Recycled Post: Cooking with JC

After my last post about words, I read today's Gospel reading.  I was immediately reminded of this post I wrote in the infant years of this blog circa 2005.  Hence, today's recycled post.  Enjoy!

Today's Gospel is from Matthew (23:23-26). I know it's always been there, but it struck me as "new to me" today. I think I'd remember a reference to mint, dill and cumin! Not to mention dishwashing.

Jesus said:
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin,
and have neglected the weightier things of the law:
judgment and mercy and fidelity.
But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.
Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,
but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup,
so that the outside also may be clean."

The commentary in my New American Bible said something about how the law of the time was to tithe your produce, but that what Jesus was criticizing here was not that practice. Rather, he was pointing out the hypocrisy of paying attention to the tiniest details of some things (tithing even your herbs) and yet at the same time choosing to ignore the big things in life.

Judgement, mercy and fidelity (NAB)
Justice, mercy and faith (NRSV)
Justice, mercy and honesty (Good News)

What if for just one day, we focused on spicing our lives (and the lives of others) with these things instead of the petty things we tend to focus on? Like keeping the outside of our dishes neat and clean, while the insides are messy indeed.

Food for thought (no pun intended)

Old Standbys

Many many years ago, when I was just an impressionable and idealistic teenager, I became a vegetarian. If memory serves correctly, I'd spent the day volunteering with my mother at an event staffing a table for her nonprofit organization that provided job training and decision making courses to inmates at the county jail (yes I come by my do-gooder tendencies naturally). Why did this make me a vegetarian? The table next to us was staffed by folks from one People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And while we had a vhs video that we were playing and rewinding that talked about our organization's prison ministry, they had a vhs video that they were playing and rewinding that talked about animal torture and factory farms. I don't remember how many hours I volunteered that day, but I do remember afterwards when my mom and I stopped at McDonald's to get a McChicken sandwich (this being the late 80s they were all the rage), I took one bite and couldn't finish it.

I became a vegetarian on the spot. This transition was somewhat smooth because at various points in their college careers, two of my elder siblings were vegetarian. My mom didn't have any problems with it, but her one requirement was that if I wasn't going to eat what she was cooking for dinner, I had to make something for myself. A few weeks later we were visiting my brother Michael in Baltimore and spent the afternoon browsing in a bookstore. I found the Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, very pricey at $29.99, but mom bought it for me.

I was a vegetarian for about 10 years, up until I became Catholic again and spent 6 hours serving secret recipe spaghetti and meatballs at the parish Spaghetti dinner. But that is another story for another blogpost ... how Catholicism returned me to the fold of meat eating. Ironically, even though I don't consider myself a vegetarian any more, I do live in a house where we eat vegetarian food in an effort to live simply.

So ... this is all a preamble to dinner tonight. Every two weeks we have two lay Associates of our community over for dinner, prayer and conversation. Tonight I decided to make one of my old standby recipes ... Spinach Lasagna. I've pretty much got the recipe in my head at this point, but sometimes I turn to the dog eared and spaghetti sauced page in the Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. This was the main benefit of this purchase, my Spinach Lasagna recipe, the core of which comes from the cookbook with many variations. I've made many a lasagna. At family Christmas and Thanksgiving, I'd have lasagna while everyone else had turkey. In college and working at the City it was one of my main potluck fares. And in the novitiate, I even branched out to the world of meat based lasagnas. But tonight it was close to the original, with a few short cuts here and there. And it was good.

recipes & friendship

One of my housemates gets a gift subscription to Cooking Light Magazine, a favorite magazine of mine. The latest issue came the other day, so I was flipping through last month's recipes for yummy creations I can make in the kitchen before relegating the old issue to the recycling bin. In fact, a brown soda bread is in the oven as I write--don't know yet if it's yummy but I have high hopes.

There was also a great article in the March issue that I could not find online. It's entitled, "The importance and problem of staying connected." I'm sure all of my friends can relate, but I'd recommend that my friends in religious life try to find a copy. I found it very illuminating and affirming of something I've been coming to realize.

