It's Not About Me

Pumpkin Pie That Will Make You Smile (Jodi's Recipe)

Last Thanksgiving I witnessed a gastronomical event I had never seen before. The pumpkin pie had just been served. Guests and family had taken a bite or two when forks went down, the conversation stopped and people just looked at each other. For a moment the cook was nervous, then smiles broke out and the glory of what had just been tasted was shared by all. 

Here's the recipe. The filling is easy. The crust used that night a slight challenge, but an easier, still grand option is posted as well. The first crust recipe is gluten-free and is one of those rare events where the gluten-free product is better than the wheat-based product. Don't forget the whiskey whipped cream. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Pie Filling:

3/4 c. granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ginger

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla 

1 15oz. can Libby's Pure Pumpkin

1 12oz. can evaporated milk

Mix dry ingredients. Beat eggs with Kitchen Aid electric whisk or an electric egg-beater for 3 minutes. Stir in pumpkin and dry ingredients into whipped eggs, continuing to beat. Gradually stir in milk. Add vanilla. Mix well. (The secret sauce is beating the air into the mixture so that the pie slice feels weightless in the mouth.)

Pour into pie shell. Bake @ 425 for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 for 40-50 minutes. It's done if a knife comes out clean. 

 

Gluten-free Crust Recipe #1

1/3 c. sorghum flour

1/3 c. millet flour

1/3 c. arrowroot (corn) starch

1/4 c. brown rice flour

3/4 tsp. xanthan gum

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 c cold Crisco shortening

1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2-3 T. cold water

White of one egg

Whisk together dry ingredients. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add cider vinegar and water. Stir gently until mixture comes together to form dough.

Place in ziplock bag and flatten into disc. Refrigerate 15 - 20 minutes. 

Use parchment or wax paper to roll out. Dust with gluten-free flour as needed. Place in pie shell.

Prick bottom of crust. Brush egg white on bottom of crust. 

Now it's ready for filling. 

 

Easier Flour Crust 

(Old family recipe, award-winning, with simple ingredients, is incredibly flaky, but challenging to roll out.)

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

1/4 t. salt

1/3 c. Mazola corn oil

2 T. cold water

White of one egg

Mix first four ingredients together in order with fork. Roll out between wax paper and flop into (This is challenging, but if you want a light weight, flaky crust it won't be easy to get into pie plate.) Once your crust is in place brush with the egg white and then you are ready for the filling. 

 

Whiskey Whipped Cream

1 c. whipping cream

2 T. powdered sugar

2 T. whiskey of your choice

Whip powered sugar, then whiskey into cream. Whip until desired peak. 

To Loose The Grip Of The Golden State

Two years of marriage, two years post-residency, a new baby, it was time to fish or cut bait in regards to California. What a privilege to have spent our time in the Bay Area, with its beauty smacking you in the face at every curve. We had met amazing people, eaten phenomenal food, dipped our toes into the world of wine, but Wallowa County was calling. What would be better, a valley of 3000 people or a metropolis of millions? A starter house at $100K or $500K? To be among plain people who made their life from the land or beautiful people who made their living from who knows what? Would it be a pickup truck or Porsche?

The decision for Doug was clear. The Bay Area was like a candy store, but NE Oregon was home. For Jodi, change was not as welcome. Moving to the middle of nowhere was not a comfortable concept. For better or worse, I would lead, Jodi would follow and so it was that we filled up UHaul's largest moving truck, our Chevy S-10, the Volvo 240 and Rick Bombaci's magic bus with stuff. That job took a long day and at the end, as we fed our faces with pizza and considered the road in front of us, Rick asked, "D'ya wanna be free?" I raised my eye brows, he concluded, "Drive that truck into the bay." The chains of our material goods were not burdensome enough yet and the next day we pointed our still dry convoy north on I-5.

I don't remember a lot of details from that trip. Probably seeing Mt. Shasta once more as we made the long climb from Redding to Weed. Somewhere in the lush valleys of western Oregon Lauren rolled over for the first time. Then there was the rainbow off to the east as we crested the Blue Mountains. A rainbow, God's sign of faithfulness, over Wallowa County. It was good to be going home, home to place we'd never lived before.

The North Highway

The drive from Wallowa County to Spokane is one of the best rides in the country and the North Highway is the best part of that best ride. As you leave Enterprise, the road meanders below dry prairie hills, along verdant creek bottoms and their parade of cottonwoods. Keep your eyes open and you will usually see the American bison, tatonka, grazing the riparian green. The road continues to climb until you are high enough to catch the moisture that grows the meadows, that frames the Wallowas, that composes a picture so beautiful - it hurts. Gaze west. It's not uncommon to see a herd of elk or an eagle up on the Dunham property.

