The Tuckness Times

Table Talk--Tim Tebow

2012-01-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

Alex and I talk a lot, so here's a little window into one of our heated conversations from this week--

This article (http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2103742,00.html), an opinion piece in Time magazine by Jon Meacham, does a decent job of chronicling Tebow's impact, but the conclusions and inferences he draws made me really mad, particularly this section:

"This cultural Passion play of red-state piety and blue-state scorn is at once familiar and dispiriting. If Christians like Tebow are going to bear witness so publicly, then they ought not to be surprised when they are talked about in ways that require them to turn the other cheek. To insist that criticism of Tebow--even vulgar criticism--is evidence that American culture is hostile to Christianity is wrongheaded."

Really? Seems like hostility to Tebow's Christianity would be pretty good evidence of American culture's hostility to Christianity.

Rick Reilly's piece in ESPN.com (http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7455943/believing-tim-tebow) was a much more concrete, clear picture of Tebow himself--Reilly actually spent time with him and so he shares stories of Tebow's selfless acts such as the following:

"Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured. He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave & Buster's), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard-line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts."

While most of the media hoopla focuses on the unlikely comebacks of the Broncos or the eerie 3:16 game stats (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/john-316-tim-tebow-bible_n_1195221.html), it's worth remembering that Tim Tebow himself is simply a Christian who is trying his best to live his life and do his job to the glory of God, and sometimes that means lots of throwing practice, sometimes it means praying before a game to get his priorities straight, and sometimes it means spending time with terminally ill people. At the end of the day, I think he's doing the right thing.

Easy Potato Soup in the Crockpot

2011-10-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite soup recipes--it's easy, most people like it, and it makes a lot. I make the recipe from my Betty Crocker's Slow Cooker Cookbook; I've put the link below to the same recipe on the Betty Crocker website. (The picture is from there as well.)

The main ingredients are hash brown potatoes, canned corn, and evaporated milk. I sometimes use shredded hash browns instead of the cubed kind. It calls for bacon; I usually use chopped up cooked ham to give it more substance.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Find the recipe--click here.

Grand Prize Zucchini Skillet Recipe

2011-08-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

Simple, tasty, and a great use for summer garden produce--this one's a repeater.

It's a recipe I've had in my "possibilities" binder for years, and I should have made it years ago! It tasted much better than I thought it would given the ingredients. It must be the freshness of the vegetables--and the marvels of highly salty soy sauce and garlic powder, probably. It came out of a cookbook that focused on lentil recipes and I love the recipe title. (Unfortunately I cannot find the original source. Nor did I think to take a picture. Sorry!)

Alex actually did most of the cooking on this one which gives you an indication of its simplicity.

Grand Prize Zucchini Skillet

45-60 minutes total

5 servings

1 cup dried lentils, rinsed

2 cups water

1 onion, chopped

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

2 medium zucchini, sliced

2 medium tomatoes, sliced

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 medium onion, sliced (opt.)

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. Cook the lentils in the water (covered) for 30 minutes. Drain.

2. Saute the chopped onion in the oil in a large skillet.

3. Add the cooked lentils and the zucchini to the skillet and saute for 5 minutes.

4. Add the tomatoes and sprinkle on 2/3 cup of cheese.

5. Arrange the onion slices on top of the cheese (this onion is optional) and sprinkle with the remaining 1/3 cup of cheese.

6. Sprinkle the seasonings over the vegetables. Steam, covered, until the tomatoes are tender.

Nutritional info per serving: 222 calories, 13g protein, 21g carbs, 10g fat, 24g chol, 170mg sodium, 6g fiber

Ingredient notes: We did not use the sliced onion since we don't care for raw or almost raw onions. The amount of vegetables is flexible as well-we used what we had that day. For soy sauce, we use Pearl River Soy Sauce from the Asian food store--our Mongolian renter bought it last year and we love it.

Basic Granola

2011-03-19T08:52:00.001-07:00

This is the granola I made frequently while growing up, and it's the granola I make about twice a month now. I make it 12 cups at a time in a large roasting pan because Alex and I each eat 1/2 cup of it every morning for breakfast, often with homemade yogurt, so we go through it quickly. As the title mentions, this is the most basic recipe I use. We (I) do occasionally get bored with it so I have a maple version and a peanut butter version as well. I enjoy making granola because it ensures that every day we can have an easy, inexpensive, and healthy breakfast that will carry us through our mornings. I hope you enjoy it!

Granola

Adapted from the More with Less Cookbook

Anastasia Tuckness

12 c oats

1 c honey

1 c vegetable oil

1 c wheat germ (opt.)

1 c walnuts

Additional nuts or dried fruit as desired

Several good shakes of cinnamon and salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 while you measure oats.

2. Toast oats in oven 8 minutes.

3. Stir in wheat germ, walnuts, cinnamon, salt.

4. Pour honey and oil over; stir well.

5. Bake for 8 minute intervals, stirring after each one and checking for desired doneness.

6. Cool on rack.

7. Mix in other cereals such as Grape Nuts and All Bran and dried fruit.

Chippy Oatmeal Raisin Bars

2011-03-04T12:15:00.001-08:00

These bars have always been my standby when I need something basic to have around the house for desserts and snacks--I almost always have all the ingredients in the house and they take 15 minutes to whip together. I found the recipe on the back of the raisin box when I was in middle school. Until recently, I didn't bring them to potlucks because I thought they were too plain--yummy for home, but too basic to share.

Last Saturday I brought two pans to work to share because we had a big project going on and we needed fast fuel to keep us going. Turns out these bars were exactly the right thing--enough sweetness to make them fun and easy to eat, enough solid energy calories (oats, raisins, etc) to keep you going on a long day. I hope you and your friends enjoy them as much as we all did!

Chippy Oatmeal Raisin Bars

from the back of the raisin box

15 min prep + 25 min bake

1 c brown sugar

¾ c butter (1 ½ sticks)

2 eggs

1 ½ t vanilla

¾ c flour

1-2 c chocolate chips (I use about 1 1/2 cups usually)

2 c oats (I use rolled; quick oats work too)

¾ c raisins

1. Beat sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla. Add flour slowly.

2. Stir in chocolate chips, oats and raisins. Spread in lightly greased 9x13 dish.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Red Stew--worthy of a birthright?

2010-10-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to post this recipe after last night's lesson at D6, where Esau trades his birthright for some of the "red lentil stew" that his brother made (Genesis 25:29-34). Although I'm sure it's not worth a birthright, it is mighty tasty, full of healthy ingredients that reportedly ward off colds, and it is probably similar to Jacob's original stew. Red lentils are available at Wheatsfield in the bulk section.

Ethiopian Lentil Bowl
Simply in Season cookbook
6-8 servings
75 minutes total

2 c dried red lentils
2 large onions, finely chopped
1 head (yes, the whole head) garlic (cloves peeled and mashed)
3 T tomato paste
½ t paprika
1 t salt
½ t ground ginger
¼ t pepper
3 c water
¼ c lemon or lime juice

1. Rinse and sort lentils. Cover with water and soak 30 minutes. Drain.
2. Meanwhile, chop onions and mash garlic cloves.
3. In a soup pot sauté onions and garlic in oil over medium-hi heat until golden, about 10 minutes.
4. Mix in tomato paste and paprika. Add remaining seasonings and half the water. Stir well.
5. Add the rest of the water. Stir again, cover, and bring to boil.
6. Add lentils and lower heat. Cook until lentils have softened, 20-30 minutes.
7. Add juice and serve hot.

This is so thick! I often eat it by scooping it up with tortillas or pitas. It’s also amazingly sweet tasting—the garlic mellows from all that simmering. It also freezes really well.

A triple batch will barely fit in my big (8Q?) soup pot.

"Sloppy Joe" (Barbeque or BBQ to me)

2010-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

An incredibly useful recipe--makes a big batch to feed many or freeze; also a good meal base (see options at end of post).

Barbeque (Sloppy Joe)
Grandma Walburg’s recipe
Yield: 10 cups (20+ servings)
45 min prep + 1 hour simmer

3 lbs. ground beef
2 large onions, chopped
1-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small green pepper, chopped
2 cups chopped celery
1 tsp chili powder
14 oz ketchup
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
1 Tbsp salt
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp black pepper
2 cups water
¼ cup cider vinegar
2 Tbsp Worcester sauce

Chop vegetables. Brown meat and vegetables in large pot, sautéing until celery is soft.

Add chili powder; cook 2 minutes.

Add all the rest of the ingredients and simmer, uncovered, for an hour.

Freezes well in large or small portions. Serve in buns or over bread.
Other options: To 3 cups of the mixture: Add a packet of taco seasoning and use in taco salad, nachos, etc. Add a can of whole tomatoes and a can of chili beans to make chili. Add a can of spaghetti and a can of vegetable soup for goulash. My grandma would freeze a batch and take the extra ingredients for camping meals—they’re easy to mix up in electric frypans.

Update

2010-06-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

First--if you are part of Cornerstone Church, you have until July 1 to submit up to three recipes for the Cornerstone Cookbook! Check the program or email me for the submission email address. I submitted Energy Bars, Stuffed Shells, and Black Bean Sweet Potato Burritoes.

Second--I have tried several of the recommended products from the last post.

Blood meal to repel rabbits--this sort of works. I found I needed to apply a lot of it, quite often, to each plant that the rabbits liked to eat. After a while we decided it was easier to fence in the vegetable garden and just give up on a couple perennial flowers that they love to eat.

Citrus infused vinegar--I love this and use it with Borax to clean my toilets most weeks. It smells much better than most cleaners, although I do use super strength toilet cleaner every month or so to get it really really clean. I did also make a spray bottle of Citrus Disinfectant and I enjoy using that to clean countertops. I must say, though, that Clorox Green Multipurpose Spray is still my favorite spray cleaner. I haven't decided if I'm going to shell out for a new bottle once mine is gone!

I'm still updating my goodreads--feel free to check it out for recommendations--or just visit me at the library to get some personal recommendations for you, your kids or your grandkids!

Home products you can make

2010-02-24T12:45:00.000-08:00

I am saddened to note that an entire quarter year has passed since I have posted to the blog. One reason this has come to pass is that I have misplaced our cute pink camera. It was last seen in mid-December, and we hope it comes to light soon, but until then there will be no new pictures of food. :(

However there are still things I'd like to share. First, I continue to record and review all the books I'm reading using goodreads.com--you can see small book covers on the right side of this blog and you should be able to click on any of them to see my review. I add several books a week, so there should often be something new to read.

I've also been spending a lot of time reading blogs--mostly food blogs, but some library and book blogs as well. My current favorite is smitten kitchen. Today she is featuring granola bars that look amazing!

And for today's main event, I'd like to share the following tips. These are taken from Homemade (click to see the book in the Ames Public Library catalog), a book produced by Readers Digest that provides recipes for foods, cleaning solutions, and gardening products that you can make yourself. In general I thought this book was informative and clear; most of the recipes were made of cheap, easily available ingredients. I typed out the ones I want to use sometime (and bolded several that I mean to try in the next couple months). Please forgive the shorthand I used, and let me know if you don't understand my abbreviations. Do share if you try any of them; I'm curious to know what works.

Homemade by Readers Digest—Recipes for food, green cleaning, and garden products

In the Kitchen

• Strawberry Frozen Yogurt: Combine 16 oz plain yogurt, 2 c pureed strawberries, 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk, 1 c milk, 1T vanilla. Pour into ice-cream maker, no more than 2/3 full, freeze in batches. Firm in freezer before serving; thaw 30 min before serving.
• Orange Cream Pops: Combine 3 oz orange jello pack in 1 c boiling H20, dissolve. Stand till room temp. Add 8 oz yogurt, ½ c milk, ½ t vanilla. Stir to blend. Freeze in molds or 3 oz cups for 2 hours; insert sticks or plastic spoons. Freeze 4-8 more hours. Makes 10.

Around the House

• Bubble Bath: 2 oz dishwashing liquid, 6 cups water, 1 oz glycerin. Swish in bucket and pour into tub.
• Citrus disinfectant: In a quart jar, combine peel from one piece of citrus fruit and 3 c white vinegar. Close and store for two weeks, shaking occasionally. Strain. Store in the jar. Pour 1 c vinegar in 32 oz bottle and fill with water for spray cleaner. Add 1 c vinegar to 2 gallons water for floor cleaner.
• Multi-purpose cleaner: 3 ½ c hot water into 32 oz bottle. Add 1/2c white or cider vinegar, 1 t borax, 1 t washing soda, 1 t liquid castile soap and shake. Spray (counters, kitchen app., tile, painted things) and wipe.
• Oven cleaner: ¾ c clear ammonia in a small bowl overnight in closed oven. Wipe down using damp sponges w/ baking soda. Or use my method and wipe up with dish deterg. on sponge.
• Scouring powder: equal amounts baking soda, borax, salt. Sprinkle, scour, rinse, dry.
• Soft scrub: Combine ¼ c borax and ½ t oil soap. add ½ t lemon juice, stir. Apply to sponge, clean surface, rinse, dry surface.
• Nontoxic toilet bowl cleaner: Flush toilet. Sprinkle 1 c borax on bowl; drizzle 1/2c white vinegar on top. Let sit for 3 hours; scrub with brush. or leave overnight; no scrubbing needed.
• Stronger toilet cleaner: combine 2/3 c borax with 1/3 c lemon juice to make paste. apply to toilet bowl with rag. let sit 2h then scrub off.
• Drain opener: Pack drain with ½ c baking soda, pour in 1 c vinegar. Cover for 10 minutes; flush with boiling water.
• Upholstery shampoo (for car interiors): 6 T grated soap flakes and 2 T borax mixed in large bowl; slowly add 2 c boiling water, stirring well. Cool. Whip to foam. Brush dry suds onto furniture; wipe off with damp sponge.
• Goo-be-gone: dip cloth into white vinegar and rub on goo. rinse and dry.

