Turkey Time!

(or "Why my husband rejoices that Thanksgiving comes but once a year.")

I have an admission to make.  It is the kind of admission that may make my mom spit out her coffee if she is reading this.

I spent over $100 on my turkey this year.
I know, it seems crazy, doesn't it?

But, as my husband Paul pointed out as we left the grocery store on Sunday afternoon, "It's just once a year."  And, really, it is.  We don't eat a lot of turkey.  And one of the side benefits of eating from a CSA is that we really don't eat very much meat anymore.  And so when we do eat meat, we can afford to spend more on it than we would have when we ate meat for almost every meal.

And the extra money is worth it to me, because as I spend all that time on Thursday preparing, cooking, and feasting on our Turkey, I will be giving thanks.

I'll be giving thanks for the opportunity that our turkey had to live a good life.  How he got to go outside and be a turkey.  How he could stand up on his own because his body wasn't pumped full of hormones that made him grow bigger than he should have been.  How he was lovingly cared for by a family who took pride in him.

And to me, all of that is worth much more than 49 cents a pound!
Happy Thanksgiving!

A Vegan Wedding

This weekend, Paul and I went to a wedding. It was the wedding of my childhood best friend, Catherine.

Catherine has been passionate about food for as long as I can remember.  I'm not sure exactly why she became a vegetarian, but from the very beginning, her vegetarianism was a fight.  A fight with her dad, who always thought it was a bit silly.  But after a while it just became part of who Catherine is.

But then came her wedding.  And it seems like when it comes time for a wedding, sometimes we are pulled away from the things we do in our everyday life and pulled toward doing things the same way that everyone else does them. Catherine, though, is not just anyone.  Catherine is a woman who I very much admire, because she is willing to stick to her convictions, even when it's hard.  And that is why Catherine and Steven had a vegan wedding.

Now, I have to admit that I did use the idea of a "vegan wedding" as a joke a couple of times before we went to Texas.  It got a few chuckles and laughs and quite a few puzzled faces.  But once I was actually in the midst of Catherine and Steven's wedding weekend, I was really very impressed by how their whole celebration, including the food and drink, reflected their values.

It started with their rehearsal dinner, which was hosted by Steven's parents.  Steven grew up in a family that did not drink alcohol as a part of their religious tradition, and for that reason they didn't include alcohol at the rehearsal dinner.  Although this was jarring to some of Catherine's east coast Italian relatives, the rehearsal dinner was lovely, and the alcohol was not missed. We even had toasts just like we would have with the booze.

Then came the wedding.  And the wedding reception food reflected Catherine and Steven in so many ways, beginning with the fact that it was local, sustainable, and vegan. It was also globally-themed with many foods from around the world.

At many points it would have been easier for Catherine and Steven to give in and just do things the way it was expected that they would be done, and yet they stuck to their values.  And for this, I truly admire them.  Their celebration of their new life together truly reflected the way they live their lives, which is a result of how they believe God has called them to live.

(By the way, the food, though vegan, was excellent - much better than most conventional wedding foods)

Book Review: Mama Panya's Pancakes

Mama Panya and her son Adika set out to the market one day.  Mama Panya has a few coins in her pocket and plans to make pancakes for dinner.  Pancakes are Adika's favorite, and he asks Mama how much flour they will buy for the pancakes. "A little bit, and a little bit more," Mama responds. In his excitement, as Mama and Adika travel to and from the market, Adika invites many of their neighbors and friends to dinner, much to Mama Panya's chagrin.

As the story goes on, Mama Panya becomes more and more exasperated with Adika. "Ai yi!" she complains, "How much do you think I can stretch flour, my son?"  Adika responds, "A little bit, and a little bit more."

Mama Panya is worried about the generosity of her son, but when the neighbors and friends begin to arrive for the dinner, they come bearing gifts: fish from the stream, spices from the spice stand, more flour from the flour sellers.  Thus, like the loaves and fishes, a meager offering becomes a banquet for a village.

