When you can't see anymore

I did not grow up with a lot of baking. My mom did bake some, but mostly I remember the comforting clang of the wok and the bubbling of our rice cooker.

But then I married my Anglo husband and shortly thereafter discovered I was gluten sensitive. And when we moved away from California to Austin, my husband's beloved sourdough bread became harder to find. All of this gave me a lot of motivation to learn to bake.

I started with gluten-free baking to satisfy my occassional cravings for bready type foods--pancakes and muffins and such. Then a few years later, when we moved to Austin, I started learning how to make sourdough bread for N.  As I become more comfortable with the oven, I also started to learn to roast meats and vegetables in the oven. 

Now, 5 years in, I've got my own rhythms down. With meat, I am big on using a probe thermometer. No more guessing about done-ness, just look at the temp. With gluten free baking, I use almond meal with various cheaper flours I can get at Asian stores (rice flour, sticky rice flour, tapioca starch). I weigh my ingredients on a kitchen scale allowing me to scale proportions easily. 
The result of this internalizing is that someone asked for my cobbler recipe and I wrote:

The 'biscuit' topping was 2 parts almond meal, 1 part corn flour, 2 parts milk, 1 part cold butter, baking powder, salt, sugar

Now, that actually works GREAT for me. But it's a pretty horrible recipe for most people and especially this friend.

For my everyday life, it's good and appropriate to develop rhythms and habits so that I'm not having to think about every. single. thing. But the trade off is that it becomes harder to not think in those ways, but it's vitally important to do so for other people.

I am realizing that when I quickly dismiss something as "dumb"--another political view, another way of  parenting, another way of organizing life--I'm using my built in heuristics. My habitual way of thinking and making decisions is preventing me from seeing the other considerations people have. What I fear is that some of my habits of thought are so ingrained that I'm truly blind, unable to even realize I have a blind spot, and thus unable to back up and try again.

My cobbler recipe take II:

Peach cobbler--
FRUIT INNARDS
6 cups peaches, sliced & peeled
1/2 c sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp lemon
1/4 tsp cinnamon
--Over med-low heat, stirring frequently, bring to a boil, after 1 min pour into 9" pie pan or 8" square pan
--pre-heat oven to 400 dgr

BISCUIT TOPPING
6 oz almond meal
3 oz corn flour (the kind used to make tortillas)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
 3 oz (6 tbsp) cold butter 
6 oz milk

--whisk together dry ingredients
--cut or pinch in butter
--add milk and stir together til everything is wet, will be pretty goopy and wet
--scoop lumps over the peach mix (I had about 8-9 lumps)
--for a decorative touch sprinkle with sugar crystals

--bake at 400 dgr for 20 minutes or until brown on top
--serve warm with vanilla ice cream

Seeing differently

I used my recent birthday money to buy a new camera. The stock lens that came with it has a wide field of view (14mm, 28 mm film equivalent). Up until now, my favorite lens has been a zoomed in, portrait lens (85mm, 136mm film equivalent). I love being able to stand across the room and catch the private expressions of my kids doing their thing. I love being able to focus on little nuances. But that's not what a wide angle lens gives you.

With this new camera and lens, in addition to getting beautiful color which is why I got the camera, I'm being forced to see differently. This lens captures the background environment even when I'm inches away from my kids. So I'm finding that this lens is forcing me to tell situated stories, layering what's happening in the foreground with what's in the middle ground and background. Now that I have more than one child, this is become quite useful and more interesting. It's a lens much more suitable for capturing context and interactions.

The dramatic life changes I've experienced these past several years has also forced me to see differently. As excitingly diverse my fields of intellectual interest were in graduate school, my life was extremely contained in specific spaces with specific kinds of people. Now as a new-ish mom, in a new neighborhood, mostly out of academia, I'm encountering a much broader variety of people, something I didn't expect when I moved out to the burbs.

I have relationships across more socio-economic strata and education levels than before; high school graduates with solid middle class incomes, college and post-college educated folk on the poverty line, the more usual college educated, middle to upper-middle class, the blue collar lower-middle class, etc. As I get to know these folk, life gets more complicated and less complicated.

More complicated is how people navigate their worlds: health care, government services and bureaucracy, family and friend obligations and needs. Things I've only read about I now hear about first hand. Less complicated are basic needs and general wisdom. Everyone wants loving, harmonious relationships. Nobody is sheltered from having family issues. Spending more than you have leads to problems. Being healthy is a blessing. Having friends in times of need is critical for physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being.

