Work, Coffee, and Chess

So... This has been a good week. Challenging and enjoyable and good. Monday was relaxed and most of the family spent the latter part of the day at Uncle Bruce and Aunt Margie's swimming and eating yummy food. Tuesday at work was slow and frustrating. It was one of those days that doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. Halfway through the morning when I felt like I had run completely against a wall, I paused, sat blankly for a few minutes, wrote a haiku, and carried on.

And so much to do
But my mind just keeps wand'ring.
Sit up; push forward.

Things did get better and I did accomplish more than I thought I would considering my dullness. The next day at work was even better.

Yesterday, after a day at home, tidying up and such, Esther, Elizabeth and I went to Tullahoma. Elizabeth had a CAP meeting at 6 p.m. Esther needed to find a grade insignia, and I was transportation. The plan was to look in the shed for the grade insignia, drop Elizabeth at the meeting place by 5:55 p.m. and then for Esther and I to go to the Celtic Cup, a delightful coffee shop. The grade insignia was not in the shed. Since Esther and I were hungry and there was plenty of time before Elizabeth's meeting, we through the drive-through at Chick-fil-a.
We drove immediately from there to the meeting place, a Mexican restaurant. We sat in the parking lot, Esther and I eating our chicken nuggets and Elizabeth waiting til it was closer to time for the meeting. (We were there twenty minutes early.) When another cadet showed up, it gave him and his father a chuckle to see us eating fast-food chicken nuggets in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant.
Once Elizabeth was headed in to the meeting, Esther and I went on to the Celtic Cup (taking the ...scenic route). We entered, ordered our Americano and yerba mate latte, and went upstairs. The table we sat at had a chess set in the center. I had wanted to play a card game, but no cards were in the little collections of games they had. In general, chess is not a game that I will play. I do not take the time, patience, or focus necessary to play it. Esther did not sound too excited about playing. However, as we were sitting chatting, she madee the first move. It seemed that it would be impolite to not return, so I moved and the game was begun.
The Americano, though. The moment it was brought to the table, the color and smell of it reminded me of the Kenyan coffee that Jonathan made when he was visiting us over Christmas. Sure enough, it had a similar bright, sharp flavor, though not as strong as the stuff Jonathan fixed. It was very pleasant!

The game continued. At first, I sincerely was convinced that Esther was going to win. She was being much more bold and adventurous. However, the tide turned and..

Check-mate.

After the chess match, we continued to sit and talk, until one of the waitresses came upstairs to turn out the lights. She told us that they were closing. They had forgotten until just before that we were still upstairs. "We wouldn't want you to get locked in here and walk downstairs and set off the alarms." We laughed a bit and left. For having stayed for half an hour after closing, they were very pleasant. Fairly soon after, Esther got a text from Elizabeth that she was done. We picked her up and after another delay (which involved Sonic, lots of chocolate, and grade insignias), we headed home.

And there you have it.

Salsa

When I see "salsa" it conjures an image of a very specific tomato based chunky sauce, but all salsa is is sauce. Salsa = sauce = salsa = sauce = salsa.

That being said, salsa is obviously the sassier and more adventurous version of sauce. Two syllables, not an English word, etc. Especially once you get it out of your head that salsa = some form of Pace Picante Sauce. For example, this recipe for a Mexican salsa uses allspice as a flavoring. And seeds to help thicken it up and give it some roasty good flavors. Never before had I thought of allspice as a flavor in Mexican food, but, as I'm finding out, there's a lot more to mexican food than tacos.

So, this salsa. You start by dry roasting sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds along with some allspice and whole dried peppers. Say, a couple handfuls of the seeds, a few tablespoons of whole allspice berries, and maybe a fistful of dried peppers. I like pasillos and guajillas. Roast them over medium heat till they start smelling better. Add some already hot water to cover before the start burning.

A word about dried peppers. Pasillos and guajillas in particular aren't spicy, but they pack a lot of flavor. You want to find ones that are still leathery and pliable. Completely dried out ones aren't as tasty.

