Weekend in DC/Annapolis

This past weekend we went to Annapolis for a wedding and had a little bit of time to visit our friends (Jess and Colin Anderson, Emily and Josh Cullum and Liz and Chris Jarvis) in D.C. It was so fun, but never enough! Hopefully I'll get to make it back sometime soon! Jess put up a few pictures on her blog: http://smutchfun.blogspot.com

And here's a spoiler (I stole this from her blog). Beautiful weather and beautiful friends!

You Tubes Worth Watching

I'm not a You Tube addict, unlike someone I share an apartment with... though I will say I always enjoy a good laugh, something You Tube readily provides, if you know where to look. However, there is a depth to You Tube that I don't often see, as my main channel of viewing YT videos is through Brian's recommendation. Clearly, there is a lot of nonsense out there, and certain videos that appeal to only a select audience. I did recently find (the first via twitter, the second through the suggestions that pop up once you're in the site) two videos absolutely worth watching because of the joy they bring, not through laughter but through music.

3 year-old Jonathan conducting Beethoven's 5th (4th movement):
http://www.youtube.com/user/esenuk#p/a/f/0/0REJ-lCGiKU

Alice Dancing Under the Gallows (about music and hope in the Holocaust):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlccsLr48Mw

London

So this is Borough Market, an outdoor market of a huge variety of foodstuffs. It was my favorite place in London! I sipped sangria while walking around the market checking everything out. 

 I finally decided on a curry pie for lunch because it seemed so quintessentially London, and I did not regret it at all--delicious!

 And for dessert I couldn't resist these meringue cookies bigger than my hand!

 Brian and I in Greenwich... you can't really see it, but the London skyline is behind us.

 We went to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian. It wasn't quite as cool as I thought it would be, but there I am, purple converse-clad, stepping over the spot from which all world navigation is measured.

 Trafalgar Square in the winter... cold and empty!

 

Trafalgar Square in the summer is a vast improvement over the winter!

 

This is actually in Oxford, a side trip I made to visit Jenny and enjoyed immensely! The Eagle and Child is the bar in which the Inklings, an informal literary group including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien among others met together. 

Athens

More pictures from the past year, starting with our trip to Athens last February.

 Brian and I standing on Mars Hill--where the Apostle Paul gave a famous sermon--looking up at the Acropolis. It was a long, circuitous route up to the top of the Acropolis, but clearly worth it. We adopted a stray dog along the way and named her Athena, but we had to part ways when we went up to see the Parthenon. I think she got tired of us because we didn't give her any food.

 This is actually in a reconstructed Roman marketplace at the foot of the Acroplis.

 And here we are on our adventure to the Mediterranean Sea on 3/4 tank of rented gas--we couldn't get a rental car with a full tank because of the strikes.

And the view from our hotel...

I struggle to finish things. A few examples: four unfinished books with bookmarks in them I finally returned to the bookshelf after sitting on my bedside table for months. Multiple unfinished bags of snacks in the pantry, unopened in weeks. Or months (yikes!). Mosaics hanging above my sink: four finished, the fifth hanging without grout for two years now. Several blog posts, half-written, or even three-quarters done, still yet unfinished, floating in the unpublished abyss of my blog dashboard.

So, I decided to tackle something easier than finishing things I've started. I'll just post a few pictures to get things moving. Pictures are easy--no thoughts that require completing. So here you go:

New York with Mom and Brooke

 Top of the Rock: In lieu of waiting hours in line to ascend the Empire State building, we took a recommendation to try the Rockefeller Center instead, which turned out to be a phenomenal suggestion! Short lines and clear plexiglass instead iron bars made it very worth it. And on the way up, we enjoyed an elevator ride with other tourists from every officially English-speaking country in the world. Except Belize. I think.

 We did some art-museum visiting. I think I wore Mom and Brooke out--I could probably wander around art museums forever. I feel pretty lucky--in the last few months, between Rome, London and New York I've gotten to see an amazing amount of art spanning genres and centuries.

 We tried two famous cupcakeries, and though Magnolia may be the original, Crumb's was the most original, not to mention the best. No standard cupcakes here! Neither in flavor or in size! As you can see, two cupcakes--peanut butter cup, filled with peanut butter icing, and half and half, topped with brownie and cookie bits--between the three of us nearly did us in.

Brooke and I in Times Square, on our way to Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant). Extremely delicious!

A mess, a cold, and a party. Oh, and some salmon.

