crack the plates

Snowed/iced in to my little Atlanta apartment for the past three days, I took the opportunity to look back over the past year and write a 2010 retrospective. I’m hoping that penning this now might help in future reflection, as I consider where I’ve been and where I might be headed. I could have easily kept this entry private, but 2010 couldn’t have happened without the aid & inspiration of others – from January’s free sale to November’s benefit dinner and beyond. Thank you, friends — I hope you find yourself here. Peace & love!

January

• Started my final semester of graduate school and thesis-writing!
• Considering how I might embody the counter-cultural, anti-materialistic message of Jesus in one of the most insanely commercial times of the year, I hosted a free sale at my house… and provided suggestions for yours!
• More community-building: hosted the Super Happy Dev Night with Nate!
• Moderated a discussion of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders on the topic “Sacred Sexuality: What do religious texts really say about sex & sexuality?” as part of the Religious Emphasis Week at Earlham College
• Did a lot of organizing, awareness- and fund-raising for Haiti relief, with an emphasis on groups that would be around for community-building after the dust settled (Life & Hope Haiti particularly)

February

• Hosted a free sale at Amigos, advocating giving directly for building community
• Fell in love with RuPaul’s Drag Race – hosted weekly viewing parties
• Began the Lenten journey with Global Women’s Project’s Calendar and Amy Ritchie’s “Thirsting for God”
• Celebrated one year with cat Unix
• Attended IFYC’s Stranger to Neighbor training at Earlham College
• Was inspired by Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s talk on astrophysics and poetry

March

• My birthday! Had a great dinner with Anna Lisa & Seth on the 10^th and a Wonka-themed party the weekend after
• Was super proud of my little brother for organizing protests around GA budget cuts targetting education
• Happy memory: One day, while working at the church, I noticed three young boys (mid-elementary) circling the Peace Pole outside of the entryway. I went out, explained the meaning, and pointed out how people of every language wish for peace. The best part was when I quizzed them on the languages (after explaining what they are & where they’re spoken, of course!) and one boy referred to Arabic as “Iraqic!” We straightened it out and he seemed very happy with his new knowledge of that gorgeous lettering. When the elderly crossing guard came over, she said “I’d always wondered about that thing! Tell me about it, too!” And, of course, I did. She patted the boy on the back and said “We learned something, didn’t we?!”
• Supported my mom as she started her new gig as accompanist at Aragon United Methodist Church!
• Attended my first Passover Seder at Earlham College, hosted by friend & Rabbinic intern Aaron! I didn’t find the afikomen but I did throw open the door for Elijah!

April

• I hosted two interfaith dinners to test instructions offered in my Master’s thesis. Building upon an understanding that interfaith dialogue is about relationship-building, I provided theoretical and practical reasons, as well as clear directions, for bringing young adults of differing faiths together around food. The dinners – on April 13 and 23 – offered an opportunity to test my guidelines! They were extraordinarily well-received by the Earlham community: the second event, a middle-eastern themed picnic, had over 75 attendees!
• Presented my thesis to the seminary community at Earlham School of Religion’s Common Meal
• Took a break from thesis-writing to go see xiu xiu at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit
• Made seitan (that vegan staple) for the first time with Seth
• Defended my thesis on the 26^th – small crowd, but it was a great success!

May

• Submitted my thesis for approval! By the numbers: 150 pages; 43,495 words; 36,414 words in the body text; 20 words in the title; 2 inches – thickness in 100% cotton paper; 265 footnotes; 70 entries in the works cited section; 67 respondents to interfaith dinner questionnaire, results displayed in the appendix…
• Graduated from Earlham School of Religion on an unseasonably cold day!
• Happily moved from NW I Street to the sunny, if dilapidated, College Ave apartment
• Dumpstered at Earlham post-graduation and student move-out: recovered two car-loads worth of stuff for Goodwill and local charity. Discovered that students put actual trash, recyclables, and perfectly good items in the same trash bags. Opened dozens, sorting out the recyclables, removing what could be donated, and re-tying the actual trash. Full bottles of cleaning products, shampoos and conditioner, unused notebooks, a $22 SIGG water bottle, skullcandy headphones, multiple rugs, lamps, a pair of unopened contacts, several comforters, shelf-stable canned goods, unworn pairs of $100+ shoes … just a few of the treasures found.
• Helped worship-lead an incredible service at Richmond Church of the Brethren with Bob Hunter and Matt McKimmy – “Celebrating the Music of the African-American church” – ALL God’s children got shoes!
• Said goodbye to lots of friends as they left for new adventures – Seth & Jenny in Chicago, Jenna & Peter in Scotland, Benji, back to California, and all the other grads…