Halve a few pounds of tomatillos/tomatoes. I generally make this with just tomatillos,  but adding a tomato or two is tasty as well. You want enough in there so all the tomatillos are at least touching the hot simmering water and peppers and seeds. Let it simmer for a few minutes. Don't cook it too long, just enough so part of the tomatillos starts to get a little soft. You still want some freshness there. Take it off the heat and puree the whole mess. Season with salt, pepper, Goya all purpose, chicken broth powder, whatever works. Stuff with MSG works best. Taste it. If it's a little bitter add a bit of sugar, piloncillo (shavings from the cone of dried sugar cane juice you find next to where you got your dried whole peppers) is best, puree again and taste again.

This stuff is the bomb. Works great as an enchilada sauce, sauce for tamales, "mexican casserole" (I know, I know, but both my family and my wife's family have a casserole they call that, and this sauce is even tasty on those culinary stereotypes), huevos rancheros, rubbed on my face in the throes of a culinary coma, etc. Be creative.

I'll leave you with how I did huevos rancheros: preheat pan with bacon grease, fry corn tortilla a little, put the egg on tortilla, add salt and pepper and the salsa you're gonna make after you stop reading this, cover till whites are set, stuff it in your face, and sooth the pain of eating it before it's cooled down with the symphony of gustatory pleasures dancing across your taste buds.

1440

Regardless of how clever I am, I only have twenty four hours in each day.  I cannot delegate my way to more.  I cannot multitask my way to more.  I cannot expect that God will alter the course of the solar system to give me more. I cannot get more by force of will or superior argument.  Twenty four hours.  One thousand four hundred forty minutes: that is all anyone has to work with in the daily cycle.  

Subtract seven hundred twenty minutes for meals, hygiene, prayer, sleep.  Leaves seven hundred twenty minutes to do things.  

Each day.  

Only seven hundred twenty.

An eight hour job is usually longer at five hundred twenty two minutes.  One hundred ninety eight is all that’s left.

Subtract fifty one minutes for driving  to and from work .  One hundred forty seven remain.

Laundry, dishes, floors and such take another sixty six minutes leaving eighty one.

If I have meal prep, subtract thirty three.  Forty eight remain.

Forty minutes for Facebook (this is the American average): Eight left.

Fifteen minutes on necessary email. Nothing is left. Not even nothing.  Less than nothing.  

…

And I have not talked with you, yet.

Immigrants

The Great Hunger lasted from 1845 to 1852.  It is also known as the Irish famine.  The grandparents of my paternal grandfather came over then.  Over three hundred fifty Mahoneys came through New York in 1850 and 1851, the years my kinfolk came through.

I was sorting through the records for Daniel in 1850 and Katherine and Ellen in 1851.  So many records, so ...flexible the sense of names and dates.  I have not been able to identify their entry dates with any degree of certitude, yet seeing all of those names had its effect.

At that time, in our republic, Catholics were suspect of loyalty to the Pope more than to the country, especially the rebellious Irish.  Catholics were a problem for this country even in Maryland.  Yet, they came.  They answered the open invitation of liberty.  "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free...."

It was not an easy assimilation.  "No Irish Need Apply" was not an uncommon sign.  Yet this idealistic country opened the borders to these refugees with all the risks of disease and insurrection.  

***

Today we see the flood of immigrants from the middle east.  Peoples whose countries are ravaged by an Islamic analog to the Reformation in western Europe and the destruction of many of the functioning governments.  These people, Muslim and Maronite, pose potential harms to the west, to these United States.  ...And yet...

Though they are despised even as my ancestors were despised on their entry to this land, even so, the call of Liberty still rings true.  

Sunday Pancakes!

This is derived from the wonderful More with Less Cookbook.

This is enough for six to ten people depending on appetite and other things: eggs, bacon, sausage, oj, coffee....

Preheat the griddle to 325 F.  Find your digital kitchen timer. (The timer is really important if you have a short attention span!)

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl.

~4 c. flour (whole wheat, bread flour, white... fresh ground is best)
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tbsp baking powder

Wisk the wets together in a separate bowl that is big enough for the whole batch.

8 tbsp cooking oil
4 eggs
4 c. sour milk or buttermilk  (To make sour milk add 1 tbsp of cider vinegar per cup of milk.)

Add the drys to the wets and wisk until there are no lumps.  The consistency should be thick and rich like a milk shake.  Adjust with more flour or milk if necessary.

