LutheranChik

It sounds like at least one RevGal/Pal is headed for the kitchen this coming week of Thanksgiving. So we are talking...kitchen appliances.

1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it?
I do have a food processor. It is at least 10 years old. I think it's a Hamilton Beach -- not the cheapest but not the fanciest by far. As to whether I actually use it...probably once a year. Although one year I got a bee in my bonnet about grinding my own ground round and pulled it out of its cupboard lair a few times for that purpose. My big issue with this thing is the lid, which requires a graduate engineering degree to get on and off. By the time I've figured out either action, I could have chopped my food by hand.

2) And if so, do you use the fancy things on it? (Mine came with a mini-blender (used a lot and long ago broken) and these scary disks you used to julienne things (used once).)
I do have a disk capable of slicing or julienning. It's lethal -- not only the specialty blades, but the sharp edges of the disk. I've drawn blood numerous times, which is another reason my food processor tends to stay in a dark recess of the cupboard, gathering dust.

3) Do you use a standing mixer? Or one of the hand-held varieties?
I have a mondo cheapo plastic handheld which I very rarely use. My mother, by contrast, had a wonderful, sturdy stainless steel standing mixer that she got for her wedding, which was a good and faithful kitchen servant for about 40 years before the engine finally went kaput. I used to be the family (box)cake maker, so I got out that mixer at least once a week for that task during my 'tween and teen years; on special occasions I also made my mother's very delicious cooked icing, which started out as kind of a roux in a saucepan, then wound up getting whipped into fluffy, caloric goodness. (Where is that recipe, come to think of it?) I am also old enough to remember Whip-n-Chill and Jello 1-2-3 dessert -- it magically made three layers right in the serving dishes -- and used to get a kick making that.

4) How about a blender? Do you have one? Use it much?
We just bought a blender. We've not done much with it; used it for smoothies a couple of times.

5) Finally, what old-fashioned, non-electric kitchen tool do you enjoy using the most?
Hmmm...it's got to be my vintage potato masher. No, I don't whip potatoes with a mixer; please.

Bonus: Is there a kitchen appliance or utensil you ONLY use at Thanksgiving or some other holiday? If so, what is it?

Another legacy kitchen utensil of mine is a 50's-era nut chopper with a spring-loaded top and heavy glass bottom. It works like a charm, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, especially making nut-intensive cookies like Russian tea cakes. That device pretty much only comes out for the Christmas baking season.

I think it's a warning sign that you're ready for a new job when you walk into work every day feeling as if the Eye of Sauron is ready to fall on you; when you want to get really, really small so that you escape its notice.

Here in Michigan, on TV, it's all about the proposed Big Three bailout, or lack thereof. The story dominates the local television affiliates; car dealers have stepped up ads urging viewers to "Buy American" and "Stop Sending Jobs to China." Here in the northwoods, where well-heeled union retirees have helped support the local economy for years, and where a good portion of the businesses that populate modest small-town industrial parks are suppliers to the auto industry, the news is especially grim.

So it's hard for me to say this. But I want to say it.

It's about time. It's about time that this bloated, unsustainable, increasingly obsolete and arrogant system crashes and burns.

Don't get me wrong. The auto industry has been good to my extended family. My uncles -- farm boys with a minimal education and few career prospects -- enjoyed an incredible standard of living thanks to the Big Three. The auto industry has been good to education and the arts in Michigan. Union members have been generous with money and time donated to good causes in this part of the state.

But the auto industry has been an industrial bully in this country for decades -- squelching development of a comprehensive public transit system; killing passenger rail travel; fighting environmental legislation; going so far as to sabotage their own alternative-fuel vehicle programs in an effort to maintain their status quo. The auto execs' infamous $20,000 private jet trips to D.C. this week is just the latest example of the Big Three's arrogance and cluelessness.

And the corporate greed of the automobile companies has only been matched by that of autoworkers. For years not only autoworkers but autoworker retirees have made more money than either blue-collar workers or many white-collar professionals in this part of the state. It wasn't a tenable system; and the union leadership's "Yeah, but look at how greedy management is" response is just so much schoolyard I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I posturing by equally irresponsible people.