June

• Travelled to California for the first time – 2010 vacation!
• Ran into my interfaith hero Eboo Patel at Stanford!
• Served as a panelist at Richmond Church of the Brethren’s Faith and Food Panel Discussion

July

• Sustained my first accident as a bike commuter – a transfer truck ran me off the side of the road while on my way to work at the church! If I recall correctly, July was a month of bad/weird Thursday mornings…
• Went to see Jujubee in Columbus, Ohio with Nate and Michael!
• Visited Jina in Ann Arbor; went to see Lightning Bolt with Wolf Eyes at the MOCAD
• Served as a delegate to the South/Central Indiana District yearly meeting of the Church of the Brethren

August

• Moved into the most beautiful house in Richmond, 447 College (no offence, other Richmond houses :))
• Hosted a Perseid meteor shower party
• Briefly got really into making Perler crafts – hope to pick this up again soon!
• Focused on raising awareness and money for Pakistan flooding (at final count, a little over $200 one Sunday with a home-made bulletin board and short presentation before worship at RCoB) – the larger Church of the Brethren did well, too!
• Cooked a lot of yummy vegan food for Nate’s sister & brother-in-law, when they visited from New York
• Started volunteering at Earlham’s Office of Religious Life – first task, building Lady Gaga eyewear for the Director of Religious Life (a skit!)

September

• Successfully trained to drive a 12-passenger van at Earlham College!
• Inspired by my friend Tim Brauhn and his blog practicalraw.com, I bought a fancy-schmancy blender and an Ani Phyo cookbook and started doing more raw foods! (A little late in the season for Indiana, I know…)
• Participated in a moving interfaith vigil (in response to the Qu’ran burning controversy) – “Holding Our Holy Texts in the Light”
• Presented at Peace Forum, “From the Full Plate to the Wide World”
• Went to hear my dear friend Aaron give the Rosh Hashanah sermon at Temple Israel – Dayton !
• Attended Rosh Hashanah, Kol Nidre, and Yom Kippur services for the first time; drove Earlham students to these services
• Attended Eid services for the first time at the Islamic Society of North America in Plainfield, Indiana – drove students to this service, too!
• Helped build a sukkah for sukkot, the happy Jewish harvest festival!
• Volunteered and attended services for the International Day of Prayer for Peace in Richmond
• Because I went to a school that officially issued credit/no credit instead of letter grades, I had to petition my professors to convert their narrative evaluations of my work into letter grades. This takes some time. I was thrilled to finally learn that I made a 3.92 GPA in graduate school overall, and a 4.00 in my concentration! The A’s in Greek surprised me more than anything else…
• My cat Unix escaped and returned hours later covered in poison ivy, which she bestowed upon me – thus commencing my second-worst poison ivy attack

October

• Went to hear xiu xiu and deerhoof in Bloomington
• Went to hear xiu xiu and deerhoof in Columbus
• Helped friends Aaron and Mel move to Ithaca! :-(
• Started the second season of “Spiritual Snapshots”, a story-telling class I started with the help of Matt McKimmy at Richmond Church of the Brethren! Inspired by an Sunday class gathering at Atlanta Friends Meeting, I proposed we gather as a community before worship to hear stories – “snapshots” – from our journeys of faith. From October – Dec 2009 AND 2010, it provided a way to get to know folks in the congregation better and make new friends.
• Gave a great big Mario-themed birthday blow-out for my sweetie Nate
• Travelled to Chicago for Nate’s MongoDB conference, hung out with Jenny and got thrift plague
• Attended the American Academy of Religion annual conference in Atlanta
• Visited the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan mandir outside of Atlanta!
• Supported Nate as he started the application process with Amazon (which would culminate with an offer in early December)
• Helped spread awareness of the pernicious “vampire power” – when plugged in electronics continue to leach power, even when not in use – with a silly presentation at Richmond Church of the Brethren

