I happen to be of the belief that to eat is to live... literally. I adore eating, and that means I have to cook, and have actually learned to quite enjoy that as well. I also realise that I eat far better than most people my age, no, I take that back. I eat better than most people.
My personal food manifesto:
I will eat. I will not scrimp on butter or salt. I will take my dessert and relish every single bite it. I will be grateful.
Yet, despite my love of butter, salt and the sweet stuff, I do eat quite healthily, mostly because I make the majority of my own meals. Well, to be more precise either my husband or I do - we both love food. As most people have heard, yes, we should watch fats, sodium and sugars, but chances are the stuff we add is nothing comapred to the stuff found in premade (and often overprocessed) foods.
So here is a week's worth of meals in my house:
Saturday: Frisee Salad, Pumpkin Soup and Mini-Rolls (from a local bakery)
Sunday: Lime & Honey Glazed Salmon with Basmati and Broccolini (care of Bon Appetit)
Monday: Roasted Potatoes, Peppers and Halloumi (care of Nigella Bites)
Tuesday: Leftover Night - Linguini with homemade Bolognese Sauce (which I froze last week)
Wednesday: Grilled Steak with Fingerling Potatoes, and Lemon-Pepper Kale
Maybe not a whole week, but still, enough, and all delicious. I'm really looking forward to tonight's Halloumi dish.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Church Membership, Financial Stewardship and a Really Good Martini
So I finally did a few of the things on my list with respect to the church. For one, I committed myself to becoming a member which means I will there the next four Thursday nights for a series of classes. For two, I finally signed up for PAR, donating a bit each month (just fifteen bucks, but then again I have an annual income of less than three grand at the moment), seeing as I do get a lot out of the church and it's programming.
After the "Taste" portion of the "Come-Taste-See" series which I may discuss more after the series is complete, I went home and began my homework. First up was a powerpoint presentation on effective communication which took perhaps half an hour to finish up. Then came tackling a whole bunch of Auto-CAD work. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I hate this part of my program. I am a more theoretical-type. I like big pictures, and textual analysis, and anything involving thought and analysis. Sitting down to move columns and walls on a blueprint 25 centimetres East, and 150 centimetres south, then realigning walls, fixtures and spandrel beams to match? Well, I needed some motivation.
My recipe for a really tasty, very dirty martini...
1.5 ounces good quality English gin (I tend to like Tanqueray, but currently have Beefeater)
0.5 ounces Dry Martini Vermouth
3 large Spanish Queen olives
A really good glug of juice from the olive jar
You have to pre-chill the glass (just toss some ice and water in while you mix the drink). Toss the liquid ingredients in a martini shaker with a few ice cubes and go to town shaking it. Toss the ice and water out of the glass and place olives in bottom. Strain drink over olives. Sit down to plug out a few hours of AutoCAD (well, if you are me, otherwise just enjoy.) Do not under any circumstances drive for at least a few hours, especially if like me, you have the alcohol tolerance of a gnat.
After the "Taste" portion of the "Come-Taste-See" series which I may discuss more after the series is complete, I went home and began my homework. First up was a powerpoint presentation on effective communication which took perhaps half an hour to finish up. Then came tackling a whole bunch of Auto-CAD work. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I hate this part of my program. I am a more theoretical-type. I like big pictures, and textual analysis, and anything involving thought and analysis. Sitting down to move columns and walls on a blueprint 25 centimetres East, and 150 centimetres south, then realigning walls, fixtures and spandrel beams to match? Well, I needed some motivation.
My recipe for a really tasty, very dirty martini...
1.5 ounces good quality English gin (I tend to like Tanqueray, but currently have Beefeater)
0.5 ounces Dry Martini Vermouth
3 large Spanish Queen olives
A really good glug of juice from the olive jar
You have to pre-chill the glass (just toss some ice and water in while you mix the drink). Toss the liquid ingredients in a martini shaker with a few ice cubes and go to town shaking it. Toss the ice and water out of the glass and place olives in bottom. Strain drink over olives. Sit down to plug out a few hours of AutoCAD (well, if you are me, otherwise just enjoy.) Do not under any circumstances drive for at least a few hours, especially if like me, you have the alcohol tolerance of a gnat.
Friday, October 16, 2009
An Unexpected Afternoon
Yesterday I accidentally left my keys at home. I had changed my coat right before leaving the house (having realised that I needed the heavy-duty raincoat rather than the lighter one with an umbrella), and it turns out I left my keys in the pocket of the first coat. Well, having gotten out of class very early due to whizzing through a midterm and a cancelled lab, I found myself at the door to my condo building, no keys, and no husband to let me in for another 4 and half hours.
What's a girl to do?