This is just a big, unholy mess. And I don't see how bailing the players out for another few months, until the next financial crisis in Detroit, is going to de-mess the situation.

I feel sorry for retirees in danger of losing pensions and benefits. I feel sorry for the employees of the little non-union shops up here in rural Michigan and elsewhere.

But not sorry enough to support a bailout. In a world of "change or die," the Big Three, as well as their union employees, have refused to change.

Hat tip to RevGalBlogPal Lorna for this:

...and "A" is also for "asshole":

Gay Anarchist Group Crashes Worship Service

When I lived in East Lansing, Mt. Hope Church was the sort of church very into demonology and "deliverance ministry" -- looking for Satan under every rock and behind every curtain. So the geniuses behind this bit of guerilla theater happened to pick not only a homophobic church, but a generally paranoid, everyone's-against-us church, for their action. Way to go, kids.

Here's a thought: Perhaps the fight for marriage equity needs to be fought by persons with the maturity to take it seriously, instead of long-term adolescents with oppositional behavior issues.

I signed up for Facebook, under my real name.

I'm dealing with some sad news right now.

My aunt M, who has lived in the local nursing home for many years, has been diagnosed with a dilated bowel. This is a life-threatening condition, and without surgical intervention the prognosis is pretty grim. On the other hand, intestinal surgery on a frail, bedbound elder doesn't have a very promising best outcome either. And my aunt -- always independent -- has made it quite clear that she wants no surgery or other heroic life-saving measures.

When we visited her yesterday, she was pale and quiet, curled up in her bed like a sick little bird. When she talked to me she looked past me in that way that those of us with sickbed experience find ominous; the thousand-mile stare. I mentally contrasted that picture with the aunt I remember from my childhood, a robust farm woman slinging hay bales onto a wagon and walking the perimeter of her property with me every day.

I visited her this morning during lunch. I had steeled myself for whatever I might encounter there today -- and found her in the cafeteria with her lunchmates, sipping coffee, looking fine, in a cheerful mood.

She may be well for a day, or two weeks, or a month or more. I may get "the call" tonight. It's one of those things.

Because I'm Aunt M's guardian, and because I've been through more than one health scare with her before, I've rehearsed funeral arrangements in my mind countless times. My mother's family has dwindled to almost no one, just a few octogenarian second cousins downstate, so when the time comes it's going to be pretty much just a few old family friends, Fellow Traveler, our pastor and me, at the funeral home. I'm pretty sure of the "what" and the "how"; it's the "when" that's unnerving.

Pray for us.

Today I was reading a critique of locovorious grocery shopping -- the idea that it's more environmentally sound, as well as healthier, to eat locally grown, seasonal foods. The argument was that transportation costs associated with food are not all that significant in the grand scheme of things; and that it's often more cost- and resource-effective to import food from other places.

To which I respond...well, duh.

Most people I know who support local/sustainable agriculture understand this. And most other locovores I know -- all of them, in fact -- do not have a knee-jerk aversion to either "foreign" or mass-produced/marketed food per se. Our chicken chili today may have locally grown beans in it, but it also contains regular supermarket chicken thighs, tomatillo salsa from Mexico, a bottle of Molson's from our neighbor to the north and seasonings with variously exotic origins. We're eating it with brand-name fat-free sour cream.

Got a problem with that? I don't.

Locovorious/wholefoods/organic foodies are often labeled as elitists who are trying to deprive ordinary working folks of inexpensive mass-market food. Hey -- wait a minute. I'm an ordinary working folk. I make less money at my full-time public sector job than a teacher or a secretary or any number of other jobs. I drive a seven-year-old car.

Nonetheless, I care about what I eat. I care about nutrition. I care about ingesting pollutants. I care about the welfare of my farming neighbors. I care about the planet. Hmmm...do thinking and reading and making purchasing decisions independent of marketers make me an "elitist"?