November

• Celebrated two years with my darling Nate
• Celebrated a year with baby cat Perl
• Made enough home-made barbeque sauce to feed well over 100 people for Peace Forum’s Thanksgiving meal!
• Went to hear dear friend Aaron’s senior sermon at Hebrew Union in Cincinnati!
• Did all of the cooking for and helped host (with Charlotte-Anne M.) my third interfaith dinner, a benefit for Genesis of the YWCA and the kick-off to Earlham’s IFYC Better Together campaign. We fed over seventy people and raised $401 (not including material donations of food and household items) for Richmond’s only domestic violence outreach resource! Official video here.
• Flew back to Georgia for my brother’s beautiful wedding to Sarah
• Enjoyed a ridiculously delicious vegan Thanksgiving meal with Donnie and other Earlham vegan friends at Teetor House
• Travelled to Chicago to see Jenny and celebrate vegan ThanksLIVING at Chicago Diner

December

• Celebrated Hanukkah with my first kugel, latkes, applesauce, and home-made vegan dill sour crème!
• Trained my replacement at the church
• Enjoyed a great going-away at Richmond Church of the Brethren – so many sweet messages!
• Stayed with Elizabeth and Dustin Hartman and all their animals (cats and raccoons) while we searched for a new home in Atlanta. Super-awesome Elizabeth runs Tails from the Hart, a wildlife rescue outside of Atlanta.
• Squeezed in a trip to New York for Christmas between packing up in Richmond and moving to Atlanta with the gracious help of Nate’s parents!
• Applied for the Faiths Act Fellowship, an extraordinary opportunity funded by Interfaith Youth Core and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation that brings young adult bridge-builders together from all over the world to work on furthering the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

Year-long

• Served as a study buddy mentor in Richmond Community Schools
• Involvement with Earlham Animal Advocates United, from hosting and cooking lots of dinners, co-op meals, Nathan Runkle presentation, helping prepare the debaters, promoting VegPledge, and much more!
• Served as Office Manager at Richmond Church of the Brethren, which included making weekly bulletins, monthly newsletters, the yearly directory, as well as serving as a central point of contact in the church and between the church and Richmond-area aid/outreach organizations.
• Continued to be involved in the campaign to save Richmond’s Human Rights Commission and, once it was cruelly defunded by the Common Council, supported the burgeoning Equality Richmond Group

What a wonderful year! Here’s to 2011!

Sorry I’ve been away so long, my friends. I don’t mean to sound casual, but I can’t honestly express the depth of my regret in a blog post. I’ve missed blogging and I’ve missed you! Let me make it up to you by becoming a regular once more.

So much has happened since last we met here. I graduated with a Master of Arts in religion. I finished my 150-page, 43,000-word master’s thesis entitled “From the full plate to the wide world: engaging young adult development through interfaith hospitality.” It was excellent. I moved to a great new place, a little dilapidated, but full of sunlight and engulfed in verdancy (=much happier cats). I travelled to California (San Jose/Palo Alto/San Francisco) just last week and stayed with some amazing vegans who took me to all the best places. Other things happened too.

I also cooked a lot, though I’m trying to do more with less recently as I save up for whatever’s next. Richmond friends, don’t worry–no big ideas or plans yet, just dreams. Last night I made tempeh and sweet peas with broccoli in an authentic sweet Chinese bean sauce. It was, as Mr. Fox would say, superb. Look for pictures later. And of California…oh, oh, so many of those.

Be well!

I let nearly a month go by without blogging? How dumb. It’s not like I haven’t been cooking and eating… I have. (I was really sick for over a week–like, couldn’t-get-out-of-bed-for-four-straight-days sick)–& have had a lot going on thesis-wise. The good news is that with only 33 days to go til the darn thing is printed on specialty paper & bound, I’m in great shape.) So I’ll be using this week to get caught up on some of my recent kitchen adventures. When I’m not thesisizing, philosophizing, rubbing my cat’s belly or watching the queens duke it out on RuPaul’s Drag Race (an OBSESSION), you’ll find me here. So check back!

