Simple lemon pie recipe

For over a decade I've loved the ease of making key lime pies with Mrs. Biddle's key lime juice using the recipe on the bottle:

Ingredients

• 9" graham cracker pie crust
• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 3 or 4 oz key lime juice (more is better if you like it tart like I do)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°. Place condensed milk in mixer bowl and mix in egg yolks. Then slowly add the key lime juice and mix well at low speed (actually, if you want to cheat you can just dump everything in the bowl and mix it up - it works). Put mixture into pie crust and bake for 20 minutes. Cool in refrigerator for a few hours to thicken. Serve plain (my fav) or with meringue or whipped cream. Mmmm...

It's just that easy!

Anyway, Erin made one recently for her school's Thanksgiving lunch (and no students tried it, only her teachers - kids now days!) That got me to thinking about the basic pie recipe and tonight I tried the same recipe except substituting fresh-squeezed lemon juice instead of key lime juice. It was good, if a bit less tart (even with 4 ounces of juice), so next time I'll probably put in some grated lemon peel as well. But even so, it was tasty. Try it!

Mmmm...pie...

You might be an old hippie if...

...listening to this song is part of your Thanksgiving tradition:

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Happiness is a warm truck

Well, it's been well over two years, but I finally can park the truck in the garage again. For a long time I maintained that it was a basic tenet of my religion that garages are meant to be parked in, because God wants us to be happy. Then a couple of years ago I moved it out to make room for most of the twins' belongings during a "difficult" time at school. There they festered for a while, with the kids slowly mining through it all over time for what they wanted back. Shortly after that the garage door springs broke. Between the two, every time I went into the garage I would just get depressed. Yeah, I can let things fester for a long time.

So, on Monday I spent my first weekday of vacation and cleaned it all out and took a bunch of stuff to the dump and reorganized everything. Then today Dad came over and helped me fix the springs (I also ended up fixing Les's garage door - long story). And with a bit more rearranging, I am now able to park the truck in the garage again, just in time for winter! Huzzah! It is actually supposed to ice rain/sleet/snow tomorrow, so it's just in time.

What you see at the bottom of the picture is a roll of carpet I've had for about two years now, too. It is meant to replace the (original, ca. 1979) green shag carpeting in Jon's bedroom. I keep putting it off because I am intimidated by the idea of laying carpet myself, but I think I may set that as a goal for my vacation the week after Christmas, along with some much-needed painting. We haven't painted since we moved into the house in the summer of 2001, and we still don't have curtains in the living room window. I think it's about time...

Vanishing point

I like to cook. In fact, I'd count it as a hobby. I cook most meals from scratch - well, I don't grind the wheat to make the pasta, but you know what I mean. One reason I like to cook is that I like to eat (I like it a bit too much, in fact, although the weight loss program is continuing with some success - 10% in a little under three months). Another reason is I like to cook for others. It makes me feel like I am caring for them, providing for them.

But I have to admit, cooking for a household with five picky eaters is starting to be a depressing grind. It seems like no matter what I make at least one person, and often two or three, will turn their nose up at it. We have one twelve year old who would live on nothing but bread and Cheerios if we let her. The other twin can't stand foods where multiple ingredients touch each other - his idea of hell is where they'd serve nothing but casserole, stews and sauce-covered starches for eternity. All three of the youngest won't eat tomato sauce on their pasta (I always coat the drained pasta with some extra virgin olive oil, so there's that), and only the girls like Alfredo sauce. There are only two (2 - dos, zwei, deux) vegetables that all five will eat: broccoli and corn. That's it. Any other vegetable side and I can predict how many will not eat it with 99% accuracy. Only one other person in the house likes beans (how can you not like beans?).

Last night was perhaps the perfect example - along with spaghetti I cooked Italian sausages (because four out of five like those), but since they were fresh-made by a local butcher and had different seasonings than the factory-made ones they're used to everyone decided they didn't like them (actually, I thought they were really pretty damned tasty). So now I have two more pounds of sausages in the freezer that I will have to figure out what to do with - I guess I'll eat them all and gain some of that 10% back.

Even on nights where everyone is enthusiastic about a meal, it is usually because I've had to cook a ton of different things so that each person has something to like. "Mexican night" is a perfect example. It started out simple, "taco night." But now, just to have something on the table that everyone will eat, I usually make tacos, tostadas, burritos, quesadillas, refried beans and once in a great while enchiladas (only two of us like those, so it's hardly worth the effort). One doesn't like anything with meat. One doesn't like any meat but ground beef. And on and on.

