cheese update.

In an effort to be a better participant in my family’s food preparation (see book review March 28), I scheduled today as Cheese Making Day. After hours in the kitchen, I’m not yet sure what I’ll have to show for it. My local grocer carries a new local brand of milk and cream which is hormone-free which I wanted to use in my first batch of cheese.

So, armed with the cheese kits for making a host of cheeses and a few gallons of hormone-free milk, I set out this morning to prepare farmhouse cheddar. The process took about five hours. Because the milk heats via a water bath, I had some difficulty keeping the temperature from cooling off too quickly. The curds took about twice as long to form as they should have. The next step is to press the curds 24 hours, then air dry for 3-5 days before waxing. The cheese has to age several months (ideally 6-14), so I won’t know for a while how this cheese turned out.

The 2nd cheese I had planned to make today was 30-minute mozzarella. After 90 minutes of not getting the milk to curd, I added more rennet. Another 30 minutes later–nothing. So, I was forced to dump the batch. The instructions note that some milk just doesn’t cooperate. Trying an alternate brand is recommended. I hope to give mozzarella another try in a week or so.

Book review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life

I received Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, as a Christmas gift a few months ago. What an inspirational book!

Kingsolver and her family set out to live one year off the bounty of their local county in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. Throughout the book, Kingsolver addresses energy issues and the loss of small farms to support our need for fresh strawberries and spring greens in February. Where our food lives come largely from one can or another, Kingsolver inspires readers to take a more active role in our own food production. Let’s face it, at the rate we’re going with genetically altered/mass processed food, we’ll be eating Dolly in no time–not even remembering what real lamb tastes like.

In response to this book, I am committed to the following steps:

1) Support a local farmer who raises egg-laying chickens. Starting with 1 dozen per week, farm fresh eggs will become a staple for my family. Farm fresh eggs are a better source of protein and omega-3 fatty acid than commercially produced eggs due to the diets of the egg layers & the fact that those layers are not deceived into producing an abnormal quantity of eggs within the daylight cycle.

2) Increase my support for my local farmer’s market. I have been a casual patron in recent years, but expect to become a more invested customer this summer. In the absence of my own garden, I plan to utilize this venue to can and freeze a healthy portion of my family’s food for the upcoming winter. Eventually I would like to begin a new garden and add a few fruit trees/bushes (cherries & blueberries). My husband & I are currently trying to sell our house. Once we find a new location, these will become higher priorities. Finding a house with a lot to support this new venture will be on my mind.

3) Better support the local meat market. Over the years, the meat market has offered free-range chickens. The beef they sell is locally produced. I need to check to see if they accept CAFO livestock (something I’d rather avoid). Having an old-style meat market in a small town of 5,000 is unique. Better supporting this business is good for the community, and good for my family.

4) Making my own cheese. Yes, that’s right. Kingsbury notes the ease–and relative less expense–of making one’s own cheese. Using her supplier, I have ordered two kits: one for soft cheeses (mozzarella & ricotta) and one for hard cheeses (Gouda, cheddar, Monterey Jack, etc.) Each kit contains enough ingredients (sans the milk) for 30 lbs. of cheese. The soft cheeses can be made in 30 minutes. The hard cheeses must age, depending on the kind, anywhere from 8-18 months. I am eager to give these kits a try with my kids this coming weekend.

Food plays a significant role in our lives–what we eat, how it’s made. It sustains us. It affects our dispositions, can “regulate” our bodies and protects us against toxins and allergens. Food is centered for both celebrations and wakes. It draws us together as families and friends. We have handed over this responsibility to pretty cellophane packaging and empty calories with scarcely another thought. Reclaiming the goodness of joining in the process from seed to leaf to flower to produce makes us intentional about what, and how, we eat. I can hardly wait for summer.

more than I can handle.

I wrote the following in September 2006 as a devotional shared during a monthly meeting at my workplace. A recent conversation with my extended family brought this to mind.

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I’ve been thinking, lately, about the way that Believers comfort each other during difficult times in life; how we set our face on things unseen…the hope of eternity, albeit sometimes glossing over the mire of the realities in the day-to-day. It’s easier that way, perhaps, amid effort trying to bandage our way of the wounds of today. Life is tough; how do we offer encouragement for the here-and-now?

Two weeks ago my brother-in-law & I spoke candidly in the hospital as we tearfully watched my 8-month-old niece, Maggie, lying in a state of sub-consciousness. He said to me, “People keep saying, ‘You & Danelle are so strong’; but, Jennie, I don’t fell very strong right now.” As he spoke, I thought of several well-wishers over the previous few days who had spoken and written Thad & Danelle with a ‘promise’ that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”

I used to think that, too…years ago; I’d even offered it to friends who were desperate for a glimpse of hope in the midst of their own darkness. But, when one of my best friends was killed in a car accident two years ago, leaving behind her deeply loved husband and 18-month old son, I very honestly told God, “If this is the ‘reward’ for being strong, I’m not so sure I wan to be! I don’t want to ‘handle’ this in my life.” Who could possibly handle the death of a child–whether an unborn infant or on the battlefields of a distant land? Who could possibly bear watching a spouse or parent suffer from disease? Or themselves fight death for their own lives? Would we have the gall to offer such assurance to a child who was abandoned or abused?