Monday, I didn't feel very good. Tuesday, I passed out in the shower. Wednesday, I cooked a meal for twelve for a going away party. I was concerned for a moment there that I just might keel over in the kitchen. The heat, the sniffling, the kleenex, the mess, the stress... Having large groups of people over for dinner is not an infrequent occurrence in our household, and with a bit of practice under my belt I thought I could confidently say that gone are the days where people are arriving and the food isn't even in the oven yet, where the pantry is raided for anything resembling an appetizer as it takes an hour (or two) longer than anticipated to get the food done. Unfortunately, it was 7:30 (I thought it was 7), people were arriving and I didn't even have the spinach artichoke dip pulled together! Thankfully, with a few extra hands, and the glorious fact that salmon doesn't take very long to cook, the dinner actually ended up being a success.

Overstuffed fridge, plus...

all these groceries...

 ...and a messy apartment. 4:30pm. Time to move.

A word to the wise: the best way to cut down on things to do day of is prepare ahead of time. In the countless times we've had people over, I have literally never managed to do that. This week, I was so excited because I was going to make this cake I'd been inventing in my head, and I was going to do it on Tuesday. A whole day ahead of time! Unfortunately, Tuesday came around and I crashed in bed at 9pm. So, three hours, one cake, one salad, one veggie, a loaf of bread, and twelve pieces of salmon.


First, the cake...
Let me just confess something to you first: I bought three boxes of butter. As in, twelve sticks of butter. 6 cups. 9720 calories. Holy belt-buster. The good news is, there's still a box left in my fridge. And, I didn't end up using all the chocolate frosting containing massive amounts of butter. (I froze the rest of it to use--or eat with ice cream--later. Not sure if it's freezable, but I'll get back to you on that.) Still probably warrants a run around the block, though.

So, the cake. Pioneer Woman's sheet cake. Recipe here best. chocolate. cake. ever. Double the recipe, bake it in round cake pans. Bake them about 22 minutes, but keep an eye on it every minute after 20 minutes--you don't want to overcook it! You should end up with four round chocolate cakes. Let them cool before trying to get them out of the round pans. You can put them in the freezer if you'd like, but don't let them get too cold.

Then, the frosting. I made double recipe, but that was a bad idea. Just one is enough. I made a raspberry filling by whipping up some cool whip lite, with a little bit of raspberry jello mix for flavor and a couple heaping spoonfuls of raspberry jam.

Assembly: one cake. Raspberry filling with a few raspberries. Continue for two more cakes, using up all the raspberry filling. Then, put the last cake on top and pouuuurrrrr the chocolate frosting over the top. Careful, it spills over and pools at the bottom. Concave cake stand is recommendable. I threw some raspberries on top for decoration. Doing it again, I might have put some of the chocolate frosting in between all the layers as well, but not too much to overwhelm the raspberry filling. I'm also contemplating a hazelnut filling (read: Nutella) version of the cake, but I'm concerned it may actually be too rich. Is that a valid concern? It's never stopped me before...

Aaaand here's the masterpiece. It was hard to keep the cake from being eaten long enough to take a picture, so a half-eaten cake will have to do. Oh and the Bluebell vanilla? Perrrfect accompaniment. Just in case you didn't get enough frosting in the cake, the leftovers double nicely as chocolate sauce for the ice cream.








Green Beans
Fresh green beans with ends snapped off, blanched in boiling water until just barely done. Sauteed some garlic and onions, cut long, with olive oil in a big pan. Right before the salmon was done, I tossed the blanched green beans into the pan and heated the green beans up, as well as kosher salt, pepper and squeezed a lemon on top. Done. My favorite dish ever.

Mandarin Orange Salad
Mixed greens or spinach will do. Two cans of mandarin oranges, rinsed out and chopped roughly. Chopped green onions, and some sliced almonds on top. Toss with some kind of asian salad dressing--I used Eating Right's sesame something spritzer. Liked it.   

Whole Wheat Beer Bread
1.5 cups of all-purpose flour
1.5 cups of whole wheat flour
4 1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1/4 tsp of salt
1 can of beer
Throw it all together and bake at 350 for about 40ish minutes, until a knife comes out clean all the way (has a serious tendency to stay doughy in spots). If you were having a night like I was, you might need another can of beer to make the cooking easier.

