At the Table

Saturday night:  I was cooking a pretty fabulous dinner.  Chicken and mushrooms were braising slowly in a rich, garlic-peppercorn sauce.  Saffron risotto simmered along, absorbing more and more broth by the cup-full.  The smell of brownies wafted up from the oven.  Then... VOOP!  The power went out in our apartment.  The sizzling sounds quickly faded to silence upon the electric stove-top.

This would have been a gastronomic tragedy; however, our current housing above the camp kitchen permitted us to transport our pots and pans downstairs to continue cooking the meal over propane.  God bless propane.  If we have a real house someday, I so wish to have a propane stove!

The other alteration to our plans for the evening was that we ate at the table, by candlelight, over a tablecloth, with clean, cloth napkins.  Our previous plan was to put food on the coffee table and hunch over it, scarfing down dinner as we continued watching episodes of Breaking Bad.

The candlelit dinner (with a nice Zinfandel) was a much better experience for my husband and me.

Sadly, the two of us often resign ourselves to eating in front of the television.  We blame our surroundings for watching television daily (our home is very remote from friends, and it is too dang cold to play outside!); and yet we look forward to beginning school next year, since our work and new friends will keep us busy.  We also talk about how we don't want to watch television in the future when we have children, and CERTAINLY don't want to eat dinner with them in the living room.

I hope to continue the tradition of family dinners.  My parents had us stop homework or tv-watching every night to sit at the table and eat together.  They'd ask us what we learned at school ("Nooothinnggg.") and catch each other up on the events of the day.  Little did I know that this ritual was the foundation of our training as civilized persons.

In our "grain-bag society," people eat anywhere, anytime they want.  It's why we have drive-thrus at fast-food establishments.  It's why people stuff their purses with granola bars and candies.  It is this ubiquitous eating that has taken away any sign of etiquette and communal enjoyment of meals.

As you head into your Thanksgiving family get-togethers, take time to appreciate the effort put into the meal by the cook, the beautiful place-settings, and the faces of those you love.  Enjoy the conversation, in addition to all that gravy!

All this has been brought to mind because I've been doing a little reading about etiquette.  A very convincing. witty book by Judith Martin has been causing me to consider the implications of a "grain-bag society," and how I'd rather implement solid training-in-eating to my future children (forks and knives, not fingers).  Read on for your enlightenment and amusement:

Homemade toothpaste.

A neat article, written by a dentist who developed a recipe for home made toothpaste:

The Green Minimalist: Home made, Plastic free toothpaste.: Toothpaste has been one of the problems for my zero waste green lifestyle. We all go through them a lot and they almost always come in plast...

Purple Gallinule

Purple Gallinule

The colorful Purple Gallinule prefers warm-water marshes and is mainly found in the south and around the Gulf, although it often wanders great didstances and has been seen much further north in summer.  It spends the winter in southern Florida and down into Argentina.  Its nest is a shallow cup of grass stems and reeds, lined with leaves and attached to marsh vegetation.  It lays 5-10 buff eggs, spotted with brown, and the downy chicks leave the nest soon after hatching.

The adult bird has long legs and very large, yellow feet - which allow it to walk across lily pads and floating marsh vegetation.  It has a bright, purplish-blue head, neck and underparts, white under the tail, a pale blue forehead shield, a red bill tipped with yellow and a brown-green back.  The juvenile is much plainer, buffy underneath with an olive back, greenish wings and dull olive legs and feet.  The Purple Gallinule can fly, but is reluctant to do so and also rarely swims.  It eats seeds, grain, insects, frogs and birds' eggs, as well as vegetation.

Excerpt from The Encyclopedia of North American Birds, by Michael Vanner

Happy Friday!

The menu for this weekend includes:

• baking brownies
• dehydrating apples
• hosting groups at camp
• continuing work on seminary applications

What's on your plate for the Sabbath?

Here's a great, thoughtful essay to start off your weekend:

How Feminism Hurts Men

Crazy Fall

 We are crazy.  My husband and I are crazy.  We've been from Maine to Miami in the past two months.  Who does that?  We dipped our paddles into the frigid Gulf of Maine, then dove into the bathwater-warm Gulf of Mexico.  "Why?" you may ask.  Well...

