Debi Simons
Life Lessons from a Chef
Are you a fan of the PBS TV show “A Chef’s Life“? Lots of people are. The star of the series is Vivian Howard, a young woman who is immensely talented in the kitchen but who is also immensely talented in front of the camera. (That’s not actually a picture of her. I’m very wary of posting pictures of celebrities without permission.) I’m sure that part of her popularity comes from her willingness to be filmed in the midst of various crises, where she often does not maintain her cool. She also often says something that I say: “What was I thinking?” She’ll come up with a menu for some big event and then realize that she has put herself and her long-suffering staff on the spot, trying to make and plate some menu item that is completely impractical given the situation. It all seems completely genuine and unstaged, and I believe that it is. I am typically very sympathetic to the fixes she lands herself in, and she doesn’t have the option that I have of deciding at some point to cut an item or two. If it’s on the menu or the program, she has to do it, no matter what.
Don’t Make Relationships in Your Own Image
“My 19th wedding anniversary is coming up soon. I can hardly wait! Aundrea and I are going to go out for spicy Cajun food, and then we’re going to drive down the road with country music blasting, and then we’ll park somewhere secluded and I’ll snuggle up next to her and tell her how much I love her blonde hair and blue eyes.”
Don’t Make Food into an Idol or an Addiction
I just finished lunch a little while ago. a totally scrumptious bowlful of lentil-and-vegetable-and sausage salad with my homemade creamy Italian dressing. I enjoyed every bite. And now, if I’m wise, I’ll consider myself to be off the eating bandwagon until dinner, at which time there will be another good meal, perhaps some spinach lasagna with whole-wheat pasta. Or we might go out, it being Friday night and all.
Is It Sinful to Be Unhappy?
Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, rev. ed., by John Piper, Multnomah Press, 2011. Available in other formats and earlier editions.
We were privileged to attend Capitol Hill Baptist Church in downtown Washington D.C. for the first decade of the new millennium. At some point early on in our time there the phrase “Christian hedonist” was booted about, as was the name of John Piper. I’d never heard of either. Then we had Piper as the preacher for a Sunday morning service; all I remember personally from that sermon is that he was so soft-spoken I could hardly hear him. Bookmarks with Piper’s ideas on “How Shall We Fight for Joy?” were passed out. To someone from my background this whole emphasis on Christians’ being happy was kind of weird. (I hadn’t read The Happiness Project yet, since it wasn’t yet on the scene, so I wasn’t thinking in that ballpark at all, in any context.
True Desire Leads to Action
You know what got me started on this whole blogging thing? My son’s cancer experience. I knew there were lots of people who wanted to keep up with developments, and I found it very therapeutic to write it all down. So I went ahead and did it. This website had been up for months, but I hadn’t felt compelled to do much with it because I had no true focus, no true desire, just a vague idea that I needed to publicize my book. Suddenly, though, I had a real story to tell. Once I got started I realized how desirable it was to write these entries. And I kept going. To this very day.
The World’s Best Waffles
I say on the sidebar to this blog that I’m concentrating on “company” food, not on what I made for dinner Tuesday night. It’s not really cheating for me to include this recipe, since I have made it for an overnight guest–once. These waffles have been a Saturday breakfast staple at our house for almost 20 years, as I can remember making them when Gideon was a baby. (I probably got started making them because we were given a waffle iron as a wedding present. Thanks, Steve and Evelyn! That waffle iron lasted a long, long time.) Over those same 20 years I’ve made various changes of my own, so I now feel comfortable posting the recipe. The original is from a cookbook I’ve mentioned before, Beat That! Cookbook by the inimitable Ann Hodgman. You know a cookbook is good when the pages are splattered and covered with notations. That’s certainly true for my copy of this one. Ann titled this recipe “The Only Waffles Better Than That Damn Mix” (her language, not mine!). The mix she’s referring to is Pepperidge Farm’s Homestyle Pancake and Waffle Mix, which I’ve never seen on a grocery store shelf. But then, I don’t buy mixes. (Hoity-toity, aren’t I?) I do make these using freshly-ground flour from my grain mill, but don’t let that scare you off. I think they’d be very good (just not as good) made with store-bought white whole-wheat flour. You can mix up the dry and the wet ingredients the night before. I’ve tried mixing up the batter completely the night before and putting it in the fridge, but I’ve decided that it’s not as good that way.
Whom Do You Love the Most?
More great material from our trip last week. We visited a wonderful church in Kansas City, Mission Road Bible Church, and heard a thought-provoking sermon on the parable of the good Samaritan, or, as the speaker (a young man named Adam Bueltel who seemed wise beyond his years) called it, “The Lost Parable.”A First-Person Account of a Dreadful Disease
Cheating Destiny: Living with Diabetes, America’s Biggest Epidemic by James S. Hirsch, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
I had been reminded of this book when I got some rather unsettling news about my blood sugar back at the beginning of this year, but I couldn’t remember the title and my Google searches under “diabetes memoir” were unsuccessful. As I’ve been consciously monitoring my blood sugar levels over the past few weeks I’ve been reminded of it again, and for some reason this time I was able to track it down. Hirsch is a journalist and author. He is also a type 1 diabetic and already had been planning to write a book about the disease when his 3-year-old son was diagnosed with the same condition. (Or disease. There’s some controversy as to what label diabetes should have.)
Fear More, Worry Less
The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker, Dell Trade Paperback, 1999, also available in other formats. I’m not sure why I was reminded of this book and put it on hold at the library. I had read it before and remembered portions of it quite well, but it was well worth re-reading. De Becker runs a security firm, providing services and counseling to people who feel and/or indeed are under threat. He himself grew up in an extremely violent home, but instead of becoming violent himself he decided to help reduce violence by giving people the tools they need to protect themselves.