foodyness

okay, this is a super huge post on all-things foody for the month of november. i will either make you really hungry or really not hungry (depending on how many thanksgiving dinners you've had since last thursday). proceed at your own stomach's risk.

but first, let's begin with my cookbook of the month choice. having considered all the beauitfully-bound tomes on my shelf, i decided to forsake those for a month and pursue the magazine that appeared brightly shining in my mail box. november's issue of real simple had like ten or more recipes that were answering my cravings for certain random foods, and i actually made all but one! wow, you really can't do better than that in a single month. every recipe was worthy of repeating, and i actually followed the recipes, refraining from making my own additions. i won't bore you with pictures of every recipe, but here are two of my favorites from the list:

cheese and herb ravioli with toasted walnuts and lemon butter sauce

pressed-crust pear tart

trudy and i made this together in her beautiful new kitchen

now for the feast. we had an extremely pleasant thanksgiving with our parents and granma mae. you'll get to see a bit of my parents' beautiful new house from these pictures. our Feast of Thanksgiving menu:

orange and apricot glazed cornish game hens

roasted garlic and sage sausage stuffing

garlic sauteed green beans

persimmon and pomegranate fruit salad

poppy seed fruit salad

orange cranberry sauce

swedish rye bread

swedish cardamom braids

gewurtztraminer and martinelli's

fresh pumpkin pie with real whipped cream

apple crisp

(note: since this day, i have begun to be greatly persecuted by my fathers for taking pictures of food. they will, therefore, laugh heartily once again when i say that i have great remorse in not getting a picture of the swedish cardamom braids trudy and i made last week. but you can see them gleefully stacked in the corner of the picture below, ready to bestow themselves on our thanksgiving table. and, i will faithfully continue to take pictures of food and endure the revilings of my kin. ;0) at least joe and i are of one mind here and we can be persecuted together. besides, he's the one who got me into this in the first place with all his artsy close-ups!)

my roasted garlic and sausage stuffing (from Bride and Groom's First and Forever Cookbook)

donovan suprised trudy with these personally designed labels. aren't they so cute?! so shabby-chic!

gorgeous table

joe's really getting going on the guitar lately and making great progress!

granma mae was with us, after just having come out of rehab for a broken femur! she's doing so great, and it was precious to have her with us.

pomegranate! isn't it gorgeous??

my sweet moms - i love you!


cornish gamehens. or gamish cornhens, as we like to call them. or camish gornhens. or gornish camhens.

mom's fall fruit salad: clementines, persimmons, ruby grapefruit, pomegranate, watercress. i loved it!

sauteed garlic green beans

mom handmade these name placecards

dad picked the wine

mom's other fruit salad, in case people didn't like the fall-ish one

joe ate a lot. and then he slept. :)

the Lord has bestowed on us every good thing, and so we bestow our table with every good thing and give thanks. we are Christ's, he has saved us, and made our cup to overflow. we love you, Lord Jesus.

salutations and thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We love you!

God All-Sufficient

King of glory, divine majesty,

every perfection adorns thy nature and sustains thy throne;

the heavens and earth are thine,

the world is thine and its fullness.

Thy power created the universe from nothing;

thy wisdom has managed all its multiple concerns,

presiding over nations, families, individuals.

Thy goodness is boundless;

all creatures wait on thee,

are supplied by thee,

are satisfied by thee.

How precious are the thoughts of thy mercy and grace!

How excellent thy lovingkindness that draws men to thee!

Teach us to place our happiness in thee, the blessed God,

never seeking life among the dead things of earth,

or asking for that which satisfies the deluded;

but may we prize the light of thy smile,

implore the joy of thy salvation,

find our heaven in thee.

Thou hast attended to our happiness more than we can do;

though we are fallen creatures thou hast not neglected us.

In love and pity thou hast provided us a Savior;

apply his redemtion to our hearts,

by justifying our persons,

and sactifying our natures.

We confess our transgressions, have mercy on us.

We are weary, give us rest,

ingnorant, make us wise unto salvation,

helpless, let thy strength be made perfect in our weakness,

poor and needy, bless us with Christ's unsearchable riches,

perplexed and tempted, let us travel on unchecked,

undismayed,

knowing that thou hast said,

"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

Blessed by thy name! Amen!

(puritan prayer from valley of vision)

nieces and nephews: roberts and ryans

caleb

ethan

elizabeth

nik

nat


nehemiah

erik

napolean dynamite meets treadmill...or something

ok, this is hilarious and amazing. i just had to share. (compliments of emily callihan...and yes, emily, i think you should go for it...right after the toasts) :)

amy, i think that you and your gym-lady could really come to terms with your relationship if you just concocted something like THIS:

advent calendar

so, today i made an Advent calendar. we learned much about the Church Calendar in college. and in last few years joe and i've been trying to structure more and more of our life around it. so we've decided to make the Advent calendar a part of our household this year and establish it as a tradition. part of the tradition will be making it. that's my job. :) joe's excited to fill each day with Word treasures that look forward to Christ. and together we'll be thinking of some palatable goodness to drop into each envelope. since we've never done this before, i really have very few ideas, but i have a feeling one really could do anything (that's small, of course).

has anyone out there done an advent calendar? what do you put in yours?

university mascot

okay, so the other night, as we pulled up to the house from a long evening, i saw this right below our living room window:

of course, joe runs right out and takes a million pictures of the guy. there he was, just plugging away at it, trying to make time across the wall. banana slugs are indigenous to this area, but it's rare that you see one just "around." you usually only see them when you're trapsing through the forest, and even then it's rare. joe tells me of his elementary school days when, on a tour of Fall Creek or some such nature outing, the boys would dare eachother to lick the slug. you were nothing if you didn't lick the slug.