The beautiful drawings of the African countryside enhance this beautiful story, but the part I like best is this: Mama Panya teaches her son Adika that there will be plenty, and Adika believes Mama.  When Mama begins to get worried about having enough, Adika continues to act in faith, and that faith rings true when their banquet is blessed by the gifts that all the guests bring.

Perhaps the reason I loved this story so much is because my own Mom - a Mama Panya - taught me that God will provide.  And in Mama Panya's "Ai yi!" I could hear my own mom's distress and worry as she, at times, worried whether there would be enough.  And yet there always was.

Pick up Mama Panya's pancakes for a lively story that reminds us that in sharing our blessings, we are blessed to feast together.

Many thanks to Sara Yotter, assistant to the bishop of the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin of the ELCA for introducing me to this book at her workshop, "Nurturing Generous Families" this weekend.

Rich

I've been talking about hunger a lot in my work lately.  It started out a couple weeks ago when I taught a short confirmation elective on "Faith and Hunger."  In the course of the three-hour class, I invited students to reflect together on the issue of hunger both locally and globally.  I was impressed by their interest and their creative responses.

One activity, which I can't help but share with you, was this activity, which I found in the Just Eating Middle School Curriculum from the Presbyterian Hunger Program.  The curriculum suggested doing the activity with bread but, knowing my middle school youth, I chose to do it with dark chocolate m&ms instead.  It's called the "Distribution Exercise" in the curriculum and the basic gist of the activity is this.

When you divide up the world into three groups: high income, middle income, and low income nations, the population breakdown is something like this:

High Income Nations: 15% of population
Middle Income Nations: 25% of population
Low Income Nations: 60% of population

I divided my confirmation group into groups roughly based on the breakdown above.  I had 12 youth, so I assigned 2 youth to be "High Income Nations," 3 youth to be "Middle Income Nations," and 7 youth to be "Low Income Nations."  Each group had a couple of case study cards that they had to read out to the group.  They seemed marginally interested in this, but then the fun began.

I pulled out one of those large bags of m&ms and a food scale.  I handed each group of kids a solo cup and put the food scale on the table.  There was also a calculator, and I did a quick review of how to calculate percentages.  Then the math started.

The kids had to divide up the m&ms based on the global distribution of wealth.  Here's the breakdown that the curriculum suggested:

High Income Nations: 90% of snack.
Medium Income Nations: 8% of snack.
Low Income Nations: 2% of snack.

Well, the first group (2 kids) needed 2 solo cups.  The second group had about a third of a solo cup to share among 3 kids.  The last group had about 1/2 an inch of m&ms in the bottom of a solo cup.  And there were 7 kids in that group.

They were pretty floored.  To be honest, so was I.  I didn't think the first group would need an additional cup.  Just goes to show that even though I thought I realized the inequality of resources in our world, I was still floored to see it in this simple, graphic way.

It really brought home what Rob Bell said in his Nooma video, "Rich" (which we watched to start off the lesson):

"Maybe you have this sense, you look around the world and you have this sense that you don't have that much because you look around and see people who have even more.  But it's a dangerous thing when we start to think that 'our' world is 'the' world."

God has richly blessed me, and my congregation, and my confirmation students.
May we be a blessing to others.

Another CSA Year!

Well this weekend we get our last CSA box of the year.  It's really a miracle that Harmony Valley manages to get us vegetables so late in the year!  These "extended season shares" that we get in December and January are truly amazing.  The boxes weigh a ton and are chock full of delicious (and long-keeping) vegetables like cabbage, onions, garlic, root vegetables (radishes, celariac, parsnips, carrots, beets, and turnips) and of course squashes and sweet potatoes.  As a bonus we also get some dried beans and peppers that will keep for even longer than the hearty vegetables.