In the Garden

• Weed killer: 5% bleach, 95% boiling water in spray bottle. Douse weeds. Check the next day—increase concentration if necessary. Place bottomless plastic bottle over weed to isolate from nearby plants.
• Anti-Rabbit: sprinkle blood meal over soil around edges and in garden beds. reapply after heavy rains. (Fencing needs to be as small as chicken wire and at least a foot deep.)
• Anti-Deer: Tie white grocery bags or rags to fence posts at deer-nose height to flutter in wind and simulate deer tails.
• Insecticide: Puree 10 garlic cloves with 1 T vegetable oil. Strain into quart jar. Add 3 c hot water and 1 t dishwashing soap. Close and shake to mix. Put into spray bottle. Spray plants infested with aphids, whiteflies, etc., making sure to get both sides of leaves. Apply every 3 days for a week. Repeat after rains or as needed.
• Insecticide for aphids and mealybugs: Combine 1 c rubbing alcohol and 1 c water in spray bottle and shake. Test on a leaf—if it browns, do not use. Otherwise spray whole plant—undersides of leaves, flower buds, but not open flowers. Repeat every other day for 3 days.
• Aspirin insecticide: Stir 3 regular aspirin into 5 gallons water in can. Treat plants twice monthly.
• Bug blaster soap spray: good inside and out for caterpillars and other soft-bodied insects. Add 1 T dishwashing soap to 1 gallon water, stir. Test spray on plant. Next day, coat entire plant. Repeat twice a week until no longer visible, then as needed.
• Ammonia plant conditioning spray: 1 part household clear ammonia, 1 part liquid dishwashing soap, 7 parts water combined in large container. Spray on garden plants and lawn for fertilizer and insecticide.

The Table

2009-11-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

Anastasia and I were given money to go get a dining room table. We bought the table below. It was a great deal: on clearance, with both leaves in you could fit 10 people around it, without the leaves six. Anastasia liked the oak....

Then we got home and started measuring again. I had measured a day or two before we left and thought- that will be easy to remember. We realized that our not that large dining room now was going to have a huge oak slab dominating it and that walking sideways would soon become a matter of instinct. We called the furniture store back and they were nice enough to cancel the order for us since we had just placed it and nothing had been done to the table yet. We then started looking through digital pictures of the other tables we had seen and decided to go with this rather different one:

It seats 4-6 people and it actually fits quite nicely in our dining room- 6 inches narrower and three feet shorter. The lessons are- if you make a mistake, admit it right away and don't assume you will remember what seems easy to remember at the time.

Yellow cake--not as successful

2009-11-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when you skip the step of lining your pans with parchment paper (I've heard b/w newsprint works too). I had even greased and floured them, to no avail. Maybe if I'd let them cool longer?

Anyway, this is the recipe I was making--the yellow cake recipe out of Pam Anderson's book The Perfect Recipes for Entertaining (I would highly recommend this book--available at your local library). I was drawn it by its promise of ease and versatility: fill it with raspberry and top with cream cheese frosting or fill with marmalade and glaze with chocolate, or simply top with fruit topping.

The first attempt, as shown above, resulted in a bunch of tasty crumbs and tidbits, so I whipped up some chocolate frosting and used my Pampered Chef decorator to put rosettes on them and everyone thought I did it on purpose. The second time I made it went much better, and I topped it with applesauce (see last week's post) and ice cream. I put the other layer in the freezer, and I'll be trying the raspberry version for Mom's birthday this weekend. I think it broke in transit to the freezer, but it will still taste good!

So the jury's still out on this recipe--it's relatively easy, but I still get hung up on exactly how long to beat at various steps in the recipe, and it's quite dense, but definitely buttery and tasty. I don't think it will be the only cake I will make for the rest of my life.

The one I really have my sights set on is this one, but just reading the recipe tires me out!

Red Velvet Birthday Cake

2009-11-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

Recently a friend of mine celebrated a birthday, and I took the occasion as a chance to try out one of the many fabulous celebration cakes smitten kitchen has posted on her blog. (If you're wondering where I am when not posting on my blog, there's a good chance I'm reading hers.)

I chose to try my hand at Red Velvet Cake, as it seemed to have the best balance between being fun and birthday-like, while still being classy. The bottom line on this recipe: it was somewhat time-consuming, but a huge hit and it made my friend feel very special, so it was a good choice.

Now for the blow-by-blow. The recipe is a 3-layer cake, so I borrowed my mom's cake pans and was glad I did, because they have this little thing you run around the rim of the pan to get the layers out. I also lined the pans with parchment, per directions. (Post to follow where I did not follow these directions.) Getting ingredients was also interesting--cake flour was hard to find at Fareway, but the butcher was able to find it for me. I ended up going to Hyvee for the red food coloring, because it called for 3 oz (one of the largish bottles is 1 oz), and all you get at Fareway were those multipacks. I figured I'd have to buy like 20 multipacks to get enough. I did cut it down to 2 oz, and was satisfied with the result.

To explain the pictures, from top left, clockwise: The frosting is cream cheese frosting, and I made a double batch so as to be able to do a crumb coat, as seen here and explained here (you need to read this post if you want to do layer cakes!)--especially important with white frosting and red crumbs. The final coat was not perfect, but pretty close, as you can see in the third picture. The 2nd--well, my fingers got really red, as did pretty much everything in the kitchen. I was thankful for bleach for my towels, and I used paper towels to immediately wipe up the counter.

Decorating: I put a cookie cutter in the middle and sprinkled red sprinkles in the middle, spreading it around with a pastry brush. Then I tinted a bit of frosting and put dots all around the edge. Dots and circles are all the rage these days, for reasons I don't entirely understand.

The last two pictures are just to show how messy my counter got, and how I cleaned it all up in a matter of minutes thanks to my fabulous dishwasher. I love my new kitchen and its appliances!

Preserving fall's bounty

2009-11-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

As we continue to live through the seasons' change, I continue to try to live out principles I was motivated by from reading Animal Vegetable Miracle this spring. I did some preserving of berries, zucchinni, tomatoes, and green beans this summer.

This fall I decided to concentrate on butternut squash and apples. When we were in MI for a cousin's wedding, we ran across some beautiful butternut squash for 18 cents a pound. Crazy, eh? I got 11 pounds for $2. That's about as cheap as food gets, and this food is good!

Easy squash recipe: Wash it. Prick it. Put it in a slow cooker whole (as seen in picture) with 1/2 inch of water. Cook on low until soft when pierced (4-7 hours). Remove; quarter lengthwise to cool. Scoop out flesh. Mash--add butter, ginger, salt, pepper, whatever--eat and then freeze the rest in freezer bags.

The applesauce is a little more time-consuming, but this is the easiest way I've found. Peel, core, and quarter the apples (I like to use my Pampered Chef cook's corer). Put in slow cooker. Shake cinnamon and sugar over them (I just guess on this, sorry!). Pour 1 cup or so apple juice or water over them. Cook on high until they're soft, about 2 hours. Mash, add sugar if needed.

I had visions of freezing a whole lot of applesauce too, but so far we've mostly fed it to guests. It goes great with ice cream (see picture) and/or yellow cake. I guess if we are using seasonal bounty to feed our guests that's a good thing too--it doesn't all have to be about preserving!

Purchasing notes: Fareway has 1/2 peck white tote bags of cooking and eating apples from Deals Orchard in Jefferson for 89 cents a pound, so that's a great convenient way to eat local and in-season! We've enjoyed the Fujis (may be done now), Red Delicious, and Jonathans.

New Auditorium!!

2009-10-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

ps--for those of you who are curious about Cornerstone's recent building addition, click here (you'll also get a couple of cute kid pictures). Then come visit on Saturday afternoon for the Harvest Festival/Open House! (Details here.)

goodreads

2009-10-29T13:47:00.001-07:00

We took a blogger vacation for about a week because we thought it had a virus--not entirely sure if it's cleared up, but we're giving it a shot.

I wanted to point out a new feature on our blog. If you look on the right hand side, underneath the list of recent posts, you should see some small book cover pictures. These are books I've read recently, most of them young adult books, and if you click on a book, you should be linked to my rating and whatever review I have posted of it.

Hopefully this will be a way for you readers to keep up with my reading if you're curious--and I've really been enjoying using goodreads as a way to organize books I've read, am reading, and want to read. I love being able to see the covers!

predicting the future

2009-10-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

One definition of stupid is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Normally the way we predict what is going to happen in the future is by looking at the past. And it works pretty well. If I had to guess, the American League will win the All-Star game next year too, just like they have won the last dozen or so in a row. Were I into gambling and someone gave me that bet straight up, I would take it despite being a National League guy. But the thing is streaks eventually end. I remember a long time ago hearing about how the United States had won the "America's Cup" yahting race for alike a 100+ years in a row. And then some guys in New Zealand built some crazy boat that Dennis Conner still thinks was illegal and they win. I just looked it up and the US has not won the last four times.

I have been thinking about this as I have been listening to statistics like "inflation has averaged such and such over the last 20 years" or "The Stock Market has averaged such and such over the last 70 years." On the one hand, past track records are about the best thing we have to go on for predicting the future, but on the other streaks end. I like to think of someone in Augustine's day saying "The Roman Empire will not fall apart. People have been saying that it will happen for centuries and it never does." But of course it did. Or like assuming that the world will always go on like it has been going on for thousands of years. The reality is that there are unique events (the beginning of the universe for example). Empires rise and fall. We need to have the humility remember that all of our preditions are only predictions, not guarantees, and that the only solid guarantee is that eventually the streak will end.

too many stars

2009-10-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

I have lots of theories. One of my theories about movies is that too many big name stars in the same movie is often a recipe for a disappointing movie. Big stars don't normally like bit parts and so you end up with movies where they try to gives serious time to 6-12 characters and you end up not really very connected with any of the characters. It is the same problem we still have when we put our olympic basketball teams together. Guys normally become big stars because they are good at scoring, but there is only one basketball to go around. The team needs to play (and even start) some guys who are really ok with not scoring a lot of points but who can play defense, rebound, and knock down an open shot if the person gaurding him tries to double team Lebron James. Three cheers for role players.

updates

2009-10-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been away from the blog for a while. We've been clearing brush and pulling invasive plants out of our new backyard, organizing our new house, etc. etc. I've also been reading a lot of YA books (posting reviews on goodreads.com under username atuckness--I'd love to be your friend there!) and reading a few cooking blogs and trying out their recipes. I'll post some links to them in the next little while.

Here's a few pictures of things I've been making. I can't figure out how to get blogger to insert the pictures after the text, so sorry this is kind of out of order. Feel free to ask for specific instructions for any recipe you're curious about!

At the top is a photo of my efforts to preserve summer tomato loveliness. I used a friend's dehydrator and followed a recipe from the web; I was inspired by Animal Vegetable Miracle to try this. I used cute little plum tomatoes; it took forever to seed them (which I did so they'd dry faster)--if I do it next year I won't seed them. I froze them; later I'll throw them in olive oil and herbs and they should be just like the ones you buy in jars.

Next is a photo of a dinner that looks better than it tasted. I tried a seasoning mix for the rice and it was too salty; the fish was tough for some reason as well. The salad was great, and the sauce on the fish was okay.

We do enjoy a little bacon sometimes, as the next photo shows. I buy a package, split it into 4 bags, and freeze it so we just eat a little at a time. It adds nice flavor to bean recipes and is of course great with fried eggs and fried potatoes. A word to the wise--yukon golds make better fried potatoes than russets!

And last is a blueberry brie quesadilla from August--the original recipe was much more complicated, but it's delicious just as is--blueberries, brie, and a flour tortilla toasted on the stove.

Happy fall!

Summer's Bounty

2009-08-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

Even though we've been really busy with the house, I've taken a bit of time out to enjoy summer's bounty. While my mom was on vacation, I took care of her garden, and that basket was one day's harvest (including 8 summer squash!).

Reading Animal Vegetable Miracle inspired me to try a new recipe: Disappearing Zuchinni Orzo. It was tasty, cheap, and pretty simple, although it did require shredding zuchinni, sauteing it, and boiling pasta so it made a lot of dishes. It looks pretty next to the cherries, which are in season but not local (to use criteria from the book).

The book also inspired me to "put up" some vegetables for the winter months. I'm not yet up for canning, so I shredded and froze 14 cups of zuchinni/summer squash to use in soups, quesadillas, casseroles, quick bread, even cake and cookies. Or maybe it was 28 cups (14 2-cup packets), now that I think of it.

The next week I went to the Farmers Market and an older gentleman farmer was selling beautiful green beans at bulk discounts. I got over 6 pounds for $7, and spent a couple hours snapping and blanching them. (Alex helped with the snapping.)

I'm excited to have local veggies in our freezer this year!

Work and Play at the New House

2009-08-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

A few shots of our new home (more to come later I promise!): We spent lots and lots of time painting the main floor--all white trim, plus a blue/green/gray color and chocolate brown color most of the rest of the main floor. Alex has also spent lots of time doing various handyman activities like assembling bar stools.

We both much prefer cooking in our new kitchen. The griddle plate in our stove allows Alex to shine as Pancake Master, and the dishwasher and deep sink make cleanup a snap for us. We both love the bar--eating at it, prepping food, talking, checking email on the laptop....

Things are shaping up pretty well around here!

praising to the end

2009-07-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

We visited my family in Missouri this weekend. On Friday we went to visit my grandparents. They have led more people to Christ in a year than I will likely ever lead in my life. I asked my grandfather last year how many people he thought God had allowed him to lead to Christ and he said "I don't know, I don't keep count. I have records so I could go back and try to figure it out. I know it picked up when I turned 80 to about one a week." He is trying to stay retired right now at the age of 85 (I think) so that he can care for my grandmother who has Alzheimer's. She has been a wonderful woman of God for many years. It is hard now when she is often confused, she can never remember my name, or even recognize numbers, and she needs constant supervision, but it is also a joy that some elements of her personality are still there. She is still loving and thankful, and God has spared the part of her mind that learned all the hymns she has sung for the last 50 years. At church Sunday morning it was great to watch her singing the hymns without needing to look at the words. She can still praise. Both of them, to the very end, are oriented toward the kingdom of God. That is what I hope Anastasia and I can be if God gives us long lives on this earth. Anastasia has wonderful grandparents too. We are unusually blessed in the spiritual heritage we have.

eating

2009-07-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Anastasia often blogs about her cooking experiences on this blog, so I thought I should say a little bit about my eating experiences. Last week Anastasia made a cheesecake. It was great. It was the best looking one she has made yet. Part of what made it fun to eat is knowing that making desserts is not really Anastasia's favorite thing. Contrary to gender stereotypes, she would rather have potato chips and I would rather have chocolate. Anastasia does a good job of putting thought into making sure most of what we eat is healthy and then sometimes making things that have no other purpose in life but to taste really good. I have a good gig going.

everyday dinners

2009-07-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes people ask me if I cook from scratch all the time. The basic answer is no, because we do eat some processed food, and we eat leftovers quite often as well (that's why I especially love food that freezes).

Often we end up eating food like the meals pictured above: it comes together quickly but is made of primarily fresh ingredients. So even though they aren't elaborate meals, they have the benefits of from-scratch.

The details, starting top left and going clockwise:

1. Baked tilapia (topped with a little mayo, herbs, breadcrumbs, and parmesan), baked potato, fresh raspberries and salad.

