How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher, attacked my curiosity when I saw the title amongst the cookbooks at the local library.

(My faithful readers know that book titles have a strange power over me - sometimes with life changing results.)

First published in 1942, when wartime shortage were at their worst, the premise is learning to make due and, more importantly, be content with very little.

The “wolf” is a metaphor for the feelings of poverty, particularly the growling of an empty stomach.

Do you know anyone who lived through the Great Depression? Perhaps a mother or grandmother?

Reading this book is bringing back memories of my dear late grandmother-in-law, Trudy Seymour. My eyes well with tears even as I write her name. She was the queen of thriftiness. She scrimped, saved and rationed everything she had. Her basement was stocked with enough food to feed a small army, with everything from canned vegetables to Crystal Pepsi (that had been discontinued years before). She was also notably generous.

Maybe you have a Grandma Trudy in your life. This quote will make you love and appreciate them all the more:

There are very few men and women, I suspect, who cooked and marketed their way through the past war without losing forever some of the nonchalant extravagance of the twenties. They will feel, until their final days on earth, a kind of culinary caution: butter, no matter how unlimited, is a precious substance not lightly to be wasted; meats, too, and eggs, and all the far -brought spices of the world, take on a new significance, having once been so rare. And, that is good, for there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the food we eat for life itself. When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts.

For all the self-help books out there on the self-imposed woes of managing greed and excess, this book is convicting, refreshing and even freeing.

I’m only into the second chapter, “How to Be Sage Without Hemlock”, which deglamorizes the influence of *”slick magazines” on the housewife. Instead of making simple, hearty meals, wives are faced with the panic of trying to fashion a gourmet experience at every meal. Fisher writes about the expectation that it creates, even in our young children. She noted that children growing up with plenty say things like “what kind of pudding will we have after dinner?” as if they have a right to dessert.

She writes about meal planning rituals, “You read magazine articles filled with complicated charts and casual references to thiamin, riboflavin, non-organic nutritional nutritional essentials and International Units. You try to be serious about them all, and with a dictionary and a pencil you fill in at least the first week on a monthly chart, putting little circles, triangles and arrows for minerals and vitamins and such, until you see practically the same chart in a rival magazine and realize that it has switched symbols on you.”

While her words may seem harsh and even cynical, I do think they are a wake up call. How true are her words! I confess that I have been brought to tears while hiding behind my stacks of magazines and cookbooks, wishing that I had more free time. I do believe that women should strive for excellence as they serve their family - but as I read this, I am convicted that it may not have to involve a trip to both Wegmans and Trader Joe’s to find expensive, rare ingredients for each everyday meal on the menu.

Her answer is to create simple, healthy meals (for which she provides recipes throughout the book) and to have so much simple food on the table that people can concentrate on the fellowship and not on being amateur food critiques.

Better is a dish of vegetables where love is
Than a fattened ox served with hatred. - Proverbs 15:17

* This is unbelievably funny to me - at the same time I was writing this, my husband was upstairs making this comment on my Martha Stewart magazine collection. And no, dear, if you’re reading this, it does not necessarily follow from the above epiphany that I will be canceling my subscription any time soon

How often when they find a sage,
As sweet as Socrates or Plato;
They hand him hemlock for his wage,
Or bake him like a sweet potato!

-from Taking the Longer View by American humorist Don Marquis

By day, in homeschooling, we studied children’s books on birds (everything from penguins to owls to robins!) and read two (20 page) books on Audubon as a boy and then as a man.

At night, during the same study period, I read Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America.

I was rather surprised to find that, while Audubon was a hero of sorts - discovering the unknown and sharing a great artistic talent with the world by showing wildlife via paintings that some people would never seen otherwise - Audubon was a jerk!

It also was amazing to me how much he lied, even when he didn’t have to, to make himself more interesting. These fibs cost him relationships. The author, William Souder, would frequently note his sources, as the accounts would change depending on whom Audubon told his stories. Audubon was incredibly selfish, not considering his family’s welfare - even distancing himself from them, buying fancy clothes to impress would-be project backers, whilst his family starved and was barely eking by.

Lucy, Audubon’s wife, was so faithful to John even though he treated her like dirt. Many of their correspondences were so depressing. In her letters, Lucy would pour her heart out and beg to see her husband. In his replies, which she oftentimes didn’t receive for months because the mail was so slow, John would put her off and be very non-committal. Here she was wondering if her husband was even alive and then when she finally got a letter, her husband told her not to come and join him and, oh by the way, he just met the most lovely young lady… (Audubon once even painted nude paintings of one of the ladies he mentioned to his wife, although I can’t remember if the book noted whether or not he wrote home about it.)

