a dessert for a pot luck when you have no kitchen.

…microwave necessary.

1 pkg chocolate chips

2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (2 1/2 sleeves–if the box is the classic 3-sleeve style)

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups PB

Combine butter & PB to melt in microwave.  Crush graham crackers, or be smart & buy a box of crumbs.  Graham cracker crumbs + powdered sugar + butter/PB.  Spread in 9×13 pan.  Melt chocolate chips in microwave (short bursts w/lots of mixing after initial 30 seconds).  Spread over top of PB crumb mixture.  Refrigerate for at least an hour, then cut into square.

a truth about relationships

I’m speaking broadly here–not specifically about marriage or romance, which is what immediately pops to my mind when i hear (or read) the word “relationship”–just any level of intimacy with another person, or even with some animals, I’d argue, but that’s another discussion.  The truth which dawned on me today, at a totally unremarkable moment, is that though I may wish and hope and even pray for a relationship to be what it once was, once a relationship is changed, it is never the same again.  Now that I’ve written it, it looks like a simple redundancy.  Duh–once something is changed, it is never the same again.

I’ve been mourning changed relationships.  Ones that used to be close, and i’m not sure why they’re not close anymore–phone calls just stopped being answered one month, and then invitations for dinner were demurred, and now the “relationship” is reduced to (probably one-sided) facebook stalking.  Others ruptured somewhat dramatically, over life choices, and for whatever reason, haven’t recovered.  I keep praying and hoping and wishing and plotting for a recovery.  Today I realized that though “recovery” in the medical sense might be possible (because medically, no matter what happens to you, you’re never quite the same again–heart surgery, serious illness, whatever–your body has scars and adjustments), but a restoration isn’t ever possible, at least this side of Glory (right.  “this side of Glory”, whatever that means–also for another post).

A changed, ruptured, cooled relationship can of course come to a new “better” or at least “different” place, but hoping to get back what has been lost is just sentencing oneself to disappointment.

Therefore.  let us hope & pray for restoration in Christ, and hope & pray for recovery and renovation in our hearts & relationships.

“be safe out there”

Has anyone ever said that to you? Someone, probably many people, probably your parents, has expressed their love and care and concern by wishing for you to “be safe out there.”
Isn’t that a common sentiment of mothers to their children? (whether expressed in exactly those words or not) It’s a wish for protection that the proclaimer cannot provide, an acknowledgement of the uncertainty outside the walls of the home, a desire for the hearer to be surrounded by the blessing of safety.
When I recently heard this sentiment expressed by a fellowship breakfast regular (that is to say, the mostly-homeless crew of 10 or 40 who gather for breakfast Monday through Friday at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Durham) to another attendee, I was stopped cold.
It was the tail end of breakfast service, most people were getting up and leaving, or already had, and this man is one who usually helps to clean up by stacking chairs, wiping down tables and vacuuming.
He said, “Be safe out there” to a woman who held an infant. Some mornings when I’m running with my dog, I see her going to breakfast, pushing her stroller.
Throughout the day, I see a lot of the people with whom I share breakfast, waiting for buses, walking Ninth Street. “Out there” is the street, is downtown. Outside, in cold and heat and rain.
Friends of mine have recently had babies, and visiting them in their homes, I’m accosted with anti-bacterial gels before I cross the threshold. We talk in hushed tones, babies are changed into new outfits several times a day.
The mother and infant I know from breakfast have very different concerns. “Be safe out there” isn’t just “I love you”–which is what a patent might mean when speaking to offspring, or “don’t do anything stupid on your way home” –which is what one college student might mean, talking to another at the end of the night. “Be safe out there” is talking about much bigger, much more basic things here. If we have no sensible reason–because of where we live, how much food is in our cupboards, how easily we can bathe ourselves and our children, our access to electric warmth and coolness–to fear for our mortal safety, but our sister and her baby must face those questions daily, what luxury are we invoking when we wish each other “safety”?

Swedish Prayer

God who loves the little children

watch over me who is little

wherever i turn in the world

my happiness is in your hands

This is a prayer shared with me by a dear friend & native Swede. She tells me she prayed it every night as a little girl, and still prays it every night as she falls asleep (now a septuagenarian). We are all little in God’s hands, whether 3 years old, or 70. What strikes you in these words today?

p.s. the sticky toffee puds were fantastic. Photo & recipe to follow.

ramekins.