As we finish up our first full year of CSA membership, I'll just say a few words about the benefits that Paul and I feel like we get from being a part of Harmony Valley's family:

Health Benefits
Some of you may remember that when we first signed up for the CSA, one of the motivating factors was the realization that our health insurance would reimburse us up to $100 per person for a CSA membership.  When we first signed up for the CSA in 2011, I truly felt like we were ripping GHC off by taking their money for these vegetables.  However, only after a full year of membership do I realize the extent to which Paul and I eat more healthfully than we did before.  We rarely cook meat at home any more, and almost all of our meals are veggie-centric.  We are getting so many more nutrients from this wide variety of vegetables than we got when we simply picked our own vegetables out at the grocery store.

Fun & Adventure
When we go to get our box each time, it's like Christmas for me.  I open the boxes and take out the fruits and vegetables, exclaiming about their beauty, size, color, and more.  Then when we get home, I get to use my problem-solving skills to figure out how to use all of these unique and beautiful veggies.  There are some vegetables that I simply had never eaten in my adult life before our CSA membership: beets, celariac, jerusalem artichokes, fennel, lemongrass, and more. What an adventure!

Even before we were married, I loved to poke fun at Paul for the way he cooked.  To him, a recipe might as well have been etched in stone.  He couldn't depart from a recipe (even a little).  One of the side benefits of our CSA is that both Paul and I have learned to focus on techniques for cooking and have had quite a few recipe-inventing (or tweaking) expeditions.  Most have turned out great.  A few have turned out inedible.

Being Local
The money that we give to Harmony Valley stays in the south-central Wisconsin community.  It enriches schools, institutions, and other local businesses.  It gets paid forward in places that benefit us.  Moreover, the vegetables that we buy from Harmony Valley are in nearby Viroqua, and so we are consuming fewer fossil fuels than we would by eating non locally sourced food.  All of this makes me feel proud of what we're doing.

Accountability
The fact that we know about the people who run our farm, the way they treat their staff and their land, and that we hear from them on a regular basis through newsletters and emails makes me know that I am doing a good thing by supporting them.  For me, the fact that our fruits and vegetables are certified organic isn't a huge deal, but I do like that this knowledge too provides accountability about the farming practices are being used to make our food.

There are probably even more things that I'm forgetting to mention - but that's probably enough for now.
Just know this - by eating local, healthy, sustainable food, I am participating in God's vision for our world.

What a blessing!

The Simple Banquet

I have always loved to eat, but not until the last couple of years have I considered eating a spiritual practice. As a part of a greater spiritual exercise I asked myself this question the other day: "Where in your life do you feel most in sync with the Holy Spirit?" and I was surprised by the answer that came first to my mind: Food.

I shouldn't have been surprised.  In December I was tempted by the "Year in Status" that everyone seemed to be posting on Facebook.  So I gave in to the temptation and accessed the app, which makes an image out of the words you've used in your statuses throughout the year.  The words you use most often appear larger.  The words you use less are smaller.  The largest word in my picture: Yum.  Also large: Lunch and Dinner.  Also: Farmer's and Market.  I guess I talk about food a lot.

This won't come as any surprise to those of you who I talk to on a regular basis.  I think my parents get tired of hearing about it; when I call home a large portion of their time is spent hearing what foods we've been cooking, where we got them, what surprised me about them, how delicious they were, and how excited I am about what I'm going to do next.

But for me, food is a simple delight.  Eating is a necessity for life, and yet it is so much more than that.  It is an opportunity to praise and thank God for the wonder of creation, for the goodness of life that presents itself multiple times each and every day.  An opportunity to feast.

And the way we eat is, in some sense, a microcosm of how we live out many of the parts of our life: how we spend our money, what we do with our time, who we share our lives with, and much more.  As I have become more aware of my own eating practices, I have come to know more about myself as well as more about God, who blesses and provides all that we have.

In the upcoming weeks, I will reflect on faith and food in this blog.  I hope that through this endeavor I can notice God's work in my daily life more fully - and perhaps even bless others to do so as well.

Wishing you a feast of blessings this week!
- Emily