Bread & Wine

I am finally back to the rhythm of reading. Simultaneously I'm out of sync in writing my musings on these books. So let me begin to reconcile that lapse.

One of my favorite memories from our time at Open Door was when we joined another couple in the church and decided to invite the entire church to dinner. Well, not at the same time, but monthly over the course of several years. We did just that.

Every month we invited four people to our houses (we alternated hosting every other month) so that we had eight around the table. The host did the drinks, appetizers and main dish. The other couple brought the sides and dessert. My partner in hospitality just happened to have the gift of hospitality. She made it so easy to entertain. (The guys were great too.)

It was crazy fun. We invited our guests, month after month, to tell us their stories - their family of origin, how they got to Denver and Open Door, how they met their spouse, and all about their children. It was amazing.

And that is precisely the point of Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist (daughter of Bill Hybel).

"It's not, actually, strictly, about food for me. It's about what happens when we come together, slow down, open our homes, look into one another's faces, listen to one another's stories." Yep, exactly!

"It happens when we enter the joy and the sorrow of the people we love, and we join together at the table to feed one another and be fed, and while it's not strictly about food, it doesn't happen without it. Food is the starting point, the common ground, the thing to hold and handle, the currency we offer to one another."

"Food is the language of care, the thing we do when traditional language fails us, when we don't know what to say, when there are no words to say. And food is what we offer in celebration...."

And, of course, there are the recipes. Twenty-nine of them. Recipes like blueberry crisp, mango chicken curry, bacon wrapped dates, magical white bean soup, dark chocolate sea salted toffee and maple balsamic pork tenderloin.

Shauna got me all ready to start entertaining again. Being part of a dinner party every month was an amazing joy. And I miss it. Bread & Wine just reminded me of the incredible joy of family, friends and neighbors around the table.

My Cooking Frenzy

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not one for cooking. It's not that I don't know how, or that I don't enjoy it, because I do. It's just that for years I have not felt I had time. Really I think it was that I simply didn't prioritize it. It provided me so little pleasure and seemed like just another "wife" to do. That is until the past couple weeks.

In recent blog post, I quoted from  that I am reading and working through the study book of The 7 Experiment: Staging Your Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker. I'm pretty much not engaging in the level of denial or fasting that Jen engaged in. I think it's safe to say that I'm allowing her words to challenge me; to cause me to really think deeply about the areas of food, clothes, spending, media, possessions, waste, and stress.

As a result I've got an unusual reading list going: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifest and Food Rules: An Eater's Manifesto both by Michael Pollan. Then I checked out Food Inc. from the library. I read a great article in the newspaper this weekend on savoring what you eat and a link to another book I may be reading: Mindful Eating. 

And I started cooking again. With the ingredients I had in my kitchen. To avoid waste and in gratitude for the amazing array of food we in America are so blessed with. My refrigerator and freezer are jammed full. I haven't a clue what's in there actually. 

So I started to bake. I had blueberries and peaches. So first about two weeks ago I made these amazing blueberry maple muffins that Todd and I have been feasting on for breakfast. 

And then I saw our flat of white peaches from Costco sitting invitingly on the counter. While we were devouring them, we wouldn't get through them all before they went bad. So peach cobbler was on the menu, and it was also amazing. In fact I made this recipe on the day we got some very disappointing news. So peach cobbler became dinner. 

Then today I spied the final three peaches in the flat. They were just past good. So, Sweet Peach Muffins with Brown Sugar-Walnut Streusel Topping were baked. But I still had 1 1/2 peaches left. So, next up was Peach Jam (refrigerator style). Oh so easy, and tastes great.

While I was digging in the refrigerator for sour cream and eggs for the muffins, I noticed two brown bananas. And since I already had all the baking ingredients out - yep, the bananas were pulled for some bread. Not just normal banana bread but rather Rum Banana Bread with the leftover Brown Sugar-Walnut Streusel Topping.

Todd is cleaning up the kitchen. I love him (every wife needs a husband who clears up the kitchen when she's done making a disaster of things). This morning I watched four episodes of The Pioneer Woman while writing a corporate blog post on the difference between focus groups and instant research communities. Apparently I am getting in touch with my domestic side.