Another couple miles north and the way steepens as you traverse the turns up Snow Hollow Hill and past Starvation Ridge. You need to be careful on this stretch, especially at night, 'cause antlered critters bigger than your car may cross right in front of you. Even worse are the pitch-black cows, free-range cattle who stand stupidly in the middle of the pitch-black road on a pitch-black night, invisible until you're upon them. Ponderosa, Doug fir and tamarack dominate the scenery until you pull over at a lookout where a couple thousand feet below you peer into the bottom of Joseph Canyon, where Chief Jospeh and the Wal'wáma band of the Nez Perce would winter over. Once upon a time I hiked to the bottom, solo, to fish. In between the snakes and bear scat, I kept looking back over my shoulder, wondering where the big cat was that I knew must be studying me. The fish were small, evening was approaching, and I'm not food, so I climbed back out to the North Highway.

Three minutes north (if your rigs' doing 65) you'll find the RimRock Inn, a destination restaurant, on the same caynon, where memorable evenings were spent lingering over creative cuisine, sumptuous views and fine fellowship. "Dining On The Edge," they say. Leaving the inn's driveway, before you have time to buckle your seatbelt, the almost-ghost-town of Flora is just off to your left and Paradise to your right. You're close now to the Rattlesnake, where the road coils and hairpins its way down, down Buford Canyon to the Grande Ronde River. But, and this is the point of the tale, shortly before you get to the breaks of that canyon, there is a wheat field off to your right. There in 1983, as Jo and I started our drive back to Pennsylvania, with the Midas sun turning grain to gold, we glimpsed a buck raise its antler-crowned head out of the wheat. This image remains etched in my mind. Like one of Pavlov's pups I cannot drive the North Highway without gazing out the passenger window, hoping I could see such a sight, just one more time.

2016 - A Cornucopia

2016 - A very good year. I’d take a baker’s dozen of them. They say it takes a year to get your feet under you after a move. We beat that milepost easy. It helps when you know the city a bit, already have some friends in the area and your kids are here and happy to hang with you. Spokane despite its poverty and rough exterior is a delightful place to live. Four very distinct seasons, each one glorious. Mellow, genuinely friendly people everywhere. Skiing 40 minutes away. Restaurants? Excellent. Music? Amazing, amazing. And Wallowa County four hours south on one of the most beautiful drives in the Union.

It’s been lots of fun getting this property up to speed and so much fun to be able to work with my hands again after a 17-year hiatus. There’s been lots of help, hundreds of hours from Jonathan, as well as Lydia and Gregory whose strong backs got a lot of work done. 

But, this is not really a newsletter, rather my annual retrospective of music. Last year I stated that "The gift of music poured down in buckets, pressed down and flowing over." Well, the cornucopia has not ceased. Here's my favorite tunes, either released this year or discovered by me in 2016.


case/lang/veirs

The album title is lower case, but the music is CAPS LOCK excellent. My favorite album of the year.  It is lower in honor of the convener of the group, the butch cowgirl, k.d. lang. The case is Nekko Case. Laura Veirs posts last in this alphabetically arranged title. If I haven't already sent you this album, don't miss this lush, fresh piece of North Americana creativity. If you are spotifying it, start with "Honey & Smoke," "Song for Judee," "Blue Fires," and "Down I-5." 

 

 

         

  

Joseph, "I'm Alone, No You're Not"

This must be the year of female trios. I first posted about these ladies Portland, Oregon sister-band in 2015 after hearing about them doing a concert at the OK Theatre. They've only gotten better since then, shooting like a rocket from backyard concerts to world tours and The Tonight Show. We've been privileged to see them twice at Spokane's intimate venue, The Bartlett, with a third local concert mid-March 2017. Clearly the best sibling sonic curtains since The Beach Boys, or as the famous Belfastian music critic, Paul Bowman, describes as "blood harmonies." 

       

 

The Gloaming, "2"

Speaking of Paul, this discovery was on his recommendation of a "supergroup of Celtic musicians." Like Blind Faith supergroup? Well not really. But what a treat of traditional Celtic with touches of classical and jazz in the mix. We are listening to their self-named first album and the appropriately titled "2." 

      

 

Max Richter, "Vivaldi Recomposed"

This pearl was brought to our attention through the exquisitely crafted Netflix show "Chef's Table." We were captured not only by the breathtaking cinematography and stories presented on this series, but also by the music. It wasn't easy to figure out through the credits, but this is where it comes from. Available on Deutsche Grammaphone.  Click below to hear "Spring 1."

     

 

David Macintyre, "Ave Maria"

This piece has just come to me in the last month, presented at the Whitworth University Christmas choral concert. The composer, David Macintyre, is another Canadian, Vancouver and not lower case. Here sung by a Czech choir. This ain't your mother's "Ave." Good stuff, don't pass it up. Enjoy!

In Thee Have I Trusted...

"O Lord, in Thee have I trusted. Let me never be confounded." So ends my very favorite piece of music, of all time, Benjamin Britten's "Festival Te Deum." One that lifts my soul, always. Treat yourself and take a listen on this Resurrection Day.

 

 

We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.
To Thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles praise Thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise Thee.
The noble army of Martyrs praise Thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee;
The Father of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When Thou tookest upon thee to deliver man Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray Thee, help thy servants :
Whom Thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting.