If you're busy with child-reading or with an all-encompassing career-or some combination of the two-[or the blogger ads, vowed religious life]--it's likely that you're just not getting the friend time that you used to. In part this has happened because you trust that you can rely on your friends to be there when you really need them. But you always need them. Friendship is not a constant state of connection; it needs to be tended, and improves with tending.

'It's important to think of time with friends as something you need, like exercise and a good night's sleep," says Tom Rath, author of Vital Friends: The People You Can't Afford to Live Without .... 'Every hour of friendship time you add to your life diminishes stress and increases your happiness.' ...

Two things tend to stand in the way of keeping in touch. First, reserving friends-only time may seem selfish to many women because we think our needs fall lower on the priority list. Who has time to gab when there's a family to feed and laundry to wash [and the blogger adds, the wonderful yet time consuming mix of prayer, ministry and community]? Second, by the time everything else is done, a check-in call to a friend can seem like just one more thing to do.

One of my goals that came up in my 1 year vows reflection last fall was to reconnect with friends. During my two years of novitiate, I was 3,000 miles away from most of my friends and immersed in a different world. Whereas there were some friends I used to talk to every day, we moved to a once a month check in. The friends I used to talk to once a month, I occasionally connected with via email. Thank God for Facebook, which I discovered towards the end of my novitiate, and for the blog, which helped me stay at least tenuously connected.

Now that I've moved from novitiate to temporary profession, I'm in a more regular mode of life and I'm closer to friends - a 3 hour drive from most instead of 3,000 miles. And yet, as the article says, even though I yearn to connect and know that I need to tend these relationships with people than I love, it sometimes seems like just one more thing to put on my to do list. And yet, like prayer, I know that when I connect with friends, I feel more connected to life. I say like prayer because sometimes it seems like you're so busy, how could you ever fit in a quiet evening of prayer. And yet, the more I make space for connecting with God, the more space there seems to be for everything else as well. Really, it's all about relationships.

I love my religious community. This weekend will be an amazing reunion time of fun, laughter, prayer, conversation and celebration--we're gathering for our semi-annual community assembly. But I'm realizing more and more that I also need the life giving energy of staying connected with my friends. It's not just an age thing--although that is a factor seeing as most of my religious community is 3o to 50 years older than me. More, it's the bonds and connections that develop over time.

And so, I've also been trying to make space for friends. I'm headed to Portland for Easter in a few weeks. Have a summer vacation planned with some other friends. Have been trying to connect more on the phone, rather than just relying on Facebook to keep me up to date.

Perhaps it's silly to find such affirmation from an article in a cooking magazine, but it seems like I'm on the right track. The shared memories, the silly moments, the simple qualities are I think part of the recipe to a healthy and balanced life.

unpacking and packing and other random thoughts

Well, I've pretty much managed to unpack from my 3 month spring ministry experience. The only thing is, now I'm packing again ... although this time it's just for the weekend! We're headed to our retreat house on the shore for the annual Eastern Province Spirituality weekend. It's a wonderful opportunity for our groovy sisters and associates in this geographic region to gather in a spirit of prayer and reflection (and fun). I'm really looking forward to it, even though I'd just started getting into the swing of things here at the house. We'll be back soon enough I suppose - a weekend isn't very long, not even the three day variety!

I had an action packed afternoon, complete with house meeting, cooking dinner, zipping upstairs for a phone interview for a potential ministry placement in the fall, then heading downstairs to eat dinner. As I descended the stairs I discovered that our Congregation Leader and another sister from the west were joining us for dinner! Good thing I made something yummy (taco salads)! And that there was more than enough to go around.

To end this random post, I will ask this question: if you were having a phone interview for what you might consider your "dream job," and you've never met the folks on the other end of the phone, what would you wear? Would you stay in your jeans, t-shirt and flip flops or put on a snazzy blazer and skirt combination just so you feel confident and in the groove?? I think my house mates may have thought I was crazy, but I went for the blazer and skirt option. The potential employers on the other line had no idea what I was wearing, but I certainly felt more professional!