Remember Venn diagrams from school? The way you could use them to show "unions" and "intersections" between sets? Well, here is the Venn diagram of the food preferences in this house:

I'm the big outer circle because I am truly an omnivore. I will eat pretty much everything (I'm not saying I'll eat meal worms or kidneys, but you get my drift). The other five circles are the people I cook for. Each has their own sets of overlapping tastes, although no one's lines up completely. See that little bit of red in the center? That's the intersection of everyone's tastes. That's corn. And broccoli. And pasta (before putting on sauce!) Baked potatoes. Rice. Maybe a broiled chicken. And that's about it. Makes for an exciting palette of ingredients from which to try and cook seven meals a week, eh?

It sure is depressing. Some days I just feel defeated about the whole thing. Les has offered to cook more but that really doesn't "solve" anything, because then it will be four people not eating what she cooks instead of not eating what I cook. Maybe for a morale break it would help, but it is not a long-term solution.

Ultimately I just don't understand "picky" (finicky, fussy, particular, spoiled, choosy, difficult, hard to please, pain-in-the-ass - pick your term) eaters. As I've said for years, "Picky eating is not a survival skill." I am completely serious when I say that if I didn't make sure there were snack foods available at least two of the kids would literally starve to death  (and there are controls on when and how much those are allowed, or that'd be all they'd eat).

Sigh. Grumble, mumble, bitch and moan.

Anyone else out there have to cook for a passel of picky partakers? How do you deal with it?

Rules for giving gifts to children...(redux)

[I try not to be one of those bloggers who reposts a lot, but this is sort of becoming a tradition for me. I wrote it in 2006 for some friends, and have posted it here three of the last four Novembers. It's something to think about as Christmas approaches, although the advice holds for any time of year.]


Over the years I have made some observations about the art and practice of giving gifts to children other than one's own. It seems that such situations allow many people to let out their inner sadist and take out whatever repressed rage they have built up on the recipient's parents. They may act like they don't know that's what they're doing, but you'd have to be really stupid to not understand the impact of your gifts on the household being so afflicted. This is especially true when such gifts come from other parents. They know what they're doing, and unless revenge for prior gifts is their motive, there is no excuse or explanation other than outright hostility toward the target's, er, recipient's parents. Perhaps you should re-evaluate your relationship with such people.

So, as a guideline from one parent to those of you who have the opportunity now or in the future to give gifts to the children of others I offer the following list of gift-giving guidelines.

1) Do not give anything you're not willing to get back as a reciprocal gift - This can be considered the "Golden Rule" of gift giving, and if it is followed, then for the most part the rest of the rules will happen naturally. If you decide to give little Timmy bongos for his third birthday, then when your child's next birthday comes up, don't be surprised if Timmy's parents reward your child with some sort of percussion instrument (or complete drum kit if they're a teen). And when that happens, just remember - you asked for it. This can be especially dangerous between two sets of parents, because it can lead to brinksmanship of the most dangerous kind ("They gave Jessica that damned kazoo for her birthday, so I say we give their little Clarence a trumpet").

2) Do not give gifts with thousands of small parts - Legos sure are fun...until you've stepped on your fiftieth one in bare feet. Legos, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, Lite Brites, jigsaw puzzles, marbles, beads, most board and card games and myriad other gifts are of a "play once, lose forever" nature. Unless the child has OCD the pieces will never all be put back in the same place, ever again (unless the parents do it, and frankly that just isn't going to happen - we're too busy making sure the kids don't self-immolate). So instead the parts and pieces just float around the house, turning up in the damnedest places (like under your stockinged foot). They exhibit a self-mobile migratory capability that is somewhat scary. We are still vacuuming up pieces from gifts that are four or five years old. These are classic candidates for the "Mommy and Daddy are putting this gift up to save it for you because it's special" category - which then engenders arguments with the kids when they pester to have the gift gotten down so they can play with it - "We'll pick it up, we promise!" Just say no.

3) Do not give gifts with "some assembly required" - Unless you're willing to do the assembly yourself, be prepared to stop over some time in the future and see the gift still in pieces, strewn all over the playroom, and with some of the pieces broken and pitched or vacuumed, so that it can never be assembled. If you want to give Barbie's Modern Kitchen or Batman's Secret Headquarters as a gift, fine - just put it together first before bringing it over, or be the cool uncle or friend of the family and help the kid put it together right when you give it to them. Otherwise, please abstain.