2. Super tuna salad on cocktail rye--mayo, celery, olives, dill

3. From scratch pancakes and syrup, lightly scrambled eggs

4. Egg frittata with roasted peppers, olives, and feta cheese; toast with homemade rhubarb jam

5. Baked tilapia marinated in teriyaki sauce (Alex's favorite), baked potato, stirfry veggies

6. Overeasy eggs, fried potatoes and onions, frozen green beans

7. Baked chicken, noodles baked with water and a chicken bouillon mix I found in a magazine, fresh peas from Mom's garden

8. DiGiorno pizza, roasted asparagus from the farmer's market (my favorite juxtaposition!)

9. Sausage and greens soup (greens from Mom's garden), vegetable oven pancake with broccolli from the farmer's market, strawberries from the farmer's market. (This was the most time-consuming meal, but we had the soup the day before as well, and it was all so delicious!)

Share your favorite everyday dinner!

know what you are bad at

2009-07-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

One of my mottoes since back when I was in college is that a big part of life is knowing what you are bad at. In my cases it is a little easier because I tend toward extremes and tend to be either good or bad at things and rarely average. I let my sisters have a veto over my wardrobe back then (my wife has one too now- she has recently relented and let me occasionally wear the infamous Hawaiian shirt since the cruise). We sometimes talk about how we need to improve on our weaknesses, but I think there is a distinction. Sometimes by a "weakness" we mean a "character flaw" by which we should mean "sin." Using "that is just how I am" as an excuse to be lazy or selfish or careless (just to choose some not so random hypotheticals) is wrong. I am talking more about what our skills and talents are. As we have been moving and getting our house ready I have been forced into a world where I am consistently below average in my abilities (painting, moving dishwashers, etc.). One of the great blessings has been how many people have helped. They haven't just saved us time, they have done things better than they would have been done if I had tried to do them. Truly a blessing.

A trip to the Gardens

2009-07-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

Alex and I took a trip to Reiman Gardens a couple weeks ago. I took advantage of digital pictures being free and took 65 pictures in 50 minutes--probably a record for me.

Here are some of the best ones. We enjoyed the roses, the dinosaurs, and the butterflies. I have the shot with all the red roses as my wallpaper and it's lovely! I'm quite proud of the photo. I also tried using the macro settings with single flowers and butterflies, with mixed results. The single rose next to the picture of me really is meant to be gray. The picture I could not get to turn out was of a butterfly with a fluorescent green stripe--no matter what settings I tried, the color wasn't true. I guess you need an expensive camera for some things!

Diamonds

2009-06-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have a list of movies that are in the category "won't be particularly pleasant to watch, but would probably be good for me." Last weekend I decided to watch one of the movies on the list- Blood Diamond. It came out a few years ago and presents a very violent depiction of African civil war and the way diamond smuggling makes it worse. The real issue isn't actually diamonds- it is greed. The same horrors of civil war: villages burned, people killed and maimed, children being forced to become soldiers, masses of people living in refugee camps in terrible conditions... all of these also happen in places where there are few resources as well. I think one thing I took away from it was a needed reminder about how much injustice there is in the world and how often I insulate myself from thinking about it.

It also made me think about wedding rings. I actually anguished for a while about whether to buy anastasia a diamond engagement ring. Partly because of the shady side of the diamond industry but mostly because of questions about money. What if we both just got gold bands and used the rest to help people in Africa get clean drinking water? I decided to go the traditional route. I didn't want my wife to have to engage in social commentary everytime everyone asked about the ring for the rest of her life. I decided rather than flouting social conventions in that way, the real issue is how we use the money that God brings our way over the course of a lifetime. Put another way, I realized that generosity toward the world doesn't always have to come at the expense of generosity toward my wife.

Political Hamburger Helper

2009-06-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

The idea of hamburger helper is that something valuable (meat) is in short supply (at least for the price) and so you can cook up a meal to stretch the meat you have farther. That is basically the theory behind most of our political and economic system. General concern for the public good is in short supply, but self-interest is plentiful. So lets set up a political system where politicians pursuing their self-interested desire for reelection will have to make us happy to maintain power. Let's set up an economic system where everyone can just look out for their own family and the magic invisible hands of supply and demand will take care of the rest.

That's the theory. The problem is it can't work for ever. Selfishness is a vice. The thing about both virtues and vices is that they are not constant. Exercising a virtue tends to cause you to become more virtuous not less, and indulging a vice makes you more likely to act from the same vice in the future. Do you really think we all have 1000 self-control units to use however we wish each month? People who practice self-control find it easier to be self-controlled the next time and people who indulge their desires find it harder. So if you set up systems that encourage people to be selfish, then eventually ....

Food from the cruise

2009-06-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

top row: Grand Marnier infused sponge cake; meringue with strawberries; shrimp cocktail

middle row: brie tart with arugala; chicken marsala; lamb shank

bottom row: jumbo prawns; tiramisu; lobster tail and shrimp

These were the best-looking food items our group had during the week of our cruise. The visual feast was almost as good as the gustatory feast!

Confession

2009-06-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

Ok here is is. Anastasia and I like watching movies and TV. You work really hard to cultivate an image of people who just read books all the time, you only have a 13 inch TV in the basement, and then you sit down and ask yourself what your wife likes to do to relax and how you have been spending date nights and the moment of self-realization hits. In my case it is not exactly a new revelation. Put me in a room with a TV and I will tend to look at it. I watched a LOT of TV growing up, and still have a good recall of sitcom plots from the 1980's and the world of sports from about 1984-1999. 1999 would be when I moved to Ames and decided to ditch the TV to break the addiction. I think that over the past 10 years God has helped "heal the relationship" so to speak so that I can watch it some without it being what I think about or orient my life around. I really should count myself blessed that my wife's way of relaxing is something that comes naturally to me as well.

Oh, so that's why I'm so full!

2009-06-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we had a burger grillout at our place. I stopped at the Fareway meat counter after aerobics to pick up the meat so it would be as fresh as possible. (At that point I was NOT as fresh as possible!)

My decision-making process went like this:

Fact 1: Neither Alex nor I is confident or excited about shaping patties, so I should get pre-formed ones.

Fact 2: Ones from the meat counter should be better than frozen, bagged ones.

Fact 3: Alex likes us to have more than one burger per person, so the men in particular can feel well-fed.

Fact 4: I don't mind leftovers.

Therefore, I asked the meat woman (yes, they do have one woman employee back there) for 16 patties (12 people were expected). The price seemed a bit excessive, but I don't like questioning things and sometimes better meat costs more, so I went on my way. The package was huge--I rested it on my forearm like one might do with a newborn, garnering comments from fellow shoppers.

Alex fired up the grill, and they took a while to cook. Then we each ate one--they were really good, but no one went for seconds. I was a little confused, but we did have some side dishes.

It was only an hour later, when I was still really really full, that I started calculating in my head the relationship between the price per pound of the meat, the number of patties we had, and the total price I had paid.

Turns out we served everyone 1/2 pound burgers.

I'm a little mortified, as one who claims to be a meat minimizer.

And I can't believe I ate the whole thing! :)

Random?

2009-06-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

We packed up most of our books to get our house ready to put on the market, and the ones left over ended up arranged primarily by height. One day I was looking at the book shelf and noticed this particular shelf at eye level. Some are borrowed (you can ask for your book back if you are reading this), some are blue. And some we bought, but it gives a pretty good sense of the things we read, excluding what we read for work. I particularly like the old book of Letterman top ten lists next to a collection of writings by Jonathan Edwards, who likely would not have found it very funny himself. I also like the harmony of Simon and Garfunkel next to a harmony of the Gospels. It would be far less amusing if we had planned it.

The night of seven desserts

2009-06-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

One way that Anastasia and I break with gender stereotypes is that she is far more into chips and fries and I am far more into dessert. I learned in logic class that strictly speaking if someone says "pie or cake" the word "both" is one of the possible correct responses. Rarely does anyone say "pie XOR cake" or "pie exclusive or cake." I take advantage of this. On the cruise, it is all you can eat, and on the last day it was about 4:30 and I decided I wanted an ice cream cone. So began what became known as the night of the seven desserts. At dinner a couple of hours later, I ordered a dessert that was actually a combination of three different desserts (pictured above). And then I also ordered a second dessert. I figured I had not ordered more than one of each type item at dinner all week so I could splurge a little. Our friends had also told the staff that it was our anniversary and they brought us a chocolate berry cake just before the dessert I had ordered. Then Anastasia couldn't finish her own dessert so I ate most of that. Hence the night of the seven desserts. That also doesn't count the cake I had at 10 in the morning that they were passing out after a cooking demonstration (left). That night I actually got a little shaky as we were saying goodbye to everyone from the sugar overload, indicating that I have now officially figured out my limit. Seven is enough.

Supper series

2009-06-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start a new series of posts where I show you what we had for dinner and a general description of it. In my opinion, recipes are all fine and dandy, but there are many times I go into the kitchen and just rummage for a meal. I'm always curious to know what other people do in these situations, so maybe someone else will find this interesting, too.

The meal pictured above was intended to be Chicken Peanut Stirfry Noodles. I bought tofu instead of chicken, because it lasts longer in the fridge. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how to pan fry it without leaving all the crunchy brown bits (i.e. the best bits) in the pan!

The veggies were a small container of the fresh stirfry veggies available at Fareway. Unfortunately, half of them were rotten by the time I opened the pack, and almost all the rest were potatoes. Stirfry? Potatoes? I sliced them really thin and they came out great--crispy--I'll do them again. The rest of the veggies were okay--the asparagus was great.

I bought a bottle of sauce at Wheatsfield. I love peanut sauce, but don't care to make it. I ended up buying a Ginger Peanut sauce--it's good, but it's mostly ginger.

And then I threw in some cooked bacon we had leftover from super spuds. And that was our meal. Alex liked it okay, but I don't think that particular combination of ingredients will ever show up in our fridge again, nor will I try to make it happen!

three more years

2009-05-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

All of the yard signs, radio commercials, and ringing doorbells paid off this weekend as I was voted back on to the council of elders at Cornerstone this weekend. Actually one of the things I really like about Cornerstone is how unlike the normal policial process our leadership selection is. There are some churches where "name recognition" is actually one of the best predictors of who will end up serving in leadership. At Cornerstone people are asked to serve as elders based on evidence of fruitful and faithful service in other capacities in the church and in meeting the Biblical qualifications for being an elder. In politics you get more responsibility by relentless self-promotion. In the church, it ought to come from humble service. Whenever I think about that I end up feeling challenged. Academia is a lot like politics in terms of the culture of self-promotion and I think pride is one of the sins I struggle with most. When I think about how Jesus, king of the universe, washed feet and spent his time with tax collectors and fisherman I realize how far I have to go to have the same kind of humble, servant love that Jesus had.

First pictures of the cruise

2009-05-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from our recent cruise. They're the best ones that actually have us in them, which I've noticed is really what other people want to see when they're looking at vacation pictures. Therefore, I will not likely post the 12 pictures of mayan temples, 24 pictures of faraway animals on our river trip, or 20 pictures of sunsets. The next post will probably be 12 pictures of beautiful food, though! :)

Pictures of moving chaos

2009-05-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

The above pix are after we painted our basement. Blogger isn't cooperating, so I apologize for the order and sideways-ness.

Here's a picture of our basement before we painted it.

More chaos here. In the top picture you can see our cat enjoying a sunbeam amidst the chaos. At that stage we were getting ready for our "garage giveaway", which you can see in the bottom left picture. We got rid of a lot of stuff just by setting it in our driveway and posting a Free sign. I also advertised on Freecycle.

On the bottom right, you can see Alex reading in our kitchen. We got the carpets cleaned, so everything (except beds) had to be moved into the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. What a pain that was, but the carpets look great.

That, along with packing and cleaning, has been our life for the last month!

Moving Time

2009-04-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

So as Anastasia mentioned in a previous post, we are moving to a new location in Ames. The whole bit about "location, location, location" is actually true for us, despite the fact that you can get to the middle of town from anywhere in Ames in about 10 minutes. Out new location on clark will mean that Anastasia can walk to work in about 15 minutes and I can walk there in about 30, which was about how long it took to ride the bus sometimes from where we live now.

Of course the complication is that we have to actually get our house ready to sell, and this does not exactly play to our strengths. I dislike home improvement projects because I tend to mess things up or at least think I am about to even when I don't, meaning the process itself is not very enjoyable. I like to think I learned this attitude from my father, who although being better at fixing things than I am dislikes doing it at least as much as I do. Both of us are also by nature packrats, saving things if we think someday it is possible we mightly possibly need something. I think I am starting to turn a corner though and getting excited about decumulating. My research at ISU, which I have been enjoying anyway lately, becomes even more interesting when there are home projects to work on.

Delicious!

2009-04-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

So, this is not the most attractive food picture I've ever taken (nor is it the healthiest food we've ever eaten), but it was very tasty.

It's Nacho Spuds from Rachael Ray's website, and it combines two of my very favorite foods--potatoes and nachos.

If you're curious to know which other web-based recipes I've tried and have bookmarked to try at a future date, check out my delicious account.

Delicious is a social bookmarking site--users can save their bookmarks on their computer, and then they are accessible to anyone from any computer (you can also choose to "hide" some bookmarks you don't care to share). One of the main advantages is that you can "tag" (label) bookmarks to help you find them back, without having to put them in a hierarchy of folders.

For example, if you look at my top ten tags on the right side of my account, you can start browsing by clicking "recipe", then "main", then "meat" if you want to find the above recipe. Or if you simply want to see all the dessert recipes, you can start by clicking "dessert."

I also look at other things on the web--you'll find cleaning hints, book reviews, and other sites of interest. If you only see the "Top Ten Tags" when you first click over there, you need to click on the little triangle next to "All Tags" to open up the list of over 50 tags that I use.

Enjoy the browsing--I'd love to hear what your favorite sites are--let me know if you sign up for delicious!

And hopefully it will give you some recipes to browse for a while, as we are going to basically do a cooking ban here in a couple weeks once we start showing the house. We'll see how that goes.

Signs of Spring in Iowa

2009-03-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

That's right, the beautiful, and the not-so-beautiful--they all show up here around the same time. It takes until mid-to-late March for the crocuses to show up here, and this year that was also the time all the snow was finally gone. Leaving us to ponder all the trash (mostly plastic grocery bags) that was buried under the snow all year!

A big shout-out to all those who participated in Stash the Trash this year (the day after these pictures were taken). Thank you!!

In other news, we've purchased a house! It's in the downtown area, closer to where both of us work, go to the gym, get groceries, etc. We're very excited. Shoot us an email if you want to know more! Our blogging may be more erratic for a while as we try hard to get our current house packed up and ready to sell, so forgive us.