I went around the corner and set up shop in Steeps, and opened up my laptop. I would like to insert a heartfelt thank you to the lovely staff of Steeps, a wonderful establishment I've been frequenting since 2001, in Edmonton, at the original Glenora location. Thank you for not kicking me out, or complaining that I spent about 8 bucks over 5 hours. You have my undying love and patronage, that and really, really good teas.
I must unabashedly confess to stealing wireless. The hotel across the street had an unsecured network, and I got just enough reception in the tea house to log on to Gmail, and chat with my husband a little, arranging for him to meet me there at 5 when he would be home. Unfortunately there were no outlets, and all of 20 minutes of abttery life left on my laptop so I couldn't continue as originally planned, working on some AutoCAD drawings that afternoon, and no access to my other schoolwork.
A pot of tea and a chapter of Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, I decided to go make a purchase which was both premature and belated. I needed a new Bible. It's my birthday in under a month, and I had intended on buying one then with birthday money, so in that way this aws a month premature, but this opportunity presented itself so wonderfully. (Seriously, if you ever want me to do something appeal to my sense of serendipity; I'm a sucker for it.) This was belated in that the NIV Study Bible I have had since a teenager really was no longer satisfying me, and had not been for a number of years. It's not so much the text itself, though the general lack of note about the choices made in translation did irk me, but the "Study" portion of it. Rather than trying to equip people to make their own choices and draw their own conclusions, the editors chose to portray a very rigid, very conservative understanding of biblical texts. As a former English student, I found this to be disruptive to the point of making it nearly impossible for me to read the text itself. I kept questioning the editors and wondering what else was changed to support their views, especially since after reading the preface I noted that they had even changed some word choices to 'better reflect their true meaning', though whether that was a comment on this edition, or the NIV translation in general, it never clarified.
Now, not to be entirely pessimistic, I really liked some of the historical information given in the edition. It included tables of distances, lengths, monetary values and the like that I found useful. The included maps are extensive, and detailed. The historical information about the rise and fall of historical monarchs and kingdoms provided for dating purposes, was also very useful, and generally historically accurate, especially the Roman era history. The utter insistence that modern biblical scholarship must be completely wrong because there is no way the Pentateuch were written by any author other than God through Moses himself, or that Genesis represents a scientifically accurate retelling of creation (despite containing not one, but rather two, often contradictory creation myths), or the idea that Jesus only spoke the parables one time each and therefore the presented version is an exact transcription of his storytelling, I just can't get behind. (Aside: regarding the last, I do think that chances are Jesus told these stories many times - that is why they are so well remembered. Now, as with all oral tradition, chances are, if they were told and retold, there were likely some differences in each retelling, though the core of the story remained consistent. This is purely based on my understanding of the tradition of oral storytelling.)
Now, maybe I could get behind the edition if the editors had chosen to elaborate on the arguments made on all sides of these debates, but they do not even detail their own argument, instead rather simply brushing off the entire debate in less than one full sentence, often attributing opposing viewpoints to 'evils' resultant from humanity's sinful nature (or even alluding to deeper, possibly demonic forces at work). I wish I was kidding here.
Anyhow, the short of the story is that I needed a new Bible. I made my way 6 blocks to Chapters, and found myself trying to choose between three editions. I had already decided I wanted an NRSV edition, which is widely used by my church. I also new that I wanted an edition which included notation about choices in translation, and other ways of translating the same words.
I found myself wavering between three editions;
Equipped with these two books I returned to Steeps (oh how I love thee!) and began to read. All I read (and read about) were the first three chapters of Genesis, the two creation stories. I read them myself, individually and against each other, then read the commentary, first Borg's then Kugel's, and then reread the stories. While I will not go into the insights, and understanding that I drew yesterday, I will say this. The next three hours passed quickly. I found myself immersed once more in the text (and the jasmine tea I was sipping), and struck by the beauty of it.
Do I believe that the Bible is divinely inspired or written? No. I do not. I see the Bible as the collective experiences and understanding of the very human people who wrote it, but those experiences with God must have been extraordinary to inspire them to write something that is still so beautiful, and so resonant two thousand years later.
I forgot my keys, but found one perfect afternoon.
What's a girl to do?
I went around the corner and set up shop in Steeps, and opened up my laptop. I would like to insert a heartfelt thank you to the lovely staff of Steeps, a wonderful establishment I've been frequenting since 2001, in Edmonton, at the original Glenora location. Thank you for not kicking me out, or complaining that I spent about 8 bucks over 5 hours. You have my undying love and patronage, that and really, really good teas.
I must unabashedly confess to stealing wireless. The hotel across the street had an unsecured network, and I got just enough reception in the tea house to log on to Gmail, and chat with my husband a little, arranging for him to meet me there at 5 when he would be home. Unfortunately there were no outlets, and all of 20 minutes of abttery life left on my laptop so I couldn't continue as originally planned, working on some AutoCAD drawings that afternoon, and no access to my other schoolwork.