4) Do not give electronic gifts that make noise - I repeat, "Do not give electronic gifts that make noise". If you feel the need to violate this precept, then at least make sure that as many of the following are applicable:

a) The device can be given an emergency batterectomy in the field with no special tools.

b) The device has a headphone jack with which to restrict its squalling to the ears of the victim, er, child.

c) The device CAN BE SHUT OFF. NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER GIVE GIFTS THAT MAKE NOISE SIMPLY BY BEING TOUCHED OR DETECTING MOTION. If you ever want to be scared out of your wits, try walking through a darkened playroom after the kids are in bed and have Big Bird suddenly emit his slightly psycho laugh in the dark because some other toy in the toy box shifted and pressed against his tummy.

5) Do not give gifts beyond the child's age with the instruction "this is for when they're older" - If that's the case then give it to them when they're older (does that not seem obvious?). Otherwise it's just one more damned thing for the receiving family to store, look after, clean and ultimately remember that they have and pull it out of storage at the appropriate time. In addition, please be aware not only of the suggested age range on the packaging, but of the actual emotional and psychological age of the recipient and adjust accordingly. Something suitable for an average four year old may not be suitable for a four year old with ADHD and anger control issues.

6) Do not give gifts that make a mess - This may really seem curmudgeonly because paints, clay and Play-Doh, "goo", Easy Bake ovens and all that may look like great fun, and gosh, they are great fun - for the kids. For the people whose house they are unleashed in, they are simply a cleaning nightmare (no matter how "water soluble" the item says it is, it isn't - there's "water soluble" paint permanently stained into our carpet). If you want the kids to play with such things then have them ready at your house for when they come to visit. Enjoy!

7) Do not give gifts that are alive - Unless you're willing to pay the vet bills and take care of them whenever the family feels the need to leave for a weekend, week or month, pets are best left as a decision of the parents, no matter how much you think "The kids are really ready for a dog (cat, fish, gerbil, bird, snake or whatever)". Also be prepared to be the person who has to explain to the child(ren) about death when said live gift stops being live.

8) Do not give gifts that promote intra-sibling rivalry - If you give a super-really-neato gift to one and not another then you have just unleashed an ongoing struggle over that gift that will not stop until:

a) one of the children dies, possibly in a fight over the gift,

b) the gift is broken, possibly in a fight over the gift, or,

c) the gift is removed from the scene (typically at night after bedtime, and hence becomes "lost" in parental speak) and put in storage or thrown away by the parents in a vain attempt to bring peace to the valley.

9) Do not give gifts that promote intra-sibling violence - Need I say that gifts that look like toy weapons will cause the kids to use them as real weapons? Hence play swords, spears, bows and arrows and guns will all be used as swords, spears, bows and arrows and guns on the nearest target, typically a sibling or a pet or possibly a parent (although that will only happen once before the item is then sent to the "Island of Misfit Toys", my term, a la the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon, for the large tub in the garage that used to hold such problem gifts).

10) Do not give gifts that require the whole family present to use - Oh, sure, in you're head you're thinking, "This will be great for them, and will foster 'family nights' and all sorts of cheerful togetherness." Instead, you've just sentenced the parents to either endless fighting with the kids over why tonight is (again) not the right night to get out that gift and play with it, or to succumbing to a grumbling round of play while having other things (like bills, laundry, dinner, housecleaning) not get done instead. Either way you've increased the parents' stress levels, and unless you're actually a hateful person and that was your intention, it's better if you gave things that allow the child to be "self-amusing" (which is the greatest gift of love - at least for the parents).

A few moments with Merton

The following is from one of the books I am currently (re)reading, Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation:

"It should be accepted as a most elementary human and moral truth that no man can live a fully sane and decent life unless he is able to say 'no' on occasion to his natural bodily appetites. No man who simply eats and drinks whenever he feels like eating and drinking, who smokes whenever he feels the urge to light a cigarette, who gratifies his curiousity and sensuality whenever they are stimulated, can consider himself a free person. He has renounced his spiritual freedom and become the servant of bodily impulse. Therefore his mind and his will are not fully his own. They are under the power of his appetites. And through the medium of his appetites, they are under the cnotrol of those who gratify his appetites. Just because he can buy one brand of whisky rather than another, this man deludes himself that he is making a choice; but the fact is that he is a devout servant of a tyrannical ritual. He must reverently buy the bottle, take it home, unwrap it, pour it out for his friends, watch TV, 'feel good,' talk his silly uninhibited head off, get angry, shout, fight and go to bed in disgust with himself and the world. This become a kind of religious compulsion without which he cannot convince himself that he is really alive, really 'fulfilling his personality.' He is not 'sinning' but simply making an ass of himself, deluding himself that he is real when his compulsions have reduced him to a shadow of a genuine person." - pgs. 85-6