Does it make me more of an elitist than persons who, having attained a certain food sophistication by virtue of their background, education and experience in life, and who most probably make many of the same food choices I do, seem to assume that unmindful shopping and eating is good enough for those other people over there? You know: "My children's school is participating in a wonderful garden-to-cafeteria program. But I'm sure your kid's bologna sandwich is just fine too."

I'm perhaps naive enough to want to live in a society where fresh local foods are available to as many people as possible, at reasonable prices; a society where we can all interact directly with the people who grow some of our food, and where small farmers and market gardeners can make a living wage by developing local customer bases.

That doesn't sound terribly elitist to me.

Next thing you know, Ted Nugent is going to convene a world conference on veganism:

Saudis Hold Conference on Interfaith Dialogue

7:49 a.m. Up betimes -- except for the dogs, who after waking us and getting us in the living room, went promptly back to sleep -- and ready for an indoor day of cooking and website management. Outdoors it's the first day of firearm deer season in Michigan -- another good reason to hunker down.

Fellow Traveler, who got up first, helped me get a head start on dinner -- white chicken chili, featuring locally grown navy beans from our friend Farmer Ken and homegrown hardneck garlic from Pleva's in Cedar. As soon as I get enough caffeine in my bloodstream I am going to make us a warming farmhouse breakfast with fried potatoes and ham steak.

I hear the kitchen calling.

10:28 a.m. We had a glorious breakfast...I made our fried potatoes with multi-colored fingerlings we'd found at Gallagher's Market in Traverse City during our last venture up north, so our taters were a crazy quilt of calico colors -- yellow, purple, pink. And now the house smells like my Aunt M's farmhouse kitchen; homey and cozy.

We are trying to get a good photo of the backyard squirrel pilfering suet from our bird feeder. So far our resident rodent has not solved the problem of our squirrel-proof feeder, but I don't hold out a lot of hope that it won't figure out some way to monkeywrench the mechanics.

This morning we're working on our church website -- we're co-webmeisters of this project -- and on the website of our local gym, which we're managing in exchange for free memberships. I love bartering. I'm trying to find some area farmer who sells directly to consumers, who'd be willing to trade meat or veg for our web services: Will compute for food!

1:59 After discovering that we're all out of cumin -- not acceptable on chili-making day -- I had to make a short field trip to the local supermarket. I brought along The Girls, who've been getting stir-crazy at home (taking a fawn-colored dog to the local recreational area for a run is not a good plan today, when the fields and woods are filled with hunters of varying degrees of expertise, in various stages of sobriety); when I pulled into the supermarket parking lot they looked at me in dismay, as if to say, You called us into the Jeep for this? So for a consolation prize I drove through town and over to the Mast farm, where I bought some onions from their roadside farmstand (commerce done on the honor system, an old margarine tub with a slotted lid filling in as cash register) and The Girls got a thrill barking at the Masts' sheepdog. Two small barefooted children watched us from the farmhouse doorway.

We watched Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood on TV. We wanted to follow with the Michigan game at noon; instead we find we're watching Ohio State. We're waiting for the MSU game at 3:00 p.m. (We live in a house divided, but over the past three years I have helped ease my partner into a marginal tolerance for Michigan State football.) Fellow Traveler is updating our church website; I'm providing editorial assistance from the other sofa. At some point I need to rouse myself and collect a washload of socks. Maybe in awhile.

4:54 pm. An MSU blackout; drat. So we're working on our websites and sipping wine. The socks are still on the closet floor. The four-leggeds are outside terrorizing the local squirrel population. I love our cozy, quiet Saturdays together.

8:35 pm. FT is still putting finishing touches on the church website. The trouble is, our pets keep interfering in the process; Mollie the cat just jumped on the sofa, walked on the laptop keyboard and turned the computer off.