What I Saw and Year of Wonders

2009-03-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

These books really have nothing in common except that I read them at the same time. For conventional reviews with plot summaries, click here for What I Saw and here for Year of Wonders. I don't do much summary in my reviews because personally I like to know very little of the plot when I start reading. Most of the time it serves me well. With Jellicoe Road, not so much. I should've made a character map with that one.

What I Saw is a period piece; it's set in Florida post WWII. The setting is vivid, as are the characters. Most of the action takes place in a short piece of the book, but it's a good read if you like girl-coming-of-age in an interesting situation, and the building up and working out of the climactic scenes are well done. Subject matter appropriate for teens who can deal with mature themes--nothing is explicit, but much is implied.

Year of Wonders is a truly great book. Brooks is a great author, with many interesting titles to her name. This one is pure historical fiction set in a small village England in 1666, one of the worst years of the Plague. The main character is strong and interesting, observing everything that happens around her (and a lot happens) and considering what these events say about God, religion, science, and all of human nature. I highly recommend this book. It was my pick for book group this year, and I am pleased with how it went.

(For previous book review entries, click "book review" on the list of topics to the right.)

am I a parent? am I a library?

2009-03-10T18:56:00.000-07:00

The obvious answer to these questions is, "no." No, I have no children sleeping under my roof for whom I am directly responsible. No, I am not a large brick building full of books and DVDs and rambunctious children.

However, in a very real sense I have come to accept that I am both a parent and a library.

This question first presented itself almost 10 years ago, when I was working at VBS as a recent college grad. A child said something about me being a parent, and when I protested, she said, "Yes you are. There are only two kinds of people in the world, children and parents, and you're a parent."

News to me, let me tell you!

More recently part of my job at the library has involved me doing monthly visits to area daycares and preschools. I bring library materials and do a storytime. Many of the children I see on these visits call me, "Library," as in, "Library, I really liked that book. Can you bring it again next time? Library, when are you going to bring your big blue dog again?"

It's puzzling and gratifying at the same time to be equated with the entirety of what the word "library" entails. (Then again, maybe they just can't say my name. :-) ) Really, I think what happens is their teacher says, "The library's coming today! ... The library's here! Pick up your toys and get ready for her!" So, it makes sense to me, and I'm getting used to it.

Parent, though, is harder to figure out. This week at D6 it came up again. Our small group of kindergarteners was chatting about handstands and cartwheels. I commented that I can't do a cartwheel, and one young girl said calmly and matter-of-factly, "That's because you're a parent." This time I didn't argue, merely said, "Well, even when I was a kid the best I could manage was a tripod" and the conversation moved on.

What I've learned is that, for a certain number of children, I function as a (very) part-time parent. Although society doesn't usually talk in those terms, these children made it very clear that they consider any adults that care for them to be a type of parent.

And for many more children, I am the main (or only) face of the library.

Even more sobering, to many people of this world, I am the face of Christ. Are we living up to all that we represent every day?

Chocolate orange cheesecake

2009-03-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

For previous thoughts on presentation of cheesecakes, see this post. It turned out great for my book group as well--they all loved it, and in fact a couple people thought it was from The Cafe!

Orange Chocolate Cheesecake
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens
12 servings
45 min prep; 45 min bake; 1+4 hours chill

24 Oreo cookies
2 T melted butter
3 8-oz pkg. 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 c sugar
2 T flour
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 ½ t. finely grated orange peel
1 c miniature chocolate chips
1/3 c orange marmalade

1. Soften the cream cheese by setting it out and cutting each block into 10 cubes. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Crush the cookies with a rolling pin or in the food processor. Stir in the butter. Press up the sides and across the bottom of a 9” springform pan. Bake 10 minutes. Set aside to cool somewhat; turn oven up to 350.
3. In a large mixing bowl, using electric mixer, beat cream cheese for 30 seconds.
4. Add sugar and flour; beat well.
5. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in orange peel and chocolate chips.
6. Pour into crust. Place in a rimmed baking sheet. Bake 45-50 minutes until center 2” are nearly set.
7. Turn off oven and open door for about 30 minutes. Place cake on rack; loosen sides of pan.
8. After about 1 hour of cooling, cover and chill for at least 4 hours.
9. To serve, melt marmalade and drizzle over cheesecake. Tuck one square of chocolate into each slice. Optionally, drizzle chocolate sauce over cheesecake as well.

Turtle Cheesecake option

1. Instead of orange peel step: Melt 2 oz semi-sweet choc—stir into half the filling. Pour choc filling into springform pan. Carefully pour plain filling on top. Gently swirl w/spatula.
2. Place in shallow baking pan in oven at 375 for 45-50 min (9” pan). Center should appear nearly set when shaken.
3. Cool in pan on rack for 15 min. Loosen crust from sides using small spatula. Cool 30 minutes. Remove sides, cool 1 hour. Cover and chill at least 4 hours.
4. Decorate with chopped toasted pecans, stripes of chocolate and caramel, and mini chocolate chips.

Seeing the future

2009-03-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

In our connection group we talked about Jesus' series of parables in Matthew 13 and noticed how time is crucial in each one of them. Before there are various seeds, after you see which ones produce fruit. Now you see the weeds and the wheat together, later they will be separated. Now you see a small mustard seed but later you will see a huge plant. Now you see a tiny bit of yeast, later there will be a huge amount of bread. First a man had a few things of little value, and then he traded then for a treasure (or pearl) of far greater value. In each parable wisdom consists in the ability to see something and then imagine what it will some day be. God can do this as a matter of course. Whenever God looks at anything he can see its entire future. Wisdom is learning to see the world the way God sees it and one of our biggest barriers is we don't see the future value of the treasure and the way a small seed can some day be something magnificent.

not me! Monday

2009-02-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

I wanted to do another Not Me! Monday post. (To read hundreds of other Not Me! Mondays, head over to Mckmama at My Charming Kids, who created this blog carnival originally. Hers are hilarious and involve many more pictures of cute kids than mine do!)

But today is Staff Day at the library, and this is all I could come up with.

I did NOT eat hundreds of calories' worth of snacks today in an effort to stay focused while being seated for much much longer than my job normally requires.

My mind did NOT wander during the presentations.

Nope, that's NOT that exciting. So I thought I'd give you the rundown on last Friday.

I did NOT leave my warm home and sweet husband in the late afternoon just to go out to my step aerobics class.

It was NOT snowing harder than it had in a long time.

Before I left, I did NOT subtly suggest that perhaps someone could shovel the driveway and scrape the car. Alex did NOT promptly proceed to do these things.

While I was gone, he did NOT start dinner and do the laundry.

While I was driving in, I did NOT almost skid out in my car. I did NOT think, Why in the world am I doing this??

While at aerobics class, I did NOT fall over. It was NOT during the easiest move of the night--shuffle side to side.

After returning home and finishing up supper in the same pan I had previously made grilled cheese and toasted nuts (separately) in, I did NOT drop Alex's entire portion of eggs 'n' noodles on the floor.

He did NOT pick it up and eat it. (I did NOT wash the floor that morning.)

After dinner, I did NOT find a container of homemade Chex mix that's leftover from Christmas. Yuck.

I am NOT still postponing proofreading Alex's paper. Nope, not me! :-)

Cheesecake presentation

2009-02-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

I made this cheesecake a couple of weeks ago--partly as a practice run for my upcoming book group, partly as the snack for our connection group. Here are some thoughts from the experience.

1. Presentation makes a difference. I had individual slices on plates when the guys in our group came in, and they got so excited--"Is that for us? Did you make it? Wow!" I got the idea for the candy pieces while standing in line at Coldstone once. The reason their ice cream cakes look so fetching is because they stick a small cookie or candy at the end of each piece. I can do that!
2. Don't worry about cracks. All (2) of the cheesecakes I've made have cracked, even though I've meticulously followed the cooling instructions. Honestly, these days people are more impressed with flawed baked goods b/c they know they're homemade.
3. A sauce covers a multitude of wrongs. I learned this from Jen DB--Alex has repeatedly said to me, for years now, "Jen makes great cheesecake--maybe you could learn from her!" Well, we never got around to it, but she gave me some tips and I started making them anyway because I realized it was important to Alex. Anyway, this sauce is just melted apricot preserves. I have also used caramel and chocolate sauces.
4. Jen's other tip--it's okay to mix and match recipes. I like an oreo crust, so that's what I use (crush 20 cookies in a food processor, add 1 T melted butter, press into pan). For the filling I use a standard recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, similar to this one except simpler, I think (I'll post it when I get it typed up). Then I pick a topping.
5. You do need to let it cool for quite a long time--start at least 12 hours before you want to eat it.
Enjoy!

Cheesy Potato Soup--edited

2009-02-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

(A faithful reader pointed out to me that this post was incomplete. Since it is my favorite recipe, I thought I'd complete it and repost it. Hope you like it!)

I would pick this as my very favorite recipe—I usually have all the ingredients on hand, it's simple, cheap, tasty, and freezes well.

Cheesy Potato Carrot Soup

from Anastasia Tuckness

4 servings

1 cup chopped onion (usually one onion)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2-1 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat the oil over medium heat. Saute onions 5 min. Add potatoes, carrots, and broth--make sure there's enough liquid to cover the vegetables. Simmer at least 15-20 minutes, until all vegetables are very soft. Add cheese and milk. At this point, either a) blend with a special hand immersion blender or b) pour 1/3-1/2 of the soup into a blender and allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Blend the soup in batches--it's important that the soup not be hot and that the blender be half full or less or the top of it will blow off. Add salt and pepper to taste at the table.

If you like your soup thick, reduce the amount of liquid. You can also add pureed squash at the end, or sliced parsnips with the vegetables at the beginning. This soup freezes well and is well-liked by almost everyone. If you like a more earthy flavor, leave the peels on the vegetables. I eat this soup both hot and cold.

Dirt

2009-02-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

I have been working on getting stains out of our carpet and it reminded me of an experience a few years ago where I let a vacuum salesman come into our home because he said he could remove any stain and would do it for free. We have a pretty bad one at the top of our stairs that thus far has been invincible. So he did this demonstration showing us how much dirt our vacuum wasn't getting up and then wanted us to pay a very large sum of money that day to buy a new vacuum. I informed him that we don't spend that kind of money without taking time to think about it. He insisted this was our only chance to live a clean, dirt free life. When I kept saying no he then called his boss to report. The boss apparently told him to ask us if we realized how much dirt we would be living with. I then informed him that in much of the world living with dirt is a normal part of human life and that, yes, we were fine with dirt. At that point he informed his boss that we were ok with dirt and gave up. He didn't get the stain out, though I am not sure if it was because he couldn't or because he wanted to honor our preference for dirt.

Saving money on groceries

2009-02-06T18:24:00.000-08:00

So, I've thought a lot about how to save money on groceries over the years, and particularly by following my mom's example. But I never got around to writing it out to share. Paige over at Team VanVoorst had a great post recently listing out the basics. I highly recommend checking it out, although I must admit I'm not as disciplined as she is--I just don't have the time right now. Let me know if you have other favorite tips.

Homemade toys

2009-02-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of the homemade toys I showcased at my presentation a couple weeks ago. On the top left we have an oatmeal box covered in sparkly wrapping paper. They recommended contact paper, but this was sparklier. I suspect contact paper would be hardier. It can be used as a roll toy, a drum (with hands or wooden spoons), or you can cut a circle in the lid and drop clothespins in.

The top right is a roll toy made of an empty, dried out water bottle (you can also use 2-liter bottles). You can fill them with pretty much anything that looks or sounds interesting--pasta, beans, bells, foamie shapes, tissue paper squares. We have so much random stuff in the cupboards at the library that this one was a lot of fun with not much work and zero money. Secure the top with packing tape, duct tape, or super glue. You can also fill bottles with sand and little animals and whatsits for older kids to find--we call them I Spy bottles.

Bottom left are the vinyl clings. Cut a shape out of construction paper (use cookie cutters as stencils to make interesting animal shapes). Put all your shapes on a big piece of clear Contact Paper, leaving one inch between them. Cut them out so each has a 1/2" border of contact paper to seal them. When you get them wet, they will cling--for a long time. One stayed on the side of our sink overnight until I took it out the next day. I suspect they probably would stick to windows--let us know, Anna! They were presented originally as bathtub clings, and that would be great fun, but I think any sink or water play area would work well.

And the bottom right is a page from a Touch and Feel book I wrote. We used burlap, sandpaper, felt, tinfoil, and yarn to get all different textures.

These crafts are all taken from a manual I received at the BabyTalk conference training I went to last year in Decatur, Illinois. They teach a prenatal homemade toy class to expectant moms--it's just one of the many programs they have.

Enjoy the crafts!

Crafts for how many??

2009-01-30T18:25:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I did another presentation. This one was a stretch for me compared to other ones I've done, for several reasons. First, I was the only one presenting. Second, it was a two-hour presentation. And third, complicating matters on all kinds of levels, there were 73 daycare providers in the audience, some of whom hold an early childhood ed degree, some of whom have been in this field way longer than I. The number itself was intimidating, plus it was held in the MGMC auditorium, which holds 120 and is set up like a coliseum, with the speaker at the bottom of a steeply sloped array of rows of seats and tables. Which meant that I had to take an elevator to get from the back of my room to where I spoke, since I had so much stuff (books, toys, CDs, supplies) I had to take a rolling cart.

Once I was down there, I felt like I was at command central--I had to toggle back and forth between the DVD player to play my CDs, the computer to show my powerpoint, and the ELMO to show my handouts. All while looking up at the audience.

To fill up 30 minutes of my time, I brought crafts for them to make--a touch-and-feel book, and bathtub clings. (If anyone wants instructions or a picture, let me know.) That seemed like a good idea, but it did take hours of my and Alex's time to assemble their packets. The picture above is less than a third of them.

All in all, though, it was a rewarding experience. I enjoyed sharing about early literacy skills and how playing with babies is actually an educational experience for them. I shared a lot of action rhymes and songs with them, and that was the best part. They all brought dolls along (I'd asked them to), so they did the actions with me and sang along, which was great. Sam (my doll) got to float up in the air (instead of lying on the floor like he usually does in storytime) so he could be seen by all the women. I think he liked the experience, and so did I.

Food reviews

2009-01-29T17:18:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share a few more supermarket items that I've found to be quite tasty. I share these because I find so much of the boxed/canned/frozen items to be unpleasant to taste, as well as nutritionally deficient. And yet their siren song calls to me--I'm easy! I'm quick! I will solve your dinner woes!

Well, these items won't completely solve your dinner woes, but they may handily fill a niche for you sometimes as they do for me.

These are the chicken strips made by Fareway's happy meat men. Have I mentioned how much I love shopping at Fareway? So efficient, so cheap, with such helpful people who bring your food right to your trunk....

