Relaxed hospitality.

I really enjoy Israeli ideas of hospitality (even if I’ve yet to practice them much from the other side . . .). Lunch today was a perfect example.

First, there are drinks — generally juice and water — before the meal, while the food finishes cooking.

Next, everyone sits down for the main meal, which usually features meat but in a supporting role, and includes at least one good salad. For example, today there was a kind of picadillo with ground turkey and summer squash, boiled peeled potatoes, a salad with chopped tomatoes and lettuce in vinaigrette, and a salad with small-diced cucumber, mint, and cooked whole grains in vinaigrette. All were delicious.

After the meal, there’s dessert. Today was ice cream (raspberry swirl) and fruit (watermelon pieces), which is also typical.

After dessert comes coffee or tea, little cookies to nibble (today’s were homemade miniature bars with chocolate, walnuts, and marmalade over pastry), and conversation.

If one is willing to assume that all the desserts and drinks are storebought, then it’s not actually that much work: prepping the main course beforehand, making the salads and starch in the half hour before serving, and preparing hot drinks while everyone relaxes after dessert. Nor is it overly expensive, given the cheap cost of fresh produce here in Israel. The result is really lovely, though: a relaxed, extended meal with good, healthy food and congenial conversation. Honestly, it makes me wish I had more chances to be a hostess. Which is entirely up to me!

“You’re interested in religion; what do you think of creation/evolution?”

. . . and why I absolutely hate being asked that question.

Read this, an account of an incident at the screening of “Expelled” which was linked by a friend as being hilarious (which it is . . . if it’s true).

Now read this, a retelling of the same incident from a different perspective.

When I put the two accounts together and try to reconstruct what probably happened, everyone involved looks like an idiot or a jerk. This is why I more or less try to avoid questions of evolution/creation/intelligent design/whatever as thoroughly as possible: they bring out the worst in people, allowing them to mock and denounce and foam at the mouth over something that has absolutely nothing to do with the daily lives of most of the people who get outraged about it.

(Yes, I am sensitive to issues of academic censorship and the tendency of some fields to criticize people who approach the subject matter from a different perspective. But you don’t see nationally released documentaries about the hostility of historical-critical methodology in Biblical studies to literary criticism.)

((I am aware of the mild irony of this being my first blog post in ages, given . . . everything else that’s been happening. I’ll be posting about “everything else” at some point, I imagine.))

Thai Black Rice Pudding

The housemate and I made a big Thai dinner for friends today, and I contributed a dessert of Black Rice Pudding. The pudding was a resounding success, so here’s a record of what I did.

Black rice is, as far as I can tell, a name that encompasses a few different kinds of rice, including the “forbidden rice” that’s in vogue in some stores. I bought mine for cheap at the local Chinese supermarket, but I’ve also seen it in the bulk bins at places like Whole Foods. I based the pudding on a traditional Thai rice pudding that can be eaten as breakfast or dessert; a good recipe is here, though I tweaked it a bit myself.

In the end, the results were superb. The black rice had a fragrant scent and a subtly chewy texture, the coconut milk infused it with flavor and richness, and the sweet spices rounded out the flavors without overpowering them. It had all the unctuous comfort of traditional rice pudding, with a more interesting texture and a wonderfully enticing aroma. Plus, it’s vegan and high in fiber and nutrients.

The color is amazing; it comes out a deep, velvety purple that looks like no other natural food. Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to photograph it before everyone dug in.

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Thai Black Rice Pudding
(serves 10-15 as a dessert, fewer if it’s a main breakfast dish)

2 cups dry black/purple rice
2-3 cans coconut milk (13.5 oz each)
3/4-1 cup brown sugar (palm sugar or demerara would be even better!)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
toasted slivered almonds or sesame seeds (optional)

1) The night before (or several hours before), rinse the rice and soak it in lots of water.

2) Drain the rice. Put in a medium-size pot with 2 cups water, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce to low heat, and leave it alone for 20-30 minutes, until all the water is absorbed. The rice should be tender inside but still a bit chewy on the outside.

3) Mix in 2 cans coconut milk, 3/4 cup sugar, vanilla, cardamom, salt, and nutmeg.