A word about cooking:  temperature controls the brownness of the pancakes, time controls the doneness.  Whole wheat pancakes require about three minutes per side.  All purpose flour pancakes take only about a minute and a half per side.

I usually use a quarter cup measure per pancake.  No additional oil should be needed on the griddle.

Pour the pancakes on the griddle and start the timer.

Watch the first round of pancakes closely.  Use the first round to adjust time and temperature to achieve the best results.

Stack them on a cookie sheet and cover them in a warmed oven until you are ready to start eating.

Serve with butter, maple syrup, whipped cream, powdered sugar, peanut butter, jam, yogurt, applesauce,... and thanksgiving!

Advent Is Coming

I've been thinking about advent.  Usually it just gets lost between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Advent.  It is similar to Lent, although you wouldn't know it for all the commerce stirred by Jingle Bells and tinsel.  Similar to Lent: a time of reflection, of penance before the coming of the Christ Child.

So, I am going to give up the news for advent.  I am a news junkie.  It is my favorite distraction.  It is easy to saturate on a dozen international news streams: web, icecast....  Too easy to ignore the blessings and challenges of here and now for a handful of distant awefuls.  

So, pray for me that I may be faithful and renewed in this small self discipline.

Ideas

Ideas are important. Growing up, I was surrounded, for the most part, by people who had the same center to their ideas: Christ. I grew into that and accepted Christ as my own Savior, the center of all my ideas and beliefs. For a while, I did not encounter anything so different from that on a regular basis.
And then, I went to college. Now on an almost daily basis, I sit and try to learn in an atmosphere not Christ-centered for the first time. I find myself constantly on my guard and extremely hesitant to accept any ideas being taught without inspection because I do not want to integrate false and dangerous ideas into my belief system. I do not want to base my life on unstable and false ideologies. But, it's hard, and sometimes I feel like giving up and shutting down completely, not accepting anything. To try to find the truth and the good amidst the perverted and off-center curriculum constantly is tiring. I get angry at the statements that focus on irrelevant issues and forget the real problem. When the obvious truth may not be spoken for fear of offending someones sensitivities, I wonder if anything can or should be learned in this class. I have become more cautious, even to the point of cynicism, when certain topics are brought up.
In all this, I yearn to find a break from this in church. That is where I go to worship and fellowship with fellow believers, to be built up in Christ. However, I have become suspicious of everything I hear there as well. I have heard some statements, even from the mouths of trusted church leaders, in our local congregation and on the denominational level, that are...well, worrisome. As a younger Christian, I hesitate to criticize Christians who are older than myself. I believe God intends for younger folk to learn from the elders. However, when I hear statements that imply a doctrine that is blatantly anti-scriptural, it throws me into doubt and questioning. More than I would be afraid to learn some wrong theory about the brain, I would shrink from accepting any even potentially heretical theology. If I cannot trust church leaders, who are major instructors in the faith, who can I trust to teach sound, scriptural doctrine. Now, I realize that rejecting the church because of statements of a few people would be wrong. Christians are made to live in community as the body of Christ, not on individual little self-controlled islands. I am learning the (should-be-obvious) truth that God works through faulty people as He is working in them. They will not be perfect. The body of Christ is not yet perfected and God is working. I will not reject the church because of the faulty people in it. I happen to be one of them and unified is the only way the church will grow and improve.
But, back to ideas outside the church.
When I am participating in secular amusements like movie-going and other things, I have found myself struggling to enjoy them because of my concern about accepting any bad ideologies. I could simply separate myself entirely from anything secular to try to escape unsavory ideas, but, like I noted earlier, I would not be able to escape them all by running to the church, even though I would be in an atmosphere in which people would be (or at least should be) trying to learn and grow closer to God's truth. Currently, I know God has me where I am, going to college, studying psychology. In my studies I have confronted and will continue to confront faulty and even lethal ideologies. However, I have faith that God will strengthen me to be able to face them, weed out the truth from them, and be able to fight the lies.
Yes, ideas are important and good ones may seem hard to come by. But the most important thing is to keep God at the center of all ideas and beliefs. From there, everything else will come into line. When every idea, thought, belief system is measured according to God's truth, one will be able to tell what is good and what must be discarded as falsehood.