Anyway, these are very tasty and I'm sure they have fewer preservatives and fillers than the ones you buy in the bags. They're available in the frozen food endcap, and you just heat them at 350 until they're warm (about 15 min, I think).

These are some of the new handy frozen veggie mixes that are available in bags and pouches that steam right in the microwave. I am a big fan of these--fewer dishes! Also, these are easier to find in my freezer than a balled-up tiny portion of a bag of peas that might not see the light of day for many moons. I've decided I'm willing to pay for these conveniences, and I also think that "brand name" veggies taste better than store brand. For example, I had given up buying the "carrots/peas/corn/beans" mix, but gave the Green Giant brand a try last week. It was quite nice. My last comment on frozen veggies (other than to say any of them are easier than fresh and often have more vitamins left in them) is to say these particular boxes shown are so hearty that they are almost a meal. The legumes in them add protein, so I will take these to work and eat up with a muffin, yogurt and fruit. Yum!

Sushi in Ames

2009-01-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago we finally made sushi (california rolls, to be exact), with the results above. Alex had given me a "how to make sushi" book/DVD/bamboo mat kit at Christmas 07, and we didn't do anything with it until a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, I'm not going to post a recipe here b/c I wasn't crazy about the one we used (partly b/c ingredients were listed in grams, which are hard to translate to American measurements), but I will post a couple hints from our experience.

It helps to watch a DVD (or short video on the web) of how to do the rolling part; seek one out.
Contrary to our recipe, you do not need to make a whole bag of rice for two people.
Cooling and vinegaring the rice takes quite a long time (especially with a bunch of rice).
Next time, I'll spread the rice thinner so as to give the other ingredients a chance to shine.
For presentation, it is nice to have both black and white sesame seeds. I also added some red roe (available in little jars at Fareway for somewhat reasonable prices).
You can get decent California rolls in Ames, from at least four places (in descending order of quality): Fuji Steakhouse, Shogun, Super WalMart, and Hyvee.

I've become quite a lover of sushi over the past few years. I think it started when I was in a chicklit bookclub and all the heroines lived in Manhattan and got takeout sushi all the time. I guess I learned one good thing from those books! :)

not me! Monday

2009-01-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try a "not-me Monday" post where I flagrantly lie about what I have done that I wished I didn't do, and didn't do, that I wished I did ... or something to that effect. (Sounds apostle-Paul like, doesn't it?) I got the idea from my friend Anna over at just to name a few; it was created by MckMama--head to her blog to see what she and many others are NOT doing on Monday! Without further ado ...

I do NOT have dead flowers hanging and sitting in pots all around my house attesting to the fact that I couldn't take the time to clean out the pots in the fall.

I do NOT have an overgrown rosemary bush that's 2/3rds dead, overtaking my office, and scattering needles everywhere.

I am NOT blogging instead of proofreading my dear husband's paper on John Locke that he worked so hard on.

I did NOT make him help package 75 craft bags for a presentation this weekend (more later).

I did NOT miss a dear friend's bridal shower yesterday because I have a nasty habit of piling up mail instead of reading it. (I have NOT missed at least 2 other showers in this same manner!)

I do NOT still let dirty dishes pile up, even though we now have a dishwasher.

I did NOT spend 15 minutes trying the links and picture on this post to work.

I did NOT just overbake my cheesecake. :(

You get the idea....

the reaction continues

2009-01-25T17:56:00.000-08:00

One wrinkle I forgot to mention with me and clothing is that the absent minded professor stereotype is fairly accurate with me and I tend to lose things. At the time of my last post, the new earmuffs were already missing and on Thursday I took off my gloves in the department mail room and left them there all day and by the time I was ready to go home they apparently found new owners who would be more attentive. So when I get new clothing that doesn't stay on me at all times, I normally need to factor in replacement costs as well.

New Year's Resolution--Weight Loss

2009-01-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

The title of today's post links to an informative article about 10 principles to consider when working toward weight loss or weight maintenance. I thought since we're still in the spirit of keeping resolutions, I'd offer some thoughts on the subject.

Over the years, I've gone through a few periods of weight gain, most notably the freshman 15 (as a result of eating french fries at every meal they offered them--which was most of them!) and twice during my life when illness has caused a long period of inactivity combined with medicine that made me gain weight.

After those times, the principles I used to get the weight off were as follows.

Exercise. I put it on my schedule--I usually take scheduled aerobics classes (step is my favorite) so I feel obligated to go and don't have to decide whether or not to go. I also like working out with people and having someone tell me what to do.
Calorie log. This is time-consuming but valuable. I learned a lot about what foods "cost" in terms of calories by looking them all up and totalling the day's amount. I've heard recently that just writing down "1 medium baked potato" or whatever you had to eat, even without the calorie amount, can be helpful.
Being careful of what you eat. For one month, I gave myself a green star for each day I made good eating choices.
And the new one this year: strength training. I'm including strength/toning exercises in my workouts twice a week (I do three total), and it's helping with weight and general slim-lookingness, which is a big part of the motivation, isn't it? ;)

Misc. Bible translations and software

2009-01-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't discussed the King James in this series of blogs. I do use it sometimes, mainly for historical purposes. For my job I actually read a lot of 17th century English prose, which happens to be what the KJV is. So when I read works from that time that reference the Bible (and the generally did so a lot back then) the KJV is what they tend to quote. So oddly enough I use the KJV for work more often than for personal use. I can read that style of English fairly well, but it makes reading the Bible seem like work and the KJV is not based on the more recent manuscripts. Sometimes I use the Strong numbers that go with the KJV to look up a greek word using my Bible software.

The main Bible software program I have, Logos, I got probably 12 years ago for about $70 and it has been one of my best investments. I don't know if Logos is the best value for the money or not, but it gives me the NIV, the old American Standard, and the KJV indexed to the greek and hebrew originals. I can search words and phrases and it has some other tools that I occasionally use. I sometimes use e-sword which has the ESV available for free and some other nice free downloads.

If I had known where things were going with Bible software, I would not have invested in some of the books I own. I have a NT word study, a couple of greek new testaments, a parallel greek-english NT, and a greek lexicon (dictionary). All of this I could have on a CD if I were willing to pay for it. Eventually I will probably break down and upgrade, by I keep assuming that some next generation software will come out so I am waiting.

I also have some parallel Bibles. One is a NT only that has 8 translations side by side (4 per page on facing pages). It has the New King James, the ESV, the HCSB, the NIV, the TNIV, the NLT, the New Century, and The Message. If I could replace the New Century with the NASB it would be perfect. There is also a parallel bible that is NASB, NIV, KJV, and NLT that I like. I don't own it, but I have it checked out from Parks Library most of the time and it sits in my study room at the library. The big downside to it is how much it weighs, but I never have to carry it so that is not a problem. If you have an ISU card you can recall it if you would like to use it.

I think that is a good overview of the Bibles I use. Let me conclude this particular series by emphasizing something I said at the beginning, which is that what the translations have in common is far more important than the differences. With so many good translations around, the real question is how we respond to what we read.

Bible Translations and gender

2009-01-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

In our inventory of Bibles we also have two TNIVs and one NRSV. One issue that these translations raise (the NLT also) is how to translate masculine pronouns and words like "brothers." If you are trying to do a very literal bible translation, this is an easy call. You just keep the words as they are in the original language. The problem comes if you are trying to do a thought for thought translation instead of a word for word translation. TNIV stands for "Today's New International Version." I guess they thought that sounded better than "ENTV" (Even Newer International Version). When the new testament writers were writing to the churches they would typically address them by saying "brothers." I have never met anyone who thought they were only talking to the men. It was just the way their language worked that you could say brothers and be talking to everyone. To an extent you can do this in English now with "guys." Through most of the 20th century, English worked the same way as Greek. When you said "good will to men" everyone knew you meant mankind and so the communication wasn't garbled. Over the last 40 years or so, there has been a protest against this type of language and a desire by some to move away form using masculine pronouns and words to address men and women simultaneously. This creates the problem for new Bible translations that are trying to go thought for thought. If you say "brothers" someone today might really think that only men were being addressed if they are used to people using inclusive language when talking to women as well. In other words, as contemporary English changes (whether for better or worse) thought for thought translations will have to change to reflect the way people speak now.

I know a lot of people have strong feelings on both sides of this issue. Some see the TNIV as an attack on Biblical teachings on gender while others see the older translations as sexist. My own view is that the substantive issues of what the Bible teaches about gender roles in the family and church are very important but that it is a mistake to get too worked up over the translations. Try the following experiment. Look up one of the controversial passages like Ephesians 5 or 1 Timothy 2 in the TNIV or NRSV and ask yourself whether it says anything different from the NIV. For the issues that really matter, it has very little to do with the translations and everything to do with how people interpret the translations. I think the TNIV actually does a pretty good job of discerning whether everyone is addressed in a passage or only men and translating accordingly.

The TNIV is actually Anastasia's current favorite translation. Setting aside the gender issue, the other changes they made to it actually do make the text slightly more accurate and readable. I got the NRSV back in grad school when I was getting ready to backpack across Europe. I only had room for a couple of books, so I went with "Let's Go Europe" and a Bible. I wanted to have a Bible with me and I wanted something new to read while I traveled and so I figured "I have never read the apocrypha, why not?" The NRSV was my best option for a paperback bible that also had the apocrypha. I don't particularly like the flow of it, but it is still easier to read than the King James.

Less literal Bible translations

2009-01-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

You reap what you sow. Even in Iowa, no one actually talks about reaping and sowing. They talk about planting and harvesting. It is sometimes hard for those of us who have been hearing the Bible for a long time to notice ways in which the language is very different from how we talk now. The less literal translations give themselves even more freedom to understand what the author was trying to say and say it the way we would now. Compare the beginning of Hebrews 8:1 "The point of what we are saying is this" (NIV) with "Here is the main point" (NLT). Honestly, I think the NLT is better here even though the NIV is closer to the original Greek. Free translations are best when you are simply listening to the Bible rather than doing close study of a particular passage. Every night before bed, I read to Anastasia from the Bible and the NLT has become our preferred translation for that. Sometimes the NLT will even throw in a little detail that is not in the text because it is something that would have been obvious to the original audience. Several of these examples were given to me by my father in law who also likes this translation. There are some other good ones as well. I gave away my Contemporary English Version (CEV) which is similar and has worked on getting the cadence and word order right for oral reading. Right now the difference between them isn't enough for me to justify going out and buying another one. I think I also gave away my copies of The Message. It is one of the most interesting but has the disadvantage that it was all done by one person and is very free. Think of it as Eugene Peterson's commentary on the Bible with no explanation for why he understands the passages the way he does. That said, it is very good. If there are parts of the Bible that are hard for you to understand and so you never read them, it might be worth trying again with one of these translations. I still have both the CEV and The Message for the New Testament as part of a parallel Bible I will talk about later.

More literal Bible translations

2009-01-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

The biggest weaknesses of the NIV come from the fact that it is not as literal. Sometimes I think that it interprets things wrongly. I don't, for example, like "sin nature" as a translation of a Greek word that means "flesh" in Romans 6-8. I understand why they did it. They didn't want people to think God hates bodies or that we should hate our bodies. But in the process they make it hard to see how much "body talk" is going on in those chapters. Paul talks about bodies, flesh, and "members" (body parts) constantly. I discussed this in a talk I did for Salt Company in November. Sometimes there is a repeated word or phrase that an author uses and if the word is translated several different ways you won't notice it as much. The word "walk" in Ephesians is a key word that the NIV translates "live a life." Thus "walk in love" becomes "live a life of love" and so on. "Live a life" is a more natural way of saying it in contemporary English, but sometimes that phrasing seems forced and so the NIV picks another one. All of this is why when I am teaching a passage I try to look at one or more literal translations.

For a long time my main Bible for this purpose was the New American Standard Bible, which is as literal as they come. I still think it is a very good one for that purpose. When Anastasia does "Precept" studies, she uses our NASB. But there are a few other options now that I like as well. The two new Bibles I got for Christmas were the English Standard Version (ESV) Study Bible and a $5 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). I got the ESV because 1) My current study bible is falling apart 2) A number of people at my church are using it now and so I wanted to be more familiar with it and 3) there is some logic to having a more literal translation when I am in "study" mode. I am going to be teaching a course this semester on the Old Testament and am planning to go through the ESV Study Bible to check it out as I do so. I had a paperback copy of the HCSB but I gave it away in Zambia. I like it because it feels like someone took the NIV as a baseline and then make it a little more literal. "Flesh" is "flesh" and "walk" is "walk." It also has extensive notes on alternate translations of verses. This is the translation I used for teaching Romans 7 last semester because it was literal enough to get the points across but still as readable as possible. I picked the ESV over it for the study bible not so much because the translation is better but more because it looked like the notes, maps, etc. for the ESV were better.

clothing chain reactions

2009-01-06T19:34:00.001-08:00

A year or two ago, Anastasia finally convinced me to replace the beat up brown leather satchel and get something that looked nicer, so I got a black laptop carrier instead. But then she observed that my 8 year old green winter coat that doesn't even zip anymore didn't fit well with the more suave book/computer carrier. So a year ago I got a nice black wool overcoat to go with it. But it turns out my old gloves, my old hat, and my old scarf do not go well with the new coat. I like all of them, they do look better than what I had before, and since they were basically all Christmas and Birthday gifts I am happy to wear them. But I also realize this is what happens. We are convinced that we always need one more thing to attain the look or make the impression that we want to make.

generosity

2009-01-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about how one measures generosity. One way of measuring it is by how much a person gives, but the problem with that is that people have very different amounts to start with. Another way of measuring it is by how much it hurts, but the problem with that is that it means the more materialistic or selfish you are to start with the more generous you can be. If one person is content living a simple life and giving generously and another person is traumatized by not getting an iphone but does it anyway, the second person is more generous in the sense that it "hurts more." I think that is why in Colossians 3 after describing lots of virtues Paul says "over all these virtues put on love with binds them all together in perfect unity." Like anything else the measure of anything we do eventually comes back to love. That is why giving all one has to the poor is useless if it comes from another motive 1 Cor 13. I realize how easily in money as in other areas of life I try to make something else the criterion.

Bible Translations, NIV and RSV

2009-01-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

The translation I have used most is the NIV. I grew up with it, so it is familiar and it is the most commonly used one in evangelical circles so when I teach or preach it is the least distracting for the most people. People who use other translations even though the preaching is from the NIV are generally people who like comparing translations anyway. I am not sure if it is the "best" translation. Sometimes things become the standard because they are in the right place at the right time. In the 1970s there was a strong demand for a more readable translation then the King James which was written in the early 17th century and was not based on the earliest original manuscripts. Then once people get attached to something it is hard to change. Most of the scripture I have memorized is in the NIV and that is one of the main reasons for being reluctant to change. The NIV is somewhere in the middle of the translation continuum between being ultra-literal and being a mere paraphrase. It flows well for reading aloud and silently and generally does a very good job of capturing the author's point.