We did camp this summer.  That means we worked 18 hours days 6 days a week for three months.  It was fun.  It was also exhausting.  After the summer, we headed up to Maine to our usual spot:  the family place at Petit Manan Point.  It's Down East.  It was cold.  We bundled up in many layers of L.L. Bean gear and did hiking, boating, reading, and sleeping.  We ate lobster:

After all that fun, we returned to Central PA, and decided that from there, we wanted to hit up the Great White North.  Oh, yes.  I had never been to Canada before - what a beautiful, exotic land!  Along the way, we hit up the Niagara, New York area, exploring wineries and visiting the Falls.  The Falls are SO impressive.  I definitely recommend a visit there, if you can.  We also got to stop at the Corning Museum of Glass, where art and science collide and shatter into a million brilliant pieces.

at CMOG

Toronto Harbour

CN Tower, in Toronto

 So, we finally got to Canada; we finally got to get donuts and a coffee at Tim Horton's (after an earlier misadventure all over Rhode Island - our GPS lies to us sometimes); finally got to use our passports at a border crossing.  The city of Toronto seemed pretty great, but we didn't want to spend money on anything cultural, so we pretty much just ate and walked around.  We did discover something called Poutine.  Poutine!!  It's an incredible concoction of French fries... covered in gravy and cheese.  Oh, yum.  I could eat it daily.

Another discovery included the fact that the stereotypes one hears of Canadians are true:  1.  they are so polite.  2.  they love donuts.

The reason we went to Florida after all this northern nonsense was that over the summer we had been called to help work at a conference at Disney World.  Oh boy!  The magic!

We got a little taste of the typical Disney magic, but spend 98% of the week inside the air-conditioned hotel conference center.  The trip to Florida, however, afforded us the opportunity to visit some camp friends, which was awesome.  Florida is a crazy place.  Two friends go to school in Tampa, and two just moved to the Fort Lauderdale area.  I think they are a bit crazy for doing so!  It is SO hot there; even in late October, it was 90 degrees and insanely humid.  Also, getting around town can be nightmarish at best.  All the worst drivers from New York and New Jersey retire there, so careening around town is a complete free-for-all.  Every car ride was a stressful experience.  Because the Sunshine State consists of cities built between sandy shorelines and swamp, every town is very crowded.  Sprawling suburbia with a zillion shopping centers as far as the eye can see - until you get to the Everglades.  The Everglades were beautiful in their quiet, besides calling birds and fan-boat motors.  We did an air-boat ride to see the alligators, which was fun; although our captain/guide was feeding popcorn to the birds to attract them to the boat.  I think that's kind of counter-productive to conservation, right?  Well, we didn't see a gator eat any of the birds.  Besides that, we swam in the ocean and got to see our fabulous friends!  In short, Florida has fun stuff to do, but I could not see myself retiring there.  It is vacationland, indeed.  Oh wait, that's Maine's title.

Besides all the fun and adventures, we did take the opportunity to visit some graduate schools in the South.  The idea for this came from my memory of every Pennsylvania winter and how much I dislike the slush.  The promise of warmth and very little snow is rather appealing!  Anyways, we visited three schools in North Carolina and one in Virginia.  I also reconnected with an old-time camp friend who highly recommended that school; and we were so glad to hear of her and her husband's experience there!  We also had a great visit with our admissions guide, Harrison Ford (for reals).  Filling out applications now... we're going to give it a shot!

In short, the past two months have been rife with adventure (and driving!) and we are grateful for hospitable friends, generous employers, and God's provision and sovereignty.  Looking forward to where He'll take us next!  We have learned that Florida is fun, North Carolina is warm and promising, but Maine is still The Way Life Should Be.

November again

It is November already!  A month of traveling caused me to basically forget that October existed.  I missed Halloween!  For the first time... ever?  I think ever, indeed.

I find myself beginning applications to graduate schools.  Essay-writing, proving myself, telling my story...  it kind of comes naturally and conversationally, but I also feel odd in trying to sell myself.

"Accept me!  I'm really great!  I am smart!"

S-M-R-T

So... November will be spent writing essays, sending out reference letter forms, and packing.  Packin' it on up!  I feel like we just moved here, anyway.  Back to the liquor & grocery stores for boxes we go!