon pizza slices. I, of course, didn't partake but as I said, it was 20 degrees out so that was a very sweet gesture.Many magazines have written about this magical place, and now I understand why. They seat you facing the their gardens where they grow a great majority of the food that they make. In the winter it is lit with just the right amount of lights and large hanging ornaments, and hay bale presents...understated enough that it is really beautiful. From the floor of the restaurant (which I think is an open porch in the summer) grows a thin birch tree whose branches snake through the rafters of the wooden porch. Chef Clark Frasier came over to introduce himself shortly after our seating.

They were serving their Bon Appetit Christmas Menu which looked something like this:

* House Made Prosuitto with pomegranate, persimmon, baby greens, and pistachios.

If I remember correctly, I saw a persimmon in the store a while back and it was a very beautiful fruit. I wanted to buy it but never had eaten one and didn't want to guess how to use it. This dish was beautifully arranged with sliced persimmon at the front of the dish, in the middle was thinly sliced prosuitto, and in the back was some baby greens. Sprinkled across the dish were pomegranate seeds and baked perhaps? pistachios. I like to savor my food so I ate very slowly...

* Grilled brochette of sea scallops, fresh bay leaves, and orange saffron aioli

This was my absolute favorite dish of the night. I normally am not a huge fan of scallops after a run in with some very sandy ones and frozen ones in my time, but these made a believer out of me! They came side by side on a stick with bay leaves, and dried fruit (apricot maybe?) between the scallops. They were topped with the orange saffron aoili and a piece of fresh mandarin orange. I think what I loved the most was the smoky grilled flavor of the scallops.

* Risotto with White Truffle Gratin

Mine was risotto, my friend had a fun little soufle shaped dish of pasta with breading topping it. Each of ours had the white truffle gratin flavor that I am fairly certain my friend loved the most since I lost them somewhere was their face turned into "Mmm. don't talk, I'm savoring right now"

* Roasted loin of beef with foie gras and cherry and red grape sauce

The cherry and red grape sauce was my favorite part of this dish...candied flavor without being overly sweet. I have a hard time with red meat that isn't cooked to grey anyway, so I was thankful it was dark so that I didn't see it's color. I did eat half of it, so I was proud. In the future, I think I will gain some confidence and let the chefs know that I have some personal wellness issues with red meat. I tried the foie gras on top even though a month ago at Wd-50 http://www.wd-50.com/, as I  enjoyed the aerated foie gras I ate there, my throat closed a little afterwards. The same happened again last night so I won't be eating that again. I think the foie was intended to be a little gorgonzola typed tangy to offset the sweet. For red meat lovers like my friend, the dish was lovely.

* Tapioca "caviar" service with blini, candied fruits, toasted pecans, cinnamon, mint, honey, and creme fraiche

Mine was a slightly adapted version of this as blinis are small little pancakes, but in their place I had two cute little cups of gelato, one maple and one cinnamon pecan. The dish was so beautiful that I spent a few moments savoring the visual effect before I started eating. I loved the candied fruits, and the pecans were toasted with just a little kick to them. My friend and I had had a conversation last week about what exactly creme fraiche is so it was fun to get to taste it's creamy texture that is slightly cream cheese sweet and yet, not so sweet all at once. I loved my cinnamon gelato even though I had a hard time placing its flavor at first until my friend identified it for me.

All in all, a lovely evening, at a lovely place. As I got into my car, I realized that I had sand on my heels from the ocean...and it made me laugh.

Birthday Christmas Dates

I remember being a little girl and loving to sit in the dark living room with our Christmas tree as the only light in the room. It was a funny thing because it was actually the only time of year we used our "living room". It didn't often see so much living. We had a den for that. The living room occasionally turned into a dance parlor with Dad or the place where you could find the record player and play such favorites as Bill Cosby's Himself,  Rainbow Bright's Adventure, orCCR (oddly enough..just as I typed this a group is singing "Down on the Corner" on the TV). But at Christmas, it was the room where the lights painted a mosaic on the ceiling. It reminded me of impressionism, the colors making soft patterns of peace. I still love Christmas trees, even though mine needs to be fake due to the pine allergy, but I try to put it up as early as possible and take it down ridiculously close to Valentine's Day.

This season has been filled with busyness and Christmassy festivities. There will be another fun filled night tomorrow as my friend has a Christmas Cookie exchange party for her birthday :). I decided I would try and go both gluten and sugar free with my recipe and even though I baked it for the time I was instructed, they were a little black on the bottom. Regardless, they are mighty tasty. I think I may try again another time with a few less baking minutes and I think they will be perfect.