I've been reading accounts of today's demonstrations in support of marriage equality, on Andrew Sullivan's blog and elsewhere, and it's very encouraging...even if the mainstream media, judging from websites, were trying to find instances of confrontation and bad behavior. To our community's credit, most of the day's events were peaceful, civil and devoid of acting out. Pride indeed.

So, anyway...as you have seen, we lead very mundane lives here. But we live them together, in a spirit of love, respect, service and fidelity.

A grassroots movement to protest California's Proposition 8 has generated some major momentum, and is calling for demonstrations against Prop 8 tomorrow.

It feels a little ironic for me, as a Michiganian -- where, thanks to ueberconservative deep pockets in the western Michigan Bible Belt and a legislature that can't find its fanny with both hands on any other issue of importance, we in committed partnerships can scarcely hope for civil unions or shared benefits/legal protections of any kind, let alone marriage -- to show support for our community and others of goodwill in California. But I'm going to anyway.

Since in my experience much of what we tend to label as "H8" is actually enculturated, comfortable ignorance, I think that my modest contribution to the "impact" tomorrow is to live-blog a day in the life of our family. The weather here is going to be nasty, and it's the first day of firearm deer season as well -- it's a good day to stay inside and do householdy things. And that is what we're going to do. And you are going to read about them. I invite you to share a link to my blog to friends and acquaintances who think that FT and I are a weird, scary subspecies whose existence, and relationship, somehow threaten their own families...or, for that matter, share a link with folks you know who need some affirmation.

Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish will be sharing photos, stories and blog links tomorrow. Pay him a visit as well.

This week's Friday Five touches on both sacred and secular days of remembrance that we've been observing in recent weeks.

1.Did your church have any special celebrations for All Saints/All Soul's Day?

We of course used All Saints' Day lessons and prayers. We have also, this month, been including the names of our beloved dead in our Prayers of the Church each Sunday.




2. How about Veterans' Day?
We don't have a specific Veterans' Day commemoration, but our church participates with other area churches in Memorial Day observances -- prayers and choral music -- at our local cemeteries.

3. Did you and your family have a holiday for Veterans' Day/Remembrance Day? If so, how did you take advantage of the break?
No.


4. Is there a veteran in your life, living or dead, whose dedication you remember and celebrate? Or perhaps a loved one presently serving in the armed forces?
Constant Readers may remember that Fellow Traveler is a veteran -- U.S. Air Force, where she served as an air traffic controller. Our nephew, who's been in the Army for several tours of duty, was just re-deployed to Iraq. Looking back through my own biological family tree...I had a maternal great-grandfather who served in the Civil War -- he pretty much jumped right off the boat from Germany and into a Union uniform -- and my mother's father was a medic in France, in "the war to end all wars." On my dad's side of the family, three of my uncles served in World War II -- two of them seeing action in both Europe and the South Pacific. Growing up, I used to have a small seashell collection from one of those uncles, from his time in the Solomon Islands.

5. Do you have any personal rituals which help you remember and connect with loved ones who have passed on?
Well -- some of you know of FT's experiences with "Hank" in the Cold Comfort Cottage garage. (We are in negotiations with "Hank" to move his presence over to The Big House garage.) Other than that...I try to be a dutiful loved one and keep the family graves tended, but I have to say that I don't find a special connection with them at cemeteries; I enjoy the stillness and the natural flowers and the wildlife that seems to flourish there, but I don't feel as if I'm communing with the spirits. Actually, the things that make me feel closest to my mom are her kitchen utensils, which I use all the time. I remember just breaking into sobs when I accidently broke the green Fiestaware mixing bowl that was probably the most used bowl in our family, holding everything from leftovers to Christmas cookie dough.

I spent the whole of yesterday -- I had X'd out a vacation day several weeks ago for this adventure -- on a girls' day out, helping shepherd two elderly aunts-in-law through Cabela's ginormous Dundee sporting-goods/lifestyle store so they could go Christmas shopping for their kids and grandkids. Think Driving Miss Daisy squared.