The academic life for all its goodness can easily be one of myopic theory. Out here in the everyday life, people have substance, and they don't fit in boxes. They are unique individuals, made in the image of and specifically loved by our Creator. While I may one day get to spend more time in academia or more time with my favorite zoom lens, I'm glad to be in this season learning to see in these ways.

New recipes

Been trying stuff in the kitchen and here are two keepers.

HIGH FALUTIN' BREAKFAST TACOS

1 portabello mushroom, diced
1/4 c chopped onions
2 eggs, scrambled
handful fresh basil
4-6 tbsp crumbled feta
4 corn tortillas
salt
pepper

Over medium heat saute mushrooms and onions, salt & pepper to taste. I splashed a tbsp of water in to help things along.
Turn heat to low and pour eggs over, stir and cook to desired done-ness.
Remove from heat.
Heat tortillas (a  griddle is handy for this step). Put about a tbsp of crumbled feta on each tortilla. When feta is soften put a 4th of the egg mix on each tortilla, a few basil leaves, and serve.

~ I actually had this for lunch, but I really enjoyed my fancy pants breakfast tacos.

BREAKFAST CUSTARD

8" square or circular pan. Pie dish might work.
3 c. rolled oats
1/3 - 1 c. brown sugar
1 c. add-ons (dried or fresh fruit, chopped nuts, or both)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs beaten
1 c. milk
1/4 c. oil

Mix dried ingredients in pan. In separate bowl, beat eggs, stir in milk and oil. Pour into pan and mix thoroughly.
Place into COLD oven. Bake at 300. In my oven, it took 35 minutes for it to be firm on the outside and jiggly toward the middle. Start checking around 20-25 minutes. Cook time will vary oven to oven.

~A lot of variation can be introduced into this recipe in terms of spices and add-ons. But the ratio of 2 eggs to 1 cup of milk is important. Also starting with a cold oven is important. The idea is to slowly cook the eggs at a low temperature. A water bath is normally used for custard, but I don't want to deal with the extra step and gear.

Give me Jesus

So in the world of the elite, the big kerfluffle has been that a high powered woman has written a long article entitled Why Women Still Can't Have It All. By all, she means a prestigious work position and a satisfying family life. This kicked off a lot of discussion all over and some of it is collected here. I really liked my friend's personal response. She reflects on her own personal experiences and begins her final paragraph with this sentence, "Jesus never said we could have it all."

That crystallized my thinking on the matter. Not only did Jesus never say we could have it all, he said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up the cross daily and follow me. (The good news according to Luke, chpt 9)”

I just read a novel set in World War I. It presented many leaders as selfish and incompetent causing many of their followers to suffer and die needlessly. Eventually, some simply stopped following. Jesus is the antithesis of these leaders, selfless and masterful.

Following, by definition, involves giving up some control because someone else is leading. Jesus doesn't gloss over this. He baldly told his hangers on, "Hey, if you decided to hitch on to my wagon train, you're going to have to give up what you want and you're going to take on a tortured death symbol (the cross)."

What separates Jesus from every other leader is that he is the rightful leader--as creator of the universe--and the good leader--as a loving omnipotent father.

So "How can I have it all?" or even "How can I have as much as possible?" is really the wrong question. The better question is, "Where does Jesus want me?" The best place we can be is wherever Jesus is taking us.

As an aside, that was my consolation when I was living overseas and got into a bus that had just slid a 100 yds on ice to a stop at my bus stop. I figured that if God had brought me there, he knew about crazy buses and ice and that I'd need them to get  to my work, and he'd take care of things from there.

So yes, I have been grieving many of the professional changes that motherhood has brought on, but I have not regretted the changes. For me, that's been part of denying myself, taking up my cross, and following Jesus. I read about a doctor mom who left her 9 month-old stateside to spend time setting up a clinic overseas. That kind of self-denial, cross-bearing, and following is something I hope I would never have to face. But she did it, she bore those costs trusting in the Jesus she was following.

In the end, perhaps what we may realize is that we have the most profound richness in life when we are most deeply entrenched in Jesus-life. And isn't that what we really want, to live rich, meaningful lives?

A college friend introduced me to Fernando Ortega's song, Give me Jesus. It's repetitive, but the meditation and plea is the substantive rebuttal to "How can I have it all?"

In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus

Chorus:
Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus

When I am alone
When I am alone
When I am alone, give me Jesus

[Chorus]

When I come to die
When I come to die
When I come to die, give me Jesus