Full Belly Project - our friend Jock has designed a simple, cheap, efficient peanut sheller. It won an MIT award last year. And is being brought to African and South American villages. And they had a fund raiser dinner on Friday night to which Paul and I went. This was the fifth annual one they've done. It was hugely successful, attended by about 300 people. It was very professionally organized by the mother of our friend Gwenyfar, and was a lovely evening. This was all in Wilmington, out on the NC coast, and so we made a weekend of it. Paul worked in the workshop with Jock (the designer) on Saturday morning. I went to look at bookstores with G. who is a bibliophile and great fun to be with. And all three days we went out on our bikes which we had thrown on the back of the station wagon.
We have been listening to audiobooks when we do road trips. This last weekend we started Zora Neale Thurston's "Their eyes were Watching God" read by Ruby Dee. It is simply amazing. And so compelling that we brought it inside when we came home last night, and just lay on the sofa and listened to it.
I made absolutely delicious Indian lamb patties last week. The recipe came from the Weight Watchers website. Here it is. They were great hot, and also cold for lunch the next day. I did not have yogurt, so used sour cream. And I forgot the tomatoes and I didn't have cilantro. And it was still good!
*Spiced Indian Lamb Patties with Peas and Tomato *
*(Keema Matar)** *
* 1 1/4 pound lamb, ground
* 2 tsp Garam masala
* 2 tsp ground coriander
* 1 tsp ground cumin
* 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 2 medium plum tomato(es), seeded and diced (1/4”)
* 1 cup frozen green peas, petite variety
* 3/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt
* 2 Tbsp cilantro, fresh, chopped
* 1 tsp lemon zest
* 1 medium lemon(s), cut into 4 wedges for serving
* Mix all ingredients together, except lemon wedges, in a large
bowl, with your hands or a wooden spoon, until thoroughly mixed.
Form twelve 2 1/2- to 3-inch patties; place on prepared baking sheet.
* Preheat grill or broiler to high. Cook patties on grill rack or
broiler pan, gently turning once, about 4 to 5 minutes per side.
Yields 3 patties per serving.
...from a poem by my husband
Monday, February 26, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
The weather man says it's going to get warmer this week - could this possibly be the start of spring? In North Carolina, yes. And we're ready! The garden is in a state of readiness for the first seedlings which will hopefully go in at the beginning of March. Nataw and I shovelled shit yesterday afternoon - our next door neighbors have bulls, and so we brought wheelbarrow loads over to make a pile for spreading later on. Paul mended fences while we did that.
Our 4 chickens have doubled their egg production this week - we now get two most days, instead of the one that they've been giving us all winter. We've learned that they taper off during the darker months. Who knew?
We had a visiting lecturer at Meredith this week - Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza - from Harvard Divinity School - when I looked her up on the net, I found a description of her as "a feminist theologian's feminist theologian" in the same way that you talk about a doctor's doctor. Her hermeneutics (did you know the etymology of that is hermes - i.e. the messenger - so hermeneutics are about the message, the interpretation) are solidly feminist. Her topic was "Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire" and her argument was that, if the New Testament (she called it the Christian Testament) was written in the time of the Roman Empire, then colonialism and unequal power structures inform the rhetoric. I hadn't thought of it in that way. Her book on the same subject comes out in June and I'll get it.
Oh, and the most striking thing she said was this: She had been talking for about 10 minutes and said "women" did something or other. She looked up and said "Oh, by the way, I mean that inclusively." After all, she said, women includes men, female includes male, she includes he - and only in the English language is that true. And so, during the whole lecture, she used the word "women" when she meant "women", but also when she meant "women and men." It really sounded so different. I think I could get used to it!
Paul and I watched "Seven Days in May" this weekend - a movie (1964) with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner and Frederick March and Kurt Douglas. About a planned military coup (fictitious) in the US at the time of the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We thought it was very good.
Friday dinner, we had Margarita (a colleague from Meredith) and her husband David and a student of mine, Piper, who returned to get her bachelors degree when she ran into a brick wall in the field of, I think she said, waste water treatment. She wants to work with Engineers without Borders. We plan to have each of my students to Shabbat dinner during the semester. And Ian, Paul's son, came too. Oh, and Pat and Susan - the marvelous plumber women I've worked with the last 2 summers, and who have become very dear friends. It is so much fun putting together people who don't know each other, and watching them enjoy each other.
We had a mouse visitor last week - she/he left a little trail of droppings through most of our kitchen drawers. Yuck. So we opened all the drawers and cupboards for a couple of days and shut the cat in the kitchen at night. She's usually a very good mouser, and certainly knew this one was here - she would lie for hours with her beady eye on a spot she couldn't reach her paw into! But she failed this time. So Paul set a trap (humane of course) that lures the mouse and locks the door. The mouse came and then we set it free a few miles from here. Very sweet.
