Black and White

My friend Daniella took some pictures of me last week when we were out to lunch after church.  She used an old Canon SLR her mom bought her dad when they were engaged and developed them in the film lab at her school.  I don't mean to be narcissistic, but I can't stop staring.  

(At her talent- not mine)

The Hippie

I saw him from across the street, standing waiting for red to become green, the sunshine warming his face and his white linen pants pooling quietly around the leather sandals on his feet. "Hippie," like a wasp flew from one side of my brain to the other, and then it was gone as I turned my attention to the basket full of kitchen supplies the lady in front of me wanted to buy. A few minutes later I looked up from my task and saw him standing there, his long dark hair pulled into a soft ponytail that lay against his back, looking expectantly at me with his soft brown eyes. There was something elegant about him, a sort of refined peacefulness. He asked if we sold barbecue skewers.

When we found them he seemed satisfied and took them to the front to pay where he glanced at the back of the package. Suddenly his face clouded over and he set them down. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't realize..." He pointed to three little silver letters: Made in China.

First I thought, How dumb. What's wrong with you, just get them you stupid tree-hugger! But then the thought rushed in, No, he's right. He's a man taking a stand for his convictions. That's honorable.

"It's all right. I understand." I replied.

"It's just that, with all you hear about unsafe products coming from China these days..."

"And all the things you hear about child labor... I understand."

He looked at me with this pure look of peace and understanding. Admiration, even. "Thank you, my lady."

There was something about the way he said "my lady" that instantly brought my focus. I don't know when I've ever seen kinder eyes. Soft and warm, like spicy tea or the fur on a chocolate lab's tummy. Looking into those eyes was like taking a breath of warm, rich air-- there was something deeply satisfying about them.

He left and I watched him stride back across the street, linen tunic billowing in the breeze, golden skin illuminated by the sun. "He called me 'my lady'," I thought. And I felt better for having known him.

You've sure got powerful thumbs!

This made me laugh until I drooled while I was sick. Seriously.

New Year, New Recipe

I wish I could say I spent this glorious new day of 2009 frolicking in the Los Angeles sun, but alas I've been cooped up all day with a pounding sinus headache, running to the bathroom every 15 minutes to blow my nose over the sink.  Happy new year, indeed!

It's moments like these as I sit with nary a coherent thought, that the prospect of writing an interesting, intriguing, fun-filled recount of my Christmas seems a bit daunting.  Thus, I'm going to give you a recipe for the KILLER breakfast I made on Christmas morning.  Every year for as long as I can remember my mom had cinnamon rolls baking as we opened our presents each December 25th.  I've taken the torch the last two years, but this year I felt emboldened to try a new recipe in the spirit of new traditions and lots and lots of butter, courtesy Paula Deen.

Imagine biting into an oozing ball of dough, still warm from the oven and dripping in buttery cinnamon sugar goo, only to find a bit of sweetened cream cheese tucked in the middle.  Every bite tastes like the middle of a cinnamon roll.  Yeah.

I know you're probably already feeling the squeeze as you put on your jeans in the morning, and yet ANOTHER recipe dripping with butter and brown sugar is the last thing your New Years resolutioned-self is wanting, but this is one such recipe.  Deal with it.

Gorilla Bread

Adapted from Paula Deen

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 Tablespoons cinnamon

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

2 cans refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (12 oz., 10 count)

1 cup toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a 9" round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon and set aside. In a saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring well; set aside. Cut the cream cheese into 20 equal cubes, and set THAT aside. 

Now press the biscuits out with your fingers and sprinkle each with about 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar (no need to measure, just sprinkle a little). Place a cube of cream cheese in the center of each biscuit, wrapping and sealing the dough around the cream cheese. Now sprinkle half the pecans onto the bottom of the pan, and begin placing the prepared biscuits around the perimeter of the pan. Keep adding the balls of dough in circles until the pan is full.  Place the remaining pecans in between the balls of dough.  Pour the melted butter and sugar over everything, and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar over that.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate.  Eat immediately with a tall glass of milk.

See

I could feel the hurt creeping in, seeping like smoke under the door and in through the cracks in the walls of my heart. I stood at work today, the sounds and smells and shiny sights of the season all around me and couldn't feel anything but numb. "How long," I wondered, "will I feel this way? How long until it's over and done with?"

How many more holidays will feel hollow and naked-- like imitations or pretend celebrations-- without her? I had gotten so content, so free, got so carried away with how happy I had been feeling, that I failed to anticipate how tinny this season seems without my momma. Then the ache came back and blinded me.

Last week I drove far up the freeway and spent a day with my friend Christmas shopping. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant I haven't been to since the summer Mom got sick-- one of those chain buffets that serves watered-down Ranch and mediocre parmesan bread, and the backdrop of countless meals growing up-- and I never could have anticipated the flood of memories that were unleashed over my heart as soon as I saw the big stack of chipping plastic trays by the front door.

Every vinyl booth, every soccer mom with her kids, every aroma of steaming soup and bland blueberry muffins seemed to awaken a fire of images, faces, conversations, and glances that hadn't been kindled in a long time. As I sat and ate the salad I always got as a girl ("Your salads are always white!" she used to say), and remembered how it never ceased to be our family joke that Dad was trying to build the 8th world wonder on his salad plate, I felt so full. So satisfied and alive. The memories didn't drain me but instead seemed to charge every electron in my heart leaving me drunk with contentment, buzzing and ready for more.