I can’t imagine Lucy’s grief when two of her four children, both of her daughters, died. Her family lived far away, and she was pretty much left alone raising two boys and dealing with grief and hardship.

It also surprised me at first to learn that Audubon was the illegitimate son of a French sea captain from an affair with a Spanish-Creole servant. Although, after reading the biography, I can see his father’s example of fidelity, combined with being abandoned by his father was partly to blame for his understanding of relationships, marriage and love. Audubon originally was given his mother’s last name, Rabin. Audubon changed his last name to that of his fathers when he came to America with a falsified passport in order to avoid the Napoleonic Wars.

I also learned that Audubon typically painted life-sized paintings and that his method of study included shooting the birds with a small shot (he was a skilled marksman, of course) so as not to destroy the bird upon impact. He would then study the bird and put it into a pose for his painting. He would kill over 100 birds a day, and would seek to hunt the rarest of birds, apparently without consideration that he was lending to their extinction. Even in his time, he observed that certain species were becoming harder to find. This did leave me pondering whether it was more important that the bird lived or if Audubon made an accurate and permanent record of the bird by painting it. I found myself imagining Audubon, this wild man, carrying around gigantic canvases and protecting them as he traveled through inclement weather and over great distances on foot.

Prior to reading this book, I had never before heard of the cedar waxwing bird. What gluttonous little creatures! Here’s an excerpt from the book about this particular species:

The cedar bird - now called the cedar waxwing - was a glutton. Audubon found that the cedar bird was especially fond of sugary fruits, like the berries found on the red cedar or mountain ask. With an abundant supply of berries, cedar birds sometimes ate until they were rendered temporarily flightless and could actually be caught by hand.

Once, Audubon wounded several cedar birds. Hoping to nurse them back to health, he put them a cage and fed them apples - only to watch the birds gorge on the fruit until they suffocated. When he dissected the birds, they were packed with apples “to the mouth.”

Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of learning more about Audubon was that he did not mention God in any of his personal correspondence or journal entries. (To be fair, if he did, it was not recorded in this particular book, although one would think that with the number of quotations that, if Audubon had a love of God, it would have shown up here and there in Souder’s account.) It just struck me that a man so in tune with and fascinated by nature did not give much credit or thought to its Creator.

MTV’s Closing Arguments Dialogue was fascinating to watch.

It was BETTER organized that any of the debates geared to an adult audience.

I loved how the audience was encouraged to interact on many different levels. The questions were both relevant and intelligent. Most importantly, they were asked by young voters - not journalists trying to posture the media’s favorites.

Throughout the Dialogue, the candidates were never rudely cut off, and had time to answer questions and for the audience. The format was relaxed and did not have a breathless, race-against-the-clock, sound-bite feel. This gave viewers the opportunity to get a feel for the candidates’ personalities.

The Dialogue is worth the time to view no matter how you plan to vote, and I hope thousands of people of all ages will watch it while it’s still available online.

Thank you, MTV, for giving equal air time to all of the candidates. Who needs Fox News!! This was a best representation of “fair and balanced” I’ve seen in a long time. Bravo, MTV!

Of course… I have to say that of all of the candidates, my favorite was Ron Paul. His political experience, intelligence, understanding of policies, and lack of BS makes him an excellent choice for President.

In addition to getting positive feedback online throughout the debate, there were a bazillion sign waiving Ron Paul supporters on the ground in front of the studio. It was inspiring to watch!

So what do we do in the next few days?

1. Get connected. Go to Ron Paul’s website and learn more.

2. Donate! Ron Paul needs donations! These donations pay for advertising, forums, travel for Ron Paul, etc. The cool thing is that it doesn’t matter if the donation is just $10! Because he is so fiscally responsible, even small donations are not wasted.

3. Become a precinct leader. You don’t have to have gray hair in order help out in this way! There is still time before Super Tuesday. As a precinct leader, you are given (online) the names and addresses of registered voters in the few blocks surrounding your house. There are even phone scripts with little check boxes for marking down voter responses, if you choose to go that route. The way the Ron Paul campaign has it set up makes it very easy for anyone to help.

4. Meet-up! Join a Ron Paul Meet-up group in your area. Meet people just like you who are having fun and making a difference by sharing the message of freedom with others. Meet-up groups help you be connected with the grassroots efforts already going on in your community.
Thanks again, MTV!
Go Ron Paul!!