4) Simmer for another 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the rice is quite soft and most of the coconut milk is absorbed. If the pudding gets too thick, add more coconut milk; I used an extra half-can.

5) Taste for sweetness and mix in more sugar as necessary. Serve hot or cold, optionally sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds or slivered almonds.

Ash Wednesday Sermon

I preached the 6 PM service for Ash Wednesday today. I honestly wasn’t that happy about the sermon — it just didn’t seem to click for me, either in preparation or in delivery — but afterward, a couple of people came up and said that it was good and something they really needed to hear, so I guess you never know how it’ll be received. At any rate, for my own records, here it is.

A blessed Lent to all who celebrate it.

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Nothing like being inadvertently outed . . .

If you are nerdy, and you haven’t read today’s xkcd, go now.

Back? Good. So, before heading to class this morning, I read that, and naturally I had to go listen to the song. However, I was already running late for class, so I had to shut my laptop halfway through the song and head off. I’ve done this many times before, as my computer generally takes the “sleep” command to include a “pause” command, and doesn’t restart songs or movies automatically when I open up the computer.

I went to class. I arrived late, as the professor was already talking. I opened my computer. And the song started to play. I quickly slammed shut the laptop to get it back to sleep, but it wouldn’t stop playing. With the computer completely closed and supposedly shut down, it still kept playing, all the way to the end of the song, and I couldn’t do anything except blush profusely and apologize.

Afterwards, a guy from the class walked up to me. “Portal, right?” I blushed again and nodded, then asked if he’d read xkcd. “Yeah, I just did,” he said. “There aren’t that many xkcd fans here.”

I smiled, then. “It’s true.”

Broad trends, tiny moments.

Things that have happened since I last posted:

• Semester ended, with all my work turned in on time. (!!!)

• Flew to Israel. Celebrated Christmas in Haifa at an Arab Anglican church. Actually a really lovely service.
• Got quite ill with sinusitis, and thus was grumpy, sick, and/or in bed for most of the next week and a half, while the family visited Beer Sheva, Jerusalem, and the West Bank.
• Returned to Haifa, got antibiotics, and largely recovered.
• Had foodie adventures, including a wonderful co-op at a local kibbutz (8 kinds of dates! amazing blends of spices! local honey!) and a fabulous Moroccan restaurant.
• Flew home. Possibly caught another cold from the jerk next to me who wouldn’t turn off his cell phone while the plane was moving.
• Started classes. Lots and lots of original languages this semester, it looks like.

One day, between Christmas and New Year’s, we were driving by the Sea of Galilee just before sunset. The sky glowed in shades of rose and peach and gold. An enormous flock of little birds, silhouetted in black, flew over the water — swooping upward then falling downward, fluttering about playfully while remaining a cohesive whole. As I watched them, I thought about Matthew 10:29, the promise that God watches and remembers each sparrow’s fall. I usually visualize it as a single sparrow, but in that moment, watching all the birds together, I shivered at the thought of God watching every flicker of those hundreds of wings.

Happy new year.

busy busy.

Soon, the semester will be over, and I’ll be able to prod myself into posting more.

But for now, I only have one specific thought: I don’t know how I got by without Amazon “Look Inside.” It’s like Google Books, only much more comprehensive for modern books, and it allows me to search for keywords anywhere in the book. Which is pretty invaluable, or at least an amazing time-saver, when writing papers. You need the physical book as well, of course, but the combination of the two makes it so swift and easy to hunt down half-forgotten quotes or passages.

Mmmmm, technology.

. . . figuring out what it means to love.

There are days when I just want to cry over humanity.

Many of you may have heard of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl who killed herself after her “online boyfriend” — actually the mother of a slighted friend — wooed her and then spurned her, saying “The world would be a better place without you.”

We know the name (and address, and workplace) of the woman who incited her death, but faces no criminal charges, because bloggers uncovered it. In fact, the blogging world has blasted a near-unanimous burst of fury against her. For some examples, read the post where her identity was first uncovered.

Read through the comments, if you like. Here are some typical examples:

“I seriously hope Lori Drew kills herself . . . Good riddance to bad effing trash.”