The season came alive in my heart.

But as I stood in that store tonight I could feel the thick gray smoke of grief begin seeping in slowly wrapping itself around my chest, its spindly fingers assuming their iron grip on my ribcage. It was less sharp this time than other times, less violent and violating, more like breath on a cold window- softly pervasive. Nothing felt alive but the grief.

And this is where I am.

I ache for how things used to be, and the fullness I was always blessed to associate with this season. Everything seems empty. My once brimming and happy heart, broken then seemingly healed, feels tainted again by this grief I so despise and there doesn't appear to be anything I can do about it.

I know this is the point where I should bring the hope around and talk about how it's all right and "Somehow I'll just grin and bear it..." and "It's all going to be okay." But to be honest that's just BS that you hang onto until the real good stuff kicks in. And God is way too good to me to just wax over it with a, "So here's hoping!"

To talk about the goodness of the Lord with a stiff upper lip is like trying to describe falling in love without using your hands. He is so rich, so elegant, so extravagant in his love for me- so epic in his healing, so flooding in the richness of his love, so heavy, but at the same time freeing, in his affection. I am intoxicated by his ardor, his desire, his all-encompassing passion. He is the answer to every sigh, every ache, every hungry gasp of my heart. He satisfies, fills, indulges, and quenches every desire I've ever known, but somehow this great satisfaction still busts open the seams of my soul and leaves me longing, gasping for more.

Momma isn’t here, that’s true. And it hurts. That’s true too. But what’s more true is his love for me, and how ready and able he is to fill every gaping hole in my heart, every fault line that’s weak from former brokenness. He loves me and he lays it on thick.

I am never alone, and I never have to feel afraid. I am never without love, never without care and affection, never without special gifts picked out to make my heart sing.

He is my warmth, my grace, my peace, my light and my strength.
Ah!
He is my gift, my company, my benefactor and my blessing.
This is it... This is IT!
He is my wish, my hope, my story and my song.
Suddenly the room doesn't seem so smoky, the window clear not foggy... I can see again.

He is the answer to my heart's cry. And I am full and wanting more.

Happy Thursday

From the archives...

Consider this your official Thursday dance break.

If I knew you were comin'...

I'd've baked a cake, 

Baked a cake, baked a cake.

If I knew you were comin' I'd've baked a cake,

Howd-ya do, howd-ya do, howd-ya do...

Oh wait.

Recipe soon...

Radar

Currently reading:
Golden Boy by Clifford Odets. An incredible work by the legendary Group Theatre's first original playwright, this play about a scrappy young boxer named Joe feels like a shiny new penny. I played Lorna Moon, the woman having an affair with Joe's married manager, in a class in college and have been revisiting the text over the last few days and falling in love with it all over again.

Can't stop listening to:
The new Coldplay EP (extended from their latest album Viva la Vida). So good it made me wonder how these songs didn't make the cut... And then I realized they did because Chris and the boys were good enough to release this. Hallelujah.

The Hotel Cafe presents Winter Songs. Sweet and tender, and a welcome contrast to the sometimes overly-saccharine songs of the season. "Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson is the haunting and simple. The perfect late-night driving song.

Love:



The Jamie bag from J.Crew. After saving all my pennies and milk money and hoarding birthday checks from last month I was able to purchase this little beaut over the weekend for a steal. Come to momma.

And these are dominating my internet airwaves.

This is from Suz over at Alive in Wonderland (love her).

Original post here.

And this came to me from the lovely and so-funny-my-tummy-hurts Bake and Shake. 

Original post here.

I dare you not to laugh.

Friendsgiving

The rest of the country may be celebrating the national day of tryptophan and thanks on Thursday, but my holiday was yesterday.  I spent my Sunday (and Saturday) cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 50-60 people.  Scout's honor.  

I have pictures to prove it.

This is Kenneth.  He kisses me on the cheek every time he sees me.  Mmhmm.

"I better get a husband out of this."

Stephanie, my right hand woman.  Seriously, the best kitchen help a girl could wish for.

This is Cubbie.  I just... There are no words.

A man and his bird.  Jason cooked the two 20-lb. turkeys at two different houses and kicked some serious turkey tail.  Those babies were deelish.

Kudos to the turkey master.

The spread.  Ie: five heads of lettuce, forty pounds of turkey, 20 pounds of potatoes, ten pounds of corn, three pounds of butter, sweet potatoes, stuffing, 100 rolls, half a gallon of gravy, and TONS of love.

This lights my heart up. And then reminds me of all the dishes I have sitting in my sink.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Caramel

It won't do, to dream of caramel...

        To think of cinnamon, and long for you...

It won't do to stir a deep desire...

       To fan a hidden fire that can never burn true...

So goodbye, sweet appetite...

        No single bite could satisfy.

Thick Caramel

1/2 cup butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

6 oz. sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

Bring the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk to a boil over medium-high heat stirring to combine.  Then, with a wooden spoon, stir all ingredients together and then slowly add the milk.

Continue to stir for about 5-10 minutes until the caramel coats the spoon thickly. It is important to continuously stir the mixture.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt. Stir for an additional 2-3 minutes, allowing to cool slightly, then use wisely.

(Lyrics to "Caramel" by Suzanne Vega)