i don't know. though i have been more and more convicted lately to take joy in all God's creation, i am not ready for such dedicated adulation. but santa cruz has long been fond of these creatures...so much so that University of California Santa Cruz has made it their mascot. yes, The Banana Slugs.

hmm. at any rate, what this guy (i've named him george) was doing on such a rigorous adventure so late at night, i don't know. i only hope he made it safely and that it would be an adventure worthy of telling his grandsons. you never know, we could be a significant part of the story, coming up on him with the camera and all. we either scared him to death or gave him a big head.

happy birthday, dad!

joe and i brought over chinese takeout and we celebrated dad's birthday to the glow of their new fireplace. :)

then yesterday, we all went over to joni and paul's, and joni made dad a glorious feast...a menu made classic by grandma suzie: swiss steak and mashed potatoes, green veggie, and a HUGE fruit salad, of course! but, the crowning culinary masterpiece of the evening was a gorgeous coconut cake! sadly, i left the camera at home, but joni took a great picture of nick helping papa blow out his candles. hopefully, i can post it up here soon.

we love you dad!

domestic additions

from my sweet and thoughtful hubby!

look at these colors!

flowers and audrey hepburn. he did good. :)

He's into details

i am onto a book called The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Recflection, and i have a powerful feeling like it is going to be something quite phenomenal. i have only read five pages, but in those five small pages, i have read enough to almost blow my mind...in a good way. he, the author, sees the world the way i long to see it, the way that C.S. Lewis and Chesterton and Seerveld see the world: everything in it is lit and radiant and curious because God delights in it. it tickles His fancy. He never gets bored of making the sun to rise, gravity to perform, or earth's "tectonic" plates to shift and grumble. but He delights in even smaller things than these. and that's where this author comes in. he writes about the dazzling wonder of food, and how much God loves it:

"Or, conculsively, peel an orange. Do it lovingly - in perfect quarters like little boats, or in staggered exfoliations like a flat map of the round world, or in one long spiral, as my grandfather used to do. Nothing is more likely to become garbage than orange rind, but for as long as ayone looks at it in delight, it stands a million triumphant miles from the trash heap.
That, you know, is why the world exists at all. It remains outsied the cosmic garbage can of nothingness, not because it is such a solemn necessity that nobody can get rid of it, but because it is the orange peel hung on God's chandeleir, the wishbone in His kitchen closet. He likes it; therefore, it stays. The whole marvelous collection of stones, skins, feathers, and string exists because at least one lover has never quite taken His eye off it..."

i just keeping thinking about our God in terms of these small delights. does the god of Islam take pleasure in oranges and sea foam and turtledoves? does buddah get out there and smell the roses? does satan himself love anything at all? the fact that we have these things, and can delight in them, bears heavy testimony to the true God. this world is His handiwork and from it we learn what kind of God we serve. He has not created all these things in disdain, but rather in great love. He always intended to take pleasure in His things, and He does. this is unique to our God.

if you're ever tempted to put God in a box, as i am, get this book. it's by Robert Farrar Capon. also, read Chesterton's Orthodoxy, Lewis' Perelandra, and Ezekiel. :)

(cook)book report and other culinary news

(this is rapidly becoming quite a foody blog. hmmm...)

so, of all the recipes i wanted to try in october from my cookbook of the month, i only made three. but what i tried was great. nothing wowy zowy, but simply yummy.

my favorite was the cauliflower soup. i added sour cream, toasted hazelnuts, and a dash of nutmeg for a garnish.

here's the recipe (of course, one HAS to like cauliflower to enjoy):

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Saffron and Ginger - (From Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, Pam Anderson)

2 Tbl olive oil

1 1/2 pounds cauliflower (about 1 small head), trimmed and cut into lrg florets

1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/8 tsp saffron, 1/8 tsp cayenne

1 large onion, diced

1 Tbl butter and pinch of sugar

3 lrg garlic cloves, sliced

3 C. chicken broth

1 1/2 C. half and half or milk

Heat oil in lrg deep skillet over med-high heat. Add cauliflower, then onion and saute, till veggies turn golden. Reduce heat to low, add butter, sugar, and garlic. Continue to cook till all veggies are a rich caramel color, about 10 more minutes. Add spices and cook till fragrant. Add broth and bring to a simmer over med-high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, till veggies are soft, about 10 mintues. Transfer to blender (or use hand blender right in pan) and pureee till very smooth. Transfer back to pan. Add enough milk or half and half to thin soup to desired consistency. Season with salt/pepper to taste, heat through, ladel into bowls, add garnish and serve.

this past week, being as culinarily pregnant as it was, i also made our Chicken Pot Pies in a Pumpkin (6!) for our Sabbath dinner. i happened to remember the recipe satisfactorily (though i still wish i could find it!), and it ushered us into fall like it always does without fail.

here's our moms and pops squished around our wee table, feeling a bit roasty toasty i'm sure. :)

to top it off, i made my sister-in-law kim's recipe for Karmel Korn - the BEST recipe!!! never made carmel corn before, and i promised to bring a bucket full to the church Reformation party. well, one destroyed cookie pan, some carmel burns, and a HUGE mess later, all the church family were gleefully chomping down on carmel corn (none for me, thank you, as my 5 senses had had enough already) while watching Luther.

tonight, i must pick my cookbook for November. what cookbook are YOU doing? :)

literary success

i could write a million words on this book, which i just finished.
but i won't.

now i'm reading this:

joe and i have both been on a lewis kick lately. it's good to be back. it had been a while.