Free and worth every penny

I have long lauded Freecycle (and now ReUseIt, a similar network with less restrictive rules). These are localized lists that allow people to ask for and offer items, as long as they're free. The idea is one man's junk is another's treasure, and by giving away stuff you no longer want and can't be bothered to set up a garage sale for (or don't think it'd sell), you keep those things out of the landfill. And that's a fine idea. I've used both over the past few years to get rid of a lot of clutter - from a half roll of chicken wire to old computer books.

But I think I am going to stop. And the reason is quite selfish. It has to do with my time. Let's see if I can tell a joke to explain it:

A guy wanted to get rid of an old refrigerator, so he put it along the street in front of his home with a sign that said, "Free." It sat there for a week, no one touched it. Then he got a bright idea and put a sign on it that said "$10," and within hours someone had stolen it.

The point being that if something is free to someone, they don't value it very much. Which I wouldn't care about, until I post something on ReUseIt, get flooded with "Me! Me! Pick me!" emails, and then try to set up a time for them to come and get it, or, if I am feeling nice, for me to meet them somewhere to turn it over. And I would say the majority of the time I am stiffed - the first (and often second, and sometimes third) person just doesn't show. No call, no email - nothing. So I am out my time sitting around at home waiting for them, or driving wherever to meet them, and I have to say it makes me angry.

Now, I want to save the polar bears as much as the next guy, and hence don't want everything I no longer need going to the dump, but at some point the PITA factor just gets too large. So I am not saying "never" to both networks, but there's going to be a lot of stuff that probably ends up in the garbage. It's sad, but I don't feel like chasing people down for days (sometimes weeks) just to give them something they've strongly expressed they've wanted. "Take it! Take it!!!"

Faith is not a transaction

I have started reading The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair With Theology by Robert Farrar Capon. It is a reprint of three of his earlier books - An Offering of Uncles, The Third Peacock and Hunting the Divine Fox. I've not read Capon before, but since his name and quotes of his keep turning up in books I like (most recently in The Other Six Days), I decided to give him a try.

Last night I finished the preface, and I have to say it wasn't an easy journey. There was something in the tone that I found a bit off-putting. It may just be getting used to a new voice, a new way of saying things. But once he got the autobiographical things out of the way, it got good, quick. The last half of the preface was worth the read by itself. In it he discusses grace and its relationship with transactional religion (hint: there is no relationship). I found the following three quotes (along with some others I am leaving out for brevity) to be thought-provoking, to put it mildly.

"There is no such thing as the Christian religion because Christianity, at its heart, is not a religion. Rather, it's the announcement by God in Christ that whatever it was that the religions of the world were trying to do and couldn't (make God think kindly of you, win wars, end poverty, get the crops to grow, stop your brother-in-law from drinking too much at your parties), the whole rigmarole has been canceled. In Jesus, God has put up a 'Gone Fishing' sign on the religion shop. He has done the whole job in Jesus once and for all and simply invited us to believe it - to trust the bizarre, unprovable proposition that in him, every last person on earth is already home free without a single religious exertion: no fasting till your knees fold, no prayers you have to get right or else, no standing on your head with your right thumb in your left ear and reciting the correct creed - no nothing. All you need is faith that the entire show has been set to rights in the Mystery of Christ - even though nobody can see a single improvement. Yes, it's crazy. And yes, it's wild, and outrageous, and vulgar. And any God who would do such a thing is a God who has no taste. And worst of all, it doesn't sell worth beans. But it is Good News - the only permanently good news there is - and therefore I find it absolutely captivating." - pg. 20

But that didn't hit me half as hard as this:

"A question arises, however: Is this eucharistic 'change of status' an ordinary, transactional alteration, like the change of flour into bread? Does the act of celebrating the Eucharist 'mix up a batch of Jesus'? Does Jesus, during the service, show up in a room from which he was previously absent? Do benefits we were formerly without suddenly begin to flow our way in Communion?

