Yorkshire Puddings for Phil

My mom's somehow-not-yet-world-famous--but fairly magical--recipe:


Needs 2 hours for batter in fridge.

To serve 8-10.

Use a dark metal muffin pan. [There's more magic in dark metal -K] Measure exactly.

3/4 C + 2 Tbsps all-purpose flour
3/4 - 1 tsp salt
3 extra large eggs
1 1/2 C milk
canola oil (not olive!!)

1. sift flour and salt together
2. beat eggs with whisk in a medium-sized [I'd say medium-large] bowl until thick
3. add 1/4 of the milk (about 1/3 cup) and all of the flour mix
4. beat 1/2 minute, making sure it's well combined
5. add the remaining milk
6. beat another minute (or less!)
7. refrigerate for 1-2 hours

and then

1. heat oven to 450° F, put exactly 1 Tbsp of oil in the bottom of each muffin hole, and place the muffin tin in the oven as it is heating to 450°--don't worry if oil smokes (good sign it's getting hot enough!)
   
2. when oven is 450°, take tin out and evenly distribute batter into each hole (should make 10-12)--if you can, avoid adding to an already-poured amount (will not rise)
3. bake 15-17 min or until puffed/brown

To true freedom and family

Something like:

Well, it's been smooth sailing
On the world's high-
                    in-vitamin-C's

But it's high time I sunk my
   Canadian psittacine-ship
                           teeth
Into something more

Un-American, unnational
Like a local apple
                   (unspoiled by the bunch?)
And some shared money
And less commuting and committees
And more time on my hands
For more communing and commitment
 To true freedom and family

sustainable aid versus? until? kingdom come

I was telling some friends at Out of the Cold that I hoped the program
would starting running year-round some day soon, but that some day soon
after that, it wouldn't need to run at all.

I finally got around to reading a handout from Street Level today, in
which Dave Diewert seems to be saying that targetting the former, even
on the way to the latter, can be dangerous in how it reinforces the
power inequality that prompts it in the first place.

"Well-stocked and smoothly operating foodbanks or safe and secure
overnight shelter programs are usually touted as signs of a caring
society rather than as clear signifiers of our failure to establish
true justice."

What if a mere two hundred of the thousands of our region's rich or
even middle-class households had a highways-and-biways banquet
experience like in Luke 14, but instead of many people for a one-time
party, welcomed one or two people into their families for a whole
season?

untitled poem

At the request of Neugeski One, here's something from around Dec 22, 2007. IIRC I had been reading Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone around then. Definitely more visual than spoken, and could use some work.

watching children die
     and then kill
maybe now I understand my parents
     even less
is this the road home
                     ?
like feathers
   falling to the floor
we flit away when hands draw near
   then resume our dreary fear-laced
                                   descent;
hands
might             oil
care,          about
or might care only
surrender, stupid or beautiful,
                  lies or lies naked
before shame

Easter poem

Hi, everyone. This is a poem-prayer of thanksgiving that came to me
one sleepless night this week. This is a bit out of the ordinary for
me. Hopefully it's worth the reading time for you. It's called, "Our
brokenness is precious, then where are you?"

You knew us.

You became like us, hoping the same,
  from the smelly, slobbery, toddling beginning:
    "Whoever receives a child like this in my name receives me,"
  through the harsh canyon of uncomprehending, utterly hopeless despair:
    "My God, my own Father, why have you abandoned me?"
  to the ever-untimely ending.

Your broken body...breathed anew!
  so that hundreds would live, and die
  so that ten-thousands would live, and...

Your blood,
  the richest mixture of dirt and life,
  transfusing into the story of your bride,
  whose body knows
    the most fantastic, ridiculous redemptions, and
    the most filthy, gangrenous hypocrisies.

You know us.
Our story.
You're with us.
We're in it.
"It's not done."

Amen.