And these ladies, ages 87 and 90, are pistols. The homebound husband of the younger aunt had not only mapped out a detailed diagram of the Cabela's store, but also created an itinerary of which departments his wife was to visit, and when. The two sisters thought this was hilarious. "Maybe I'll go where I want to when I want to," declared Aunt H defiantly. When I explained that we would probably have lunch first, and noted, "Well, there goes the master plan," she beamed in triumph.

The sisters spent some time discussing, with great passion, both current events and various extended-family issues. When the topic of a serially dysfunctional great-niece's latest life drama came up, Aunt A suggested, "That girl needs to be professionally studied."

We began our adventure with lunch in the Cabela's cafeteria (barbecued elk, anyone?)...and then FT and I were summarily dismissed: "You two go where you want to go, and we'll meet you at the front of the store."

So for the rest of the day we surreptitiously tracked them -- ironic considering the venue -- occasionally dropping in to make sure they were all right.

At one point the 90-year-old whispered conspiratorially in my ear: "It's hard shopping with [her 87-year-old sister]. She's a little...high maintenance."

The aunts had a great time. We delivered them to their respective residences in respetctive cities, got home and promptly collapsed into incoherent puddles of fatigue.

Those of us who 1)by choice or circumstance spend most of the day with our noses to the computer screen and 2)always have a reason for not maintaining a daily spiritual discipline now have no excuse. Meet the Daily Office widget. We still have to supply the liturgical bits, but the daily lectionary readings are instantly accessible. Thank God for church-geeky computer nerds.

Fellow Traveler was downstate today, to attend the funeral of her childhood-best-friend's mom. Back when FT was a mischievous young beanpole growing up in the baby-boom Detroit suburbs, Mrs. W was a "Kool-Aid mom" -- the kind of no-nonsense but child-friendly mother whose home was a frequent gathering place for neighborhood kids.

Mrs. W had spent the last couple of years in the twilight world of dementia. In recent weeks she'd stopped eating; was getting IV nourishment and palliative care, but beginning to slip away.

FT went to visit Mrs. W not too long ago. She'd expected to spend some quiet time saying goodbye to someone unconscious and unresponsive in a hospital bed. She was shocked to find Mrs. W in a chair, in the cafeteria -- not eating, but seeming to enjoy the activity around her.

"Well," noted Mrs. W as she gave FT a head-to-toe, "you're certainly a lot meatier than you used to be."

So it was important for FT to attend this funeral -- for her friend, and for the memory of Mrs. W.

I got a call from FT midday: "You would not believe the funeral I've just had to sit through," she exclaimed. "It was awful. And the pastor was Lutheran."

Oh, geez, I thought. I've been to my share of awful Lutheran church services over the years, but I hate it when my partner the newbie experiences Lutherans Gone Wild. It's like having to explain crazy Uncle Al at the family Thanksgiving dinner.

"He didn't say 'Jesus'," FT continued. "He said 'JAY-SUS!!!' He was yelling. He said that anyone who wasn't baptized was going to hell -- that Mrs. W was saved because she was baptized, but the rest of us would be going to hell if we weren't baptized. He was pounding his fists on the pulpit. And we was going on and on about JAY-SUS and Lazarus and 'I AM'...he was out of control. And he had nothing to say about Mrs. W; nothing about her life. My friend said she wished you could have been there and officiated instead."

Yipes.

I'm trying to be charitable here. I'm trying to think about the pastor -- someone who'd only met the deceased a couple of times before her death; someone speaking to an unknown assortment of mourners with widely varying Christian backgrounds, trying to frame this experience in a meaningful way for them.

Nope; can't do it; can't be charitable. What in hell was this guy thinking?

A funeral is not a time to rhetorically dope-slap mourners into what we deem correct theology or praxis. It's not a time to aim a theological Uzi at a captive audience and frag them.