Here are some clips — check out the periodic footage of the audience of Ron Paul sign waivers outside!!!

This year, we ended up with two “free turkeys” gifts from our local grocery store - one was ours, and one was given to us by a friend.

Needless to say, by this time in the year, the novelty of the Turkey-Gravy-Potatoes-Cranberry Sauce dinner has worn off.

Below are two recipes to add some variety to your turkey repertoire.

The first is for the most delicious Turkey Pastrami I’ve ever tasted. It is so flavorful - delicately spicy and sweet, similar to corned beef - and juicy, if you resist the urge to cut into it until it’s cooled to room temperature.

You could eat it warmed or more traditionally, in a deli sandwich on rye with mustard and dill pickle spears. The first time I made this was a few years ago, post Thanksgiving, and I brought it to my father-in-law’s house, where it received many appreciative ‘ooo’s and ah’s’. The best part is that it’s EASY to make!

Let me also say that every single recipe we have tried from Raichlen’s book has come out restaurant-quality fantastic, and if there is a grill-master on your Christmas list, this book would make a perfect gift. I would recommend the hardcover edition as the pages in our soft-cover version quickly came unglued — although, to be fair, we did “crack” the spine and the book has accompanied us to a number of barbecues.

As grilling season is over here in PA, we made our pastrami in a 325 degree oven.

Turkey Pastrami
Recipe from How to Grill by Steven Raichlen, adapted by me for the oven

Rub (double this recipe to better cover a larger turkey):

In a blender or food processor, pulse until coriander and peppercorns are broken into bits:

3 tablespoons coriander seeds
3 tablespoons black peppercorns
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1/4 cup coarse salt
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sweet paprika (like Hungarian)
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground mace

Cut the breast-half off of a small to medium sized turkey using poultry shears, leaving the breastbone in, but trimming off the ribs. (The remaining parts can be used for stock.) Rinse the breast and pat dry.

Sprinkle and pat the rub on the turkey, over the skin. Cover as much surface area as possible. Place the ‘rubbed’ turkey in a covered container, or in a casserole dish and cover with plastic wrap, meat side up and chill in the refrigerator for 24 hours. (If it goes a little over 24 hours to adapt to your cooking schedule, it’s okay.)

When you’re ready to bake the turkey, redistribute the rub. It will be much more moist after sitting in the fridge, and will spread more evenly to make a flavorful crust on the meat. Notice the juice in the bottom of the pan. This is because the salt has partially cured the meat.

Place on a roasting rack with a drip-pan and roast until a meat thermometer registers 170 degrees.

My tip for juiciness: Leave the temperature probe stuck in the meat (or else juices will run out in the hole it creates) and let the turkey sit until it is cooled to room temperature. Juices have fat in them. Hot fat will run out of the meat. Cooled fat (think of congealed gravy after it’s cooled) stays in the meat, keeping it from drying out.

HOT FAT! I just had to say that again…

Um, anyways… so as not to waste the rest of a perfectly good turkey, put the remaining turkey parts in a large stock pot. Add water until it covers the meat. Add 1 onion, 2 stalks of chopped celery, 1 carrot, and 2 bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer until the bones are soft and the meat is falling off the bones. Strain the mixture through a colander (to get remove the meat and cooking vegetables) and then through a cheese cloth to strain out the smaller particles. Cool the broth to room temperature, and then place it in the fridge over night. Skim the fat off the top. You can freeze broth for later use. A tip is to freeze the broth in large muffin tins, which yield about a cup of broth for each section. In the mean time, pick over the turkey and reserve the meat for turkey-mayo salad or soup.

Here are some yummy looking soup recipes:

Turkey Soup with Herbed Dumplings
Southwestern Turkey Soup(I’d use the turkey stock instead of vegetable stock)

Turkey and Wild Rice Soup (Don’t skip the Sherry! It adds a distinctive woodsy flavor…)

My friend Susan tagged me!

meme break…You have to open the book you’re currently reading on page 161 and read the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag with…. I’m tagging my last five commenters…

Now, Susan will tell you that I need to read more FICTION for the imagination… and she’s right! Here she has caught me, once again, reading NON-fiction

This is an excerpt from a letter by Alexander Hamilton, Philadelphia, May 26, 1792, to Edward Carrington, as documented in the book Something That Will Surprise The World: The Essential Writings of the Founding Fathers, edited by Susan Dunn.