"The answer to those questions, I think, has to be a flat no. The faithful who gather in the church before the rite begins are already, Christians believe, the body of Christ. The forgiveness, the reconciliation, and the new life they have in Jesus are already and fully theirs. They do not, therefore, receive an accretion of Jesus. It's not that their tank was topped off with Jesus the previous Sunday but now needs a refill. They never lost a drop of him, because he never left them. They couldn't get any more of him than they already have. But if that's the case, do they really receive him? And if so, how do you go about theologizing that reception?

"You refuse to make the Blessed Sacrament a transaction, that's how. You say it is the presence of Jesus, but you don't make it out to be an insertion of Jesus. You say the eucharistic presence is a mirror held up to the church's face so it can see the Jesus it already has. You say it's a dinner with the Jesus who's already in the house. You say any non-transactional thing you can think of - just as long as you say it's a party the church is already at and not some limousine that brings Jesus to the church's door. And those same rules apply to the other sacraments as well." - pg. 22-3

If those two didn't shake you up enough, then how about this? (emphasis mine):

"The church doesn't take Jesus to the heathen: Jesus, because he is God, is already intimately and immediately present to the heathen before we arrive. And he's present in all his power, not only as Creator but as Redeemer. They've already got him, they're already home free, they're already saved - but they don't know it because they haven't heard it. What they need is not a dose of Jesus to cure them but some sacrament of the fact that they're already cured in Jesus. And baptism, as the constitutive sacrament of the church, is precisely that sign. F.D. Maurice said that when you baptize an infant, you baptize the whole world: if you can say all that wonderful stuff over some two-week-old who knows nothing, believes nothing, and has done nothing, you ipso facto say it over everybody. Jesus is the Light of the world, not the Lighting Company of the world. neither he nor his church is an electricity supplier you have to get wired up to in order to have light in your life. He is the Sun, not a power utility; all you have to do is trust him enough to open your eyes and presto! You had light all along." - pg. 25

I think it's going to be a good book.

The Other Six Days, part 2

Yesterday I wrote a brief review of R. Paul Stevens's The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective. I then listed some quotes from the book that I liked. Today's post is the rest of those quotes.

"At most, calling means that God is providentially involved in our lives so we are not a collection of accidents." - pg. 74

"The practice of the presence of God is not the exclusive vocation of professional ministers and cloistered monks. Nor is it a sacred interlude but woven into the warp and woof of everyday life. It is part of our calling." - pg. 92

"So humankind's duty and destiny is to build community, to express neighbourliness, to celebrate cohumanity - in a word, to love. We dare not relegate this to discretionary time activities. For example, it would be dangerous for me to think of myself as a part-time husband or a part-time grandfather." - pg. 94

"None are so unholy as those whose hands are cauterised with holy things; sacred things may become profane by becoming matter of the job. You now want spiritual truth for her own sake; how will it be when the same truth is needed also for an effective footnote for your thesis...I've always been glad myself that 'theology' is not the thing I earn my living by. On the whole, I'd advise you to get on with your tentmaking. The performance of a duty will probably teach quite as much about God as academic Theology would do." - letter by C.S. Lewis to Vanauken shortly after his conversion, pg. 131

"Our secular world 'respects' clergy as it 'respects' cemeteries: both are needed, both are sacred, both are out of life." - pg. 131

"This concept of the servant of the Lord is radically different from the contemporary view of ministry which boils down to being servants of people or the church for God's sake rather than serving God for the benefit of people and God's world. The difference is subtle and sublime." - pg. 136

"(This means) that the modern situation in which a community might not be able to celebrate the eucharist because no priest is present is theologically inconceivable in the early church; the community chooses a president for itself and has hands laid on him so that they can also be a community that celebrates the eucharist...In that case the vitality of the community in terms of the gospel is the deciding factor, not the availability of a body of priestly manpower, crammed full of education in one place or another." - Edward Schillebeeckx, quoted on pg. 151

"I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the centre of the market place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek...at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about. And that is where churchmen should be and what churchmen should be about." - George MacLeod of the Iona Community, quoted on pg. 163 [I loved this! - Jim]

"The starting point in equipping the church for mission is the liberating truth that God is the ultimate equipper: giving vision and gifts, empowering through the Spirit's presence, motivating and guiding." - pg. 209