What it is, in my own humble layperson's opinion, is a pastor's opportunity, and privilege, to communicate both the depth and breadth of God's grace and an invitation to hope. And it's a special opportunity and privilege in a context where mourners are not high-commitment "church people"; how cool is it to be able to preach the Gospel to people for whom it's not a kind of comforting white noise of familiar Scripture verses and pious platitudes, but who might actually be startled to hear that God loves us, means us well and sticks by us no matter what, not because of who we are but because of who God is, and that this departed sister of Christ has not reached an end, but rather a beginning of "the life that is life"?

I'm just sayin'.

Today bloggers around the globe are joining to educate readers and advocate on behalf of the world's refugees.

According to Amnesty International, there are approximately 14.2 million refugees worldwide, and an additional 24.5 displaced persons. Most refugees are in African and Asian countries.

What can you do? Organizations like Amnesty work to pressure governments into abiding by the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, to fight the factors that create refugees in the first place and to ensure that refugees are treated with decency and dignity. You can read about Amnesty's work with refugees here . You can also support denominational aid agencies and other aid agencies that help refugees -- to see what Lutherans are doing in this regard, go to the Lutheran Immigration Relief Service website.

And, of course, bloggers out there can do what we love to do -- blog. Feel free to borrow my graphic.

Yoga or tai chi?

Consider the potential practitioner: A fitness-challenged, ungraceful middle-aged person without access to a flesh-and-blood teacher, who will be dependent upon DVDs for guidance.

My thoughts:

Yoga: Pros: A vast array of instruction materials; recommendations from friends and coworkers; the relaxation angle. Cons: I'm fat and inflexible.

Tai chi: Pros: Seems at face value to be a more accessible discipline; don't have to do floor exercises; looks cool. Cons: There don't seem to be as many instructional resources; when I attempted to teach myself tai chi using a DVD for older adults, it was still too fast for me to keep up -- which tells you something about my kinetic aptitude.

Those of you with experience in either or both practices -- what do you recommend?

Like many of you, this morning at church we listened to a sermon based on the Gospel of Matthew's parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids .

My pastor noted that, for him, the most interesting question raised by this story is: What is the oil that keeps the light on in our lives, that keeps us ready, until "the day of the Lord"?

His conclusion? Compassion. Self-giving love and concern for others. In a world fueled by fear, compassion is the Reign of God's response to the anxiety, anger and confusion around us. It's the way that Reign is going to break through the way the world usually works.

It was a great, thought-provoking sermon that's going to make me reevaluate my own responses to the world around me these days.

I feel a little sad relegating my cooking adventures to a separate blog (if you read the blogroll you'll find a new link to my food blog ). For those of you wondering what's been happening in our kitchen lately, check out the other blog to read about chickens (as in lots of chickens, raised by local farmers, filling up our new freezer), eggs (as in pickled), soup (as in chicken soup), and bread. If I may say so myself -- the buttermilk potato bread in the photo is one of the best bread machine recipes I've attempted. It's feather light, and has just the merest tang of buttermilk flavor. I do not have a chicken soup recipe per se, but I have found that a mixture of onions, garlic, celery, carrot, parsley and just a handful of parsnip and turnip make a most delicious stock. (I actually like to keep containers of these two vegetables, diced and then steamed, in the freezer for convenience.) And in the spirit of the Native American hunters who used to pray an apology/thank-you to the game they were about to kill, we just want to extend our gratitude to the anonymous farm-fresh roaster who gave his life for our soup.

As Constant Readers know, Fellow Traveler has been struggling for the past few weeks with walking pneumonia. One of the miseries of this ailment is uncontrollable coughing jags that have left FT's throat sore and kept her awake much of the night.

One of our friends just sent us an e-mail -- one of those spammy e-mails that make the rounds -- about a cure for nighttime coughing. I was skeptical -- but now I'm not. This trick works. FT had her first cough-free night in weeks after trying it.

You will need a jar of Vicks or other mentholated rub, and a pair of clean cotton socks.

Just before retiring for the evening, slather a healthy amount of Vicks onto the soles of your feet. Put on the socks. Go to bed.

I'm here to tell you -- this stops the coughing. I don't know how it does, but it does.

It also keeps the dogs from stealing your socks.