Friday Check In

Hi folks. I'm noticing a pattern ... if two weeks can be considered enough time to detect a pattern.

What's the pattern, you ask? Simply that my weekdays are so busy with ministry and hanging out with the community here at the house and getting to bed early enough to be bright and cheerful the next day that there's limited time for blogging.

Hence, the Friday Check In with my bloggy friends.

• Things are going very well overall - I've been here two weeks tomorrow! Hard to believe.
  
  
• I'm really enjoying my work at the day center. I'm still getting up at the crack of dawn to serve breakfast, but now that I've been there a few days and have more of an idea of what I'm doing it's much more enjoyable. The clients are really great. I continue to be called "love" and "darling" on a regular basis.
  
  
• After breakfast I head up to the training center. There I do a variety of things, all aimed at helping the clients in their search for work. I can now set up e-mail and voice-mail accounts, help them write their CV, look for jobs on the internet and e-mail job applications. Mostly I'm just there to help them become familiar with the world of computers. I've been very impressed both with the services the center provides and the great attitude the clients bring to their job search.
  
  
• Yesterday I had my first day at the offices of Pax Christi, where I'm spending one day a week. My main job for the next month or so will be promoting their Christmas cards to local bookstores. I'm also getting a chance to become familiar with the faith based peace movement in the UK. They've been very welcoming so far, and I'm sure will continue to be.
  
  
• Today I conquered my fear of the Celsius based oven and made my first meal here at the house - herb stuffed pork chops and mashed potatoes. Everything went well and folks seemed to enjoy the meal. In any case, they were fed. :) It's always a challenge cooking for new people and exploring a new kitchen!
  
  
• Tomorrow is a special day. One of our Sisters, who has spent a great deal of time researching the life of our founder Margaret Anna Cusack, will be taking me and one of the Sisters I live with to Leamington Spa where Margaret Anna died and is buried. We're making a little pilgrimage of it. I'm sure it will inspire a later post.

Well, that about catches you up on the life of this novice. Hope all is well with you all.

Peace,
Susan

The Convent Cook

One benefit of a new house mate is that we now have new cookbooks! I tried a new recipe today out of The Convent Cook, Divine Meals for Families Large and Small by Maria Tisdall. It's written by a woman who cooks for the Benedictine Sisters of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

I tried the "Quick Quiche," which I called "Convent Quiche" in honor of both the cookbook and because I cooked it in our kitchen, which is of course in a convent. The recipe was easy to follow yet precise, which is just the combination I need. She offered choices for the variety of quiche - I ended up using ham and swiss cheese. It was quite yummy. I paired it with a nice green salad and some french bread.

I've probably never cooked so consistently in my life as I have this year. This might be surprising, since I only cook once or twice a week - we take turns. But when I lived alone, I rarely cooked. What I did was more what I like to call "prepare food" - boiling some pasta, heating a can of soup, making a small salad. When I did cook I'd have to eat the same thing for an entire week, unless I was super crafty and managed to freeze it. That had its own challenges though, until I learned to freeze things in single servings. I was also a regular at the cafe at my local health food store - they had an awesome build your own wok bowl bar! (A salad bar type thing with veggies and noodles and stuff - you'd put what you wanted in the bowl, they then cooked it for you on the wok).

But now I cook. In community living, the evening meal is a main gathering time. This was true at my house in Seattle and is true in the Novitiate. Like a family, we gather for dinner and share our news. In most religious houses I know, it is a sacred time.

Cooking is not my favorite activity, but it can be fun. I've noticed that everyone has their own cooking style. I need to figure out what I'm going to make days ahead of time and have a simple yet precise recipe I can follow. I'm not very good at improvising. Others in the house look at what's in the fridge and pantry and whip up something yummy. The only problem is, they can't necessarily recreate it at a later time!

I'm sure I'll be doing some cooking in England, although it will be different. Different ingredients, different measurements, different tastes. I'm bringing some of my favorite recipes to share with the 2 Sisters I'll be living with in London. I hope they like Eggplant Parmesan ... or is is Aubergine Parmesan??