I have never heard friends or family who have experienced gut-wrenching, or overwhelming, turns of life ever say of themselves that they were strong in the midst. We’ve somehow claimed some Hallmark card greeting that isn’t even true. Fact is, that assurance isn’t even Biblical, but rather scripture recalled out of context. Taken from I Corinthians 10:13 (NIV), the verse actually reads: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

Temptations are real and, for some, they are serious trials to be faced. But trials and suffering come in many more forms. The New Testament, from Jesus’ own words in the Gospels to the forewarning of the end times in Revelation, burst with promises of trials and anguish for all peoples of the Earth, Believers and unbelievers alike. But nowhere in Scripture does God promise to not give us more than we can handle. Think of that idea for a moment. If God actually didn’t give us more than we could handle, what need would we have of Him? If I can manage life’s difficulties and trials on my own, there would be no purpose for God in my daily life. For if God has given me what I can handle, this presumes that He has left me to fend for myself.

When the apostle Paul was afflicted by what he described as a messenger of Satan, a thorn in the flesh, he pled with God on three occasions that it might be removed from him. Paul records for the church at Corinth in 2nd Corinthians 12:9, the LORD saying to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In weakness…not in strength. His power, His mercy, His glory is made perfect not when we are strong, but when we are weak. Job, who certainly endured more trials than any one person could handle, said of the Lord, “To God belong wisdom and power, counsel and understanding are his” (12:13).

God doesn’t allow these pains in our lives because we are strong enough to handle them. Instead, it seems to me that God allow us exceedingly more than we can bear–that in our desperation our hearts would cry out in our need for Him. That we would acknowledge the One who supplies our daily bread. That in humility we would cast down our crowns, recognizing that we are nothing; but the Creator, the One Most High is sovereign and we would fervently and urgently desire for His glory to be revealed. That in some way our affliction would provide testimony to His mercy, His grace, His unconditional love for us. So tell me that God will walk with me. Tell me that He will lead when I can not see, that He will carry me when I’m to tired to stand. But do not tell me that I can handle this.

Yeah, I’m one of “those” moms.

Yesterday my five-year-old daughter got her own breakfast. Afterward, she came to find me to proudly relay the information. What did she have? Two oatmeal cream pies. An hour later she was hungry again. This time, I seized the moment to talk with her about making good food choices.

Statistically, my children are the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy and their parents. Yes, that’s right. Theoretically, the statistics suggest that my generation will bury more of their children than have their children bury them–due laregely to lifestyle choices of how/what we eat and physical (in)activity. Look around. We are an obese nation. We are people who are quick to have major gastric surgury, but won’t give up McDonalds and 40 oz. sodas.

But, you contest, these are splurges…a once-in-a-while treat. It’s not every day.

Oh, but it is. Candy and cookies were once a rare treat. Now they have become a staple in our diets. A simple morning of running errands can net my children more candy than trick-or-treating on Halloween. At every stop are well-meaning cashiers pushing bowls of free candy in our direction. As a parent–and the “bad guy”–I graciously decline the offers one after another.

My children have “community” snack every day at school. Parents provide enough pre-packaged snacks for one or two days for the entire class. My daughter’s snack time is around 9:30 a.m. Nearly each day I ask her what she ate for snack. Routinely she answers with something along the lines of: fruit snacks, rice krispie bars, cheese nips, oreo cookies. I know the class has shared her snacks when she says: go-gurt, applesauce, fruit cups, pretzels, or raisins. I say this not in a hoity-toity way of superiority, but because I understand that if teachers want children to sit at attention–to focus on their lessons and demonstrate less aggression and overall disagreeable behavior–we can not continue to fuel these children with empty calories.

A few weeks ago I was in such a fit about her morning snack that my husband (jokingly) said, “You’re not one of THOSE mothers, are you?!” Yes! Yes, I am. While I am not a mother who bans all junk food from our home, I am a mother who firmly believes that the habits my 5-year-old daughter establishes now will carry her through her life…however many years she’s given. And that begins with no oreos for breakfast.

this time. this place.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ ~Acts 17:26-28

Some days I wonder if I wasn’t born in the wrong country. My family has at times considered that I was born in the wrong century–variably both too early or too late, depending on the circumstance. Seasonally, it turns out, I wonder if I’m living in the wrong community, or working at the wrong job. Might there be someplace else, some higher calling which would make my efforts to seek and serve God more effective? (That very idea suggests some kind of prideful agenda measured by human standards. It is glory-stealing fodder which seduces us from living securely for an audience of One.)

My workplace focuses on “vocare”, God’s calling in one’s life. I have wrestled with this concept for more than a decade; I can only imagine the weight this idea has on the target audience of 18-22 year-olds. The idea of vocare brings me back to Paul’s words in Acts 17–where he says that God determined the times set for (each person) and the exact places where they should live. So as I self-contemplate, I wonder: why here? Why now?