aren’t they just the best little food containers?  my obsession started a few months ago.  somehow i stumbled upon this brilliant idea: stuffing chocolate chip cookie dough into them, an inch or two deep, and baking them in the oven for 10-15 minutes–the deep-dish cookies are crispy on the outside, and still gooey on the inside.  they’re especially perfect with a perfectly spherical scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

the delicious, hot, texturey dessert sated me for a week or two, and then i found a recipe on Tasty Kitchen for a five-ingredient chocolate molten cake, designed to be enjoyed in a ramekin (of course).  everyone’s had a chocolate molten/lava cake, but this one only has five ingredients (my husband has made it himself!), comes together, in 5 minutes, and aside from the sugar, doesn’t have much against it, health-wise.  here are a few changes i made to the recipe you’ll find above: instead of the 60% cacao they suggest, i had 100%–and i loved it.  i halved the recipe, because 2 cakes is the perfect size for our two-person family, and instead of adding a yolk, or half one, i just used 1 egg.  for most of my baking recently, i’ve started using Smart Balance butter blend, and have loved it.  finally, i found that while powdered sugar really melts into the batter, usual granulated sugar, or even raw sugar, adds a nice crunch, too.

this morning, i tried a new egg-scramble method, outlined in this month’s Bon Apettit–crack 4 eggs into a small saucepan with 1 T butter.  heat over med-low heat, whisking constantly, till eggs thicken and begin to form small curds.  it’ll take longer than you think it should to thicken & curd, but once it starts, it all cooks very quickly.  don’t let it stay on the heat too long, just make sure most of the mixture is curdy; then, because special eggs deserve special presentation, i scooped them into ramekins and snipped flat-leaf parsley on top (i read last week that parsley is a great anti-inflammatory, so i’ve been putting it in everything).

TONIGHT: sticky toffee puddings in ramekins….

Perspectives on the Eucharist

oh, there are dozens and hundreds of theological explanations of the Eucharist–what *exactly* is “happening,” and how and why…  this is not one of those.  this is a reflection on how Jesus can specifically meet a person in the bread & wine of Holy Communion.

this morning, i learned that dear, dear friends of mine are moving about a six-hour plane ride away.  both husband and wife have been so vital to the discernment of my call to ordained ministry that i honestly don’t know where i would be without them (well, without Jesus, of course, but without their willingness to be conduits!).  thinking of their exit makes me tear up; i hope i get over that part at least by the time i see them…

as such, it’s been an emotional day.  i looked forward to going to the week-day Eucharist that the church i’m working at this year hosts every Thursday.  the familiarity of the service is so, so calming.  this particular service is small, usually less than 10 attendees, and held in a chapel that’s covered in carpet, wood and a bit of hewn-stone accent–it feels like a cozy cave (with lovely triangle windows at the top that let you see only the tops of the trees outside).  Not only was the homily about Advent and waiting (someone here is searching for a job post-grad), but Communion was something special today.

as i knelt down and the wafer was placed in my hand with the usual words, it dawned on me that this was exactly the same thing they would do and experience when they went back to England.  they, too, would receive the cup with the same, old proclamation.  we’d be taking and eating and living in Christ, still together, somehow, though we would not live down the street (in walking distance!) from each other anymore.  we would still be tightly knit as God’s children, washed by Jesus’ blood–we will still be one body, because we share one bread and one cup.

this is exactly (one of) the thing(s) that the Eucharist is to remind us of–that we aren’t individuals, and we aren’t divided and we aren’t alone.  we are joined to all Christians throughout space (the whole earth) and throughout time (all of history) in the sacrament of Eucharist.  we all serve the same Lord, and so we are never so far away from each other as we may feel, because we are all part of the same mission.

Book love: “A Homemade Life”

right now, i should be reading Bartolome de Las Casas’ “The Only Way,” about how to convert the Native Americans, who the Spanish had just “discovered” back in the early 16th century, when Las Casas does his thinking.

instead, i am wandering around my mind, inspired by the book i just finished, thinking, “hey, i could do that!” for about the twenty-second time, reading the author’s old blog posts, then clicking through gmail-facebook-twitter, in the too-familiar sequence of the wired-in tic every internet addict (most of us, these days) must have.

i wonder where my “voice” is, i wonder if my writing sounds like “me.”  I rarely think it does.  i wonder what my “style” is.  instead of these really inane wonderings, i shall write a bit about this book.  this is not a “review”–notice–this is just “love.”

For one, Molly‘s prose.  It’s the first book in years that I’ve read chunks out loud to whoever happens to be nearby, just because the wording is so fantastic.  how does one do that? (i’ve been told, “practice.”)  As i read, and even more now, i turn over in my mind one of the little sentences of praise that’s on the back or on the front, it says, “every story tells a recipe.”  I thought it was a little bit trite when i first read the phrase, how clever the reviewer must have thought him/her-self, but as i gulped down the book, he/she was right.  and here lies my one qualm: each chapter, a few pages of story, a page or two of recipe, gets its title inspiration from the story, not the recipe.  So how am i to find one recipe when i want it?  I want to go back to the braised cabbage (we’re starting a winter CSA next week, and i’m eager to know what to do with what i’m sure will be lots of winter cabbage) and the chocolate cake that they used for their wedding and the cornmeal cake that’s eaten with maple syrup and the stewed prunes…  clearly, it’s a varietous collection, and now that she’s on to her second book, a similar style, it seems, about birthing a restaurant, i’m eager for more (but will have to wait till early 2013, according to her website).

what book has been so good that you read bits out loud?