The only stretch where I was not primarily an NIV person was in college and grad school. I wanted a more literal translation but thought the New American Standard Bible (NASB) was too stilted for every day use. I also wanted a study bible. So I ended up using the Revised Standard Version which was the most common alternative to the King James before the NIV came out. At the time I also remember wondering whether the NIV was "biased" in that evangelicals translated it in such a way to cover up "problem" passages. When I moved to Iowa I switched back to the NIV. It is easier to read and memorize and easier to teach from. I also decided my fears were overblown. I almost never use my duct tape repaired RSV study bible anymore but keep it around for sentimental reasons and because when I went to Zambia I was trying to take easy to read translations.

So I have an NIV study Bible that I have had for a while and is falling apart. I also have the NIV "student bible" that was given to me in high school and that I keep at my office at work. Then there is the NIV text that I have downloaded onto my PDA so that I can have it in my pocket where ever I go. I also have a simple $4 hardcover NIV that we call the "preaching bible" because I normally only use it when I am teaching large groups at church. It is not distracting and it is a nice size to not fall off the music stands they give us to set our bible and notes on. I also have a wide margin NIV that is for marking up and making notes. I just got it last year so it is still in the early stages of getting marked up, I go in stages. The NIV is also on my Bible software (more on that later) and is the translation for the CD audio bible I got several years back. Plus I think there is a falling apart paperback that we keep upstairs when I occasionally want to check a different translation against it late at night before bed (I'll explain that later too.)

Bible translations part 1

2009-01-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

My last blog talked about getting a couple of new Bibles for Christmas even though I already have a bunch. The three reasons were that sometimes they wear out, sometimes a particular translation helps with a particular function, and sometimes it is just a matter of convenience. So in the next few blogs I am going to do a tour of the Bibles we have around since people are often interested in what the differences are.

Let me start with the big picture. I think of a translation as being like a map of the world in the sense that the world is in three dimensions but maps are in two dimensions. That is why all maps are a distortion of reality. Some make Greenland look as a large as South America, others make the countries at the equator look bigger than they actually are. Now we can either get frustrated by the fact that our maps are not perfect or we can be happy that we have lots of maps available that are perfectly adequate for what we need to do. The distortion on your map is not the reason you missed a turn or got lost the last time you went driving.

Bible translations, at the most basic, have to choose between trying to translate the original Hebrew or Greek word with a single English word each time so as to be as literal as possible or trying to capture the thought the author was trying to express and expressing it as clearly as possible in contemporary English. Both involve some distortion of the original. But the bottom line is that all of the translations I will talk about are, on the whole, good translations. As long as you are able to understand the language a major translation is using, it will be adequate for clearly communicating the main themes of the Bible. What they all have in common is far more important than the differences among them. Sometimes with "translation wars" we emphasize what makes our translation better to the point where minor differences are overshadowing the common truth that they all proclaim. When we get to heaven and are rewarded by our Father, I don't think "nice translation choice" will be in the top 10 for any of us. Far more important is really believing the gospel and orienting our lives in gratitude to obey what we understand. Our mistakes in applying the Bible often have far more to do with the way we read it than with the translation.

So with all that as a disclaimer, there really are differences. Airline pilots use different maps than the ones in your car atlas because for the task at hand they need to minimize a particular type of distortion. In the next post I will start breaking down our inventory and the functions the different translations have.

Bibles and Tennis Shoes

2009-01-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year I got two new Bibles and I am planning to get at least one new pair of tennis shoes. One obvious question would be why I want these things given that I already have more than one Bible and more than one pair of tennis shoes. One answer is that things to eventually wear out. I am more attached to falling apart bibles than tennis shoes, but I don't like completely getting rid of either because I always think they might come in handy for something someday. Sometimes they do. When I went to Zambia I went through the house and found more than a dozen Bibles and New Testaments that we have accumulated from various sources (old pew bibles from when Anastasia's parents' church got new ones, the ames library book sale, the used christian bookstores in Springfield, MO, and of course Christmas gifts in years past) and took them with me to Zambia and gave them away to people who had never had a Bible at all. I often had people see I was an American and come up and ask me if I could get a Bible for them. So of course now that the stock has been thinned out a little bit, I am back to accumulating. The other reason I tend to accumulate both tennis shoes and bibles is the American obsession with specialization. I have the cleats for soccer or football, high tops for basketball, and running shoes for distance running. Same thing with Bible translations. More on that in the next post.

New Year's Party Food

2008-12-30T18:14:00.000-08:00

What you see here is the beginning of luscious guacamole, which is what I will be bringing to the New Year's Eve party I'm attending. Isn't it beautiful already? If you, too, would like to eat some fresh, tasty guacamole to fight the winter doldrums (and you're not going to the same party I am), see this post for the recipe. Make sure you start with ripe avocadoes!

If you're looking for another good party food, I've listed a few other ideas below. I generally try for something with balance: familiar enough that people will eat it but with a little twist to keep things interesting, simple enough that it doesn't take forever but still looks (and tastes)interesting, and containing some nutritious ingredients but still tasting indulgent. I don't worry too much about cost in these cases, figuring it's hospitality. All of these recipes qualify.

Cranberry Orange Pinwheels--Tasty, fruity cream cheese in tortilla pinwheels

Cream Cheese Fruit Dip--Sweet and rich, accompanied by fresh fruit, always a hit, makes a ton.

Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Cream Cheese Dip--Amazing. I make a non-vegan variation.

Hope that gives you some ideas, and have a Happy New Year!

New Years Resolutions

2008-12-30T18:05:00.000-08:00

So this year I have a new theory on new years resolutions. Anastasia and I were talking about them on Sunday as we were driving back from Missouri, and I decided a more productive strategy would be to come up with things I am resolved to get done by New Years Day. Normally people come up with grand ambitions that they don't follow through on, so instead why not pick a few things that need to get done, that you don't want to do, and that could realistically get done in the next few days. Say, hypothetically, reorganizing your books so that they are not strewn about the living room floor, cleaning out the "junk drawer" so that one could fit a phonebook or two inside of it, and getting the basement utility area clear so that one could actually walk around in it. We will know how this one turned out on January 2.

Perfect spherical pellets

2008-12-22T07:51:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday night the weather here was really weird. When we left the library at 9, we were walking through a couple inches of little pellets of ice. I opened my trunk, and they all fell on my groceries and the books I had all over the place in there. I was able to capture the little sphere on camera as a result. They were all perfect spheres of varying sizes. I have never seen anything like it. Mom and Alex called it sleet, but I've never seen such attractive sleet--it reminded me of Dippin Dots, actually. Weather amazes me.

Product review--dinner rolls

2008-12-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

This is my new favorite food product--multigrain rolls from Rhodes. You buy a bag in the freezer section, and then throw it in your freezer at home. Whenever you want some buns for sloppy joe, or just some rolls for your meal, you set a few out in the morning. By dinnertime, they've risen and you just pop them in the oven. Voila, fresh-baked rolls (that rose, no less) with almost no effort or dirty dishes. And while they have more ingredients than your home-baked roll, they do have whole grains and are way ahead of most refrigerated or frozen breads/rolls nutritionally speaking.

As for taste, everyone I've served them to has loved them and some even thought I made them myself.

So--taste, nutrition, convenience (including being able to prepare just a couple at a time) all come together in one package. I'm loving it!

Better-than-Panera Salad

2008-12-17T19:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I shared about our special cheese dinner; today I'll show you what to do with the leftovers--make a salad prettier than anything Panera offers. I use bagged salad, for simplicity and because we can never eat a whole head of lettuce before it goes bad. Then I top it with toasted walnuts for good solid protein, some crumbled or cubed cheese, and finally ring it with slices of apple or pear. I don't use dressing on a salad like this because I think the cheese, nuts, and fruit add enough interest and moisture. (I will say, though, that I am searching for recipes for dressings to go with salads like these, so let me know if you have a good one!) With the leftover bread and a bit of chocolate for dessert, it's a nice light lunch.

Classic Waldorf Salad

2008-12-16T20:22:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd better post a recipe here in the middle of Alex's musings on Bibles....

This is more of an ingredient list and reminder of how great simple food can be than a detailed recipe. Waldorf salad tastes especially good at this time of year, I think--fresh, crunchy, sweet. Basically, it consists of chopped apples, celery, and walnuts, with some raisins thrown in. I like to toast the walnuts because toasted nuts always taste better. (I do them in a dry skillet over med-hi until they smell toasty. You can also do them in the microwave or oven.)

The dressing is traditionally simply mayonnaise--enough to coat the salad and make it moist. You might add a bit of lemon juice if you're not going to eat it right away--it will slow down the oxidation (browning) of the apples. Lately though, I've been using plain yogurt and a bit of honey for the dressing--much healthier and quite tasty! In a future post, I'll tell you how to make your own yogurt. Stay tuned!

Wine and cheese at the Tucknesses

2008-12-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

Periodically, as a special meal, I like to fix a cheese platter for me and Alex. Our favorite ingredients are: several kinds of cheeses, including both soft and hard (we always have Brie), fruit such as grapes and pears, baguette slices, and chocolate. We also sometimes include olives, roasted garlic, toasted walnuts (especially good with bleu cheese and pears) and of course, wine.

I had brought back a bottle of apple wine from a trip recently and was excited to try it. I wasn't sure if we had a corkscrew, so I took a walk downtown in search of one. Realizing that I had left my credit card in the car and I only had a couple dollars, I didn't go to Cooks', reasoning that I couldn't afford whatever option they would have. So I ended up in the coin collecting place, of all things--he now has a section of the store devoted to making your own wine and beer. For a quarter, I purchased the small black plastic object shown in the bottom right picture.

That evening, we examine our bottle-opening options. We start with the metal corkscrew we found at the back of a drawer. And soon afterward it comes apart.

Moving on, then, to the maroon-colored bottle opener--this doesn't get us anywhere.

Coming to the small black tool, we screw it down into the cork and pull. And pull. And pull. The shopkeeper had said something to the effect of, "That will take quite a bit of finger strength--we call it an emergency corkscrew." Alex's estimation--maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger could get it open this way. Remembering physics and the power of levers, he uses the wooden spoon--with the results also displayed above.

We then take a break and call several friends to see if we could borrow one, but to no avail.

Google finally came to our rescue. We typed in "open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew," and got this helpful video. Thus the handyman tools in the other picture (just need a screw, hammer, and screwdriver). It worked like a charm, and we highly recommend it if you find yourself in the same pickle we did.

Even without the wine, pairing the above foods together makes a great special date meal or easy company hors d'oeuvres!

Oh Christmas Tree

2008-12-14T17:50:00.000-08:00

A view of our living room, now that we've successfully gotten the tree up and the new LED lights purchased. The top two show the two main sides of our tree, and how every year we try to balance the felt ornaments of our childhoods with the more contemporary angels and sparkles. The bottom two show the results of my playing around with my camera in an effort to capture how bright these lights really are!

Cleo update

2008-12-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a little photo collage to show what our cat has been up to lately. He gets up late in the morning and then spends most of the day following the sunbeam around our living room. Lately his favorite place has been under the tree (artificial). I think he likes the soft tree skirt, the view outside, and being next to the furnace vent. Good thing we don't have presents under there yet!

Tree trimming

2008-12-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

(Picasa has new collage options!)

Tree trimming in Michigan was supposed to be simple this year. Alex's itinerary for the day was 1. Grade some papers. 2. Carry the tree upstairs. 3. Grade more papers.

It was a little more complicated than that. Match the text to the above pictures.

1. Grade papers.

2. Carry tree upstairs.

3. Insert tree branches sorted by wife and her aunt.

4. Steady the tree while wife checks to see why it's crooked. (This was unsuccessful--the tree stayed crooked and then part of it fell on me.)

5. Grade more papers.

6. Visit other relatives.

7. Come back to discover Grandma had bought another tree!

8. Carry tree inside.

9. Unpack it, untie it, and shake it out. (It has lights attached, multicolored LED lights. The blue ones are so bright that Grandma replaced as many as she could with the spare red ones!)

10. Grade more papers.

11. Drive home the next day, and get tree up from basement.

12. Sort and insert branches.

13. Untangle lights, 75% of which no longer work. (How does this happen??)

14. Go to Walmart to purchase white LED lights.

15. Light tree. Wait a week for wife to finish putting ornaments and tree skirt on.

My husband, the Christmas tree hero!

(For the record, Alex did get all his grading done, too!)

Cookbooks are smart, but sometimes Grandmas are smarter!

2008-12-04T09:51:00.001-08:00

(imagine a picture of mashed potatoes here--blogger is not cooperating)

For several years, I have made mashed potatoes only at the holidays. I like eating them a lot, but I don't particularly enjoy the multi-step process involved, so we usually have baked potatoes. I do eat them at my folks' house a couple times a month, though.

When I have made them, I've referred to my trusted Bittman cookbook, which has this to say on the subject of mashed potatoes (in part--he actually devotes two text-filled pages to the subject): "If you like yours lumpy, mash them with a fork; if you like them smooth, use a food mill or ricer. But whatever you do, keep them away from mixers, food processors, or blenders, because they will become gummy, and almost no one likes them that way."

Pretty strong words, eh? So over the years I dutifully hand-mashed pounds of potatoes, that ended up heavy and somewhat lumpy. This year I enlisted Alex to mash with a masher and beat with a spoon, and even with his force we were not satisfied with the results.

So on our recent trip to Michigan I had Grandma coach me through using the electric hand mixer to mash the potatoes. Guess what? It took less than two minutes and the results were pronounced fluffy by all, including Alex, who said they were similar to his late grandmother's (reputed to be the best of all by his family).

I am left to conclude that either Bittman's statement that mixers produce gummy potatoes is wrong, or that my entire family and Alex's entire family is in the select group of "almost no one" who "likes them that way." Either way I'll be using a mixer from now on.

And I'll be a bit more skeptical of dogmatic cookbook statements.

Thanksgiving recipe suggestions

2008-11-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

My favorite recipes to make for Thanksgiving are a stuffing recipe and a sweet potato recipe from Cooking Light. I can make them at the same time the day before the meal, and then just pop them in the oven an hour before we eat (at the same temperature!)

The stuffing is particularly great--it starts with a Pepperidge Farm package so I don't have to chop up bread (for some reason I find the task particularly onerous), and then you add sauteed onions and celery for homemade flavor, some dried fruit for a sweet touch, and soak it all in chicken broth. Sweet, savory, and oh-so-tasty. I won't eat any other stuffing!