“If I was Megan’s father I would’ve put a bullet in her head. This is a sickening story. How dare LORI DREW, A KILLER not even have an ounce of remorse.”

“Some anonymous douche said ‘Do you want to drive this woman to suicide as well? Would that be fitting?’ Yes. Actually, it would be VERY fitting. And I highly doubt that any of us on here would feel any sympathy for the poor wittle witch who’d driven a little girl to suicide ON PURPOSE and WITHOUT REMORSE.”

Maybe I’m overreacting; I spent much of the day reading and talking about Civil War rhetoric, in which supposed moral and religious leadership sanctioned cold-blooded slaughter because they were so convinced that they were the right side. Well, some of them were. Slavery was a terrible wrong, just like Lori Drew committed a terrible wrong.

But that doesn’t mean that we can adopt the exact same tactics. And the fact that so many people see absolutely no contradiction in inciting the death of a woman because she incited someone else’s death . . . it makes me shudder.

This is how the church went astray, how it so often goes astray even now. We forget that the law of love governs all of our lives, and that even while we work for justice and righteousness, we need to constantly question whether each action fits within that law.

As is so often the case, the historic peace churches provide some of the best lived examples here. After the shooting in an Amish school that left five girls dead, the response from the grieving community was simple. “The Amish neighbor came that very night, around 9 o’clock in the evening, and offered forgiveness to the family [of the shooter].”

Buttery tart with red onion, bell pepper, and sharp cheddar

One of my contributions for Thanksgiving this year was my standard buttermilk pie, which is so yummy and easy that I make it whenever I have an excuse. I used the same pie crust recipe as last year: the NY Times’s all butter pie crust, which nicely expands to match a pound (four sticks) of butter with four cups of flour. I knew it’d give me extra pastry, even though I was using a double recipe of buttermilk pie to fill a rectangular cake tin, so I refrigerated the unbaked dough for later.

Today, I took the dough and pressed it out on a parchment paper-covered cookie sheet, shaping a rough circle with a rim around the edge. Meanwhile, I sliced a red onion into thin slivers, sauteed it in rendered turkey fat* until it was soft and starting to caramelize, and added thin slices of bell pepper to sautee until they were tender. I covered the crust with sliced sharp cheddar, piled the bell pepper and onion on top, and sprinkled it generously with salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Then into a 400 degree oven it went, until the cheese was melted, the peppers were beginning to crisp and brown, and the crust had turned a lovely golden-brown.

The result: savory, flavorful, gooey, crumbly perfection. Butter pastry dough really is a lovely thing. Next time, I must remember to photograph it before it gets devoured . . .

* – I am perhaps old-fashioned in this, but I love saving animal fat, on the infrequent occasions when I cook meat. It can be substituted for oil or butter for sauteeing vegetables, making a roux, browning lean meats, etc. Bacon/sausage fat adds smokey richness, and poultry fat (chicken, turkey, duck) adds a tantalizing savory flavor to any dish. It saves money, and you can get a surprising amount of it from a whole bird. I tend to toss all the scraps from a roast bird (bones, skin, fat, drippings, etc.) into a big pot with some water and chunks of onion and celery, simmer it for a few hours to get a good rich stock, then save the fat that rises to the top of the stock when it’s chilled.

Cranberry Sauce

Happy Thanksgiving, all. Have a recipe; I made this last year for Thanksgiving and amazed my friend CJ with the fact that non-canned cranberry sauce can be easy and addictively delicious. So upon his request, here’s my recipe. (Think of it as an approximation; for example, this time I substituted grapefruit for the oranges, and it was fabulous.)

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3 lbs of cranberries (washed, with any bruised or bad cranberries removed)
3 cups of sugar
3 cups of orange juice or water
zest of 3 oranges
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
pinch of salt

1) Put all the ingredients in a largish pot.

2) Boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to keep the bottom from burning, until the berries have all burst and the liquid is thickened. This will probably take 20 minutes or so.

3) Taste for sweetness, and add more sugar if necessary. Once the sugar dissolves, cool and refrigerate.