More boldly still the Dutch theologian J.C. Hoekendijk proposes that if a church's structures thwart the possibility of its members serving relevantly in the world, we are to regard these structures as heretical." - pg. 211

"Third, we need to ordain/commission people with a proven mission in society with as much seriousness as we ordain people to the pastoral ministry of the church: politicians, stockbrokers, homemakers, schoolteachers, craftspersons, artists and musicians. As Alan Roxburgh says, 'the priesthood of all believers is continually undermined by the practices of ordination.'" - pg. 212

"In reality all solutions, all economic, political and other achievements are temporary." - Jacques Ellul, quoted on pg. 233 [So Christians should not put their faith in them - Jim]

"Such is supplied by the Puritan William Perkins, who said, 'Theology is the science of living blessedly forever.' For example, James Houston recently suggested at a pastors' conference that the curriculum vitae of a pastor is usually written on the face of his wife. There was a stunned silence among the predominantly male audience." - pg. 244

"Eschatology teaches us to view time as a gift of God rather than a resource to be managed." - pg. 245

"A careful study of the book of Job reveals that the only authentic theologian in the book was Job himself. The reason is sublimely simple: while the friends talked about God, Job talked to God." - pg. 245 [Loved this! - Jim]

"The point of theology is to under-stand God (to stand under God in reverent awe) not to over-stand him by attempting to control him through theological discourse. Much that passes for theological education is the extension of the tree of knowledge of good and evil through history offering the temptation to transcend our creatureliness." - pg. 246 [I hadn't thought of it that way before - Jim]

The Other Six Days - a book review about ministry, the "laity" and what must change

I don't know where I first read about R. Paul Stevens's The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective. I am sure it was on a blog somewhere. It was on my Amazon wish list for a long time, then in my bookcase for quite a while, until I finally pulled it out and read it over the past few weeks. I have to say it's been an interesting journey.

Some will take this book as anti-clerical, but I don't see it as that. Instead, I see it as trying to restore the balance in the church such that all are considered "prophets, priests and kings," and all are called to Christ's service, not just those who are ordained. It is about recovering from the clergy/laity split and seeing the whole church as laos, a Greek term for people that is used in the Bible to mean "the people of God." I'm sure to many it is seen as a revolutionary rocking of the boat, but to me it ended up mostly making plain sense.

Following are some of the many sections I highlighted in the book. These are quotes that stand alone without needing to know the context from which they're quoted. Tonight I am posting the first half, and the rest will come tomorrow.

"[A] theology of the whole people of God must encompass not only the life of God's people gathered, the ekklēsia, but the church dispersed in the world, the diaspora, in marketplace, government, professional offices, schools and homes...It must be a theology that encompasses earthly realities and expounds the menial, the trivial and the necessary: washing, cleaning, maintaining the fabric of this world, play, games, art, leisure, vocation, work, ministry, mission and grappling with the principalities and powers. It must help us understand and experience sexuality, family and friendship. It must show us the place of sabbath and sleep. It should help us live blessedly with the automobile, travel, the telephone, computer and e-mail." - pg. 8

"But at its best, a theology for the laity is what theology is all about: the continuous and dynamic task of translating the word of God into the situations where people live and work. Biblical theology is practical to its core and it is heretical to promote, as theological institutions have for decades, unapplied theology." - pg. 9

"For example, in the case of the congregation, our understanding of what constitutes theological education begins to change when a congregation redefines its primary arena of ministry as the daily life of its members rather than in-house service." - pg. 20

"...In the almost thirty years of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. My church has never once offered to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed any kind of support in what I was doing. There has never been an enquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career. In short, I must conclude that my church doesn't have the least interest whether or how I minister in my daily work." - William Diehl, former executive of Bethlehem Steel, quoted on pg. 49

"This is remarkably in harmony with the message given to John Wesley by a 'serious man' before Wesley was converted to Christ: 'Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven? Remember that you cannot serve him alone. You must therefore find companions or make them; the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.'" - pg. 63 [That one convicts me, all right! - Jim]

"Incarnating our loving submission to Christ's lordship in every arena of life precludes saying that certain tasks are in themselves holy and others are secular. William Tyndale, the English Reformer [and a personal hero - Jim], was considered heretical and executed for teaching, among other things, that 'there is no work better than another to please God: to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a souter [cobbler], or an apostle, all are one; to wash dishes and to preach are all one, as touching the deed, to please God.'" - pgs. 63-4

"Even Paul wrote to the Romans that he was coming that he and they 'may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith' (Rom. 1:12). To speak of one person, or one group in the church as 'the' minister is a tragic denial of the new creation crafted in Christ. Sometimes the question is asked, 'Who is ministering to the pastor?' The answer should be, 'The rest of the people.'" - pg. 64

She don't use jelly

Well, yesterday I posted about all the habaneros I picked at the end of the season and my pondering what to do with them. I've added some more pickling in brine and am also dehydrating six full trays, and then decided to take some and do what my friends Jason and Taya suggested and make some pepper jelly out of them.