Our 4 chickens have doubled their egg production this week - we now get two most days, instead of the one that they've been giving us all winter. We've learned that they taper off during the darker months. Who knew?
We had a visiting lecturer at Meredith this week - Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza - from Harvard Divinity School - when I looked her up on the net, I found a description of her as "a feminist theologian's feminist theologian" in the same way that you talk about a doctor's doctor. Her hermeneutics (did you know the etymology of that is hermes - i.e. the messenger - so hermeneutics are about the message, the interpretation) are solidly feminist. Her topic was "Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire" and her argument was that, if the New Testament (she called it the Christian Testament) was written in the time of the Roman Empire, then colonialism and unequal power structures inform the rhetoric. I hadn't thought of it in that way. Her book on the same subject comes out in June and I'll get it.
Oh, and the most striking thing she said was this: She had been talking for about 10 minutes and said "women" did something or other. She looked up and said "Oh, by the way, I mean that inclusively." After all, she said, women includes men, female includes male, she includes he - and only in the English language is that true. And so, during the whole lecture, she used the word "women" when she meant "women", but also when she meant "women and men." It really sounded so different. I think I could get used to it!
Paul and I watched "Seven Days in May" this weekend - a movie (1964) with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner and Frederick March and Kurt Douglas. About a planned military coup (fictitious) in the US at the time of the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We thought it was very good.
Friday dinner, we had Margarita (a colleague from Meredith) and her husband David and a student of mine, Piper, who returned to get her bachelors degree when she ran into a brick wall in the field of, I think she said, waste water treatment. She wants to work with Engineers without Borders. We plan to have each of my students to Shabbat dinner during the semester. And Ian, Paul's son, came too. Oh, and Pat and Susan - the marvelous plumber women I've worked with the last 2 summers, and who have become very dear friends. It is so much fun putting together people who don't know each other, and watching them enjoy each other.
We had a mouse visitor last week - she/he left a little trail of droppings through most of our kitchen drawers. Yuck. So we opened all the drawers and cupboards for a couple of days and shut the cat in the kitchen at night. She's usually a very good mouser, and certainly knew this one was here - she would lie for hours with her beady eye on a spot she couldn't reach her paw into! But she failed this time. So Paul set a trap (humane of course) that lures the mouse and locks the door. The mouse came and then we set it free a few miles from here. Very sweet.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
My aunt, Dolores, sent a reprint about Women in the Bible and the Lectionary. Wow. I'm disturbed (but, I guess, not all together surprised) at the omissions. No Deborah at all? No Ruth or Esther on Sundays? And yes, it's "incredible that the Magnificat...is never proclaimed on a Sunday." I wonder if Hannah's "magnificat" (1 Samuel 2) ever appears? The date of this reprint is 10 years ago. Have they (whoever "they" may be) made any changes? I liked that this writer (Ruth Fox OSB) called the Testaments the "First" and "Second" - I don't think I've ever seen that before.
This week I replied to an email sent by a dear friend in Tasmania (Roslyn) nearly 2 years ago. It's been sitting in my inbox waiting for me to get around to replying. Anyway, I finally did. And she replied. And then we spent an hour on the phone on Wednesday evening. And it was lovely. Hard to believe that we had not spoken in, what, 6 or 7 years! With some people in my life, I have found that you can pick up a conversation after long gaps as if you had only spoken yesterday. Roslyn is one of those friends.
Nataw and I are loving our vegetable gardening class - and learning so much. We have trays of seedlings sprouting on kitchen counters. And we planted carrots and peas directly into the garden this week. And we all (N, Paul, me, and a young high school boy who helps out sometimes) worked outside this afternoon, preparing the ground in the old part of the vegie garden for new plantings, and pulling roots and sticks out of the new part of the garden. What a delight!
Our handicapped guinea, Hawkeye, has taken to being carried out to the garden with us when we work out there. With the gate closed, she is safe from the other birds, and she likes having a bigger space to wander around in. She especially likes making a dirt bath - where she digs out a bowl-shaped space in the dirt, and sort of scrunches down into it, and then uses her wings to throw dust all over herself with gay abandon. I haven't quite figured out how this works, but all the birds seem to enjoy doing it, and somehow become perfectly clean.
There was a big NAACP rally and march in Raleigh yesterday. Paul and Nataw went and report that there were some great speakers and maybe 5,000 people. I did not go, siPublishnce I had already signed up for a fruit tree pruning workshop (which was also great).
School continues to be a pleasure. Paul and I have worked our way through a couple of dozen videos that I found in the Meredith library and I've been showing bits of them in the classes. I lecture with slides that I put together with Powerpoint (are you familiar with this software?) - a mixture of pictures and bullet points that keep me on track, and give the students something to gaze at. And with only 7 students, there is also much discussion. They really are a very lively and responsive bunch!