Post-illness, I itched to get back into the kitchen & prepare something more complicated than canned soup. So yesterday I cleaned out the veggie drawers of four bunches of organic golden beets, chopped up a cabbage & steamed it a la mama, whisked up some low-fat tofu & no-fat gravy, and partnered it all with an organic baked potato (and MORE GRAVY). Divine!

The beets were simply tossed in two tablespoons of olive oil, primo cinnamon & garam masala and then roasted in the oven for 40minutes at 400 (cover with foil for the first 25, remove for the last 15) . My new favorite way!

Today’s was even better. I wanted to do something with the bag of Dixie Diner no-chicken breasts I bought last summer with our annual TVP order & only just rediscovered a couple weeks before the expiration date. Lucky! I thought I’d just do something simple, like boil, sautee, and pair with last night’s leftover gravy, but I was soon taken by more exciting possibilities. Basically I thought, hell, I’ve got the resources, time, & enthusiasm–why not just go all the way & make a vegan chick’n parmigiana for the first time? And so I did. Here’s a shot of Nate’s plate:

In hindsight, this was actually kind of a lot of work…but in the moment, it didn’t seem like a big deal at all. First, simmer the chops in chick’n flavored veggie broth for 25 minutes. Then, make a seasoned breadcrumb mix (breadcrumbs + cracked black pepper + powdered garlic + nutritional yeast) and dredge the cooked “breasts”. Spritz with Bragg’s and bake in a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes.

baked cutlets: your non-vegan momma would never know the difference.

cutlets and sauce

Meanwhile, heat up tomato sauce (I cheated & used Kroger’s organic Italian herb, snagged on manager’s special for .99/jar) and make the Cheezy sauce. I use “The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook” recipe with some changes:

1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes + 1/2 cup flour + tsp salt + 1/2 tsp garlic powder + 2 cups water + 1/4 cup margarine + 1tsp wet mustard (I used dijon)

Whisk the dry ingredients in a big bowl and then dump in your large (10-12”) skillet; whisk; whisk in water. Cook over med-ish heat, whisking constantly, til it starts to feel thick and bubble slightly. Cook at this state for under a minute; remove from heat, whip in margarine and mustard. Whisk thoroughly. The Farm recipe adds that it will thicken as it cools.

Nate is absolutely ga-ga over this cheeze; I think it’s pretty good (and certainly went well in this recipe) but, to be honest, it is not my favorite thing in the world. So it depends!

I prefer skinny noodles to shaped pasta:

The end!

Hello friends and foes, les liaisons dangereuses y amigos!

I had hoped to give you an update before the 6th of this month, but I’ve been dutifully working on my thesis before tomorrow’s first meeting with my advisor in the new year. Blessed with a quiet home, good tea and coffee, and bountiful blankets for snuggling, I’ve been able to get a lot done. Today I hope to read many more articles, finish a book (or two) and, of course, write write write! But first, a cheery update re: what I’ve been up to lately.

As this post’s title suggests, my chief kitchen (my chef chef?) concern in 2010 (at least the early part) is finding a way to provide fast, delicious, healthy, vegan meals for myself and Nate …on a budget. Last year my strategy toward eating well & saving money was to to cook exclusively from fresh, raw ingredients–from scratch–all of the time. I was so committed to saving money on the grocery bill that I regarded even a can of beans a luxury and insisted on preparing my own from dry in the crock pot.

While using raw ingredients (including dry beans) definitely saved me money at market, I, like many women, was missing something huge: I wasn’t counting the cost of my time in the kitchen. A good 2-3 hours start to finish every night has a cost–a time expenditure, yes, but also a cost on one’s mental, physical, & spiritual energy. I was so caught up in a routine & way of thinking such that even if I had been at work, school, and volunteering all day, I would still come home, running on empty, and prepare a big lush meal that I barely had the energy to enjoy once I’d finished. While I might have been saving money in the grocery store, I probably expended way more in crucial non-cash resources.