I checked through most of the recipes on the web and they all seemed to use vinegar. I didn't want to do that, I wanted something a bit different, so after some research I decided to use orange juice with some added lemon juice to raise the acidity and make it amenable to water bath canning. The idea was to use a fruit base to bring out and enhance the habaneros natural "fruitiness." I decided not to make it overwhelmingly hot because I wanted to share it with civilians (Christmas gifts?)

Anyway, here's my recipe:

Ingredients

• 20 1-cup jelly jars with lids (flats) and rings
• 40 large ripe habaneros
• 16 cups sugar (see Notes section, below)
• 8 cups orange juice (with pulp - I used Tropicana because I'm lazy)
• 1 cup lemon juice (I cheated and used RealLemon)
• 3 packets liquid pectin (Certo)

Directions

Wash and stem the habs (30 here - later I decided to go to 40, or two per jar)

Sterilize the jars and lids and utensils

Nice and sterile

Add the sugar to a non-reactive pot

Puree the habs and orange juice in batches (10 habs and 2 cups OJ at a time)

Mmmm...Orange juice with a bit of a kick to it

Measure one cup of lemon juice

Combine habs, OJ and lemon juice in pot and bring to boil, stirring often

Get out your pectin packets and add to boiling mixture in pot and boil hard for 1-2 more minutes

Fill jars, put on lids and rings and process jars in boiling water bath for ten minutes then let cool

Notes

From what I have tasted it came out well - nice and fruity without being overwhelmingly hot (to me - I am sure some will find it fiery). Although it did seem much hotter when a drop splashed into my eye while decanting from the pot, so be careful out there! Also, I had the attic fan on during the cooking phase to make sure the kitchen didn't fill with deadly vapors (although actually, it wasn't that bad - rinsing out the pot with hot water was worse).

I think I may have skimped on the sugar - most pepper jelly recipes with vinegar use at least a 3-to-1 sugar-to-vinegar recipe, whereas I went for 2-to-1 because the orange juice has some sugar in it naturally (but from my calculations, not nearly enough to make much of it back). It's just that 16 cups seemed like a lot, and 24 cups would've seemed even more so. It certainly tastes sweet enough. I am hoping as it cools it will set up well - I probably should have used "low-sugar" pectin, but that's why I used three packets instead of two of the regular. Right now it has more of a "honey" consistency, but the jars are still very warm. We shall see.

Feel free to up or lower the habanero count to your tastes. For a hot head two per jar doesn't seem like much from my limited tasting, but I can also tell it is a heat that will grow on ya as you eat it with cheese and crackers or whatever. I'm already wondering what it'll taste like in a quesadilla. Mmmm...

Update (11/11/10)

The jelly set fine, so the amount of pectin was correct, and it tastes really good, but it is not very hot. So for real hot heads you're going to want to increase the number of habs to at least four per jar.

Heavenly habaneros

This year I focused my pepper planting on just habaneros (I still have a lot of dried serranos from last year, and I don't find jalapeños to be worth the trouble). I planted 24 from seed and after some of those died bought some plants at the end of the planting season for 25 cents apiece, so that in the end there were 19 pepper plants in various places in the garden. They matured slowly, but I've been pulling the ripe orange and red peppers off for a few months now, drying some, pickling some.

We've had a couple of frosts, though, so all good things must come to an end. I pulled the plants from the garden and then picked off all the peppers (green or ripe). When I was done, I had seven and a half pounds, which looks like this:

For the uninitiated, habaneros are small and light, so 3.4 kg is a bunch. I've got four racks in the dehydrator going packed full of the small green ones, another jar (the fifth) pickling in brine, and am trying to figure out what to do with the rest. I will probably halve and dehydrate some more, and then? I dunno. Freeze the rest, I guess. Or make some more of my Hab salsa and freeze that. Needless to say, I think I'm stocked up on enough to get me through the winter.