And finally, wait you were actually waiting for--Brown Sugar Dill Salmon
It's unbelievably simple. First, marinate the salmon in soy sauce for a little while. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.Then:
Take some brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and fresh chopped dill and throw it all together. You'll want enough to pretty much entirely cover each salmon fillet, so start with the brown sugar as the base. It doesn't save well so I'd recommend trying to hit it right on. Don't skimp on the salt and peppers--they give it the kick that compliments the sugar and dill so well. I don't measure it out--taste it until it seems right. Warning, it doesn't actually taste good like that, but you'll get a feel for if the flavors are balanced. If I were guessing, I would say 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp cayenne pepper, and one bunch of fresh dill, chopped--roughly 3 tablespoons? (Please don't take my word for that, I was doing mental-picturing... sometimes that can be wayyy off.)
Cover each salmon fillet in the brown sugar/dill mixture--the more the better. Then throw it in the oven and bake til done! I'm not very good at knowing exactly how long to cook--you'd be better off consulting another cookbook or recipe for that! Shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to finish, and don't crowd the fish!

Done. Add a little pineapple sangria (white whine, peach brandy, sprite, mint, sliced oranges, pineapple juice and crushed pineapple) and you've got yourself a party. Here's a little preview:

A friend came over recently and pointed out how everything we have is multi-colored. Oh you couldn't tell from the tablecloth and the Fiestaware plates? Picking just one favorite color is much too heavy a burden.








And just in case you were wondering,
Spinach Artichoke Dip
8 ounces sour cream light
8 ounces (1 package) fat free cream cheese
8 ounces light cream cheese
1/2 container of shredded Asiago cheese 
half of a package of frozen spinach
a can or jar of artichoke hearts, patted dry and chopped
half an onion or so, chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped
salt
pepper
cayenne pepper to taste 
The best method would be to saute some garlic, jalapenos and onions in a little bit of oil with salt and pepper to bring the flavors out, then add the rest of the ingredients. I might add some cheddar cheese too for a stronger flavor. If you have an enamel-covered cast iron dish, (like Le Creuset), I recommend using it on the stove to melt everything then serve in said dish, on a trivet. There's probably a better recipe out there, and I fully encourage you to use it. Just letting you know what I did. It works. Maybe not the absolute best, but it did get eaten.

Well, maybe next time I'll get more pictures of the actual food. Until then, buena suerte with the salmon.

The Cost of Holiness

"Coddled people will not be good listeners when their world collapses. They will be numb with confusion and rage at the God who wasn't supposed to allow this. 'If this is the way God is, why didn't you tell us?'"

John Piper, Spectacular Sins

There was a time during my sophomore year of college that I came to realize that I was extremely unhappy. It was a slow realization, and along with it, a realization that I was angry. Angry at a God who wasn't supposed to allow me to be unhappy. My primitive understanding of God was that if I followed all the rules and, for the most part, was a generally good person, He would bless me and keep my life happy. Things were supposed to be easier with Him on my side. 

No one bothered to explain that Jesus had a penchant for mixing up words like first and last, greatest and least, life and death, easy and hard. Nor that the point of life was not so much to go my own way with "Him on my side" so much as to pursue holiness and sanctification at all costs. Oh, and that there would be costs. 

I remember vividly sitting at the end of a table of about five women around 7 in the morning (which, in college time, is an absolutely ungodly hour) at our weekly Bible study meeting, starting to share for the first time how extremely unhappy I was. I remember saying, pleading with them, "I thought God wanted me to be happy, right?" Our leader started to shake her head and I felt the room begin to spin. She started in on something about the difference between happiness and joy and I felt like I'd been socked in the stomach. I'm not sure if I said it aloud, but all that I could think was, someone should have told me! All these years, I thought the idea was that living with Christ made life easier, as if He were some sort of talisman to ward off evil. That there could be any purpose of God in my unhappiness was utterly beyond my understanding.

It took me another year to understand that no, God's priority was not my happiness but rather my holiness, and that oddly enough, holiness often comes at a price of pain. As our pastor Matt Chandler says, you don't just drift into holiness. It has taken another four years to start to deal with the idea that:

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. --Prov 13:24

and that:

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. --Hebrews 12:6

or that:

For they [earthly fathers] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. --Hebrews 12:10

though the first part of this verse has always been self-evident:

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. --Hebrews 12:11

I imagine that I have only begun to understand, at age 24, the way in which God uses suffering and pain in the pursuit of holiness, or what discipleship and sanctification can truly cost. I give thanks, though, for the lessons on pain God has seen fit to ordain in my life, that I may not be one of the "coddled people" Piper speaks of, dismayed at the value God puts on holiness.