So I’m doing something different this year. I’ll still try to delight you with my elaborate creations on a regular basis, but they’ll be more likely to feature a canned or frozen or prepared ingredient. I’ll still focus on organic, fair-trade ingredients, but will now have to navigate my desire for something prepared/more easily accessible with my desire to avoid a lot of excess packaging.  Of course, if you have any ideas towards these ends–especially recipes–please send them my way!

Here’s one of my early examples in 2010: spicy chick’n pizza. Ingredients: one store-brand organic pizza crust, one jar of non-GMO pizza sauce, chopped shallots, chopped onions, chopped garlic, frozen organic spinach, chopped organic mushrooms, and two Boca brand vegan spicy chick’n patties, chopped. Assemble (15 min), bake for 10 minutes (while reading an article), let sit for 5, voilà!

Cost: $5.59. About the same price as an Amy’s Kitchen organic frozen pizza, only double the size. About half the cost of a commercial delivered pizza, but way more nutritious and delicious (and organic), taking no more time than you would if you drove to pick up your pizza or waited for them to come to you. Win!

Further win, in the Italian theme: our cat Unix as stromboli (paradoxically, wrapped in an American flag throw)! She’s been doing a lot of burrowing lately.

Greetings from Pleasant Valley, New York! I’m here visiting my partner’s family in a little town about 15 minutes from Poughkeepsie. I regret the fact that I haven’t updated in well over a month. (Specific apologies to specific questioners–Lizzy, Sarah & Aden, Andrea, and best of all, Erin, who apparently read my entire blog one bored day.) First the flu got me, then finals, and so on and so forth and well, you know how the story goes. I’d love to say that I’m going to be back at it regularly henceforth but the truth is, I’m just not so sure. The first completed draft of my MA thesis (long time comin’) is due March 1. Since breakfast ended today I’ve been brainstorming and outlining, drawing hieroglyphs in a little notebook and ruing the number of weeks I have to finish a 100-page paper. Thankfully, I finally have some delicious inspiration…but more on that another time.

I’m happy to report that I’ve been eating well–folks have been remarkably understanding and accommodating this season. Thanksgiving was easy in Richmond and Georgia. At church, I pressed the Ministry Team to consider providing a vegan entree for all our vegetarians and vegans, as the church is in the habit of providing a turkey. They were delightfully responsive and enthusiastic; come Thanksgiving potluck, we veg*s had three Tofurkeys and marinated tofu and walnuts as main courses. (Relatedly, I’m happy to report that Richmond Church of the Brethren will soon have a write-up on the popular All-Creatures.org site, which is associated with the Christian Vegetarian [where Vegetarian means Vegan] Association, CVA. Awesome! I’ll post a link with the write-up once it goes live.)

In Georgia, Nate & I had Thanksgiving lunch with my grandmother, called Nanny. She’s not quite 80, but I’ve worried for years that she didn’t quite “get” the “whole vegetarian thing.” The morning before our lunch, Nate & I worried aloud to my parents–would she assume Nate isn’t vegetarian, and serve a Thanksgiving ham? Would she make her beans with hamhocks? Might we discover three casseroles, contents indiscernable on account of a thick topping of bright orange cheese-stuff? And yet, upon our arrival, we found a vegan feast fit for Southern royalty. Funny how folks’ll surprise you sometimes, eh? Note: prayer/sending good energy works.

Christmas in New York and Nate’s mom is so thoughtful. She called a week in advance to ask questions about what to buy and had soymilk, organic cereal, good tea, organic chocolate, fruit, and Imagine organic soups and broth waiting on us. For Christmas eve dinner she prepared two Tofurkey roasts with roasted carrots and potatoes, steamed vegetables, and even made the traditional pumpkin pie with soymilk. Best of all, apart from a minor comment from dad about non-existent preservatives in the Tofurkey, no one questioned–or should I say, challenged–our choice to be veg. This is doubly fortunate, as one of the most common experiences for vegetarians at holiday dinners seems to be The Challenge: someone from the family, no doubt insecure about his/her own choices, puffs up and starts demanding answers about why we do the way we do…and no amount of polite re-directing will help.  Of course, this makes us feel positively awful and unloved…you know, all those feelings totally inappropriate for family gatherings. Happy to say there hasn’t been a moment of discomfort with this delightfully hospitable family.

With that, I’ll get back to outlining my thesis. Peace, loves!