The sweet potatoes are a nice change from the marshmallow variety--they are a little sweet and a little spicy, with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg and a sprinkling of toasted pecans.

I'll be making these on Saturday--on Sunday we'll be co-hosting a dinner for a few internationals. My co-host is making the turkey and the desserts, and we each think we got the easy part. That's why we work well together! :)

If you're looking for an update or a new addition to your holiday repertoire, give one of these a try!

things I never knew...

2008-11-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

One of my main responsibilities at the library is planning and presenting BabyTalk, our storytime for babies and their families. We do this program three times a week, and we really do get babies who are only five days old all the way through 1-yr-olds. (Then they graduate to Toddler Time, where they mostly run around and dance.) I love watching the babies of course, and it is also a joy to get to know the moms and dads--I'm impressed with their motivation to get to the program despite a crying baby, terrible weather, work schedules, etc.

These great parents (from all walks of life) share tips and tidbits with each other and me--how to make cloth diapers work, what's on sale at the consignment shop this week, when to start putting shoes on your baby.

But one tidbit last week stopped me in my tracks. Apparently they (nurses) are now telling new moms and dads not to kiss their babies on the mouth. Ever. The rationale is that bacteria from the parent's mouth transfers to the baby's mouth and causes tooth decay.

I tried to verify this, and found this blog post, which is a big long rant against kissing babies and kids on the mouth; at the end there's a quote and a link about dental issues but I couldn't find the quote on the page it linked to. Also found this commercial post urging parents to buy this product to rid their mouths of bacteria. So apparently it is a matter of some discussion.

Conclusion? Maybe it's another sign of our obsessed-with-germs culture, that may actually be weakening our immune systems in the process. Maybe if I had a baby, I might try to brush my teeth before kissing him or her. (Then again, I have no cavities.) In any case, I applaud you parents out there who are having to wade through all these well-meaning suggestions!

Cranberry Orange Pinwheels

2008-11-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

I found a recipe for pinwheels in Midwest Living that looked pretty good, and then I ran into a Date-Orange breakfast spread in Cooking Light, so I decided to combine them and this is the result. Next time I would cut them more like 2” thick, rather than 1”, and I’ll look for a different color tortilla. I might try a cranberry-walnut version sometime. The amounts of fruit, spread, and tortilla are rough estimates. These were the favorite snack at a recent library event, and they are one of the few things I've made that taste way better than they look.

Orange Date Pinwheels
Cooking Light/Midwest Living adapt.
~45 min
~40 small bites

8 oz package cream cheese, softened
2 T finely grated orange rind
4 T freshly-squeezed orange juice
1 t cinnamon
¼ t salt
1 pkg flour tortillas
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup minced, sugared dates
Dusting of cinnamon

1. To make the spread, mix together the first 5 ingredients.
2. Spread the mixture generously on a tortilla all the way across.
3. Sprinkle cranberries and dates on half the tortilla.
4. Carefully roll the tortilla tightly into a spiral, starting with the edge with the fruit. Cut on the bias with a fairly sharp angle, trimming the ends. Secure with toothpicks if necessary.
5. Dust with cinnamon and orange zest, if desired.

Amazing oven fries

2008-10-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

I have a love affair with the potato, and that's a fact. In junior year English, we were asked to write an essay describing which food we would like to be, and I chose the potato. So cheap! So versatile! Saved the Irish!

I try to sate my passion with baked potatoes (the Wendy's ones are great) and mashed potatoes rather than fast food French fries or Perkins hash browns (extra crispy) that I love. This oven fry recipe is a great middle ground.

My mom made oven fries for us often when we were growing up, usually as a side to our fish on Thursday night. Her version involved large wedges of russets tossed in vegetable oil. This is a somewhat refined version for the nights when we want something special.

Cut Yukon Gold potatoes in fries 1” long and ½” thick. Toss with a couple teaspoons olive oil. Spread in a single layer on a sprayed or lined baking sheet. Bake at 450 for 30 minutes, or until golden, stirring halfway through. Toss with salt and serve.

If you choose to cut them bigger or use russets, the flavor and texture will change--russets are fluffier, these are more sturdy. Make sure to give yourself enough time for any potato to get golden on the outside and tender on the inside!

An afternoon at the library

2008-10-27T07:47:00.001-07:00

About every three weeks, I have the pleasure of working Saturday and Sunday at the library, which means watching and guiding the antics of families who like to visit us on the weekends. Yesterday afternoon, a four-hour shift, was pretty typical, and this is some of what happened and some of the requests I received.

"Do you have a kids' book about an unhappy triangle?" (Turns out it's called "The Greedy Triangle, and no, we don't have it, although it's cool--a triangle that visits a shape-shifter to become a square, etc.)
"Do you have a kids' book about a girl who eats lima beans? I read it in third grade. No, I don't remember anything else." (After visiting our catalog, Amazon, and finally Google, we identified it as _A Bad Case of Stripes_ by David Shannon. We have multiple copies, and there are lima beans on the title page!)
"So I lost my reading program sheet. (I hand her a new one.) Well, no, I guess I left it at home. Can I have another one? (So, you left it at home but you know where it is?) Yes. (No, it's one per person [the prize is pizza].)" This particular interchange happened several times.
"Do you have any books about fall? Any books about pumpkins? Any books about apples? I know I should have come earlier ... " (Do they realize we send books to over 70 preschool classrooms, most of which want fall books? Not to mention everyone else who comes in asking? I do really wish we could accomodate them....)
"What section is the books for kids aged 5-12? (Well, you could start with picture books, then go to early readers, then the chapter books, and some 12-yr-olds read young adult books.) So they're all mixed in, then?"
"Can I sign up for the computer? ... Someone else is on the computer and it's my turn ... The computer headphones are broken....."
No running in the library! (That's me. As a rule, we don't shush people, but we do make them stop running. With so many little ones and toys underfoot, it's just not safe.)
A young boy at the self checkout says to me, "I can read all 13 of these movies by 1 AM! I'll just stop for some energy drinks on the way home!"
Plus any number of book and movie requests that I was more easily able to fulfill, all topped off by myself and a coworker spending a frantic 1/2 hour picking up all the toys, books, puzzles, lego pieces, etc. strewn across every conceivable surface while listening to multiple kids screaming their heads off (while banging their double strollers against the metal radiator) that they did NOT want to leave the library!!

I never feel like it's a wasted afternoon, that's for sure! :)

Iowa Library conference, part two

2008-10-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures to go with yesterday's post. Top left--the nametag with flair. Top right--a slide from our presentation that I set up to show the progression of letter knowledge (one of the six early literacy skills) in kids. It starts with comparing cubes to spheres, then circles to squares, then identifying letters. Bottom left is the slide for narrative skills--retelling stories--it's a flannelboard set for Brown Bear, Brown Bear. We can take the portable flannelboard with us to storytime visits, or we can wear the flannel apron. The apron is great fun and super easy to deal with, although things get interesting when you let the kids slap the pieces onto the apron.... Bottom right--me in my suit while I was packing. If I get an action shot from the presentation day, I'll post that later.

Mary Kay Trainings vs. Library Conferences

2008-10-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

(Pictures to come tomorrow!)

I recently returned from the Iowa Library Association conference where a coworker and I did a presentation about how Ames Public Library takes early literacy storytimes to daycares and preschools. While I was there, I pondered the similarities and differences between this conference and the trainings that I went to when I was a Mary Kay consultant. I found this fascinating; hopefully, you will at least find it mildly interesting.

(Disclaimer--I loved being a consultant and I love being a librarian, and I love my fellow-mostly-women in both professions, despite fun-poking that ensues below.)

1. Break time: consultants go to the bathroom to fix their makeup. Librarians don't even wear makeup (I am so serious about this--I wore some on my presentation day, but I was definitely in the minority), so at break time librarians go outside and find a place far away from all the noise and people. If you happen to walk by "their spot," you might get looked at with a librarian look.

2. Dress: consultants wear "uniforms"--black or red jacket, black skirt, closed toe shoes, hose, or director's suit. Librarians: a handful of us wore suits--some directors, my boss (she says she can't wear nice suits with short skirts for storytimes so this is her chance)--and I wore a pantsuit the day of my presentation. Most people were wearing business casual, and quite a number wore tennis shoes. Ever the practical ones.

3. Flair: This surprised me. At Mary Kay meetings, it's all about the flair: the pins and whatnot that show off how successful you've been, or at least how much product you've bought. Library conferences are not so different. When we got our nametags, we were given ribbons to stick on them based on various achievements--committee member, ILA member, ALA member, presenter, etc. Those who had given lots of money got special lanyards. Although I thought it was a bit silly, I admit to feeling proud of my "presenter" ribbon and a bit piqued that they didn't give me the ALA member ribbon I deserved. We all like recognition.

4. Evening entertainment: I found out how old I am the second night of the conference. I was sitting with a group of women who were older than I, waiting for the Storytellers Group to come tell us bedtime stories. Then the young, hip, twenty-something librarians swooped through, including my newest coworker, so I asked what they were doing. Board games in room 732! she cried! Come join us! And I realized that I would have lots and lots of fun playing board games in room 732, but I would never get to sleep after that. And since I'm old now, sleep trumps fun. :( Which is also why I quit going to weekly MK meetings--the bright lights, loud music, all the energy intended to motivate us--all conspired to ensure I never got a good night's sleep on MK nights. What do old MK consultants do? I don't think there's a Bedtime Storytellers' Group in MK.

5. Food: I opted for vegetarian meals at ILA, which was a great choice. I like meat in moderation, but at conferences they always give you a slab of meat that covers the whole plate. Not my style. This way I had room for dessert--cheesecake, tiramisu, apple pie.... I wasn't in MK long enough to get a feel for the food culture, although I went to a few meetings at Panera and a couple at mom and pop restaurants with lots of meat and cobblers.

So there it is, my decidedly unscientific ramblings about the Iowa Library Association conference and how it compared with my Mary Kay experience. Hope you were amused!

Favorite Parmesan cheese

2008-10-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you grew up shaking powder out of a can onto your weekly spaghetti. That was good and everything, but there is a whole world of Parmesan cheeses out there. I've been reading "foodie" magazines and books for years now, and every single one of them raves about "real Parmesan cheese from Parma Italy with Parmesan Reggiano stamped on the rind." I'm here to tell you, save your $20/pound. (Seriously.) I've bought it a couple times and it is just not that great, certainly not great enough to justify the price. I've also tried the lookalikes--American imitation wedges (only $5-10/a pound!)--also not good. The stuff that comes in a bag from Kraft is pretty good, but the best is what you see above.

The new product you see is a marvel of food and plastic engineering. I'm sure the wedge of cheese in the container is not from Italy (although the packaging is--how much sense does that make??), but when freshly grated onto soup or pasta, it tastes great. And so easy--just turn the green dial on the bottom. If you turn it the wrong way (as I inevitably do), no worries--just turn it the right way for a while and the cheese will move down the spike on which it sits.

It's great--no grater to wash, only the amount of cheese you want, and fresh cheese every time. It lasts 3 weeks in the fridge once you open the pack (longer than either a regular wedge or the bag). As for price, I think it was $3-4,

Drawbacks--I haven't seen it at Fareway, and you do have to throw away a rather large hunk of plastic. Nothing's perfect!

Late summer recipe

2008-10-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

For anyone who still has zuchinni and eggplant around, this is my favorite way to cook them.

For the dish shown in the picture:
Slice zuchinni and onions thinly. Saute in olive oil. Add a couple pinches of dried oregano.

My grandma Walburg has made this for us for years.

My slight update:
Cut zuchinni and eggplant into small cubes. Slice onion thinly. Saute in olive oil--add eggplant first, then other vegetables. Add more olive oil to keep them from sticking. Add a couple pinches of dried oregano.

Timing will depend on the heat you use to cook it, the size of the veggies, and how many veggies you have, as well as whether you like them crisp or mushy!

Enjoy!!

A recipe for a cloudy day--Minestrone

2008-10-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

Normally I think of minestrone as a recipe for August, when eggplant, tomatoes, and herbs are at their peak. However, this version makes use of mostly canned and dried ingredients, and still manages to capture a lot of that sunny garden feeling, making it perfect for rainy fall days like we've been having this week.

Don't you love the steam rising off the soup? Kudos to my new camera.

This recipe is very flexible, especially with the vegetables. My mom likes to add cabbage and potatoes to hers. What I like about this one is that the puree makes it quite thick, verging on vegetable stew. Although it looks long, it really doesn't take much time to put together. A lot of the cook time is simply simmering. Enjoy!

Minestrone
Moosewood Cookbook
6-8 servings
45-60 minutes

5 cloves crushed garlic
1 c chopped onion
3 T olive oil
2 t salt, divided
1 c minced celery
1 c cubed carrot
1 c cubed eggplant
1 t oregano
¼ t pepper
1 t basil
1 c chopped red pepper
3 c vegetable stock
1 lg can (20 oz?) tomato puree
14 oz can of kidney beans
3 T dry red wine
14 oz can chopped tomatoes
½ c small dry pasta such as shells
Grated Parmesan cheese

1. In a soup kettle, sauté garlic and onions in olive oil over medium-high heat until soft and translucent, about 7 minutes.
2. Add 1 t salt, carrot, celery, and eggplant. Mix well. Add oregano, pepper, and basil. Cover and cook over low heat 5-8 minutes.
3. Add red pepper, stock, puree, beans, and wine. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.
4. Add tomatoes and remaining salt. At this point, you can simmer the soup as long as you like, or proceed to step 5.
5. Bring soup back to boil, add pasta, and boil gently until it is tender, about 7 minutes. Serve immediately, topped with copious amounts of Parmesan cheese.

You can substitute zucchini for the eggplant; just add it along with the red pepper (which can also be green pepper if you prefer). This soup freezes nicely—just don’t add the pasta to the portion of the soup you freeze. When you warm it up, you can add pasta or just eat it as is. If you put extra beans in, it will be plenty hardy. If you buy “real” Parmesan cheese and have a leftover rind, let it simmer in the soup. You can then gnaw on it at the table. Tasty!

Green cleaning

2008-10-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

My adventures in green cleaning continue. I found another website with many great ideas of nontoxic substitutions for cleaners. My oven floor was a mess because of these great pizzas that we bake right on the rack--crispy crust, messy oven. I was pondering what to do--it's a self-cleaning oven, and all you do is set it up and it does the work, right? But then I remembered the last time Mom and I did this--it got so hot and smelly in the house I just couldn't stand it.

So I thought I'd try this. And turns out, it's even easier than the self-cleaning. All you do is remove the racks, sprinkle 1/2 inch of baking soda all over the bottom, spritz it with water, and go to bed. In the morning, scrape off the baking soda and junk with something like those great Pampered Chef scrapers and a sponge. No sweat, no smell! I'll never be afraid to clean my oven again.