“As to the first point, the evidence of Mr. Madison’s sentiments, at one period, is to be found in the address of Congrees, of April twenty-sixth, seventeen hundred and eighty-three, which was planned by him, in the conformity to his own ideas, and without any previous suggestions from the committee, and with his hearty co-operation in every part of the business.”

I’m also reading There Goes The Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up by Lance Freeman, and African American man who studied city revitalization efforts in Harlem and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The book is less than a year old and is published by Temple University Press in Philly.

This topic is extremely fascinating to me, especially in light of the recent revitalization efforts happening here in Coatesville.

Eek… the following quote does need some context. This is from chapter six, “Implications for Planning and Policy” under a section entitled, “Are Residents of Other Gentrifying Neighborhoods Likely to Be Cynical Towards Gentrification?” Prior to this quote, the author points out past experiences of “oppression and resentment” over mishandled revitalization efforts that left families displaced.

There is ample evidence that this cynicism is the accepted wisdom in many parts of the black community.

It’s fun to see what others are reading… I’m curious what Emeth, Miwaza, Elrena, Tara, and Tom (crossing my fingers, hoping he’s game!) are reading… so consider yourselves TAGGED! Maybe I’ll get some inspiration from then for my next trip to the library. <– (Check out this link! It will change the way you use your local library.)

I just wanted to add to my previous post that I know that there are moms and dads out there who have lost control of their temper, who may have even hurt their children, and who are looking for help to break free from this vicious cycle.

A parent (yes, even a Christian parent!) might have had right intentions at first by thinking, “I’m doing the right thing by disciplining my child!” and then they may have gotten too carried away and lost control while discipling - resulting in child abuse.

If you’re reading this, I want you to know that by God’s grace, you can be forgiven and you can change.

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Yay! I’m soooo excited!!! And, I hope that YOU feel that way too about learning about what the Bible says about being an “excellent wife”, a phrase borrowed from Proverbs 31:10.

(And you know what? You do NOT have to be a wife or even a woman to benefit from reading and studying Proverbs 31. Many of these attributes have to do with being Godly in general. It’s the idea behind my studying about what makes for a Godly pastor, or husband: I will never be these things! But because I love God and His Word, my heart’s desire is to have an understanding of what God says about every topic under the sun.)

One fantastic tool for exploring the practical implications of the godly wife mentioned in Proverbs 31 is a book called The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. (Note: Chapter titles at the end of this post - I know it’s a long post, but please keep reading! ) A few years ago, I participated in a group study using this book. Although the principles in the book were familiar, the study motivated me to really examine my heart for areas of weakness, to humbly discipline myself to be more aligned to what God wanted for my life.
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Yeah, yeah. I haven’t written in a few weeks. But, who wants to hear about kids throwing up? In the car? In McDonald’s cups? On bedroom rugs? On sheets? NOT ME. So I’ll spare you the smelly details.

That was last week. This week, we have Peacemaker Clubs VBS at our house. More on this later - and yes, I’d highly recommend this curriculum!!

This is an excerpt from the book, “When Your Soul Aches: Hope and Help for Women Who Have Lost Their Husbands.” by Lois Mowday Rabey:

No matter what a person’s believe has been in life, we cannot know what happens between him and God in those final moments before death. We are not to judge. All we can do is tell others the reason for the hope we have. An unbelieving husband maybe very well experience a change of heart and an encounter with the living God that remains unknown to us this side of heaven.

The biblical example that holds hope for our loved one is the story of the thief on the cross. Hanging there, close to death, this man said, “‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ [And] Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’” (Luke 23:42-43). This private moment between Jesus and the man offers comfort when a love one’s faith is in question.

I just finished reading When Your Soul Aches and was particularly moved by the above quote and wanted to pass it on. What a truthful and gentle response that would certainly bring peace to my soul if I was unsure of my husband’s salvation!

While it this book written to Christian women, is would also be a gentle witnessing tool to a widow, as questions about God may arise after losing a spouse.

Even if you have never experienced this kind of loss, please consider reading this book as it will give you a glimpse into the thoughts and questions widows may have and to help equip you to more effectively minister to them.

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” - James 1:27

Part/Section Headings:
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I am reading Steve Brown’s book, A Scandalous Freedom. It’s a borrowed book, and I am restraining myself:

“I will not highlight or underline in this book.
I will not highlight or underline in this book.
I will not highlight or underline in this book.”

… and I’m only on Chapter One!

Brown is pointing out that if we are free from our sins, we no longer are carrying around this burden. He writes about how this freedom can manifest itself practically in our lives.

Here’s an excerpt:

Does being free mean that God is please with whatever I do, not matter what it is?

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