O Lord, save thy people and bless thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify thee;
And we worship thy Name ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in Thee.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.

Ain't No Grave

Woody Allen once said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality thru my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying!” Most of Woody’s movies turn on the themes of love and sex, but even more so, death. While mortality is a common motif in his films, its antithesis, resurrection, is never granted so much as an audition. 

Outside of the horror genre and “Field Of Dreams,” resurrection of the body is not a common Hollywood subject. You can hardly find a feel-good movie that does not use redemption as its story line, but limited redemption can be achieved under one’s own power. Resurrection is a tougher nut to crack. You need God to animate a desiccated corpse and the omnipotent God is not a popular character on LA film sets.

Some doctrines of the Christian faith are so obviously true that I've never doubted them. Original sin for example. Have you ever met anyone or been involved in any significant human endeavor that wasn’t tainted by sin? Or, how about the Imago Dei, the doctrine that man is created in the image of God. This is the principle that infers upon every human, value, worth and dignity. One of the major threads of our nation's history is the struggle for dignity of the powerless, yet there is absolutely no other foundation upon which that dignity can be sustained.

The doctrine of resurrection, on the other hand, always seemed a bit of a stretch. I’ve yet to see one, and as the village atheists never fail to point out, it clearly plays to wish fulfillment. When Paul was debating the scholars of the Aeropagus in Athens, he held their interest until he reached the resurrection of Jesus, at which point many eyes rolled and the mocking began. The Resurrection however did not embarrass Paul, a formidable intellect himself. In fact he turned from being a murderer of Christians to becoming Christianity's greatest missionary, abandoning a life of privilege for one of deprivation, torture, jail and beheading after meeting the resurrected Jesus. Paul described the Resurrection as the crux of the Christian faith:

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied."

- 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

So why this meditation on resurrection? Yesterday I was driving past a small complex of lovely patio homes at the bottom of our hill. In June of 2012, the day the fire came over the mountain, those patio homes were utterly destroyed, reduced by 2000 degree heat to nothing but gas and dust. Isn't that a bit like an unfortunate, drowned, Italian sailor eaten by fish 500 years ago, or maybe a young woman in Tokyo, incinerated by fire bombs in 1945? How are you going to resurrect that? But there they were, the new patio homes, looking just like before, only better. The patio homes were resurrected not because of some power within them, not because of something they had done, but rather an architect, an owner, a bank, an insurance company had an idea of these particular patio homes and spoke them back into being through the creative power of construction workers.

"Looking down on empty streets all she can see,
Are the dreams all made solid,
Are the dreams made real.

All of the buildings, all of the cars,
Were once just a dream,
In somebody's head.

She pictures the broken glass, pictures the steam,
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam."

- Peter Gabriel, “Mercy Street”

If an idea in some mortal's head can become three-dimensional, how much more possible from the One who created the Milky Way from nothing, a cornea from perfectly aligned cells, a redwood from sunlight and carbon dioxide, the curve of hips, gravity, the taste of vanilla, antibodies waiting for an invader or the Himalaya's Annapurna out of nothing but spinning particles? Is my future resurrection any less peculiar than the fact that I’m thinking these thoughts, typing on my iMac at this very moment?

 

 

 

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Blog....

Yes, we interrupt this not-so-regularly scheduled blog for an important family announcement. Lauren Stark is engaged! To Chris Adams! A few years back I stole an idea from a book by Laura Pritchert, where I described Lauren's ideal husband as a fella who could fix fence and play piano. She smiled and a bit later met Chris and was smitten - fence, piano, pizza crust and lots more... Looking like an August wedding. Date TBD.

 

Wag More, Blog Less

(Cartoon stolen from Blog & Mablog.)

Live For Free Or Die

The 5K

No, this isn't a running story. I can't do that anymore. This is about the feeding of the five thousand. 

Each morning my wife reads an excerpt from the Jesus Storybook Bible to my deaf daughter. Mostly it's reading, but there a pictures and some signing as well. It's appropriate to say the book was written by Sally Lloyd-Jones, although it was written by God via the pens of many different men. Now Sally is not Inspired with a capital "I," but she is inspired. This book is profound and belongs on every book table of old and young alike. 

Bible stories for kids are good, I guess. The word of God is powerful and works in unexpected ways. Yet, the idea of just throwing out isolated Bible stories, disconnected from the history of salvation, that starts at Genesis 3, doesn't help children understand what's going on in the big picture. Sally gets that and ties each short story into the whole drama of what God is doing. 

So, back to the 5K.  Jo was headed for the slopes today and it was my turn to read to Sarah. Today's chapter was the loaves and fishes. Everyone gets fed. There are leftovers and there was this conclusion:

"Well, Jesus did many miracles like this. Things people thought couldn't happen, that weren't natural. But it was the most natural thing in all the world. It's what God had been doing from the beginning, of course. Taking the nothing and making it everything. Taking the emptiness and filling it up. Taking the darkness and making it light."