Why I don't blog much

2008-10-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything for months, and when I am in doubt about what to write I can always get introspective. I don't normally have a shortage of things to say, so why hasn't blogging really caught on with me? A few reasons:

1) I am proud and like to impress people when I write or speak, and I do both of these things a lot anyway between my job and work at church. Writing or speaking in public is not the easiest way for me to unwind.
2) I like targeting what I say to the specific audience. I don't enjoy offending people and when I post a blog I am always imagining the easiest-to-offend person out there reading it. Selective communication is also a way of presenting yourself differently to different groups of people, and not necessarily desirable.
3) I am long winded. Long blogs take a long time to write and people don't read them, and working to make things shorter feels like work and isn't fun.

So really all of it can be explained in terms of various character flaws. Of course I could probably sit down with an avid blogger and find other character flaws that lead them to blog. Score another one for total depravity.

My dishwasher

2008-10-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

So this (and this) is what our kitchen looked like until just recently. Crowded and often full of dirty dishes. I was getting fed up and so we started looking into possibilities. We didn't really want to redo our whole kitchen since the floor and the appliances are new and the cabinets look pretty good. We checked on portable dishwashers--none available locally for purchase that would fit. Finally we found the Danby 18" portable online, and eventually found that we could have it shipped to Walmart. We don't normally shop there, but saving that much money on shipping, plus having some place we could bring it back to if necessary, was very attractive.

And now, so is our kitchen. See below.

We fit the dishwasher between the stove and the wall, where, not surprisingly, an old non-functioning portable dishwasher lived when Alex first moved in. I am mystified as to why we didn't replace it right away--I think I thought the baker's rack was more important. It is now across the room, next to the kitchen table (which is smaller than it was when we got married--no leaves now.) The move opened things up so much.

Here's the dishwasher. One reviewer called it "the easy bake oven" of dishwashers, and it is small, but we don't generate that many dishes. On average we run it every 2 days, unless I cook enchiladas. Then we ran it twice in one day! It gets the dishes way more sparkling clean than I ever could. But it does take almost 2 hours!

Here is Cleo's reaction--he was really freaked out the first night we ran it. He's used to it now.

All in all, a great early birthday present that will keep on giving. Thanks, Alex!

A simple fall recipe

2008-10-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

One of the great delights of fall is squash. Personally, one of my strongest memories of squash is from the year our family went to Disneyland. We grew, then cooked and froze, then ate enough squash to save money to go to Disneyland. Or at least cover one of our tickets.

Anyway, this is my favorite way to do acorn squash.

Exact recipe--makes enough for 2 good-sized servings:
1. Take a small to medium-sized acorn squash.
2. Punch a hole in it.
3. Microwave it for 2 minutes.
4. Take it out and cut it in half.
5. Scoop out seeds.
6. In each half, put 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon brown sugar.
7. Put it back in the microwave for about 5 minutes (until soft).
8. Enjoy.

You can also do it in the oven. With ones shaped like this, I'm tempted to slice them into rings because they're so pretty, but this is just easy!

Easy coffee for one

2008-10-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

(This one's for you, Anna!)

First, the history. I never used to drink caffeine at all because it has the potential to mess up the absorption rate of some medications I take. However, a couple years ago I was having great difficulty getting going in the morning, and my doctor said, well, I could prescribe a stimulant, or you could just drink a cup of coffee in the morning. Overjoyed, I chose the coffee--I've long loved decaf, and the flavor options are so much greater with caffeine.

But I hated how the coffee maker took up a good portion of my one work counter in the kitchen. Then my coffee-loving friend Jen DeBoest showed me the handy little contraption above. (She also gave me the mug.) You set the plastic thing on your mug, put in a regular filter (or a special-sized one if you like to spend money), and a large tablespoon of coffee grounds (I grind mine each week at the grocery store--perfect combination of freshness and convenience). Then you pour enough boiling water in to fill your cup (but not overflow it--that's really the only trick). We love it! ("We" because Alex actually makes the coffee--and the breakfast--every morning although he only drinks tea and coffee "socially.")

It's available locally at Cooks' Emporium for about $5. It comes from Holland, and if anyone is interested, I'm sure I could get more details on the name of it.

Uses for cooked chicken

2008-10-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

If you've started making cooked chicken and stock on your own, you may have cooked chicken lying around (hopefully in your freezer). Here are some favorite uses:

1. Slather some bread with mayonaise and top with chicken; salt if you didn't use much salt when making the chicken, and make a great sandwich.

2. Chicken pot pie--I don't yet have a favorite recipe, being torn between ease of preparation and healthiness, but my sister-in-law gave me a super easy one that I'd share and Cooking Light has a great-looking healthy one.

3. Quesadillas--top tortillas with chicken, green chilies, and cheddar cheese, add another tortilla, and bake or toast in skillet.

4. Chicken soup--saute some chopped up carrots, celery, and onion, add the stock, add some noodles or rice and simmer until soft, add chicken, season as desired, and serve.

5. Chicken Tetrazinni--there are all kinds of versions of this that require baking, but I don't see the point. I boil some spaghetti, and meanwhile I make a white sauce with the stock (you can also use can of creamed chicken soup). Stir in some grated cheddar, a bit of dried parslely, a can of drained mushrooms, and some chicken. Use as sauce over the spaghetti.

I hope you all don't mind the lack of precision. These recipes are all quite forgiving, so figure out what works for you, and if you have a specfic question let me know!

The leaves that are green turn to brown

2008-09-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

(A disclaimer--I copped this picture from the Internet b/c I wasn't sure I could actually catch leaves mid-fall using my camera.)

Every year, about this time, I sit in my recliner and watch the leaves fall to the ground, sometimes one by one, sometimes as a large group. And I always have the following thought: Each leaf will only fall once. For some reason, this surprises me every year. There seem to be so many coming down, but each one only makes one trip. Then I think about rain and snow and compare them, because I never think about the finitude of rain and snow (except when I'm comparing them to leaves). And really, each drop of rain and flake of snow only drops once, too, which then reminds me of how I also can't believe that each snowflake is unique.

I have always been fascinated by finitude, even from a very young age. In third grade, they showed us a filmstrip about how fossil fuels will run out someday. The urge to protect and preserve, for me, extends from fossil fuels, to teeth (I did finally throw away my baby teeth but I take meticulous care of the teeth in my mouth)!, to my hearing (I'm the one with flourescent orange earplugs at church), to clothes (I still wear a few things I bought in eighth grade), to food (I love batch cooking for freezing), to books. Recently I have started reminding myself that there will always be new books, magazines, recipes, etc., so I don't need to make sure I store enough now for the rest of my life!

There's got to be a balance between on the one hand, the grasshopper who scorns storing up for the winter, and on the other hand the rich man who builds bigger barns to store up for himself, only to be struck by God. What a challenge this is when I look around the house and think, "I need more bookcases, or organizers, or shelves for all this stuff..."

Lemon Proscuitto Pasta

2008-09-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

I realized I've been posting mostly homey recipes, which are great, but I do make quite a few fancy recipes as well and thought I would share one today. I love the combination of flavors in this pasta dish. I think it could use a little fine-tuning in the amount and type of pasta and maybe the other ingredients, and serving size is subject to your taste, but overall it's a definite repeater. If you haven't ever used proscuitto, this is a great place to start. Have your butcher slice it really thin, then just slice it into strips. It tastes like fancy ham. So here's the recipe.

Lemon Prosciutto Pasta
from Midwest Living (they called it Tagliatelle ala Hudson)
4 servings
20 min

Lemon peel
2 T butter
12 oz fresh/dried noodles
1 cup whipping cream
¼ lb. thinly sliced prosciutto
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese—about 1 cup

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil.
2. Soften the butter for 30 sec in the microwave in a small bowl.
3. Finely shred the lemon peel to get at least 1 T; combine it with the butter.
4. Cut the prosciutto into small strips.
5. Warm a large serving bowl with warm water.
6. Warm the whipping cream.
7. Boil the pasta at a rolling boil according to package directions.
8. You will probably have time to make a salad and set the table.
9. Drain pasta well when done; transfer to serving bowl.
10. Add lemon butter and cream; toss gently to coat. Add prosciutto.
11. Serve pasta sprinkled with about ¼ c freshly grated Parmesan per serving.

This is easy, tasty, and impressive. I think the cream would stick to the noodles better with fresh pasta. If you like meat, you may want to increase the amount of prosciutto.

A Funny One for all You Moms (and everyone who has a mom!)

2008-09-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

Periodically Mark the Metropuritan (http://metropuritan.blogspot.com/) posts links to funny youtube videos and such. I can't remember if he posted this one or if someone just told Alex about it, but it's so hilarious I've been laughing about it for weeks. In this video, Anita Renfroe (a Christian comedien) takes everything a mom says in 24 hours, condenses it into less than 3 minutes, and sings it--to the William Tell overture. It's masterful. The link I've provided

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6P2w5GkXmU is the link to a version that has the lyrics printed as captions at the bottom of the screen, so you can catch every word. If that bugs you, there are many other versions available on youtube without the captions and they'll show up on the right side of your screen.

We watched a few of her other videos (just search Anita Renfroe--there's a Dad version of the song now too); they were pretty funny, too. Enjoy!

Salting the earth

2008-09-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

(This post is an extension of the previous post.)

I should have known--if I have a question about most anything (especially historical, theological, and often scientific), I should ask my dad. I mentioned the salting the dirt thing to him, and he said, "Oh sure! That's what Rome did to Carthage in the Punic Wars!" Obviously. So, with that new information and detail, I was able to find the relevant wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth

It is interesting, though, that historians are unsure whether this particular incident really happened or not.

Also, my master gardener mother notes that if you put enough salt on your ground to kill weeds, you won't be able to grow anything else for a very long time, either. Dad noted that there must be some way to desalinate dirt because the Netherlands does it when they reclaim land from the sea, but we think this process may be beyond the reach of the average home gardener.

Random trivia--salt and snot

2008-09-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been learning that there are many things I don't know yet. It's been surprising to learn things that everyone else thinks I know. One example is that salt, if poured in copious quantities on the ground, will kill weeds, their roots, and any other other plants. Apparently the Romans did this to the nations they conquered in order to render their fields unusable. My entire women's craft group was aware of this, as was my husband (no surprise there, really), but I had never heard of it. BTW, I haven't been able to externally verify this either.

Another quick fact--if your nose runs when you eat spicy food (mine does!), you experience gustatory rhinitis. Don't you love words?

Family Read-Alouds

2008-09-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

A few favorite read-alouds for the whole family:

Ramona Quimby series and Ralph S. Mouse series by Beverly Cleary
Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis
Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Pippi Longstocking and 2 sequels by Astrid Lindgren
Holes by Louis Sachar (for older kids)
Clementine and two sequels by Sara Pennypacker (shorter than most of these)
The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

Please share your favorites!

If you're looking for more, I highly recommend _The Read-Aloud Handbook_ by Jim Trelease. There have been 6 or so editions; any one would be fine. He gives age recommendations, short descriptions of each book, and research on why reading aloud is so important. Your local library should have a copy. I'll also continue to post favorites as I think of them.

overheard at the library

2008-09-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd occasionally share with you things I hear while working in the children's section in our public library.

Yesterday ...

"But Mom, it got all wet!"
"I know, but dear, we do not take our shirts off when we're in the library."

Trip to Benton Arboretum

2008-09-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

My sister Kristin (yes, we both have sisters by that name) visited Ames from BC this summer. One fine summer's day, she, my mom, and I packed up the car and drove down to Adel. We spent a ton of time in a great little shop called The Atherton House. It was kind of a cross between The Octagon and Worldly Goods--basically they had art pieces for your home or gifts from all around the world. It's very well organized and the shopowners can tell you stories about all the artists and artisans who created the pieces. I definitely plan to go back for Christmas shopping--every piece is tasteful, interesting, and reasonably priced. Not cheap, but reasonable. Highly recommended.

We had lunch at Cafe in the Park, which required us to walk through the cemetary department and was housed in an old Parks and Rec building. The food was a cross between an Iowa church potluck (jello salad on the salad bar) and a women's club--we had croissants, quiche, and strawberry soup.

We also went to a great quilting shop (http://www.adelquilting.com/; cute little blog here http://www.adelquilting.blogspot.com/).

On the way home, we visited the Benton Arboretum and saw the sights above. Mom especially loved the Grant Wood-esque rolling hills. The statue is of St. Francis. And Kristin is examining what makes the tree so silver--its name plate was in Latin, so we don't know what it is. We hope to go back in the fall--I think it would be beautiful. There are driving and walking trails. (We decided to save Picket Fence Creamery and Prairieland Herbs for another day.) If you decide to go to the Arboretum, get a detailed map. Ours was not so detailed, but the lady in the post office was very helpful. We love small town Iowa!

A worthy successor to Ramona

2008-08-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

Growing up, Beverly Cleary's books were the first chapter books I remember reading on my own. There must be over 20 of them, so I have many fond memories of heading into the school library and making a beeline for the C section, knowing I'd find a great read there. (This gives me some sympathy for my patrons who head straight for Magic Treehouse without deviating to anything else they might possibly like better--who wants to fool around with the unknown when the known suits you just fine?) Through the magic of Scholastic book orders, I eventually collected all the Ramona books (most in a great boxed set), and even now I reread them regularly, particularly when I get a nasty cold or flu. I believe that these books have influenced me profoundly--just a few weeks ago I read the part where Ramona is helping her aunt unwrap her wedding presents: when she gets to the amazingly fluffy towels, she thinks now these are towels worth marrying for. And now I know why I was determined to register for the softest, fluffiest towels!

Anyway, Beverly Cleary has stopped writing, so we've been watching for emerging, spunky young heroines. While Junie B. has her place, as a person she's not easy to like, and most people (including me) aren't crazy about her writing style either.

Enter Sara Pennypacker's Clementine. She has a little brother, a great mom and dad, and she lives in an apartment building in New York. Her books (three of them to date) are hilarious, and the comedy comes in large part from her unique perspective on the world. She can't figure out why the principal stares at the ceiling while Clementine tells her what's she's done to get in trouble--are there snakes up there? She writes notes to herself on her arm--reminders of things to do and not to do, both immediately and in the distant future (some pertain to the husband she is sure she will not have). She refuses to call her brother by his name, instead referring to him using various vegetable names (String bean! Spinach!). She figures since she got stuck with a fruit name, he should get stuck with a vegetable name. Many of her problems arise at school and with friends, and young readers should have no trouble identifying with her. It does have great drawings. Read them with your family, give them to your 2nd-3rd grader, read them yourself!