A pot of tea and a chapter of Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, I decided to go make a purchase which was both premature and belated. I needed a new Bible. It's my birthday in under a month, and I had intended on buying one then with birthday money, so in that way this aws a month premature, but this opportunity presented itself so wonderfully. (Seriously, if you ever want me to do something appeal to my sense of serendipity; I'm a sucker for it.) This was belated in that the NIV Study Bible I have had since a teenager really was no longer satisfying me, and had not been for a number of years. It's not so much the text itself, though the general lack of note about the choices made in translation did irk me, but the "Study" portion of it. Rather than trying to equip people to make their own choices and draw their own conclusions, the editors chose to portray a very rigid, very conservative understanding of biblical texts. As a former English student, I found this to be disruptive to the point of making it nearly impossible for me to read the text itself. I kept questioning the editors and wondering what else was changed to support their views, especially since after reading the preface I noted that they had even changed some word choices to 'better reflect their true meaning', though whether that was a comment on this edition, or the NIV translation in general, it never clarified.
Now, not to be entirely pessimistic, I really liked some of the historical information given in the edition. It included tables of distances, lengths, monetary values and the like that I found useful. The included maps are extensive, and detailed. The historical information about the rise and fall of historical monarchs and kingdoms provided for dating purposes, was also very useful, and generally historically accurate, especially the Roman era history. The utter insistence that modern biblical scholarship must be completely wrong because there is no way the Pentateuch were written by any author other than God through Moses himself, or that Genesis represents a scientifically accurate retelling of creation (despite containing not one, but rather two, often contradictory creation myths), or the idea that Jesus only spoke the parables one time each and therefore the presented version is an exact transcription of his storytelling, I just can't get behind. (Aside: regarding the last, I do think that chances are Jesus told these stories many times - that is why they are so well remembered. Now, as with all oral tradition, chances are, if they were told and retold, there were likely some differences in each retelling, though the core of the story remained consistent. This is purely based on my understanding of the tradition of oral storytelling.)
Now, maybe I could get behind the edition if the editors had chosen to elaborate on the arguments made on all sides of these debates, but they do not even detail their own argument, instead rather simply brushing off the entire debate in less than one full sentence, often attributing opposing viewpoints to 'evils' resultant from humanity's sinful nature (or even alluding to deeper, possibly demonic forces at work). I wish I was kidding here.
Anyhow, the short of the story is that I needed a new Bible. I made my way 6 blocks to Chapters, and found myself trying to choose between three editions. I had already decided I wanted an NRSV edition, which is widely used by my church. I also new that I wanted an edition which included notation about choices in translation, and other ways of translating the same words.
I found myself wavering between three editions;
- The first was the Green Bible which appealed both to my wallet (being the least expensive), as well as my sense of environmentalism. I really liked the way it highlighted passages that could be read from that perspective (while recogniseing that they did not have to be), also it's printed on recycled paper. Unfortunately it did not include the Apocrypha, which I wanted very much to have easy access to. Having always been denied these texts in the more conservative churches of my youth, I really wanted to erad them to see why they were banned.
- The second was the Life With God Study Bible I had always enjoyed having a course of study within the bible itself, and this edition, upon first glance, seemed to fit better with my theology than the NIV Bible I had. Unfortunately, just as I "outgrew" my NIV Bible as I grew in other directons from the editors, I was worried the same would happen here. I was afraid that as my own thoughts changed, and developed, I would find myself at odds with the editor - actually I knew I would. While I have found many theologians and scholars whose opinions and insights I respect and cherish, there is always something I do not fully agree with. I never expect to find another person with whom I share perfect agreement with respect to our understanding of God, because different lives and different events and thoughts have shaped us.
- The final one I was consider was far plainer. It was a plain hardcover Bible, which contained the Apocrypha, and notes on translation, but no other commentary. (It does have nifty little woodcuts at the beginning of every book.) As you might guess, this is the one I chose. I can supplement my study with outside sources, but this should be a Bible that I can keep and use no matter where my journey takes me.
Equipped with these two books I returned to Steeps (oh how I love thee!) and began to read. All I read (and read about) were the first three chapters of Genesis, the two creation stories. I read them myself, individually and against each other, then read the commentary, first Borg's then Kugel's, and then reread the stories. While I will not go into the insights, and understanding that I drew yesterday, I will say this. The next three hours passed quickly. I found myself immersed once more in the text (and the jasmine tea I was sipping), and struck by the beauty of it.
Do I believe that the Bible is divinely inspired or written? No. I do not. I see the Bible as the collective experiences and understanding of the very human people who wrote it, but those experiences with God must have been extraordinary to inspire them to write something that is still so beautiful, and so resonant two thousand years later.
I forgot my keys, but found one perfect afternoon.
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