This week I replied to an email sent by a dear friend in Tasmania (Roslyn) nearly 2 years ago. It's been sitting in my inbox waiting for me to get around to replying. Anyway, I finally did. And she replied. And then we spent an hour on the phone on Wednesday evening. And it was lovely. Hard to believe that we had not spoken in, what, 6 or 7 years! With some people in my life, I have found that you can pick up a conversation after long gaps as if you had only spoken yesterday. Roslyn is one of those friends.
Nataw and I are loving our vegetable gardening class - and learning so much. We have trays of seedlings sprouting on kitchen counters. And we planted carrots and peas directly into the garden this week. And we all (N, Paul, me, and a young high school boy who helps out sometimes) worked outside this afternoon, preparing the ground in the old part of the vegie garden for new plantings, and pulling roots and sticks out of the new part of the garden. What a delight!
Our handicapped guinea, Hawkeye, has taken to being carried out to the garden with us when we work out there. With the gate closed, she is safe from the other birds, and she likes having a bigger space to wander around in. She especially likes making a dirt bath - where she digs out a bowl-shaped space in the dirt, and sort of scrunches down into it, and then uses her wings to throw dust all over herself with gay abandon. I haven't quite figured out how this works, but all the birds seem to enjoy doing it, and somehow become perfectly clean.
There was a big NAACP rally and march in Raleigh yesterday. Paul and Nataw went and report that there were some great speakers and maybe 5,000 people. I did not go, siPublishnce I had already signed up for a fruit tree pruning workshop (which was also great).
School continues to be a pleasure. Paul and I have worked our way through a couple of dozen videos that I found in the Meredith library and I've been showing bits of them in the classes. I lecture with slides that I put together with Powerpoint (are you familiar with this software?) - a mixture of pictures and bullet points that keep me on track, and give the students something to gaze at. And with only 7 students, there is also much discussion. They really are a very lively and responsive bunch!
Saturday, February 03, 2007
It snowed again this week. Thus another snow day. I only teach twice a week, and both times it has snowed have been on days I would teach. I love teaching, but I also love the unexpected bonus of a day at home catching up on things, and also the sense of being ahead of myself in terms of class preparations.
We've been having guests for dinner most Friday nights - because it's Sabbath, I make challah. I'm sure it's one of the reasons my stepchildren love me. We usually have 8-12 people sit down to dinner. And they usually get through two loaves of bread. Quite honestly, it wouldn't matter what else we served, the bread carries the day. Last night, we made baked tilapia that had been marinated in garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. It was delicious. And we had salad made with the lettuce that Nataw and I had picked at the farm we went to this week for our Organic Vegetable Growing class. And fingerling sweet potatoes from the same place. We eat well in this house.
The gardening class is at a community college 30 minutes from here, and taught by a guy who is extremely knowledgeable. We discovered on the first night that our friend Brian is also doing the class. He is an expert in composting - that's his job - and is the one who set us up with our worms - the worms that eat the waste food that the chickens won't eat.
This afternoon, Nataw and Paul and I worked outside, fencing in the expanded vegetable garden - we have added on an area that is about 5 times the size of the garden we had last year! The fence is over 6 feet high - high enough to keep out the deer, and flush to the ground to keep out the rabbits. We ordered 15 different kinds of vegetable seeds this week, and have some seeds starting inside already. And as soon as we get the ground ready, we'll be putting carrots and peas in the new garden. I wonder how I got through 50-odd years without the joy of owning a garden. It is such a big part of our lives now.
We've been having guests for dinner most Friday nights - because it's Sabbath, I make challah. I'm sure it's one of the reasons my stepchildren love me. We usually have 8-12 people sit down to dinner. And they usually get through two loaves of bread. Quite honestly, it wouldn't matter what else we served, the bread carries the day. Last night, we made baked tilapia that had been marinated in garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. It was delicious. And we had salad made with the lettuce that Nataw and I had picked at the farm we went to this week for our Organic Vegetable Growing class. And fingerling sweet potatoes from the same place. We eat well in this house.
The gardening class is at a community college 30 minutes from here, and taught by a guy who is extremely knowledgeable. We discovered on the first night that our friend Brian is also doing the class. He is an expert in composting - that's his job - and is the one who set us up with our worms - the worms that eat the waste food that the chickens won't eat.
This afternoon, Nataw and Paul and I worked outside, fencing in the expanded vegetable garden - we have added on an area that is about 5 times the size of the garden we had last year! The fence is over 6 feet high - high enough to keep out the deer, and flush to the ground to keep out the rabbits. We ordered 15 different kinds of vegetable seeds this week, and have some seeds starting inside already. And as soon as we get the ground ready, we'll be putting carrots and peas in the new garden. I wonder how I got through 50-odd years without the joy of owning a garden. It is such a big part of our lives now.
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