Bread, Wine, Salt

Three times I have been the voice on the other end of the line with nothing to say.  Twice it was on purpose. The first time I was just in the church office working on the utterly un-Spiritual task of  data entry.  The phone rang.  I was the only person there.  The woman on the other end needed a priest.  We had no priest.  Our priest had left and our Interim hadn't started yet and I was the financial secretary.  It was Friday afternoon.  I didn't know who was on call.  I would find out.  Someone would call her by Monday.  Would that be okay? "I guess."  Said the woman on the phone.  She was breaking. "Are you okay right now?"  And the answer poured out.  Her twins were born catastrophically early and were hooked up to every machine imaginable and she just didn't know how it was that life kept moving. "How do you go on?" And so I told her about my lost boy, and about breathing.  "You just get ...

This was another attack on my crisper full of good intentions.  I bought Anaheim peppers at the farmers' market fully intending to stuff them with something and call it dinner some day.  Time passed, and this afternoon the peppers were still sitting in my crisper, beginning to show their age.  So I dug around for a starting point recipe, inventoried my kitchen and settled on this concoction.  It's a great use for that wonderful artisan bread you bought and then only half finished.  The dry bread soaks up the liquid and holds everything together.  Husband's only complaint was that he wanted more of it, so this will probably appear on my dinner table again.  8 Anaheim chiles 3 cups cubed bread, preferably old and dry (or use unflavored croutons) 12 ounces shredded cheese. I used a mix of sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack 1 large onion, cut to small dice 4 cloves garlic, minced 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1/4 cup ...

I am bad at follow-through.  I have excellent intentions about a lot of things: my prayer life, my exercise regimen, my writing, and most definitely my intake of fresh vegetables.  Thus, the state of my crisper drawer is usually quite sad.  I had a bunch of beautiful rainbow chard that needed to be used quickly and I had no brains left in my head, so last night for dinner we had the rainbow chard version of clean out the crisper tart.  Olive oil whole wheat crust with rainbow chard and Romano cheese The key is the crust, a super simple whole wheat olive oil concoction I found at Chocolate and Zucchini .  I've used it multiple times and it has never failed me.  Are you afraid of pie crust?  I've never made a proper pie crust in my life and will shamelessly admit that I buy them in a box in the refrigerator case, but this crust is so easy even I can make it, which means you can make it, too.   Now, the elegant Clothilde makes her tarts...

How do you go from prayer to pancakes?  By reading this blog, for starters.  I decided I was never going to be properly focused like the "generate loyal readers and convert them to ad revenue" essays think I should be.   So this blog will be about whatever I'm thinking about, be it prayer or pancakes.   Sometimes it might be about both.  Bread, wine and salt belong in religion just as much as they belong on the table. I love pancakes, so I often order them when we go out to eat, and mostly I'm disappointed.  Restaurant pancakes are almost always sad, thin floppy things with no flavor.  I am never disappointed by these pancakes, which are fluffy and hearty, with rich flavor and aren't all that bad for you.  We mostly use pure maple syrup at home, but growing up we usually had butter and molasses on our pancakes, and these pancakes can certainly hold their own against that team as well. This recipe uses flax seed meal for an extra kick of flavo...

It is said that if the Jews are the people of the Book, then Anglicans are the people of the Prayer Book.  I am an Episcopalian, a member of the American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and our service and daily office are outlined in the Book of Common Prayer .  Anything you want to pray about, there's a prayer in the BCP, and if somehow the BCP is at a loss, there's the Book of Occasional Services.  And if the BOS fails?  There are any number of supplements at your disposal.  You can have full, vibrant prayer life without ever once using words of your own. That's not always a bad thing.  Sometimes we need to rely on the words of generations of our ancestors.  Sometimes we can pray in anemnesis, praying with all those who prayed those same words before you could speak.  There is comfort in ritual, and anyone who denies it should really give it another try. Sometimes, though, words aren't enough. I struggle with prayer, intercess...