Banana Date Cookies

The cookies are a mix of 1/2 cup chopped dates, 2/3 cup chopped pecans, 3 mashed bananas, 1/2 C olive oil, 2 cups GF oatmeal, and 1 tsp vanilla extract. You make little balls and flatten them a bit and bake for (a little less than!) 20 minutes at 375 degrees :) Try them..they are like banana bread--but better!

Spinacia oleracea

As I drove home from work today, I was thinking about how much I cook things with spinach in them. It may not look like that here on the blog since I don't blog every single little meal I eat, but like Popeye, I sure do love my spinach. Remember a few years ago when the stores pulled all the spinach off the shelf due to an ecoli outbreak? That was a real sad time for food in my house. Thus week's spinach dish was a Tuscan Bean Soup. It was such a filling meal and it only took 20 minutes to make! I do think I may have crossed over from Tuscany to Provence with the herbs I used to make it though, but it was delicious nonetheless. The key to keeping the spinach from getting all wilty and stringy was to cook it in some olive oil in a separate pan and then crack some black pepper on it and add it to the soup right before serving. As to the bread in that picture--it is the newest line of products from Udi's which is rapidly winning first place in my heart for the best gluten free products ever. This bread is whole grain GF bread. Fantastic. I even ate a grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast this morning, and another bowl of Tuscan Bean Soup for lunch...

Castles & Fairytales

"The best Auntie ever." That's the comment I received accompanied with a great big hug from a 4 year old cutie last Saturday. *love* I didn't even plan it but the blue frosting actually perfectly matched the blue in her princess dress to go along with her "knights and princesses" theme. Don't tell my niece that I am not actually related to her, but rather that she is my best friend's daughter because she gets highly offended! It doesn't matter one ounce to me how I came to be an auntie because that little girl stole my heart with the first glimpse of her adorable face 4 years ago. Because of that I really wanted her cake to be special...the problem was, due to a crazy busy life, I didn't start her cake until 7pm the night before...

Thankfully, I had a sous chef on hand to help with frosting mixing, tasting, and dyeing and anything else I needed. And it turns out, I needed someone to save the day. Enter the fairytale...

                                           How Kurt Saved the Day

It was 10 pm on a cold and wintry evening. The teacher princess was exhausted and wanted to sleep. She only had the top layer of the castle cake to finish and then sleep would wrap her in its sweet cocoon. She was pleased with how the bottom layer had turned out even if the cake had popped up and rounded off so that it made the cake a little more whimsical than she had envisioned. The little pan she had baked the top layer in was a tad too big around to put the ice cream cone turrets where they needed to be. She knew she would need to cut the final layer and stack it, and she was nervous how it would happen. The quiet knight stepped in and wielded the big scary knife blade that made the princess a little queasy. He frosted between the layers and stacked them onto the cake. He even offered to eat off the evil glutenous crumbs that had escaped. The princess began frosting and soon encountered a terrible dilemma. Because the cake sides were now the spongy inside of the cake, little pieces of cake were getting into her beautiful pale blue frosting. Tears welled up in the princess' eyes, irrationality and panic overtaking her at the late hour. What was she to do? The knight began to throw out ideas, and the princess became more panicked with each passing moment. Then he was quiet. When he spoke again the princess could see the bright bulb of superb ideas flashing over his head. He would build reinforcement walls with graham crackers and stick them on with frosting so that the princess could work her frosting charms. The princess was skeptical, but as he carefully measured each new wall, she could see that he was a secret genius knight. In the end, the cake came out a little round and imperfect, but it was just the kind of whimsical magic that little 4 year old princesses adore. And the teacher princess, the little princess, and the dark knight lived happily ever after. (at least as far as cakes go!)

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Under Pressure

Grace under pressure. That was the prayer of my heart this summer--to exhibit grace in the midst of turmoil. I felt as though I was making some progress, although I feel for me--often times if I am overwhelmed or full up and feeling irrational and tearful, I retreat, sit alone, cry through my tears until Jesus reminds me softly that He is there.

I am still unsure what to do when I have to talk to people in the middle of the pressure...whatever it is. I don't want to return to that place where I stuff my emotions...it took so long to rid my broken heart of that well meaning voice so long ago who said "Whatever you do today, hold it together for your friend, cry later." I fear, dear world, that I am an extremist, and I took that to it's fullest. I think there was a span of three years where I shed nary a tear. For a girl created like me, that is no good at all.

That said, I can circumvent the overwhelmed  stage if I am well-rested & feeling well. I don't quite know how to do that when I am overtired, achy, and not feeling well. And if some huge looming bill is in store, I'm done for in the first half hour until I can be still enough where Jesus can remind me that He is, in fact, Sovereign.

Yesterday was one of those days I feel like I failed at grace under pressure from start to finish.

I think the point is...the grace-giver was providing all the grace yesterday. Thankfully, His mercies are new every morning.