I live in a fairly calm era and nation. Largely, civil and religious rights have been extended to every race and creed. Though highly (and, arguably, accurately) criticized as meddlesome, paranoid and self-serving, this is generally a benevolent country. I consider myself part of the upper-middle class, which has luxuries (e.g., access to great education and healthcare, freedom of significant financial burden, and time for reflection and self-evaluation) only dreamed of by fellow citizens of lower economic means.

I live in a time where global awareness of social justice is gaining momentum, where ecological concern is commonplace regardless of one’s agricultural or philosophical background, and genuine religious conversations cry out for greater revelation of an unknown God. I live in a nation vacillating on the issue of illegal immigration and perpetuating a financial gap between the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-poor, of saving the world while trying to not forget about our own population. Again, I ask: why here? Why now?

If I believe Paul’s words in Acts, then I can extrapolate that I am uniquely created and positioned to live in northwest Iowa, to work at a private, Christian, liberal arts college for this specific time. My purpose was not to settle the untamed prairie of the 1800s or participate in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It is not today to negotiate peace talks among community members in the Gaza Strip or to live among aborigines in Central America. For whatever reason, my place is here. My place is now. Seriously??

In a related discussion, a friend quoted Mother Teresa,

“You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world there are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted or desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty.”

The point: find your Calcutta.

So back to my question: why here? Why now? My workplace is full of 1300 students and 300 employees. My community claims more than 5,000 citizens. Here are the broken, the dispossessed, the downtrodden. This is my Calcutta. For this time, my place is not in the remote African villages or the business district of New Dehli. It is in a quaint little Dutch town in northwestern Iowa. For this time and place I am uniquely equipped to engage with people and ideas in this speck of a community. It means living alongside others as we seek to know and serve a sovereign God–not sitting on our hands, but caring for one another…living and moving within him in the time and place he has superintended us.

Book review: The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead by David Callahan

I read The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead for a business ethics course I’m taking for a Masters degree. For required reading, I was really engaged in this book. Callahan writes openly about the cultural change in America over the last 50 or so years–contributing influences and world events which have modified the moral compass of ethically appropriate behavior. For instance, the individualistic of the ’60s paved the way for the laissez-faire, materialistic generation of the ’80s. It wasn’t how the former generation expected it to turn out, though they contributed to it nonetheless.

Of life before the 1960’s Callahan says, “Freedom for individuals meant freedom to speak openly, freedom to worship as we wished, and freedom to live where we wanted. It did not mean freedom to operate outside the norms established by the community, family, and religion. A young man could go west to start his own business and enter politics; a young man could not leave his wife and kids to go west, and he couldn’t open an X-rated movie theater once he got there” (p. 109).

While most Americans would never consider shoplifting a pack of gum, Callahan asserts that about 50% of Americans commit a felony every April 15. The rules of the game have changed. Unethical behavior is permissible because “everybody does it”. The social injustice surrounding tax evasion is appalling. The mainstream would suggest that if you don’t cheat the system, you’re only cheating yourself. However, the far reaching, trickle-down effect of these kinds of choices is vast.

Callahan charges both political parties and the Church with varied failings in their responsibilities to curb the cheating culture. Of the cultural shift in the early 1980’s he writes:

“Liberals were too busy worrying about Star Wars, the Contras, and Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork to attack the money culture. Also, somewhere along the line liberals had lost their ability to talk about values and their skills for moral storytelling. …Among other things, this abdication allowed the right to successfully attack some parts of the new individualism while allowing other parts to flourish. …Conservatives had little to say–then and now–about the moral downsides of the money culture, such as greed, cheating, materialism, envy, and the ways in which careerism elbowed aside family and community. For all their invocations of God, it seemed that the right’s moral missionaries had only read every other page of the Bible–ignoring the incessant warnings in both testaments about the evils of becoming obsessed with riches and growing callous toward the less fortunate.

“From the early ’80s on, the individualism spawned by the ’60s evolved in a deeply lopsided way. Conservatives championed those individual freedoms associated with the free market, while deriding the hedonism associated with the counterculture. It became not all right in our society to express yourself by altering your consciousness with drugs or getting naked with strangers. But it was all right–admired, in fact–to express yourself with a Rolex, a Porsche, or a pedantic mastery of French wines” (p. 113-114).

The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-poor could be acceptable if the means of becoming ultra-wealthy made sense. Callahan uses examples from professional baseball to Wall Street to show that the widening gap is not healthy for America. People who cheat, says Callahan, often do so because they perceive injustice toward themselves. Callahan uses one example after another of national leaders and organizations or small firms and everyday people which could happen anywhere.

At times Callahan’s ideas are left of center. Any hard-core Republican he would likely offend. For instance, he suggests that government can, and should, play a large role in helping people realize the middle class dream. He stops short, however, to say that the role of government should be a catalyst for these dreams–not a free-ride.

Throughout the book I found myself conducting a self-evaluation of my own moral compass, considering the filter for my own actions. This is a fantastic read. I highly recommend it.